Announcement List for the Virginia Atheists & Agnostics

[Scott Newton <>]

Hey all,

Our meeting this week is this Thursday at 7pm in Clark Hall 101! We will be watching and then discussing a TED talk by Jonathan Haidt (incidentally a former UVA psychology professor) about how humanity's religious nature may have evolved. A more detailed blurb follows below:

"Haidt argues that human beings have an inborn capacity for having self-transcendent, spiritial experiences common in religious functions, being in nature, going to war, and other large communal activities. He further argues that this capacity evolved in humans because of group selection, which, as its name implies, selects for characteristics beneficial to the group in which an organism belongs instead of characteristics that increase the fitness of individual organisms."

Hope to see you there!

[skot]