{"id":1496,"date":"2009-02-09T11:57:32","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T19:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=1496"},"modified":"2009-02-09T11:59:42","modified_gmt":"2009-02-09T19:59:42","slug":"the-origins-of-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-origins-of-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Origin of Religion?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If\u00a0 (like me) you are interested in the (for want of a better word) natural origins of religion<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg20126941.700-born-believers-how-your-brain-creates-god.html\">\u00a0this <\/a><em>New Scientist<\/em> piece is well worth a look. It&#8217;s a serious article that should be taken seriously, but I have to confess that I read the following passage, thought about the &#8216;intelligent design&#8217; crowd, and laughed:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The ability to conceive of gods, however, is not sufficient to give rise to religion. The mind has another essential attribute: an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even where there is none&#8230;experiments on young children reveal this default state of the mind. Children as young as three readily attribute design and purpose to inanimate objects. When Deborah Kelemen of the University of Arizona in Tucson asked 7 and 8-year-old children questions about inanimate objects and animals, she found that most believed they were created for a specific purpose. Pointy rocks are there for animals to scratch themselves on. Birds exist &#8220;to make nice music&#8221;, while rivers exist so boats have something to float on. &#8220;It was extraordinary to hear children saying that things like mountains and clouds were &#8216;for&#8217; a purpose and appearing highly resistant to any counter-suggestion,&#8221; says Kelemen.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com\/the_daily_dish\/2009\/02\/evolving-belief.html\">Hat-tip: Andrew Sullivan<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If\u00a0 (like me) you are interested in the (for want of a better word) natural origins of religion\u00a0this New Scientist piece is well worth a look. It&#8217;s a serious article that should be taken seriously, but I have to confess &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-origins-of-religion\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1496"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1499,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions\/1499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}