ABSTRACT
In the field of neuropsychology, religion and an awareness of the supernatural are seen as by-products of several cognitive and emotional mechanisms that evolved under natural selection. We use religion and belief in the supernatural to help us solve inescapable, existential problems that have no apparent worldly solution. Among these are the inevitability of death and the threat of deception by others. Religion involves a costly and hard-to-fake commitment to a counterfactual world of supernatural agents that master such existential anxieties. The greater one’s display of costly commitment to that world—as in the scriptural account of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son—the greater society’s trust in one’s ability and willingness to help out others with their inescapable problems.
