ABSTRACT
Even if the Darwinian explanation of religion is not convincing, evolutionary biology (or science more broadly speaking) might still be of great relevance for religion in at least two different ways. It can either provide us with new information about human life and its environment that undermines (or supports) existing religious beliefs (project B) or it can perhaps even replace traditional religion and provide us with a new religion or mythology, what is often called ‘scientific naturalism’ (project C). In this chapter project (B) and (C) will be examined. I shall start by considering the merits of the ‘debunking project’. But we cannot completely avoid taking a stand on the ‘replacement project’ in doing this so some conclusions about its merits will already be drawn in the first section, even though the main discussion of the replacement project will come in the subsequent section of this chapter.
