Recently psychologists doing research on the minds of infants have discovered two related facts that may account for the similarities between religions. One: human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena. And two: this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry. Which leads to the question…

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Through cleverly designed experiments, psychologists tease out the innate sense of morality possessed by babies.

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Considerable debate has surrounded the question of the origins and evolution of religion. One proposal views religion as an adaptation for cooperation, whereas an alternative proposal views religion as a by-product of evolved, non-religious, cognitive functions. We critically evaluate each approach, explore the link between religion and morality in particular, and argue that recent empirical work in moral psychology provides stronger support for the by-product approach. Specifically, despite differences in religious background, individuals show no difference in the pattern of their moral judgments for unfamiliar moral scenarios. These findings suggest that religion evolved from pre-existing cognitive functions, but that it may then have been subject to selection, creating an adaptively designed system for solving the problem of cooperation.

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Sam Harris, Jonas Kaplan, and colleagues publish the first study to compare religious faith to ordinary belief at the level of the brain.

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Harvard Professor Steven Pinker uses the tools of evolutionary psychology to find the origins of humans’ tendency to believe in religions.

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A scientific exploration of how we have come to believe in God.

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What is happiness? How does one get a grip on this most elusive, intractable and perhaps unanswerable of questions?

Andy Thomson gives his talk titled ‘Why We Believe in Gods’ at the American Atheist 2009 convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Richard Dawkins offers the virus as a model for understanding religion.  Just like a virus is a self-replicating body of genetic information that infects host cells to spread copies of itself, religion is a self-replicating body of information that infects human minds and uses humans to spread copies of itself.

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Acclaimed documentary about the science of the placebo effect. Featuring the Harvard Placebo Study Group: Anne Harrington, Nicholas Humphrey, Fabrizio Benedetti, Dan Moerman, Howard Fields.

Acclaimed documentary about the science of the placebo effect. Featuring the Harvard Placebo Study Group: Anne Harrington, Nicholas Humphrey, Fabrizio Benedetti, Dan Moerman, Howard Fields.

Part 3 of Nicholas Humphrey’s acclaimed exploration of belief in the supernatural. Channel Four TV, 1987. Contains explanations of the Enfield poltergeist, the apparition at Knock, the moving virgin of Ballinspittle, the Rendlesham UFO. Interviews with Uri Geller, James Randi, Rupert Sheldrake, Carl Sagan.

Part 2 of Nicholas Humphrey’s acclaimed exploration of belief in the supernatural. Channel Four TV, 1987. Contains explanations of the Enfield poltergeist, the apparition at Knock, the moving virgin of Ballinspittle, the Rendlesham UFO. Interviews with Uri Geller, James Randi, Rupert Sheldrake, Carl Sagan.

Part 1 of Nicholas Humphrey’s acclaimed exploration of belief in the supernatural. Channel Four TV, 1987. Contains explanations of the Enfield poltergeist, the apparition at Knock, the moving virgin of Ballinspittle, the Rendlesham UFO. Interviews with Uri Geller, James Randi, Rupert Sheldrake, Carl Sagan.

A beautiful child close to me, six and the apple of her father’s eye, believes that Thomas the Tank Engine really exists. She believes in Father Christmas, and when she grows up her ambition is to be a tooth fairy.