Unlike other animals, humans can imagine the future, including their own death. The hope given by religious beliefs to people confronting their own mortality might provide motivation to care for their offspring. Supernatural beliefs may also have produced group-level advantages that then conferred benefits to individuals. "You get some selective advantages, such as inter-group cooperation and self-policing morality," said Barrett. "And maybe the entire network of belief practices, and whatever is behind them, gets reinforced." According to Barrett, religion may even have created a feedback loop, refining the Theory of Mind that produced it. "It could be that when you're in a religious community, it improves what psychologists call perspective-taking," he said. "Exercising your Theory of Mind could be good for developing it, making your reasoning more robust." - × × ×

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