Understanding why some humans believe in God, while others do not, remains a question for the ages. This study marks an important advance in our understanding of this question, in that it seeks to causally connect mentalizing - a suite of perceptual, emotional and cognitive traits that function in interactions with other people in a psychological environment - with belief in God. The authors find a pattern of covariation in their data consistent with a hypothesis that reduced mentalizing (in higher levels of autism spectrum traits, empathy on a questionnaire, and a performance test of reading emotions from eyes), is associated with less belief in God.

The authors interpret their data in terms of 'deficits' in mentalizing 'constraining' belief in God. Alternative interpretations are, however, possible:

(1) 'Deficits' in mentalizing skills (that is, low scores on some psychological tests or questionnaires) are found in a wide swath of psychiatric conditions, including for example schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia. However, considerable evidence links these two conditions with aspects of increased religiousity. Is this because they are engaging in 'hyper-mentalistic cognition', or are specific, dissociable aspects of mentalizing related to religious belief? After all 'empathy' and 'mentalizing' refer to a tremendous range of cognitive and emotional processes, which were not parsed by this study.

(2) Autistic individuals are known to score lower on tests for cognitive empathy (theory of mind), but not on tests of emotional (affective) empathy. Does this mean that theory of mind in particular is associated with, or required for, belief in God? Is God a cognitive, or emotional concept, or both?

(3) Autism has been associated with scoring lower on various tests of mentalizing, but it remains unclear whether such results should be interpreted in terms of 'deficits', or in terms of cognitive 'style' at more basic levels. For example, autism has been clearly linked with a preference for processing of local information - bottom-up cognition, and increased attention to details rather than the 'big picture'. Such a cognitive style could keep a Very Big Picture concept like God off the radar in the first place. Similarly, autism involves highly-focussed non-social interests - and concomitant lower interest in social interaction - do such interests constitute or generate mentalistic 'deficits'? Indeed, 'deficits' and 'constraints' models of psychological and psychiatry conditions unfortunately permeate these fields and drive most research, when it is increased understanding of the many causes of differences per se between individuals - including tradeoffs in interests and abilities - that should lead to more-useful insights.

Psychological inquiry into why some people believe in God, while others do not, can be studied in diverse ways. Linking such beliefs to psychiatric conditions and scales may be helpful to some degree, but a more direct route would involve psychological, neurological and developmental parsing of different mentalistic interests and skills, in relation to Belief. Candidate mechanisms might include social interest, social reward systems, sensation of external agency, and diverse other mentalistic skills, mediated by oxytocin, dopamine, endorphins, brain structure, hormones, early-childhood experience, and other aspects of enculturation.

Then again, maybe it's just God's plan that only some of us should believe. You decide.