Brin-l Digest, Vol 369, Issue 6

[hkhenson]

At 01:00 PM 2/23/2008, William T Goodall wrote:

>Religion has a vested interest in discouraging critical thinking.

I think it's *much* worse than that.

In "Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War" I make a 
case that the psychological trait(s) for religion arose as part of 
the  complex set of traits for wars.  Religions are seed xenophobic 
memes. In times where the population sees a bleak future, they become 
more influential.  Eventually they served to synch up the warriors 
for a do or die attack on neighbors.  Even though the warriors may 
have died, the genes were always better off than starving.

One of the effect of this complex of traits is to shut off rational 
thinking.  It's not rational at the personal level to go out and try 
to kill neighbors, but in some circumstances the interest of a person 
and their genes diverge.

Religions give "reason" to take such chances.

Keith