Is religion maladaptive?

LEVI SAID:

“Your premise is wrong. While true beliefs are generally adaptive and false beliefs are generally maladaptive, this is not a necessary connection.”

My premise wasn’t predicated on a necessary connection. Rather, if, according to the Darwininan, misbeliefs are maladaptive, and if, according to the Darwinian, the majority of human hominids suffer from a misbelief in the supernatural, then natural selection is an unreliable belief-forming mechanism. On this view, misbeliefs are not the exception to the rule. Rather, they are dominant.

“Based on the major suppositions of EP and evolutionary biology generally, it isn't the truth or falsity that evolution cares about…”

I never said evolution “cares” about anything. By definition, naturalistic evolution (which is the thesis under review) is indifferent.

“…it is whether the belief promotes the fitness of the individual who holds that belief.”

The question is whether true beliefs promote survival. Darwinians typically argue that they do.

“Your best bet for criticizing evolutionary approaches to understanding religion would be to emphasize the dearth of empirical work on how religious beliefs promotes the fitness of the individual. And not the direct you're currently taking.”

I don’t have to critique evolutionary psychology by documenting (if possible) that religious beliefs are adaptive.

It’s quite sufficient to note a dilemma in the Darwinian argument against religion. If misbeliefs are generally maladaptive, yet most human primates hold false beliefs about the supernatural, then natural selection is selecting for misbeliefs. And doing so on a massive scale. So how did we survive our maladaptive religious beliefs?