Expressions of subconscious religious belief seem to increase when we are reminded of our own mortality—as they say, there are no atheists in foxholes. In one study, writing about death increased subjects’ implicit associations between words for supernatural entities (God, soul, hell) and synonyms for real (true, factual). The effect was equally strong in Christians and in people who described themselves as nonreligious [5].

Magical thinking is not just a result of ignorance or indoctrination—it appears to be a side effect of normal, socially adaptive thinking: we attribute intentions to the natural world in much the same way that we attribute intentions to other people. Indeed, a recent paper from a lab at the University of British Columbia reported that the better study participants were at reading others, the more strongly they believed in God, the paranormal, and the notion that life has a purpose [6]. Meanwhile, one of the few true avenues to atheism may be autism. The same lab found that the more autistic traits a person had, the less likely he or she was to believe in God [7].

Fear is another driver of irrationality. In a British study, students imagined an encounter with a self-professed witch who offered to cast an evil spell on them. About half said a scientist should accept the hex without concern. Yet each of them said that, personally, they’d decline the offer [8].

The Studies:

[1] Kelemen et al., “Professional Physical Scientists Display Tenacious Teleological Tendencies” (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Nov. 2013)

[2] Banerjee and Bloom, “ ‘Everything Happens for a Reason’ ” (Child Development, published online Oct. 2014)

[3] Lindeman et al., “Atheists Become Emotionally Aroused When Daring God to Do Terrible Things” (International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2014)

[4] Bering, “Intuitive Conceptions of Dead Agents’ Minds” (Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2002)

[5] Jong et al., “Foxhole Atheism, Revisited” (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Sept. 2012)

[6] Willard and Norenzayan, “Cognitive Biases Explain Religious Belief, Paranormal Belief, and Belief in Life’s Purpose” (Cognition, Nov. 2013)

[7] Norenzayan et al., “Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God” (plos One, 2012)

[8] Subbotsky, “The Permanence of Mental Objects” (Developmental Psychology, March 2005)