Roots of religious belief in human nature

The text reviews current theories which try to explain the existence of religious beliefs, including evidence to support them. The reader first encounters the brief characteristics of world religions at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Then he learns three approaches to explain this phenomenon. First of them considers religion as a by-product of human cognition, second as a signal of willingness to cooperate and the third as a way to increase the reproductive success of the faithful. This is followed by discussion