If you let me assume that by God you mean religion, yes, of course! If you and I believe in 'our' God, we band together, don't kill each other and it lets me live long and reproduce. Also, if I have to fight someone else, you will go with me because we have a common God, which increases my chances of survival. This must have worked in primitive societies.

my 2 cents.
devi

-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Tyler [mailto:tyler@mafalda.uchicago.edu]
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 3:50 PM
To: science@lists.pdx.edu
Subject: Re: origenes

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?)