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And now (surprise!) two relevant pieces from The New York Times today:

David Brooks has a piece on "The Age of Darwin," which both resembles-and-doesn't the sorts of stories we've been describing here:

"these days, historians hate..unifying grand narratives, and the idea that history is a march of progress....here isn't even a single seat of authority in the brain. The mind emerges (somehow) from a complex light show of neural firings without a center or executive. We are tools of mental processes we are not even aware of.... [But] in fact a newish grand narrative has crept upon us willy-nilly...today Darwin is everywhere....evolutionary theorists believe they have a universal framework to explain human behavior....the logic of evolution...holds that most everything that exists does so for a purpose...nature will not expend energy on things that don't enhance the chance of survival..."

And Laurie Goodstein reports on the evolution of Hispanic immigrants out of religious practice:

"We pray to God when we feel the need to...but when we come here to America we don't feel the need"...."In El Salvador, people went to the church because there's nothing much else to do"...."Migrating to the U.S. means you have the freedom to create your own identity...when people get here they realize that maintaining that pro forma display of religiosity is not essential to doing well"....church's strict rule were a hard sell...."People like a superficial religion"....