title: Monotheism versus an innate bias towards mentalizing.
abstract: Norenzayan et al.'s account for the spread of monotheistic "Big God" religions sees these religions originating as by-products of innate cognitive biases. These biases produce polytheistic rather than monotheistic systems, however, and so do not explain the origin of monotheism. Accounts where monotheism arises from polytheism (for political reasons, for example) appear better able to explain the spread of monotheism.
authors.affiliation: School of Computer Science,University College Dublin,Belfield,Dublin 4Ireland.fintan.costello@ucd.ie.
authors.forename: Fintan John
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Costello
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D012067:Religion; D056345:Theory of Mind