…I made on an article by Carl Coon in The Humanist online magazine:

What Has God Done for Me Lately?

“I think the issue I really have is that I don’t agree with many humanists in seeing the human species as all that worthy of admiration. It seems to me that, by pointing to religion as the convenient scapegoat for so many of our problems, we avoid the real confrontation we need to have, and we lose time in the process. What I wish we would confront is the idea that we are by nature extremely tribal, that our tribalism both engenders violence and justifies the violent nature within our DNA, and that the largest proportion of us really are just sheep ready to follow anyone who can help us justify giving in to our baser natures. And, as a corollary, that there are a tiny proportion of human beings born with a leadership gene which, too often, they use to exploit the rest of the species for personal ends.”

I really do wish I could find a serious psychology text that addresses the tribalism inherent in our species, and also something on what I’ve come to call the “leadership gene.”  If anyone out there can direct this amateur to such resources, please do.