712) Most of the religious beliefs we have today originated in a time when the earth, while a small place by our standards, was then thought of as being very large, even though its exact extent was unknown. Any one person had direct knowledge of only a small part of it. It was not implausible to
believe that this large earth was the center of the universe and that man occupied the leading role in it.

Francis Crick
The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994)

713) The record of religious beliefs in explaining scientific phenomena has been so poor in the past that there is little reason to believe that the conventional religions will do much better in the future. [...] Not only do the beliefs of most popular religions contradict each other but, by scientific standards, they are based on evidence so flimsy that only an act of blind faith can make them acceptable. [...] History has shown that many mysteries which the churches thought only they could explain (e.g., the age of the earth) have yielded to a concerted scientific attack. Morever, the true answers are usually far from those of conventional religions. If revealed religions have revealed anything it is that they are usually wrong.

Francis Crick
The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994)

714) [H]ow did [religious beliefs] originate in the first place, and why do they so often turn out to be incorrect?

One factor is our basic need for overall explanations of the nature of the world and of ourselves. The various religions provide such explanations and in terms the average person finds easy to relate to. It should always be remembered that our brains largely developed during the period when humans were hunter-gatherers. There was strong selective pressure for cooperation within small groups of people and also for hostility to neighboring, competing tribes. [...] Under such circumstances a shared set of overall beliefs strengthens the bond between tribal members. It is more than likely that the need for them was built into our brains by evolution. Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truths but to enable us to be clever enough to survive and leave descendants.

From this point of view there is no need for these shared beliefs to be completely correct, provided people can believe in them. [...] The very nature of our brains - evolved to guess the most plausible interpretation of the limited evidence available - makes it almost inevitable that, without the discipline of scientific research, we shall often jump to wrong conclusions, especially about rather abstract matters.

Francis Crick
The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994)

[Note that quotes #709 and #714 were intermixed in the original text.]

Note: "3089/898" is the designation I've given to the project of posting all my collected quotes, excerpts and ideas (3089 of them) in the remaining days of the Bush administration (of which there were 898 left when I began).

As of today, there are 683 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.