Disbelief in belief: On the cognitive status of supernatural beliefs
Philosophical Psychology 29 (4):601-615 (2016)
Abstract
Religious people seem to believe things that range from the somewhat peculiar to the utterly bizarre. Or do they? According to a new paper by Neil Van Leeuwen, religious “credence” is nothing like mundane factual belief. It has, he claims, more in common with fictional imaginings. Religious folk do not really “believe”—in the ordinary sense of the word—what they profess to believe. Like fictional imaginings, but unlike factual beliefs, religious credences are activated only within specific settings. We argue that Van Leeuwen’s thesis contradicts a wealth of data on religiously motivated behavior. By and large, the faithful genuinely believe what they profess to believe. Although many religions openly embrace a sense of mystery, in general this does not prevent the attribution of beliefs to religious people. Many of the features of religious belief that Van Leeuwen alludes to, like invulnerability to refutation and incoherence, are characteristic of irrational beliefs in general and actually betray...Author's Profile
DOI
10.1080/09515089.2015.1110852
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Citations of this work
If You Can't Change What You Believe, You Don't Believe It.Grace Helton - 2020 - Noûs 54 (3):501-526.
Do religious “beliefs” respond to evidence?Neil Van Leeuwen - 2017 - Philosophical Explorations 20 (sup1):52-72.
To Believe is Not to Think: A Cross-Cultural Finding.Neil Van Leeuwen, Kara Weisman & Tanya Luhrmann - 2021 - Open Mind 5:91-99.
The Factual Belief Fallacy.Neil Van Leeuwen - 2018 - Contemporary Pragmatism (eds. T. Coleman & J. Jong):319-343.
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Divine intuition: Cognitive style influences belief in God.Amitai Shenhav, David G. Rand & Joshua D. Greene - 2012 - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 141 (3):423.