Idea homo religiosus a współczesne przemiany religijności

Abstract

Sławomir Sztajer – THE IDEA OF HOMO RELIGIOSUS AND THE CONTEMPORARY TRANSFORMATIONS OF RELIGIOSITY This article refers to the idea of homo religiosus which contains the hypothesis that religiosity is a manifestation of the way in which human mind operates. From the philosophical point of view, it means that man is religious in its very nature. There are two fundamental interpretations of this hypo-thesis: a phenomenological and cognitive one. Seen from the broadly understood phenomenological perspective, represented by such thinkers as Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade, the religious tendency is a kind of assumption which itself does not have to be explained. On the other hand, from the cogni-tive point of view, the naturalness of religion is the consequence of the sorts of minds humans have and the sort of world they live in. The architecture of human mind is a product of a long evolutionary process and religious thinking is usually perceived as a side-effect of particular cognitive mechanisms. The main thesis of this article is that the idea of homo religiosus may play an important role in the ex-planation of the changes in religiosity. Especially the widely discussed issue of secularization presents itself in the new light when we take into consideration cognitive mechanism that underlies religiosity.