For what goal is there for intelligent creatures, but to gather and store all available information? - Stephen Baxter

One might imagine that, in any conflict between rational humans and religious humans, the rational ought to win. After all, it is rationality that invented gunpowder! And yet—at least up to our nineteenth century—the religious tendency has generally won out, and natural selection operated, leaving us with a population of religiously-inclined sheep—it has sometimes seemed to me—capable of being deluded by any smooth-tongued preacher.
The paradox is explained because religion provides a goal for men to fight for. The religious man will soak some bit of “sacred” land with his blood, sacrificing far more than the land’s intrinsic economic or other value.

The main reason to exercise, he thought: It stops your brain working, lets your body remind you you’re still an animal. It was the only respite he got from being himself.

It was a ploy, Jaar. I was trying to manipulate you, to get you to fight, to make you do what I wanted you to do."
"I know that." He smiled. "Of course I know that. But the motives behind your words don't reduce their truth. Don't you see that?