(25) Possessed people [PERSON] + no control of own utterances
(26) Virgin birth [PERSON] + special biological feature
(27) Listening statue [TOOL] + cognitive functionsThe principle is similar for the other, less familiar concepts. Even
though we know nothing about the particular cultural context of these
descriptions, we can see how each of them combines a particular onto-
logical category and a special characteristic:(31) Thirsty people disappear [PERSON] + special biology, physics
[64] (32) Cologne spirits [PERSON] + invisible + drinks perfume
(33) People with flying organ [PERSON] + extra organ
(34) Counterintelligence wristwatch [TOOL] + detects enemies
(36) Gourmet mountain [NATURAL OBJECT] + digestion
(37) Guardian river [NATURAL OBJECT] + incest abhorrence
(38) Guardian forest [NATURAL OBJECT] + likes a good tuneThis, obviously, is a terribly simplified description of people's actual
representations. But that is an advantage. Summarizing concepts in this
way highlights a very important property of religious concepts. Each of
these entries in the mental encyclopedia includes an ontological entry
between brackets and a "tag" for special features of the new entry.
These tags added to the default category seem very diverse, but they
have one property in common:The information contained by the tags con-
tradicts information provided by the ontological category.
Since this is a rather important property, allow me to elaborate on
the point a bit. When you activate an ontological category, such as
ANIMAL, this delivers all sorts of expectations about the object identi-
fied as a member of theANIMALcategory. Now the concepts listed
above seem to (i) activate those categories and (ii) produce some-
thing that goes against what the categories stipulate. Our category
PERSON(or minitheory of persons) specifies that they are living
things and that living things are born of other living things of the
same species, that they grow if they feed. Our entry for PLANTS spec-
ifies that they are inanimate (they move fast only if they are pushed),
that they grow, that they need nutrients, and so on. Our entry for
NATURAL OBJECTSspecifies that they are inanimate like plants but
that they are not living things. And so on and so forth. But religious
concepts seem to go against some of that information. They describe
PERSONS (therefore with a body) without a body,NATURAL OBJECTSRELIGION EXPLAINED