By JONATHAN LEAKE AND ANDREW SNIDERMAN - TIMESONLINE
Added: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:00:00 UTC

UPDATE: See PZ's excellent commentary on this article here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/09/born_to_believe.php

Thanks to Crapsquire for the link.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6823229.ece

ATHEISM really may be fighting against nature: humans have been hardwired by evolution to believe in God, scientists have suggested.

The idea has emerged from studies of the way children’s brains develop and of the workings of the brain during religious experiences. They suggest that during evolution groups of humans with religious tendencies began to benefit from their beliefs, perhaps because they tended to work together better and so stood a greater chance of survival.

The findings challenge campaigners against organised religion, such as Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. He has long argued that religious beliefs result from poor education and childhood “indoctrination”.

Bruce Hood, professor of developmental psychology at Bristol University, believes the picture is more complex. “Our research shows children have a natural, intuitive way of reasoning that leads them to all kinds of supernatural beliefs about how the world works,” he said.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6823229.ece

TAGGED: EVOLUTION, PSYCHOLOGY