This sort of thing annoys the crap out of me. Religion is a complex subject. So is atheism. Complex enough, that the idea of being able to model either of th

This sort of thing annoys the crap out of me. Religion is a complex subject. So is atheism. Complex enough, that the idea of being able to model either of them for research purposes (as opposed to game purposes, like in Civ IV), just seems incredibly silly. Incorporate all of the following into your model, and it will still be insufficient: kin altruism, war, banditry, social trust, epistemology, famine, genetic defects, mate selection and sexual strategies, the hedonic treadmill---and then, for each doctrine, incorporate signaling, countersignaling, hypocrisy. Does it sound like I'm holding the model to impossible standards? Hey, I'm not the one who titled the article, "Atheism, a computer model." Or you can just do boring projections from current trends, but who clicks on that?