And then there were five …

… Bryan Appleyard — Grayling: The Fifth Horseman Rides. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

If you do accept at least some version of the adaptive argument – or, indeed, if you are a believer – then the study of religion itself becomes an obligation. Religious faith is not remotely like the belief in fairies, it is a series of stories of immense political, poetic and historical power that is – again, like it or not – deeply embedded in human nature. Seen in that light, to dismiss all religious discourse as immature or meaningless is to embrace ignorance or, more alarmingly, to advocate suppression. It will also make it impossible for you to understand the St Matthew Passion, Chartres Cathedral and the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.