Religious belief depends on mentalizing skills that imagine God’s mental states.

Evidence

The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. … This episode from Genesis (6:6) would not make intuitive sense unless we unconsciously accept that God has mental and emotional states and acts according to them. Similarly, prayer to God would be impossible without the intuitive understanding that the believer has about God’s intentions and beliefs. It follows then, that when mentalizing skills are impaired, religious belief is less intuitive. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 584

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s analytical bridge: the Big God mechanism requires theory of mind to function, so the omniscient-gaze enforcement in Silence presupposes intact mentalizing. — connects to: Mental frontiers between faiths proved harder to cross than physical ones.
• DEFINE: Defines mentalizing/theory of mind as the cognitive capacity recruited for understanding God, a technically precise concept anchoring the cross-textual argument.