"(it is embedded) because of our nature as intelligent social animals who survive by detecting patterns and especially intentions in an environment dominated by their social interactions. Humans appear biased to see intentionality not only in friends, foes, predators, and prey, but also in weather, the heavens, or the universe itself. This bias is perhaps related to the general human tendency (known in psychology as the Fundamental Attribution Error) to incorrectly emphasize intentional explanations over situational or circumstantial ones."

"Earlier writers who have seen anthropomorphism as basic to religion have disagreed about its nature and causes. Most have slighted its secular forms. My own claim is simple. I hold that religion is best understood as anthropomorphism and that anthropomorphism results from a strategy of perception.
The strategy is to interpret the world's ambiguities first as those possibilities that matter most. Such possibilities usually include living things and especially humans. Although the strategy leads to mistakes, it also leads to vital discoveries that outweigh them. We see shadows in alleys as persons and hear sounds as signals because if these interpretations are right they are invaluable, and if not, they are relatively harmless.
The strategy is involuntary, mostly unconscious, and shared by other animals. Understanding it and the anthropomorphism to which it gives rise illuminates secular as well as religious experience."