SPIRITUALLY WIRED: THE SCIENCE OF THE MIND AND THE RATIONALITY OF BELIEF/UNBELIEF
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26512/2358-82842016e13383Keywords:
God gene. God helmet. God faculty. Cognitive science of religion. Near-death experience. Atheism. Autism. Rationality of religious belief. Rationality.Abstract
I canvass a suite of psychologically-based arguments which aim to undermine rational religious belief. I argue that such arguments, from the God helmet to the God gene, overstate the evidence and fail to establish their conclusions. Moreover, the empirically better-supported cognitive science of religion, though in its infancy, is neutral with respect to the rationality of religious belief. I conclude with a discussion of the cognitive impulses to unbelief and argue, by analogy, that we should (epistemically) refrain from judgments of the rationality of religious belief or unbelief.
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