Newspaper Article

Were we born to believe

Taylor, Mathew

2010

Overview

Although Pullman's attack is more o n organised Christianity than faith, the aim of other strident atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens or Daniel Dennett, is to use the hammer of science and rationality to break the chains of religious superstition. Indeed, since the Ancient World, intellectuals have predicted that faith would wither away in the face of expanding human knowledge. But the prediction was wrong. Demographic trends suggest that the proportion of the world's population who follow a major religion will rise to about 80 per cent over the coming decades. Even in countries with low religious observance - such as Britain - there has been no decline in the number who say they believe in God. Adaptationist accounts are far from universally accepted. Richard Dawkins describes the group selection theory that underlies [David Sloan Wilson]'s account as \"sheer, wanton, head-in-bag perversity\". But whatever is happening at the group level, there is something about the way individual human beings develop that makes us susceptible to religious belief. The attraction of religious explanations to young minds doesn't explain their persistence into adulthood. Grown-ups don't believe in fairies. But while we may rid ourselves of childhood myths, our susceptibility to belief in the supernatural persists. This goes beyond not walking under ladders. In one experiment, married couples were offered a hundred dollars if - after having an exact replica made of their wedding ring - they would keep one, not knowing if it was the original. Most declined.

• Publisher: Daily Telegraph
• Subject: Pullman, Philip (1946- )