JAMES A. VAN SLYKE Intuitive theists? Agency and the concept of God

Concepts of Agency Primary component of God Concept: Agency Detection Stewart Guthrie (1993)  Evolutionary adaptation to detect agents  Predators or prey  Default assumption: assume something is an agent Bump in the night is a burglar, not a tree We overestimate the existence of agents

Classic study of Agency Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel (1944)  What happens when persons view a movie about geometrical shapes?  Most persons tend to attribute some form of agency or personhood to the shapes  Assume that the shapes had intentions or purposes  Assume that the big triangle is “mean” or picking on the little triangle  Shapes are chasing each other

Theory of Mind Assume intentions, goals and forms of agency in other persons These assumptions are not limited to person, but engage a variety of different objects  Children’s cartoons  Computers  Weather

Hyperactive Agency Detection Device (HADD) Justin Barrett EP Cognitive Module  Related to ToM  Adaptive to move rather than wait Tend to assume agents are everywhere Makes it very easy to believe in God without a lot of theological training

Promiscuous Teleology Teleology – belief that something is caused by someone with intentions rather than natural or “blind” causes Children prefer explanations based on teleology vs. natural or scientific explanations Seems to be a cognitive bias towards these types of explanations

Designing Agent Bias Keleman & DiYanni (2005) 6 to 7 year old British Children Did someone or something (X) or did it just happen  (X1) Make the first mountain? (over 50% attribute this to someone)  (X2) Make the first monkey? (over 73% attributed this to someone) Children’s bias may indicate a cognitive tendency towards agency

Who designed the Natural world? Margaret Evans Children tend to favor creationist accounts over evolutionary accounts  Children younger than ten  Even if their parents and teachers endorsed evolution

HADD and ToM False Belief Task (Box of crackers)  Prior to age 4 or 5 assume similar cognitive awareness  If I know there are pencils everyone else does too  After 5 understand differences in cognitive states What about a supernatural agent? (i.e. God)  Developmentally assume ‘supernatural’ abilities for everyone, then parse it down  Even after age 5, children assume God would not be fooled

Immortality Bias? Emily Reed Burdett  66 Israeli children (2 to 5 years)  Questions  Could friend/mother/God Die?  Can God be killed?  All children distinguished between God and friend/mother  Even youngest children were able to consistently make the distinction  God could not be killed  Split over whether parents and friends could be killed  Understood God’s immortality before understanding human morality