“Let's say there's a molecule that produces a religious experience… a natural molecule that the body produces”

— Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)
Context: Let's say there's a molecule that produces a religious experience... a natural molecule that the body produces whose function it is to produce religious experiences, at least on occasion?... So let's call it "theophorin"... What could the selective advantage of theophorin be?... to suit us for the quest that was, according to Dostoyevsky, to strive for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship and obey.

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Carl Sagan 365

American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science ed… 1934–1996

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