Monday, November 28, 2005

Religion as Accident

Paul Bloom in the December Atlantic argues that the religious impulse results mostly accidentally from the way that human minds work. We have separate systems for understanding physical objects and social objects, with the one being subject to Newton's laws, the other subject to interpretation, purpose, intention. It's interesting, but I'm not convinced. I'd be more tempted to argue that people are naturally interested in good stories and that's what religion is--stories that make sense of the universe.

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