@cyan: Post hoc ergo propter hoc—you make a fair point. Examining the other examples that nick gives might give me a slightly larger sample size. Do we have a Buddhism expert or someone who knows about the aboriginal Australians? Well, to be fair, the aboriginal Australians didn’t exactly do very well for themselves, but there are other more compelling reasons for this. As far as confusing correlation with causation, I might quote the Wikipedia article again:
Most of what is known about the Sadducees comes from Josephus, who wrote that they were a quarrelsome group
which suggests that they lacked social cohesion. So the chain of causation would be that a lack of belief in afterlife caused lots of internal arguments, which led to their demise.
Cyan Said: The more specific the list, the less credence one should give it.
Yes, but look at all the evidence I have in favor of my quite (but not too) specific list: all of the world’s major religions fit all of the criteria on it. (with “austere” Buddhism perhaps lacking somewhat, but how many “austere” Buddhists are there?) It looks to me like my list is well-supported by the evidence.
But this is a bit of a digression; I can’t do a very thorough investigation into the scientific origins of religious belief. I think I have shown sufficient evidence to cast doubt on the assertion that we don’t have a “religion-shaped hole” to fill.
@cyan: Post hoc ergo propter hoc—you make a fair point. Examining the other examples that nick gives might give me a slightly larger sample size. Do we have a Buddhism expert or someone who knows about the aboriginal Australians? Well, to be fair, the aboriginal Australians didn’t exactly do very well for themselves, but there are other more compelling reasons for this. As far as confusing correlation with causation, I might quote the Wikipedia article again:
Most of what is known about the Sadducees comes from Josephus, who wrote that they were a quarrelsome group
which suggests that they lacked social cohesion. So the chain of causation would be that a lack of belief in afterlife caused lots of internal arguments, which led to their demise.
Cyan Said: The more specific the list, the less credence one should give it.
Yes, but look at all the evidence I have in favor of my quite (but not too) specific list: all of the world’s major religions fit all of the criteria on it. (with “austere” Buddhism perhaps lacking somewhat, but how many “austere” Buddhists are there?) It looks to me like my list is well-supported by the evidence.
But this is a bit of a digression; I can’t do a very thorough investigation into the scientific origins of religious belief. I think I have shown sufficient evidence to cast doubt on the assertion that we don’t have a “religion-shaped hole” to fill.