Autonomous Reason

Anthony Gottlieb persuasively argues the basic irrelevance of evolutionary psychology to the practical understanding of human culture.  Once we became conscious beings blessed (cursed?) with the ability to deliberate about possible courses of action, we were thrown into the realm of the moral, the political, and the aesthetic; that is, we had to take ownership of the cultural script instead of passively acting out a biological one.  This is of course a pragmatic and not a metaphysical sort of freedom, and merely a rephrasing of Sartre's "Existence precedes essence." 

I think that an understanding of our evolutionary origins may have most impact on spiritual life, for evolution offers a perfectly plausible alternative to the creationist narrative.  And the notion that we developed contingently, not necessarily, out of inert matter over billions of years not only supports a sense of kinship with non-human life but also fosters a form of transcendence quite different from that of the human, all-too-human gods that have ever haunted humanity.