The cognitive science of religion is, on most accounts, only twenty or thirty years old. Its philosophical origins, however, lie at least four centuries back, and its ethnographic origins at least half a century. Its central claims include three made by philosophers, early on. First, religion may best be understood as a result of features intrinsic in human cognition and its epistemic context. Second, these intrinsic features include certain systematic interpretive biases. These may lead us, most importantly, to see the world as more human-like (or “agent-like”) than it is. A third tenet, now usually implicit, is that religious thought and action are not sui generis but are continuous with secular thought and action.

The strongest early cognitivism regarding religion is that of two philosophers and an anthropologist: Benedict de Spinoza, David Hume and Robin Horton. They claim that religion may be understood not just as an outcome of certain cognitive features, but as itself primarily a cognitive endeavour. It is, in the first instance, an attempt neither to console ourselves (Freud) nor to form social bonds (Durkheim), although its constructs may be so used. Rather, it is an endeavour to interpret and influence the world.

The claim that religion stems from intrinsic cognitive processes originally was largely introspective (as was Kant's assertion that time and space are intrinsic in cognition; De Smedt & De Cruz 2011) but in the twentieth century acquired scientific elaboration.