2
WHAT
SUPERNATURAL
CONCEPTS
ARE LIKE
Are there any common features in religious con-
cepts? A good way to start thinking about this question is with a little
mock-experiment, listing all sorts of concepts and judging whether
they could or could not possibly be part of a religious system. This is
not the most scientific or rigorous way to proceed, but it is a first step.
Consider the following list of sentences. Each describes a particular
supernatural notion, in the form of some exotic article of faith, the
main theme of some new or unknown religion. It is very likely that
you have never heard of places where these propositions are central
tenets of religious belief. That is unimportant. This is not a quiz but a
question of intuition.The experiment consists in guessing whether it is
likely that some people have built a religion around these propositions:
(1) Some people get old and then one day they stop breathing and die
and that's that.
(2) If you drop this special ritual object it will fall downward until it
hits the ground.
(3) The souls of dead people cannot go through walls because walls
are solid.
(4) Dead men do not talk (or walk).
(5) There is only one God! He is omniscient but powerless. He cannot
do anything or have any effect on what goes on in the world.
(6) The gods are watching us and they notice everything we do! But
they forget everything instantaneously.
(7)Some people can see the future but they then forget it
immediately.[51]