Though even Boyer calls his cerebral theory of religion reductionist in his essay Gods and the Mental Instincts That Create Them, he perhaps does not realize that his theory does not reduce religions to primitive human urges as other reductionist hypotheses have done in the past. Instead, he shows religiousness to be based on the complexity of human cognition, which is the principal feature of Homo Sapiens. While still technically reductionist, Boyer’s theory associates religiousness with the principal feature of human life, the mind, and denotes religion as an important expression of the human condition. Whereas other reductionists show religion as an unnecessary evil to life, Boyer’s cognitive explanation of religion portrays it as integral
