This article is a modified excerpt from Chapter 16, “The God Engine,” in Belief: What It Means to Believe and Why Our Convictions Are So Compelling (Prometheus Books, 2018).
There are more than 10,000 religions in the world today, and while most involve relatively small numbers of devotees, the major ones each encompass hundreds of millions of followers. Almost nothing seems too bizarre to be incorporated into religious belief, but what may appear strange to the outsider does not seem so to the faithful. Consider: