The New Scientist reports that one anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, is making the argument that religion is a natural development that has come about due to the evolution of imagination in our species.  I’d likely agree with this since I also agree with Jeff Hawkin’s ideas about intelligence being largely made up of the ability to predict.  And prediction can require imagination.  Such a development though would inevitably lead to predictions that were, sadly, incorrect but unverifiable, like heaven or prayer.  Our species’ early attempts to predict things often amounted to speculations about unseen powers controlling the seen elements of nature, and given the evidence our ancestors had at the time, unseen powers was a logical, if anthropomorphic, conclusion.

If there is such a thing as free will, then we are left with choices and we have the capacity to reason about them, and that leads us to evidence.  Evidence, information that has suffered the test of falsehood, can help us to ascertain our choices—not to know if our choice is correct—but to know why we made it and to illustrate to ourselves why we would make that choice again. In that, even when the choice is the wrong choice, we can find solace in accountability. We surveyed the information, ascertained its correctness, and then made a decision. This is reason. Read more…