I'm not sure if this is actually true. The idea of religion is appealing enough that Ugg may be able to sell it to them. After all, Christian missionaries often succeed in displacing an old religion.
The question is why are human brains wired such that this is the case?
The Just-So-Story I tell (while stating up front that it is a Just-So story) is this:
...Our tendency is to anthropomorphize. Today, we angrily yell at our cars and computers when they fail us. Rationally we know they are unthinking hulks of metal, but we still ascribe malevolence when the real culprit is a broken, unsentient machine.
There are plausible reasons for humans to have evolved this trait. One of the most complicated tasks a human has to do is predict the actions of other humans. We need to be able to make allies, to identify deceptive enemies, to
Today's post, A Failed Just-So Story was originally published on 05 January 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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