"Every human society has had its gods, whether worshiped from Gothic cathedrals or Mayan pyramids. In all cultures, humans pour resources into elaborate religious buildings and rituals. But religion offers no obvious boost to survival and reproduction. So how and why did it arise? In my Origins essay this month, I follow two very different disciplines—archaeology and cognitive psychology—as they attempt to understand this puzzle. To Charles Darwin himself, the origin of belief in gods was no mystery. “As soon as the important faculties of the imagination, wonder, and curiosity, together with some power of reasoning, had become partially developed, man would … have vaguely speculated on his own existence,” he wrote in The Descent of Man. In the past 15 years, a growing number of researchers have followed Darwin’s lead and explored the hypothesis that religion springs naturally from the normal workings of the human mind. This new field, the cognitive science of religion, draws on psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to understand the mental building blocks of religious thought. “There are functional properties of our cognitive systems that lean toward a belief in supernatural agents, to something like a god,” says experimental psychologist Justin Barrett of Oxford University." - Wildcat from Bookmarklet

Okay. Your first premise is way off. Never heard of Be Fruitful and Mulitply have you? Don't forget that every society discovered so far-from the pygmy to Europeans-has a fertility god. - Aaron Kendrick

The arrogance is astounding. - Aaron Kendrick

Can you elaborate, Aaron? - Christopher A Carr

On Which? The arrogance or the existentialist Atheistic warmed-over rehash? Nearly all societies-the cults of Asia Minor, the Celts, the Aborigines of Asia-all have fertility gods. Egyptians, Syro-Phoenicians, Mesopotamian cultures all had them as well. It is true that they corresponded to different functions of society, but all acknowledged the after-life and whether they ruled it or were serviced by it. The notion that there is no such thing as God, that it is a hard-wired function of the brain which has no basis in fact is disingenuous at best. I get really annoyed at people who try to dress up their belief as fact. Don't be fooled either, Darwin existentialist thought is just as much a belief system as any religion or Christianity. The Darwin cult had it's chance with 139 years of "science" chasing after the missing link and they still have nothing to show for it (even if you don't count fraud). - Aaron Kendrick

I was wondering what the "Darwin cult" had been up to these last few years... - Eivind

This is a good article on the subject by Pascal Boyer: http://artsci.wustl.edu/~pboyer... - Eivind

I've appointed myself the leader of that "Darwin cult," Eivind. Someone had to... - Christopher A Carr

Can I join? - Alexander Kruel

I'm in as well. I always wanted to join a cult, but I never found one I liked until now. - Eivind

Aaron, are you saying that a proof for something is widespread belief in it? Anyways, even without ever reading up on evolution it should be clear that it is not some evil conspiracy to deny the existence of god. If that was how science worked, we would not teach that we are limited to the speed of light. Science would not say that we're all going to die in cold loneliness when the universe will slowly cease to be habitable by torturing all intelligence to death in a big freeze. If science was based on what some people would like reality to be like, the prospects would look very different. It's just ridiculous to think evolution is fictitious, created by a cult of evil geniuses. Think about it... - Alexander Kruel

may I join the Darwin cult too? - alapinto

Ah welcome alapinto! The power of the dark side of the force is growing stronger with you... - Alexander Kruel

Do I get a one of those Darwin bumper sticker things if I Join ? - Eric Logan

What kind of cult would we be if we didn't have bumper stickers, Eric? :) - Eivind

The Axis of Evo http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/axisofe... - Alexander Kruel

how the bumper stickers coming along? still waiting for mine ;-).... - alapinto

oh & love the win win of "http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/axisofe..." link Mr Kruel - alapinto

The Axis of Evo is even worse than the Axis of Evil by the way... - Alexander Kruel