A new age of Enlightenment [on Mars?]

摘要

Back in 2017, Konrad Szocik noted that religious beliefs remained widespread on 21st-century Earth, and speculated that colonists on Mars might find it useful to create a new Martian religion in order to promote social cohesion and psychological support in such a hostile and isolated environment . His thesis provoked a range of responses in subsequent correspondence to the Editor.In his article Szocik was mainly interested in materialist concepts of religion. He described the two main schools of scientific thought concerning the origin of religious belief: cognitive science, in which religion is a non-functional by-product of the working of the brain, and evolutionary psychology, in which it was actively selected for in prehistoric times as an inherited trait useful for reproductive success.