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Discovering that there are evolutionary advantages to a certain behavior neither amounts to condoning it nor condemning it. Confusion on this point on the side of condonation led to outrage against biologist E.O. Wilson's book Sociobiology when it was published in 1975, and confusion on the side of condemnation can lead to a false sense of superiority in the here and now. The claim that religion is "natural" from psychologists, neuroscientists, and behavioral geneticists can be interpreted ambiguously. It may be seen, by the atheist who views atheism as synonymous with rationalism, as a vindication: religion is but an evolved coping mechanism, a relic from our genetic history which will eventually fall by the wayside. And considering that atheists manage to be atheists with vastly the same sort of brains that theists have (and so far as we know, there is no way in which all atheist brains are different from all theist brains), perhaps it will. But it's important to remember how few atheists there really are today, in spite of the massive progress made by science and technology and the movements toward secularism in the political sphere. It may be that expecting religion to just fall away is, evolutionarily speaking, just as unreasonable as expecting people to someday "grow out of" their affection for monogamy.

Rather than setting me in opposition to religious thinkers or creating the conviction that I have a kind of "noetic" access to understanding which they do not, I've found that my study of religion and cognition has given me a profoundly empathetic outlook on their experiences. It's possible to simultaneously advocate the study of cognition as a means of deriving an interpretation of people's beliefs and behavior (even over and against their own testimony), and yet maintain a protective standpoint toward subjectivity. There needs to be an ongoing respect for the "what it is like for me," especially in consideration of religion-for what can be more intuitive for a person than their own mind, and their relationship with God? A person need not agree on the nature of God, or even acknowledge that he/she/it exists in order to have this respect. Unlike the incredulous professors to which Barrett directs his book, a scholar of religion who acknowledges both "the way it feels" and the cognitive basis for the way it feels can effectively live in two worlds at once.

This is an old idea in new clothing. The insider/outsider problem is a classic one in religious studies: what is the best standpoint from which to interpret the "other"? To what degree can an explanation of religion be said to be complete if it is offered from the outside? The cognitive scientific perspective answers that no explanation can be complete-all explanation is partial, and this is not a flaw or a shortcoming. Rather, there are levels of explanation which feed into each other. First-person testimonial on the part of the believer has its place, and so do explanations that take into account factors which the believer may never have heard of-the theory of mind, the firing of synapses, the genetic basis for spirituality, the significance of counter-intuitive ontological concepts in forming religious representations. All of these act as stage-hands for the drama of experience and belief, gracefully yet unnoticeably shifting the scenes to present a subjective portrayal of what it is like to be me, what it is like to know God. It is not necessary to know them in order to be religious-obviously, since religion has been around for at least all of Homo sapiens ' recorded existence. It is, however, necessary to know them in order to understand what the human mind is doing while the show is being performed. It is only recently (to perhaps abuse the metaphor) that we have been given the opportunity to have backstage passes and take a look for ourselves.

My point, then, is that the next move after discovering what is "natural" should not be to become "unnatural" simply for the sake of it, or to deride those who act and believe "naturally" because they haven't thought to do otherwise. This is important to remember for the practicing student of cognitive theories of consciousness generally, but especially so for the student of religion. I do not believe that there is a way to escape studying religion in an academic context without having your own concept of what it means to be religious profoundly affected; neither does there seem to be a way of studying consciousness and cognition without having your own consciousness dramatically altered. The human mind, as psychologist Steven Pinker notes in his book The Blank Slate , did not evolve in order to understand itself. It evolved to survive, and to do that in order to reproduce. Studying cognition, then, is a matter of striking a balance between remaining a human being with the accompanying evolutionary influences, and acting against those influences in order to determine how they work. The results are necessarily going to be counter-intuitive, because that is the nature of scientific inquiry. But it doesn't release us from being human-which is a relief, as being human is far too interesting and enjoyable an experience to leave behind.

• [1] For a fascinating description of temporal lobe epilepsy, see Ramachandran and Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain, (London: Harper Collins, 1999), pp. 174-87. "Promiscuous teleology" is a term taken from psychologist Deborah Keleman to refer to the tendency of humans to perceive goal-directed behavior everywhere they look. For more on split-brained patients, see M.S. Gazzaniga, Nature's Mind (London: Basic Books, 1992).
• [2] Hamer, The God Gene (New York: Doubleday, 2004), and Koenig, McGue, Krueger, "Genetic and Environmental Influences on Religiousness," Journal of Personality, 73.2, April 2005.
• [3] The one belief evolutionary psychology cannot demonstrate to be true of religion, however, is that it is divinely inspired-that its revelations about the transcendent are true. Any scientist who proceeds on the assumption that they are false, however, is losing the game before he or she begins. Divine intervention simply doesn't fit into the evolutionary framework. The closest we might come to discounting it, however, is to follow the path Daniel Dennett takes in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, and conclude that it is simply unnecessary.

Sources Consulted

• BARRETT, JUSTIN. Why Would Anyone Believe in God? Oxford: AltaMira, 2004.
• BUSS, DAVID. The Evolution of Desire. New York: Basic Books, 1994.
• DENNETT, DANIEL. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
• GAZZANIGA, MICHAEL. Nature’s Mind. London: Basic Books, 1992.
• HAMER, DEAN. The God Gene. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
• KOENIG, LAURA, MATT MCGUE, AND ROBERT KRUEGER. “Genetic and Environmental Influences on Religiousness: Findings for Retrospective and Current Religiousness Ratings.” Journal of Personality, 73.2. April, 2005.
• PINKER, STEVEN. The Blank Slate. New York: Penguin, 2002.
• RAMACHANDRAN, V.S. AND S. BLAKESLEE. Phantoms in the Brain. London: HarperCollins, 1999.
• RIDLEY, MATT. The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. New York: Harper Collins. 1993.