Ecology of religion: a hermeneutical model

We have to investigate the function of religion, the nature of the environment, and the nature of the human being. We have to ask: what is the nature of the relationship which connects people to their world? The aim of this paper is to present the outline of a new hermeneutical model in ecology of religion. Here the term "ecology of religion" serves as an umbrella to unify different methodological tools which are needed. As the term ecology implies, what is at issue is the impact of the environment on religion investigated through the interrelation between living organisms and their environment. From the fact that the subfield is defined as contextual research, it follows that the environment is principally a non-religious context. The orientation for ecology of religion, as represented here, is the investigation of the direct interrelation of the human being, actor in all cultural processes, with the natural environment. If it were our intention to reduce human nature to a biological organism, then we could place our approach in the field of biology. But, because it is our intention to show that the human being by nature is essentially one that lives a religion and is enabled to do so through cognitive processes, it is cognitive psychology that offers the orientation for our research