Pachis & Wiebe/Chasing Down Religion, 1. Ancient and Modern Approaches

In Oration 12, composed for the Olympic games of 97, 101 or 105 CE, Dio Chrysostom treats religion in terms of the formation and transmission of representations, both private or mental and public. His approach is in ways analogous to modern cognitivist approaches, especially to Dan Sperber's theory of religions as 'epidemics' of mental and public representations. Dio also anticipates (as do other ancient sources) the modern cognitivist premise of the naturalness of religion: that is, the assumption that the representation of supernatural beings is a normal function of the human mind/brain to be studied and explained as such.