Comment 106 by Less Entropy

But I get ahead of myself, I haven't managed to persuade you that my hypothesis that we are religious apes is correct.

You have a hypothesis. On the face of it, as others have pointed out, it's full of holes and hard to believe; but then on the face of it, quantum nonlocality is pretty strange and hard to believe. However, nonlocality is borne out by experiment. So, similarly, your idea may appear implausible but experiment and evidence may confirm it. Since you're a scientist, or, at least, a science teacher, you understand how important it is to confirm your hypothesis.

I note that you said in an earlier comment that you were the first (in 1994, on the internet - an odd qualifier!) to say 'that religion gives selective advantage to groups of humans and that that is why we have religion - religion is hard-wired', so it seems unlikely you've neglected the opportunity to confirm your hypothesis for all this time. Atran, Boyer and others have been beavering away on a natural history of religion, as you are no doubt aware, so you must have made your ideas known in similar academic circles? You've had it peer-reviewed to iron out any problems? Enough to turn it into a theory? If so, it would be helpful to link to your papers for us to get a more rounded, less 'holey', picture of your ideas.