Re: George Coyne and Richard Dawkins

On 5/22/24 8:51 AM, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2024 07:44:39 -0700
John Harshman <john.harshman@gmail.com> wrote:
 [time for a snip]

He got himself into that pickle by saying God is not an intervening
engineer. The alternative is that every living thing has a soul.

>
There are other alternatives. For example, the soul could be an emergent
property of the body, particularly of the brain. If he gave us brains
(mentioned above), souls could have come along with that, and perhaps
even gradually. Maybe chimps have near-but-not-quite-souls.
>

 How about: God emerges from sapient (or could I say superstitious?) beings?
 []
 

The near-universal appearance of religion (however defined) in human societies suggests that religion should be considered in an evolutionary context.  Is is part of our extended phenotype in the same sense as beaver dams are an expression of that of beavers?  An obvious positive advantage to human society is that religion can be a social glue; a clear disadvantage is that it can provoke conflict between societies.