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the building block approach to religion

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break a story down into its blocks and components

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one finds stories with some blocks added or removed, and it changes the story

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the concepts of religion, magic and superstition are unstable

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other cultures don't necessarily have a concept that translates directly into what we generally think of as religion

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to approach religion scientifically, we has to figure out how to express the phenomena that we want to explain

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instead of words that are usually expressed as nouns e.g.

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religion

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philosophy

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superstition

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we have to talk in terms of what people are doing or things that are happening in terms of an event or a behavior that an individual or a group is doing

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resurrection

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Christianity

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basic form

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Apostle's creed

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Jesus rose from the dead

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what we have are accounts of Jesus appearing to disciples

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The Road to Emmaus

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two of Jesus' disciples walking to Emmaus

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had heard that angels had appeared and reported that Jesus was still living

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Jesus had died not that long before

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they are deeply disturbed since they didn't expect that a Messiah would be crucified and die on a cross

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a stranger joins in their conversation and suggests they should read their own scripture which explained that Jesus would have to suffer and die

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they convince the stranger to join them for a meal in Emmaus

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during the meal, they suddenly realize that the stranger is Jesus

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this story can be broken down into building blocks

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emotion

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grief of his followers

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priming

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the experience of the women at the tomb who had the vision of the angels

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represents a prime in psychological terms

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it primed them to think that Jesus might still be alive

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cognitive dissonance

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a predisposition to believe a certain way

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unlikely occurance

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appearance of a stranger

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synchronous event

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Jesus appears right in the midst of their struggles

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memory cue

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the breaking of the bread reminded them the last time he broke bread

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mystery

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the minute they recognize him, he was gone

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we can use these building blocks to analyze other stories

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a castle people claim is haunted

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a person who doesn't believe in ghosts goes

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just as the point that he is announcing he doesn't believe in ghosts, a sword falls off the wall and narrowly misses his arm

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the first thing that pops into his mind is: it's a ghost

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but he's not in the throes of grief, so we remove the grief block

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priming block: the castle is haunted

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synchronous event: sword falls just as he states there are no ghosts

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humans have a tendency to think that correlated events must have some kind of meaning

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fear: new block

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sword falls very close to his arm

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these stories thus have components that are similar at a cognitive level

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when we take a building block approach, we don't have to be so concerned if we are talking about religion or haunted houses

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we analyze the events and behaviors themselves