gods and the mental instincts that create them 241ligion generally revolves around a small catalog of concepts built in that way.^4
Theconceptsmay be very different from one pace to another, but thetemplates
are few, consisting of a combination of one particular domain-concept and one
particular violation (e.g., “intentional agent” and “physical solidity” for the
“ghost” concept). Also, experimental work in different cultures suggests that
concepts built in this way are more likely to be recalled than either predictable
conceptual associations, or oddities constructed by violating kind-level associ-
ations. A table made of sausages (violation of kind-level expectations) may be
quite striking, but in the end is not quite as easily acquired and recalled as a
table that understands conversations (violation of domain-level expectations).
This effect seems to work in fairly similar ways in different cultural environ-
ments.^5
Religious concepts are a subset of supernatural notions, with special ad-
ditional features. But it is worth insisting on the fact that they belong to this
broader domain, as this explains their mode of acquisition. In supernatural
concepts, most of the relevant information associated with a particular notion
is given by domain-level intuitions. In other words, it is spontaneously as-
sumed to be true in the absence of contrary information. This is why no one
in the world needs to be told that ghosts see what happens when it happens,
or that gods who want some result will try to do what it takes to achieve it:
such inferences are given for free by our specialized mental systems (intuitive
psychology in this case). In religion, as in other supernatural domains, the
violations are made clear to people, but the rest is inferred. Concepts that are
both salient (because of the violation) and very cheaply transmitted (because
of spontaneous inferences) are optimal from the viewpoint of cultural trans-
mission.
Now some supernatural concepts matter much more than others. Whether
Puss-in-boots did run faster than the wind or not is of no great moment, but
whether the ancestors noticed that we offered them a sacrifice certainly is. The
question is, why do some concepts of imagined entities and agents rather than
others, matter to people? Because, I will argue, other specialized mental sys-
tems are involved in their representation. In the following pages, I will outline
the ways in which this occurs, that is, how religious concepts are associated
with intuitions about agency, about social interaction, about moral understand-
ings, and about dead bodies.
Religious Concepts Are about Agents
Although there are many templates for supernatural concepts, the ones that
really matter to people are invariably personlike. There is certainly a tendency
in the human imagination to project humanlike and personlike features onto
nonhuman or nonpersonlike aspects of the environment; such representations