Some have speculated that religious beliefs originated from ‘misfirings’ of the human brain. That is, humans have a tendency to think of the world as agents with free will and awareness. We even do this when no there is no agency at all; witness the man who curses at his computer printer (as if the printer could be affected by this and change its behavior). Could religious belief have begun with someone falsely detecting agency in the natural world, that it must have had a creator?
A new study seems to support this thesis:
[The study] found that religious people and paranormal believers perceived more face-like areas when some were present compared to non-religious individuals and skeptics. But believers also saw more face-like patterns in pictures when none were there.
