The Opium of the Masses

This article from Newsweek considers the possibility and evidence that a human brain is not wired for supernatural beliefs, contrary to the popular belief that we are innately inclined to weigh and believe in the supernatural.

Noteworthy excerpts:

In a paper last month in the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, Gregory Paul finds that countries with the lowest rates of social dysfunction—based on 25 measures, including rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, unemployment, and poverty—have become the most secular. Those with the most dysfunction, such as Portugal and the U.S., are the most religious, as measured by self-professed belief, church attendance, habits of prayer, and the like.

...

"The ease with which large populations abandon serious theism when conditions are sufficiently benign . . . refute[s] hypotheses that religious belief and practice are the normal, deeply set human mental state." [...] rather than being wired into the brain, religion is a way to cope with stress in a dysfunctional society—the opium-of-the-people argument.