Guybrush

Actually, I wouldn't be so hasty with concluding that. There's scientific theory which is perfectly able to describe the "evolution" of culture and also religions (showing they do not have to be "designed" to appear), for example meme theory first hypothesized by Richard Dawkins (it's also where the word "meme" comes from).

I can sum it up very roughly and anyways I may not remember the finer parts. In the collective mindscape (the combined minds of mankind) there are lots of thoughts and ideas, memes. These ideas are able to replicate themselves, for example you tell your idea to someone else. These ideas are also able to mutate and change into new ideas. Such ideas are sometimes competing against eachother for minds or people in the mindscape of which there is a limited amount (some billions). One such idea could be "there is a God" while another such idea could be "there is no God". Very few believe in both at the same time, so they are usually in direct opposition.

So which idea has the competitive advantage? At our most basic, ideas which are tied to emotions are labeled as more important in our brains and we have an easier time believing and remembering them. For example ideas that conjure up feelings of love, fear or anger. The reason is simply because that's the way we are wired; if a thought or idea has an emotional tie, it means it is important in our lives. This can be exploited as a strategy. For example, if you want a girl to like you, it may be a good idea to do something exciting or even scary as a first date. The heightened emotions of such experiences may bleed over into your attemps at courting. In addition to that, the competitiveness of a meme is also influenced by the environment which the meme exist in. This environment is part made up of our physical environment, but it's also made up of all the other memes in existence. For example, the idea that there is no God is more likely to gain believers today than it was 1000 years ago. The reason is summed up as a change in environment. The physical environment may not be that different, but the memes in the mindscape are.

So, memes "compete" (though not consciously) for humans, but they may not have to do so on their own. Just like humans are made up of many genes, cultures and religions are made up of many memes. If you have two memes, one which is "there is a God" and the other which is "there is a hell", well. The idea there is a hell probably wouldn't do so well on it's own, but if you pair it up with the God meme, then you could get something like "there is a God and if you don't believe in him, you'll go to hell". This is a collective idea made up of some memes where the emotional punch of the whole is a lot greater than it's individual parts. You now have an idea which plays on fear and which is a lot more competitive as a result. So, as a consequence, memes group together for their common good and become large meme constructs like religions and cultures. You may think the idea that you can go to hell for doing wrong things looks like design, but that's probably not the case. Because it adds to much competitiveness to other religious ideas, it could easily evolve, even though it's message is not exactly a positive one. Basically, it's popularity is mostly just a consequence and was not created and spread by anyone by conscious intention.

Ghost stories, alternative medicine, religion - all these generally owe their success to and are perpetuated because of their ability to play on the emotions of humans, for example through the intensity and speaking in tongues that might go on at a prayer meeting. The scientific ideas competing against them generally don't have this edge. Instead, it has to appeal to reason which is much harder because we're not robots. Scientific ideas have become more popular as the environment changes, but that takes more time.

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