Spore's Executive Producer Lucy Bradshaw had a live chat about the game over on Eurogamer with fans today, and you can check out the whole thing over there now; in the quote ye shall find an excerpt.

Thumbles: Will said this week that atheists have been more vocal critics of Spore than religious gamers, contrary to his expectations. What are your beliefs, and did they influence the decisions you made developing the game?

Lucy Bradshaw: I think that Spore takes an approach that can be interpreted by the player. The religious devleopment of your species as it reaches its civilization stage is one of the choices that you have as a player. The team itself had some strong opinions about this and it is something we discussed at times during development. Our POV was to keep this approach as it is rich for the potential story and narrative but we worked to make open to each player's interpretation.

chautemoc via eurogamer.net »