In short, of all the disciplines involved in the study of religion, psychology
alone is explicitly concerned with conceptual development from childhood to adulthood
and allows us to examine separately the spontaneous or natural component of
religious thought and experience from the doctrinal or culturally transmitted one.
One way of achieving this is through cross-cultural research whereby we can arrive
at theories that explain different aspects of human religious disposition. In addition
to the question of how people acquire religious beliefs, psychology can contribute to
a better understanding of why people abandon religious beliefs or replace them with
alternative beliefs. Further, psychology can ask whether the same factors cause similar
changes in belief at all stages in individual development; whether the same factors
are operational in all cultures, including those where religion and science have
had a pattern of interaction different from that in the West (e.g., Japan); and other relevant questions. Joint application of the historical-comparative method and comparative psychological research would thus significantly strengthen our explanatory
framework for answering many of the perennial questions about religion as a universal
phenomenon in human experience