Abstract
Robert Nola contrasts naturalistic with supernaturalistic explanations of religious belief. He argues that there are two broad rival explanations for religious belief. The first, the common “folk” or religious explanation, is supernaturalistic in that it invokes a deity as a central casual factor in the etiology of people’s belief in the existence of God. The second is naturalistic in that it eschews any appeal to a deity in the explanation of a person’s belief in God and instead invokes only naturalistic factors in the casual etiology of such beliefs. In his paper, he addresses two questions. The first question is how well-supported by the evidence these naturalistic theories are. The second question to how we might compare some naturalistic explanation with a non-naturalistic “folk” explanation. One way in which naturalistic and non-naturalistic theories can be compared with one another is much the same way as one might compare rival theories in science (though other considerations might come into play). Here a number of criteria can be invoked, such as ontological parsimony (other things being equal, prefer the theory which postulates fewer entities than another which postulates more) and evidential strength (other things being equal, prefer the evidentially stronger theory). On criteria such as these, Nola argues that naturalistic explanations of religious belief have the edge over non-naturalistic “folk’ explanations. Once this is granted it can be seen why many in the history of philosophy have claimed that naturalistic explanations of religious belief lead to the debunking of religion; religious “folk” theories have the wrong causal etiology for religious belief in the existence of a deity.
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Notes
- 1.
An exception here might be Buddhism versions of which are not monotheistic and are even atheistic. However many versions of Buddhism are polytheistic and do postulate divinities of some sort.
- 2.
Here I do not attempt to investigate the claims the various contributors to this collection make concerning the challenge CSR makes to religious belief. Similarly for a host of other papers such as that of Leech and Visala (2011) who argue that CSR and theism are not incompatible and that CSR is world-view neutral (pp. 60–61). Here the view is that CSR is not world-view neutral and provides grounds for naturalism .
- 3.
One writer who agrees with the conclusion that CSR and religion are not consistent is Dennett 2006, particularly Part II.
- 4.
For an excellent discussion and critique of the Humean claim that our fears of death cause beliefs in god or divinities see Jong and Halberstadt (2016).
- 5.
For one of many suggestions along these lines, see Barrett and Lanman (2008).
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
The normally invisible Abrahamic God is said to put in an appearance when he displayed his “back parts” but not his face to Moses; see Exodus 33:23 (King James translation, though other translations are less specific about what was displayed).
- 9.
- 10.
Debunking arguments are suggested in Kahane (2011, 106). They are set within a reliabilist conception of knowledge. This form of debunking argument was followed in Nola (2013b). However the main point being made against religious belief can get caught up in problems that arise for reliabilist epistemology itself. These can be separated as is done in the presentation of a related “debunking ” argument in Law (2016). Here I follow Law’s suggestion for presenting a slightly different set of considerations on behalf of debunking .
- 11.
A number of evidential considerations on behalf of HADD are provided by Justin Barrett, the inventor of the acronym HADD; see Barrett 2012. So the HADD hypothesis is not without some evidential support. This is a matter which will not be evaluated here.
- 12.
The contrast between F and EH is closely related to the contrast between the supernaturalist and naturalist frameworks. Here an attempt is made to adjudicate between the frameworks using the same criteria as one would use in assessing the epistemic worth of rival scientific theories.
- 13.
This Law is given in Sober 2008, p. 32; it is expressed here using different symbols.
- 14.
For a good account of what goes wrong here, and how untestable assumptions arise, see Sober 2008, section 2.12, pp. 141–7.
- 15.
I would like to thank Hans Van Eyghen and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft which helped improve this revised version.
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Nola, R. (2018). Demystifying Religious Belief. In: van Eyghen, H., Peels, R., van den Brink, G. (eds) New Developments in the Cognitive Science of Religion. New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion , vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90239-5_5
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