ABSTRACT
Cognitive science is a burgeoning interdisciplinary field and it is appropriate that it should focus on religion as a major area of experimental inquiry and theoretical reflection. Writers in cognitive science of religion (CSR) seem to leave open the question of whether intuitive beliefs are sometimes inferential. In the main, however, they seem to treat such beliefs as non-inferential, information-bearing manifestations of the operation of cognitive mechanisms that give rise to them in response to perceptual or other kinds of experience. A recurrent theme in CSR literature seems to be the inferential potential of a concept, where this is roughly the "ability to inject explanation or meaning into a broad array of human concerns and connect a large number of mental tools and salient outputs". A major theme in the literature of CSR is the role of religion in the preservation of human society and in making social existence possible.
