The Atlantic Monthly Journal has an excellent article that explores the “religion-as-accident theory”. It’s a lengthy read, but definitely worthwhile.
Some parts reminded me of a book I read a few months back, Fooled by Randomness (which I still highly recommend). Take this tidbit from the article:
We have what the anthropologist Pascal Boyer has called a hypertrophy of social cognition. We see purpose, intention, design, even when it is not there.
And this:
Our quickness to over-read purpose into things extends to the perception of intentional design. People have a terrible eye for randomness. If you show them a string of heads and tails that was produced by a random-number generator, they tend to think it is rigged—it looks orderly to them, too orderly.
I wholeheartedly agree with that. Time and time again, I’m amazed at how much meaning and determinism people assign to things I consider to be pure randomness.
Overall, the article offers some very interesting and balanced perspectives.