A Failed Reactivation of Enlightenment Criticism of Religion by Van Leeuwen: Content, Not Cognitive Attitude, Makes the Difference between Factual Beliefs and Religious Credence

The subject of this article is a critique of the philosophy of religion presented by Neil Van Leeuwen in his Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity. The article rejects his main title thesis that religion is make-believe. Van Leeuwen assumes that a religious individual has a cognitive attitude for religious content that is different from an attitude for factual beliefs. In this article, Van Leeuwen’s concept is rejected. What distinguishes religious beliefs from factual beliefs is the difference in content, not cognitive attitudes.