Atheism and the Apotheosis of Agency

This paper suggests that biological factors ought to be considered in attempting to explain distributions of theism and atheism across populations. In advancing our argument, we consider two recent efforts to explain atheism. The first, entered by William S. Bainbridge, is in the tradition of sociological theorizing. The second, proffered by Justin L. Barrett, is an example of theorizing within the framework of the recently developed cognitive science of religion. While these two approaches are different in important respects, they both opt for environmental explanations of atheism. We give reasons for regarding purely environmental explanations as unsatisfactory both with regard to atheism and with regard to some (but not all) expressions of religiosity. We offer, moreover, a suggested modification of Barrett's approach that introduces a hypothesized heritable biological argument so that it accounts for more of what we know about atheism.