There is a religious instinct that explains much beyond religion.

I look forward to a good debate. Con has found objections of which I would not have conceived, which is a purpose of debate. Con supposes that humans have few instincts and that therefore most behavior is learned. He supposes in particular that tribalism and the human desire to construct explanatory theories are learned behaviors, not instincts. Con asserts, "Man is born with precious few instincts. Rather, he learns by trial and error and by the instruction of his community." Is man is born with few instincts? Let us suppose that humans were born perfectly rational, free of instincts. What would he do? Would he act perfectly rationally to insure his survival? No, the will to survive is an instinct. The perfectly rational man would act as an unprogrammed computer and do absolutely nothing. He would have no reason to do anything. He would not desire food or water or come in from the cold or protect his offspring, nor in fact care to have offspring. Everything that man does is in fulfillment of instinct. Reason is a survival tool, ultimately a slave to instinctual motivation. This obvious fact should not be upsetting. If we were unprogrammed computers, what would the fun be? How do we know what is instinctual and what is learned? How, for example, do we know that ducks fly south for the winter out of instinct, rather than just to conform to the learned behavior of the duck tribe? (Pardon the Northern Hemispherism.) We suspect that ducks are not smart enough to figure out that flying south is good for them. That doesn't help much resolve the human question; quite obviously humans are not smart enough to figure out rationally what is good for them either, at least not very often and less often in the short run. What identifies the duck instinct are its universality and its presence in populations raised in isolation. Those are the characteristics that identify human instincts as well. With respect to tribalism, or more generally, social behavior, consider the settlement of Polynesia. Small groups spread out independently to settle islands independently, developing, for example, new languages in isolation. Environmental pressure was low; the islands were often among the most generous environments for human survival. Yet we know of no instances of the populations failing to develop societies. The phenomena is worldwide. Humans always prefer groups and never in isolation. Animals like bears and tigers live in isolation, not humans. Instinct derives from survival, so it isn't a coincidence that the human social instinct helps survival and more than it is a coincidence that ducks flying south helps their survival. All of the evolved instincts have origins in survival; instincts contrary to survival are naturally selected out. There is in the literature a semantic dispute over whether "instinct" means "compulsion" or "tendency." It is creeping into our debate. I take it as innate tendency. People can overcome most human instincts, even self-preservation can be overcome, with people volunteering to be sacrificed to volcano gods and such. An anthropologist interviewed an Amazon native and asked, "Your people run around naked. Why don't you have sex all the time." The man replied, "Don't be ridiculous, we couldn't support that many children." Reason can overcome instinct as well. I provided a book-length reference supporting the tribal instinct. There is a Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org... that discusses the subject and provides additional references. Con has offered no scientific references in support of his contention that there is no tribal instinct, and he ignores all of the contrary science. I think it is fair to say that there is scientific controversy over the limits of the instinct, such as how it transfers from small populations to large, but I don't see any controversy over the fact that tribal behavior is instinctual and not learned. Theory-formation is also distinguished by its universality. If were learned behavior related solely to survival advantage then there would be no impetus to form theories that have no relation to survival. How the world was created has no impact on survival in the present world, yet the theories abound. The many traditional theories are wildly diverse, yet the resolution of one theory in favor of the other has no bearing on anything to do with survival. Therefore, if the theories derived from survival we should all agree that the origins of the world are unknown and irrelevant, and we should have all been given that in tradition. Yet there is an obvious compulsion to form theories that have no relevance to survival, and it is seemingly impossible to rationally overcome the need for a theory. Not only is there a compulsion to form theories when none are necessary, there is a compulsion to stick to a bad theory rather than abandon it in favor of no theory. On this site magical theories are defended on the grounds that a magical theory fits the data, so therefore it is much better than having no theory. (e.g., comments in http://www.debate.org...) Learned behavior cannot explain the desire for theories that have no utility, yet such theories abound. This occurs not only with cosmic questions, but with matters of no relevance to the individual, like why celebrities are misbehaving and what is behind unsolved crimes. Human curiosity, the desire to have an explanation, is unbounded. Con says, "I object to my opponent's argument for a religious instinct on the grounds that this purported instinct contains inside it the seeds for the species' destruction and can therefore hardly be the evolutionary advantage that he claims it is." If it were true that the X Instinct is characteristic of mankind, and moreover that having the instinct implies that mankind carries within it the seeds of its own destruction, that would not falsify the theory. It would only make it a sad fact, but nonetheless a fact. If, similarly, we were to learn that a meteor is on a collision course with earth and all life will end on a certain date, that too would be a sad fact. Nonetheless denying the fact or wishing it untrue would not change it from being a fact. Con's contention that the theory implies doom is therefore not an argument against the theory. It would be an argument in favor of stepping up research on how to change genetic predisposition, not a reason for supposing the theory untrue. Having an instinct that proves fatal in the long run is not at all contrary to the instinct providing a survival advantage in the course of evolutionary history. Advancing technology --developing more and more clever tools-- has clearly been a survival advantage for humans over the past million years. However, it is possible that the technology of weapons of mass destruction could become so advanced that a single crazed individual can destroy the whole planet. If so that would mean that the survival advantage had the seeds of eventual destruction. It was nonetheless a survival advantage up to that point. ... As the world ended we could launch a vigorous protest with an appropriate international court, but liberals would of course argue we had no right to force our values upon others :-( I don't see any necessity of doom in the theory. Most people in modern societies live as members of many tribes where membership in a tribe does not escalate to warfare. Church members, professional society members, and fans of a sports team all have outsiders whom the members oppose. Churches have differing doctrines, professional societies demand professional standards of work, and sports fans want their team to win over the opposing team. Only in rare cases does anything escalate to violence, and as societies become more advanced there are fewer occasions, not more. Advancing technology lowers competition for scarce resources, so the competition for survival is less.