For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about the complex interplay of belief and cognition in understanding religious thought.
It is a subset of the broader category of cognition, how we acquire knowledge through thought and experience. Throughout human history, ideas about God or supernatural beings have shaped people’s knowledge and experiences, and any robust account of humanity must reckon with the role they play for individuals and cultures. Although it is sometimes ignored or treated as a side issue in economic or cultural accounts, how people think about the role of God or other supernatural forces can have profound effects on the decisions they make in all aspects of their lives, from family relationships and health to politics and economics.
Compared to other areas of cognition, the topic has been under-studied, meaning that the theoretical foundations for a robust science of religious cognition are being laid. Even something as basic as belief is difficult to define. Attempting to measure belief only compounds the challenge: it can be difficult to tease out the differences between what people say they believe, what people honestly think they believe, and what they actually do believe.