Naturalistic Explanations of Religious Beliefs

Abstract

. Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican as well as Janusz Salamon put forward versions of supernaturalism that avoid the existence of a religion which alone provides the true revelation and the only way to salvation and which teaches that God acted in this world. Their rejection of revealed, exclusive religion is based on an argument from religious diversity and an argument from natural explanations of religious phenomena. These two together form the ‘common-core/diversity dilemma’. In this article I refute these two arguments by arguing that explaining the origin of belief in supernatural agents does not provide a reason for not believing in the existence of supernatural agents.