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 : [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
