Hardwired to believe in God?

A child's first word is mind-blowing. The lisp evolves into speech because of language instinct, says Princeton linguist Steven Pinker. This innate behaviour is un-invented in the sense that computers or cell phones are. Only some human cultures have them; while all cultures have language.

Alfred Russell Wallace and Samuel Taylor Coleridge invoked God in the creation of language. The atheists countered that if language could be explained in terms of natural selection, there would be no need to invoke a higher intelligence or order. Similar claims for an 'art instinct' have been made by the recently deceased philosopher Denis Dutton: Our desire for beauty, what's called Sundaram, is as firmly rooted in biology as language is in Darwinian evolution. Both are a side effect of our endless struggle to survive, to reproduce.

Jesse Bering, a cognitive psychologist from Belfast, has now put things like psychology of souls and destiny under instinct. His Belief Instinct puts new spin on Voltaire's comment in support of God: "Let us accept that God exists," he wrote. "But what if he didn't? Well, we would have to invent Him, because He is necessary for the individual/society for whatever reasons." Bering says our belief in a personal god is an'adaptive illusion'. It serves a crucial evolutionary function. Accordingly, some form of religious belief would appear spontaneously even on a desert island untouched by cultural transmission.

Atheists of the world be warned: You have nothing to lose except your scepticism!