CONTENTS
PREFACE
PART 1: SEEING GOD IN A NEW LIGHT

Chapter 1: Is God beyond the Reach of Science?

A Road to Damascus Not Taken

What Is the Real Reason for Belief in God?

A Sense of Presence

Requirements for a Scientific Theory of Religion

Chapter 2: Illusions Can Be Broken

What Does It Mean to Call Something an Illusion?

The Illusory Perception of God

Parable of the Mysterious Witness

Mental Gymnastics

Chapter 3: The Elephant in the Room

Is There a God Instinct?

Is God an Evolutionary By-Product?

Is God a Virus?

Is God a Figment of Our Cognition?

Why Is God a Cruel Tyrant?

Why the Obsession with Death?

Something Is Missing from This Picture

Chapter 4: The God-Shaped Vacuum

Neonatal Survival

A Sea Turtle’s Infancy

Human Infancy and the Presence of God

The Innate Image of Mother

The Gull-Shaped Vacuum

Implications

PART 2: EVIDENCE AND QUESTIONS

Chapter 5: Infantile Imagery in Religion

Religious Experience

Prayer

Ritual

Hymns

Popular Religious Literature

The Messiah

Sacred Texts

Sermons

Sunday School Lessons

Secular Sources

Art and Architecture

Role Reversals

Chapter 6: The Nature and Nurture of Religious Experience

Freud Upgraded

Attachment as a Biological Need

God as an Attachment Figure

Correspondence and Compensation

A Menu of Life Paths

The Raw Material of Evolution

Oedipus Wrecks

Chapter 7: Two Biological Roots: Social Cooperation and Neonatal Survival

The Two-Faced God

The Dichotomy of Religion

Spiritual but Not Religious

Our Coins, the Pledge, and Prayer in Public Schools

The Mysterious Appeal of the Shakers

Is Religion Only Two-Dimensional?

Chapter 8: Is God an Evolutionary Hack?

Why Would the Innate Model Persist beyond Infancy?

The Hack of Infantile, Maternal, and Sexual Love

Why Are Women More Religious Than Men?

Why the Obsession with Sex?

The Hack of Hypersociality

Chapter 9: From Cuttlefish to Cults

How or Why?

Malignant Narcissism as an Adaptation

Cross-Dressing Cuttlefish

Leaders, Followers, and Evolutionary Stability

Sacrifice as a Biological Signal

Human Nature Run Amok

Chapter 10: Creator, Mother, Fluid, Etc.

Why Is God a Creator?

Why Is God Not Female?

Why Are Priests Not Female?

Why Do Believers Pray?

Why Ecstasy and Violence?

Why So Many Nasty Gods?

What about Godless Religions?

Why Are There Atheists?

Chapter 11: Does an Infant Have a Mind?

Infantile Amnesia and Neural Development

Selective Attention as a Window to the Mind

The Sense of Motion

The Smell and Taste of Mother

Rewarding Touch

Motherese

The Perception of Faces

Seeing Biological Motion

Imitation and the Expectation of Mother

Isn’t This Illusion Maladaptive?

Chapter 12: A Trick of the Brain

Innate Knowledge Is the Core of Human Nature

Faith Is Tenacious Because It Is Addictive

An Embodied Self Reads the Minds of Others

God’s Presence Is a Drug-Free Hallucination

The Trick

Chapter 13: The Supernormal Phantom

Are We All Born Atheists?

Other Things Explained

Supporting Evidence

Predictions

Red Pill or Truman’s Boat?

PART 3: PERSONAL IMPLICATIONS

Chapter 14: The Illusion of Immortality

Mind-Brain Unity

Mind-Brain Dualism

Chapter 15: What If God Is Not Real?

A Drastic Change in Worldview

God, Your Loved Ones, and You

Coping with Death

God, Humanity, and the Earth

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

APPENDIX 1: THE STUMBLING BLOCK OF CREATIONISM 

Misconceptions

Recommendations

Adjustments in Thinking

APPENDIX 2: A PSYCHOMETRIC TEST 

NOTES 

REFERENCES 

INDEX