I wonder: was there ever a survival advantage for people (or societies) who believe in god?

CT

Eric Weeks wrote:
> Religion: what about the popularity of religions that
> encourage having offspring, or discourage birth control?
> Or that encourage converting others? These are fairly powerful
> ideas with some sort of evolutionary pressure. I recall some
> clever person quite a while ago invented the idea of "memes",
> in analogy with genes. Memes are ideas which, as side effects,
> tend to propagate themselves. For example, I play bridge,
> and part of the bridge meme is that I go out and teach other
> people to play bridge. The religion memes are fairly powerful.
> (Who invented memes? Was it Gould? Marvin Minsky?)