Brin-l Digest, Vol 369, Issue 6

[William T Goodall]

On 25 Feb 2008, at 17:10, Dave Land wrote:

> On Feb 24, 2008, at 8:43 AM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote:
>
>> At 09:48 PM Saturday 2/23/2008, hkhenson wrote:
>>> 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.
>>>
>> So where in this hypothesis do #s 5 through 10 of the Ten
>> Commandments, the Second Great Commandment, and the Golden Rule fit?

They are the bit of the snake-oil salesman's pitch where he promises  
world peace and a cure for baldness if you buy his nostrum. Later he  
gets to the price which in religion includes tithing, genital  
mutilation and wearing funny garments.


>>
>
> Ronn! seems to think that there is some internal logic or  
> rationality to
> the anti-religion rants that periodically hijack otherwise reasonable
> discussions on this list. I am glad for Ronn!'s question, but I'm  
> not at
> all sanguine about his getting any answer that does not involve some
> random act of lunacy by a person religious.
>
> <snark>Because we all know, deep in our hearts, that the only people  
> who
> ever do anything evil in the world do so because religion has addled
> their
> minds.</snark>

That depends if people who are clinically insane actually commit evil  
acts or whether those should be counted as acts of god :-)

Evil or Mad Maru?

-- 
William T Goodall
Mail : wtg at wtgab.demon.co.uk
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit  
atrocities." ~Voltaire.