He thought they believed that God is just a human being involved in this creative process with other humans. Piaget posited that young children believe that humans made the mountains or the sun. I'm contributing a new line of research that affirms Piaget's insight that children see design and purpose and meaning, but challenges his idea that they see human design or purpose. Virtually all humans are essentially born believers-they have a natural receptivity to religious belief. I don't mean that Mozart came out of the womb playing the clavichord, but that given very minimal cultural and environmental input, he was going to take to it like ducks to water. I'm using that term in a folk sense, the way we might say that Michael Jordan was a born basketball player, or Mozart was a born musician. Why do you suggest children are "born believers"? Holly Catterton Allen, professor of Christian ministries at John Brown University, spoke with Barrett about the scientific evidence testifying to children's religious beliefs. In Born Believers: The Science of Children's Religious Belief (Free Press), Barrett, a psychology professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, builds upon previous research on cognitive development to show that children naturally intuit design-and a Designer-when exposed to the natural world. Barrett, are born receptive to the idea that there is a god.
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