ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief overview of some of the recent findings of cognitive science of religion (CSR), an overview however that stretches' these findings a bit further than at least some of its current practitioners would wish. It investigates the question of whether the findings of the CSR could in principle direct us rationally to favour one of the hypotheses over the other. Discoveries in CSR seem already to suggest that belief in supernatural agency of some sort is, in some sense, more natural than complete atheism. Stretching things a bit further, one might imagine them showing that belief in the God of classical theism is in turn more natural than belief in other gods. On a moment's reflection, it is perhaps unsurprising that some religious people think their religious beliefs threatened by the CSR. After all, in each age some religious people take the scientific developments of their day as the object of such fears.
