Many believe that objective morality requires a theistic foundation. I maintain that there are sui generis objective ethical facts that do not reduce to natural or supernatural facts. On my view, objective morality does not require an external foundation of any kind. After explaining my view, I defend it against a variety of objections posed by William Wainwright, William Lane Craig, and J. P. ...

I take up the challenge of why false beliefs are better than “cautious action policies” (target article, sect. 9) in navigating adaptive problems with asymmetric errors. I then suggest that there are interactions between supernatural beliefs, self-deception, and positive illusions, rendering elements of all such misbeliefs adaptive. Finally, I argue that supernatural beliefs cannot be rejected ...

Supernatural punishment, in-group biases, and material insecurity: experiments and ethnography from Yasawa, Fiji Rita Anne McNamara, Ara Norenzayan & Joseph Henrich To cite this article: Rita Anne McNamara, Ara Norenzayan & Joseph Henrich (2016) Supernatural punishment, in-group biases, and material insecurity: experiments and ethnography from Yasawa, Fiji, Religion, Brain & Behavior, 6:1, 34-5...

Diseases can be considered as acts or invasions by the gods, demons, or evil spirits, and treated by the invocation of supposedly supernatural powers. Or they were considered the effects of natural causes and are consequently treated by natural means. In the struggle between the magic and the scientific conception the latter has gradually emerged victorious in the western world. The fight has b...

Naturalization without Natural Kinds: On the prospects of a unified theory of religion. From the propagation of religion, it is not hard to understand the causes of the resolution of the same into its first seeds or principles; which are only an opinion of a deity, and powers invisible and supernatural; that can never be so abolished out of human nature but that new religions may again be made ...

There is overwhelming agreement amongst naturalists that a naturalistic ontology should not allow for the possibility of supernatural entities. I argue, against this prevailing consensus, that naturalists have no proper basis to oppose the existence of supernatural entities. Naturalism is characterized, following Leiter and Rea, as a position which involves a primary commitment to scientific me...

Current evolutionary and cognitive theories of religion posit that supernatural agent concepts emerge from cognitive systems such as theory of mind and social cognition. Some argue that these concepts evolved to maintain social order by minimizing antisocial behavior. If these theories are correct, then people should process information about supernatural agents' socially strategic knowledge mo...

Scientific entities like X-rays and black holes defy firsthand observation and everyday intuition, yet most people outside the scientific community still believe in their existence. Upon what kind of epistemic foundations do such beliefs rest? The present study explored this question by comparing students’ scientific beliefs to their supernatural beliefs along four dimensions of epistemic impor...

a sort of conjurer or magician called upon in times of great calamity or dire distress as an intermediary between the supernatural and the natural. He has developed throughout history, oftentimes somewhat ahead of contemporary civilization, and has emerged from the realms of magic, superstition, conjecture and belief, largely through the channels of biology, until today he stands as the exponen...