Is God an Accident?  Despite the vast number of religions,
nearly everyone in the world believes in the same things: the
existence of a soul, an afterlife, miracles, and the divine
creation of the universe. Recently psychologists doing research
on the minds of infants have discovered two related facts that
may account for this phenomenon. One: human beings come into the
world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural
phenomena. And two: this predisposition is an incidental by-
product of cognitive functioning gone awry. Which leads to the
question ...  Also, the religion-as-opiate theory fits best with
the monotheistic religions most familiar to us. But what about
those people (many of the religious people in the world) who do
not believe in an all-wise and just God? Every society believes
in spiritual beings, but they are often stupid or malevolent.
Many religions simply don't deal with metaphysical or
teleological questions; gods and ancestor spirits are called
upon only to help cope with such mundane