Are human spiritual beliefs just an byproduct of evolution or a product of our psychological readiness to accept vivid, memorable tales about the world around us? And for that matter, is the soul “nothing more than an emanation of our neuronal machinery”?

The think-tank website Big Questions Online, offers an article that discusses these questions in a way that you may find interesting:

 

Why We See Spirits and Souls
Understanding the neurobiology of religious belief is a far cry from explaining it away.
By Michael Graziano

Scientific anti-theism began, arguably, with Thomas Huxley, the 19th-century champion of the theory of evolution who styled himself “Darwin’s bulldog.” Huxley advocated improving the Bible by removing “statements to which men of science absolutely and entirely demure.” Since then, the view that science should correct people’s mistaken religious beliefs, and even more so that science is fundamentally antithetical to religion, has grown in popularity. It is now championed by influential public figures like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

A primary basis for scientific anti-theism is that much of religion can potentially be explained by science…

For the complete article, click here.

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