When science and religion are mentioned in the same breath, they usually are in opposition, as in the never-ending creation-vs-evolution debate. But occasionally, a scientist, while maintaining the scientific position that there are no miracles, will attempt to explain why religious beliefs of one kind or another are universal. Pascal Boyer of Washington University in St. Louis is the latest. Boyer argues that the belief in a god or gods, and the subsequent elaboration of a set of beliefs and practices, are a natural consequence of the way the human brain works. This approach appeals to me because it dismisses the all-too-common skeptical attitude that religious beliefs are the refuge of the credulous and the unthinking, and that if such people were sensible, they would realize that the world is not full of miracles and supernatural beings. In the current issue of Skeptical Inquirer, Boyer contends that supernatural characters and events — some of them religious — are memorable because they combine the unfamiliar and familiar. They are not ordinary, but neither are they completely out-of-the-ordinary. Take ghosts, for instance.

They are spirits that can do special things, like walk through walls. But at the same time, they act, talk and apparently think like human beings. The religious equivalents range from a single omnipotent being and teams of deities (the Greek pantheon was a perfect example of human, yet not-human gods) to fairies, zombies, even animate trees and mountains. Boyer and others have come up with evidence that suggests we remember such hybrids very well. They found, not surprisingly, that people from countries as different as Gabon and Nepal remember incongruous things from a story ("a person who could see through walls") better than they remember the mundane alternative ("a person who could see in front of him").

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