http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23246230

Trends Cogn Sci. 2012 Dec 13. pii: S1364-6613(12)00267-7. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2012.11.006. [Epub ahead of print]

The origins of religious disbelief.

Norenzayan A, Gervais WM.

Source

Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. Electronic address: ara@psych.ubc.ca.

Abstract

Although most people are religious, there are hundreds of millions of religious disbelievers in the world. What is religious disbelief and how does it arise? Recent developments in the scientific study of religious beliefs and behaviors point to the conclusion that religious disbelief arises from multiple interacting pathways, traceable to cognitive, motivational, and cultural learning mechanisms. We identify four such pathways, leading to four distinct forms of atheism, which we term mindblind atheism, apatheism, inCREDulous atheism, and analytic atheism. Religious belief and disbelief share the same underlying pathways and can be explained within a single evolutionary framework that is grounded in both genetic and cultural evolution.