I would say that humans do in fact have a religion instinct. Religion is, by consequence, an assumption that lies beneath intelligent thinking and making intelligent decisions. -D.Z.

Love the way the that some contributors feel free to comment authoritatively on an article or document without having read it.

Yes we have, it is called confirmation bias, we developed many protocols to go around it, we need to study and understand statistics, apply blind ( the test subject don't know if it is on test or control group), double blind (the one administrating the test does not know which is test, which is control also) and even triple blind (the guy that takes care of statistics don't know which group is control of test) tests to go around it.

We have science the last 3 centuries, before that evolution played the role for thousands.
A false negative is dangerous on life/tribe level, a false positive is most cases is just a small waste of energy, so we are hardwired to see patterns even if they are false.

The same way that to be clean and hygienic demands some effort, we need some effort to go around our confirmation bias and see the world in an objectively way.

Understand and never underestimate this mechanism, even a lot of atheists have their small faiths and beliefs that are analogous to a religion.

No!

It is a pure tribalism, the need to belong with the group that they were raise within!

Yes, the great instinct to get rid of religion!

Every infant worships his/her primary care-giver, usually the mother. As the child matures, religious adults often re-direct that worship towards a mythical entity.

No, it's fear to unknown which gets conquered by knowledge little by little

No. Thinking that's true is nothing more than justification for self-delusion.
We are all born not believing.
We don't seek it out.

Nope! Namaste got it right.

Yes they do. This is a very good article—thanks for posting.

I believe they have a social instinct.

I read it and I don't think there is a religion instinct in a human being. What we have are natural weaknesses of the mind such as insecurity and fear of the known and the unkowns.

Here is how:

1. What is Inborn - Insecurity, fear of the known and the unkown. Weaknesses of mind are inborn. Now a few things happen with these weaknesses:
   a. A natural instinct of a human being is to hope for help
   b. A human being is also told from childhood how to think, what to believe, what to fear throughout his life.
   c. Most human beings do not have the courage and capacity to face a difficulty on own. They hope and/ore ask for help
   d. The combination of the above made a perfect recipe to seek help from someone higher, bigger. Often this became the voodoo man, medicine man, a deity, an imaginary God or all of the above
   e. Religion quickly found this weaknesses and launched miracles, stories and fears to command a group of people
2. What is Not Inborn - Reason, logic and knowledge are cultivated and developed skills. Those are not inborn. The beauty of human intelligence is that it can think independently, can analyze, try to understand why so and make use of the knowledge. Reason and logic grew as:
   a. Modern electricity reduced darkness
   b. Science converted more unkowns into knowns that shattered old beliefs
   c. Modern education spread understanding of various topics
   d. People found courage to question old beliefs

There is also an impulse to be a slave, which is related to the impulse to be a child forever (at least in may flavors of religion). Hitchens has pointed this out.

Others of us are born with personalities that reject both of those (often even as children). Maybe this is why most of the founders of the US were deists, rejected the "Divine Right of Kings", and signed their name to the treasonous document that would have ensured their heads were separated from their bodies if they lost their war against their King (parent).

Religion falls under the heading of learned behavior. Curiosity falls under the heading of innate. Therefore, religion is a learned response to the innate curiosity response.

I think humans have an instinct to want to know and what they can't know or understand, they just make up what ever satisfies that want to know.