In the healthy debate that goes on between those in favor or Creation, and those who understand that Creation is simply funny, I often make my day by reading an article or reply by renowned (mostly American) Creationists.

Life and the Universe are governed by humanly incomprehensible figures and probabilities. The magnitude of these numbers, such as the number of stars in a galaxy and the number of galaxies in the universe, or the number of combinations made possible through DNA replication and mutation, are inappreciable by our brains, whose short-term-memory (or working memory) capacity is limited to a mere 4 (plus or minus 1) distinct objects, persons, or categories.

But being a Biologist, one becomes familiar with the elegantly simple, almost-complete explanation of life’s complexity and adeptness: Natural Selection. Biologists, more than any other type of scientist, have a heightened sense of awareness about life’s current state and how the two options are not chance or intelligent design, but in fact, owe their defiance of extreme improbability to Evolution.

In this latest edition of my series presenting the case against Creation (or more accurately, in favor of natural selection) I will handle our tendency to assign everything an ‘intentional’ agent, or spirit.

All of us, at some point in our daily lives, give our car, computer, or microwave a good scold, or even a beating for ‘doing this to me’ when they fail to perform their respective functions. This automatic assignment of a living, abstract entity, or ‘spirit’ to virtually anything we encounter, seems to be counter-intuitive in natural selection terms. In fact, it is probably one of the precursors that gave rise to religion and rituals in virtually all known human civilizations.

If one considers the set of rituals, ceremonies and traditions so vigorously practiced, protected and imposed by dozens of civilizations throughout history (and before it) an Evolutionist might be stumped as to how this religious trait survived when it actually has no specific biological purpose. In fact, it consumes time, energy, and even lives (whether in sacrifice or war for a certain deity) and thus in no way ensures propagation of an individual’s or a group’s genes, much less its survival.

Therefore, religious practice is probably a by-product of several other evolutionary adaptations that have taken a different path. In this article, I deal with the aforementioned tendency of humans to attribute a ‘soul’ or ‘intention’ to apparently inanimate objects. If one considers why this might have evolved, and become virtually ubiquitous in all humans, the answer becomes very obvious.

There are several paths that can be taken to assess a certain factor’s danger-level to an individual. The most obvious one is the physical one, whereby I can evaluate the size, ferocity, musculature, sharp claws and powerful jaws on a tiger. Unfortunately, by the time I have concluded that the tiger is actually threat, I’d probably be halfway down its digestive system. The natural thing is creating a conceptual short-cut that has to do with design. We are taught, by elders and experience, that all things were ‘designed’ for a certain purpose. In the tiger’s case, it was ‘designed’ to kill humans. Therefore, upon coming face to face with this animal, you directly make the connection of human = snack and flee (or fight) even if the tiger didn’t necessarily indicate it was about to attack.

However, even the false-design-inspired mental shortcut wasn’t enough for our course of natural selection. That’s why we eventually developed a sense that other things have minds too. A sort of crooked theory of mind perception of both animate and inanimate objects. So, upon detecting a stimulus, the associated ‘intention’ or ‘soul’ of it is triggered in our naturally-selected-brains. We feel our Windows 7 is working against us, when in fact it is neutral when it comes to intentions and emotions, it just performs what the code tells it to, whether the code is benign or not. To us though, especially me, I am convinced the Microsoft Operating System is intentionally annoying and frustrating despite it being an inanimate machine (for now at least).

This assigning of intentions to everything around us was probably an evolutionary adaptation that helped save us from predators and dangerous situations. This automatic assignment of consciousness to non-conscious objects and behaviors was not alone though in the formation of human religiosity.

As children, we all needed to assign meaning to things and events, even if it is arbitrary, for everything is there for a reason. For example, clouds are to make rain, rocks are to build houses, cows are to eat. These are all infantile understandings of objects and animals around us. Even though these explanations are not truly accurate, and clouds, rocks, and cows are there because of different causes and results of ages-old processes, assigning these reasons for them existing is comforting, makes sense, and highlights the relationship we have with our surroundings (irrigating crops, building homes, eating in this case).

It was inevitable that a reason for existence itself would be attributed to serving some higher purpose: its Creator. Different religions have explained it in different ways and different gods, but, all deities worshipped are believe to have created our world and have the ability to intervene with it.

Another factor that probably helps religion and its practice become seemingly eternal and virtually ubiquitous, is the human ability (and curse) to espouse beliefs and knowledge from older generations. We rely heavily on our parents and elders to shape our understanding of the world. Everything from language to maths, eating and pooping, are all learned by humans when they are younger, and these acquired skills and facts stick to an individual, as you all (hopefully) know. So, not only will I learn that fire hurts me, or that I might die if I jump off a cliff, but also that I was created by a God and must worship Him. If not by parents, by schools or other socially influential agents.

So, the need for assigning intention and meaning (teleology) to all things around us coupled with indoctrination of religious practices as children, have ensured, through natural selection, that religion become a trait we cannot escape from. Even the most ardent of atheists, understand what God is supposed to be and how He is supposed to function, because it is a universal aspect of our society. If not God, witches or other pagan deities, but, always an illogical, time and energy-consuming, seemingly useless set of practices and traditions that have most probably come as a result of several evolutionarily advantageous traits, misfiring and combining to form the world’s religions.

Please understand we did not handle faith, only religions and religious practices, practices as in the human manifestation of beliefs. This is a commentary on that, and not the existence or relevance of faith or God.