Lord May, the president of the British Science Association, said religion may have helped protect human society from itself in the past and it may be needed again. “A supernatural punisher maybe part of the solution.” He said in the past a belief in a god, or gods, that punish the unrighteous may have been part of the mechanism of evolution that maintains co-operation in a dog-eat-dog world. Having a god as the ultimate punisher was possibly a logical step for a society to take, he added. "Given that punishment is a useful mechanism, how much more effective it would...