God Arises
Review
~ 49 ~
But the case of religion is vastly different from this.
As the eminent physician, Fred Hoyle puts it, “This
moral or religious impulse, whatever we choose to
call it, is extraordinarily strong. When faced by
opposition, and even by powerful political attempts
at suppression, it obstinately refuses to lie down
and die. One often comes on statements that
religion is a primitive superstition that modern man
can well do without. Yet if the impulse were truly
primitive in a biological sense (as for instance
patriotic loyalty to the group in which one happens
to live is primitive), we would surely expect to see it
in other animals. As far as I know, no one has
advanced any evidence for this idea. The religious
impulse appears to be unique to man, and indeed to
have become stronger in pre-history the more
advanced man became in his intellectual
attainments. Admittedly the trend has reversed
over the recent past, but the change over the past
two centuries may well prove to be impermanent…
Stripped of the many fanciful adornments with
which religion has become surrounded, does it not
amount to an instruction within us that expressed
rather simply might read as follows: You are
