We’re born to believe in God. That’s how we’re hard wired; the natural default position.

This is the astonishing scientific finding that Justine Barrett, senior researcher at Oxford University’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind, shared with Radio 4’s Today audience this week.

A decade of experiments, he explained, showed that children naturally believe in a supreme being and take for granted that everything in the world is designed and has a purpose. If that’s true – and Mr Barrett has an impeccable pedigree – does not something go sadly awry once our poor kids are gripped by this weird and wonderful world of ours.

Why so few of them in church? Why is Jesus just a swear word to most of them? Why do only a handful know that this month before Christmas is Advent, a time to focus on the expected return of this Supreme Being in kingly form? I wonder if we’d have as many knife-wielding, gun-toting tots if the world taught them the truth that the Supreme Being they started out believing will one day return to be their loving but fair judge.

Just what terrible, ungodly thing does our world do to our kids that an increasing number of them largely behave as though they believe in the devil?

Is Mr Barrett’s throwaway end-line a clue? Children easily believe in God, but “evolution is unnatural for human minds...”

Do we erase God and chalk in his place that only the selfish and violently fittest survive?