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Philosopher Neil Van Leeuwen states there are two 'beliefs' - religious and factual - that co-exist because we can form 'secondary cognitive attitudes'

Proponents of science and devout disciples of religions around the world regularly clash about their views.

But Georgia-based philosopher Neil Van Leeuwen believes it may be possible for seemingly conflicting views to overlap, and for people to believe in aspects of both - so long as we reassess what we mean by the term 'belief.'

In his latest paper he writes that there are two interpretations of the word 'belief' - one religious and another factual.

Professor Van Leeuwan compares the belief in religion with the way our brains handle imaginative play.

In his essay 'Religious credence is not factual belief', he uses an example describing a situation where a child is playing with a Playdoh cookie.

The child knows it is made of Playdoh because it is 'tangible and evident' - they have a factual belief in what it physically is.

However, the child can suspend a certain amount of reality to imagine the cookie is real for the purposes and context of the game.

Another, more complex example quoted in the paper, is to imagine a statue falling from a boat into the ocean.

Professor Van Leeuwen writes that people typically imagine the statue sinking.

They do this because factual beliefs form the basis, and supplies missing information, for any outcomes while imagining the scenario.

But people asked to imagine the scene don't factually believe a statue is currently sinking into the sea because if they did, they would alert the authorities and take action to stop it from doing so – even though the scenario is hypothetical.

Professor Van Leeuwen describes a situation where a child is playing with Playdough cookies. The child knows it is made of Playdough because it is tangible; they have a factual belief in it. However, they suspend a reality to imagine the cookie is real, for the purposes of the game. This can be applied to relgiion and science

This belief system is reliant on human capacity to generate 'secondary cognitive attitudes', explained the philosopher. Professor Van Leeuwen said imaginative representations, such as religious views, co-exist with a factual belief, such as those held by scientists, or 'thoughts about reality', without being confused with it

Professor Van Leeuwen said this suggests the distinction between the beliefs only works one way – and that there is 'is an anti-symmetric relation' between factual belief and imagining, which the philosopher calls cognitive governance.

Professor Van Leeuwen believes this is a significant distinction, and it can be applied to religion versus science.

With this theory it is possible for the human brain to imagine and hypothesise about religious teachings, while also believing in evolution when looking at evidence to suggest as much.

This, he says, relies on the human ability to generate 'secondary cognitive attitudes' and that imaginative representations co-exist with a layer of factual belief without being confused by either.

Professor Van Leeuwen, using the example of children again, said that during any pretend play a child has two 'maps' - one representing what he or she takes to be reality and another representing the contents of a fantasy world.

'She uses the two maps in conjunction, since she must pretend in the physical space of the real world,' continued Professor Van Leeuwen. 

'But she does not confuse them, contrary to popular myth.

'We see a similar structure - two maps - in the relation between religious representations and factual beliefs.

'There is a corresponding myth to be debunked: quite simply, the myth that the two maps are run together - that there is only one kind of "belief."'

Addressing concerns that, by looking at belief in this way, causes religion to be linked with fiction, Professor Van Leeuwen wrote: 'This conclusion is startling, causing us to ask: how can something so serious as religion be rooted in the same capacity that yields something as frivolous as fiction?

'But the question contains a misguided assumption. 

'Humans, in fact, take many fictions incredibly seriously.'