Naturalistic explanations of religion are as old as Xenophanes (570–480bc). The most famous are probably those of Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud. I must confess that I don't find these three famous explanations of religion very interesting. 1 Large parts of them are unintelligible (this is particularly true of Feuerbach's writings on religion) and the parts that are intelligible are vague and untestable (Feuerbach and Freud), or else they demand allegiance to some very comprehensive theory that has been tried and found wanting on grounds unrelated to religion (Marx's theory of the dialectics of history and Freud's psychology) [Book Review]

In Jeffrey Schloss & Michael J. Murray (eds.), The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion. Oxford University Press (2009)
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Peter Van Inwagen
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