The Religions of Pakistan

Pakistan’s non-Muslim minority subpopulations go completely under the radar because of Pakistan’s puritan pretensions and its pan-Islamist ambitions, but they are not as trivial as one might think. The following graphic was taken from the article ‘Reviving Pakistan’s Pluralist Traditions to Fight Extremism’ by Lisa Curtis, published at the website of The Heritage Foundation (which is an American right-wing outfit, but this particular article is quite good).
 

The Religions of Pakistan (Source: The Heritage Foundation)

 

Punjab and Sindh are clearly the most diverse provinces (and also have the most religiously syncretistic cultures).

Read the full article here. I am also reminded of Ali Eteraz’s article from last year, ‘Protecting Pakistan’s Hindus’.

Born believers: How your brain creates God

Here are the some extracts from the article ‘Born believers: How your brain creates God‘ by Michael Brooks which appeared in New Scientist:

‘The origin of religious belief is something of a mystery, but in recent years scientists have started to make suggestions. One leading idea is that religion is an evolutionary adaptation that makes people more likely to survive and pass their genes onto the next generation. In this view, shared religious belief helped our ancestors form tightly knit groups that cooperated in hunting, foraging and childcare, enabling these groups to outcompete others. In this way, the theory goes, religion was selected for by evolution, and eventually permeated every human society.

The religion-as-an-adaptation theory doesn’t wash with everybody, however. As anthropologist Scott Atran of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor points out, the benefits of holding such unfounded beliefs are questionable, in terms of evolutionary fitness….

An alternative being put forward by Atran and others is that religion emerges as a natural by-product of the way the human mind works.