Why humans find it hard to do away with religion
The new atheists decry religion as a poisonous set of lies. But what if a belief in the supernatural is natural?
God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human by Dominic Johnson is published by Oxford University Press (304pp, £18.99)
20 January 2016
By John Gray
An American scientist visiting the home of Niels Bohr, the Nobel Prize-winning Danish physicist and refugee from Nazism who was a leading figure in the Manhattan Project, which produced the atomic bomb, was surprised to discover a horseshoe hanging over Bohr’s desk: “Surely you don’t believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, Professor Bohr?” he asked. “After all, as a scientist . . .”
Bohr laughed. “I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am scarcely likely to believe such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring one good luck whether you believe it or not.”
Dominic Johnson, who tells this story, acknowledges that Bohr might have been joking. But the physicist’s response captured an important truth. Human beings never cease looking for a pattern in events that transcends the workings of cause and effect. No matter how much they may think their view of the world has been shaped by science, they cannot avoid thinking and acting as if their lives are subject to some kind of non-human oversight. As Johnson puts it, “Humans the world over find themselves, consciously or subconsciously, believing that we live in a just world or a moral universe, where people are supposed to get what they deserve. Our brains are wired such that we cannot help but search for meaning in the randomness of life.”
An evolutionary biologist trained at Oxford who also holds a doctorate in political science, Johnson believes that the need to find a more-than-natural meaning in natural events is universal – “a ubiquitous phenomenon of human nature” – and performs a vital role in maintaining order in society. Extending far beyond cultures shaped by monotheism, it “spans cultures across the globe and every historical period, from indigenous tribal societies . . . to modern world religions – and includes atheists, too”.
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2016/01/why-humans-find-it-hard-do-away-religion
= new reply since forum marked as read
It is somewhat surprising that some people who claim to trust science don't seem to seriously consider that religion may be a selected trait - i.e. advantageous. I know Dawkins mentions this possibility in The God Delusion but he doesn't give it careful consideration.
And I didn't realize that horseshoes bring good luck even if you don't believe in them - I guess I'll have to start carrying mine again. 
The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct." - Niels Bohr to Wolfgang Pauli t Colmbia University, 1958.