The Rationality of Heuristic Religious Belief

Abstract

Religious belief takes many forms throughout the world, and has taken many forms throughout human history. And although over the past several hundred years some have assumed that religious belief was an outmoded form of thought, the majority of humans still hold some form of religious belief. So it seems that religious belief is a robust and persistent feature of human thought. (And I wager it will remain thus.) This book explores a new science of religion. But what does it mean to study religion scientifically? In Breaking the Spell (2006), Daniel Dennett argues for a scientific attitude to be taken toward religious belief. Rather than consider religious belief off limits to scientific study, Dennett advocates its study. Psychology, understood as a science, has been very successful in understanding much of human thought. So it seems reasonable to approach our understanding of religious belief from a psychological perspective.