Here’s an article by Chris Mooney that captures the essence of my own interest in matters of evolution and cosmology and their religious detractors. (These matters aren’t ‘debates’ or ‘controversies’ except in the minds of those blinkered by religious indoctrination. The science is well established.) This essence is the irony that,
Our brains are a stunning product of evolution; and yet ironically, they may naturally pre-dispose us against its acceptance.
This entails the raft of psychological biases our minds rely on, or are prey to, to make a living as biological beings. But these same biases encourage us to live in a sort of fantasy world in which we interpret the world around us in the most flattering way possible – we are the center of creation, etc. – rather than how reality actually is, as deduced through rational evidence gathering and logical thought.
Mooney’s 7 Reasons Why It’s Easier for Humans to Believe in God Than Evolution are
Biological essentialism
Teleological thinking
Overactive agency detection [the theme of Jesse Bering’s book on this matter]
Dualism
Inability to comprehend vast time scales
Group morality and tribalism
Fear and the need for certainty
He references a book I have on my shelf waiting to be read: Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not, by Robert N. McCauley.
