REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Belief and human evolution

POSTED BY: MAL4PREZ
UPDATED: Friday, May 2, 2014 16:42
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Saturday, April 19, 2014 8:15 PM

MAL4PREZ


I've had some new thoughts lately. New to me, not new in general. In fact, I'm quite sure this idea is out there and has been explored in great depth, I just didn't really appreciate it before. And I'm not looking anything up because I prefer to pursue my own thoughts for a while.

BTW, it's still a new idea to me, so pardon the length and ramble-y-ness of this post. I'm not settled enough to explain it concisely.

Another caveat: I will talk about "belief" in the religious sense, but I mean the term to be larger than that. I find that the blinders a deeply religious person puts on regarding evolution are no different than those of, say, a climate change denier or an Obama hater. "Belief" means ignoring hard evidence in favor of an explanation supported only by an emotional need.

Caveat 3: Prevalent is an unfortunate idea that evolution as some kind of ladder to a higher place, so that life now is superior to the life that existed in past epochs. This is not correct. Evolution does not select "superior" traits, only those that fit the environment. A black moth is not better than a white moth. But if trees have dark bark, the black moths will camouflage better and survive. It's all random chance.

OK.

I have long been disgusted by blind belief and held little regard for those who use it to block out observations of reality. ie If God created the world 6000 years ago, he/she/it created it with a whole big bunch of overwhelming evidence that the world is really old and developed in certain very logical and explainable but non-Biblical ways. Why would God create all this evidence and gift us with the power of observation and logic, unless he/she/it wanted us to figure out that the world had a different history than the Bible suggests?

Try using that logic with a young earth-er and watch their head explode. They just can't go there.

But here's where I'm reconsidering my disgust with Blind Belief: being self-aware is a bitch. Cats are not self-aware like we are. My kitties get some food, get their ears scratched, get a warm place to curl up, and they are all good. They don't sit around pondering the meaning of life and nature and death and the horror they just visited on that bird they caught and does that make them bad creatures who shouldn't exist in a moral world?

There had to have been a time when humans began asking this question, and began debating our place in the 'verse. We were able to ask and ponder, but we had no means to understand this very frightening natural system that we live in.

My point is simple: religion was necessary to our survival.

I am lucky to live in a time when I can understand and love the natural world for what it is, and not be frightened of it and of my inevitable death and the long-term meaninglessness of my own life. Let's face it: even really tight families tend to forget the personal details of the lives of the great grandparents. No matter what you do, unless you're on the level of Hitler or Mother Teresa, you as a human being will be forgotten within 100 years.

For me, this frightening reality is filled by my understanding of nature. The natural world is so fascinating that it's enough for me to have some number of decades to be part of it. I don't have to be part of some ever-lasting here-after in order to be satisfied with my existence.

For countless other humans, especially in the way-back past when they had no means to quantify nature, they had no such comfort. They had to invent an uber-human deity so they could vicariously control nature to feel safe, and create an afterlife so they could have immortality and meaning.

I propose that any species that achieves self-awareness without taking such a step will struggle to survive. Survival for the self-aware is not just about being able to beat a predator. It's about being able to overcome our own psyche. Our psyche is not a trivial thing!

I think, I hope, that we are able to make a new step now. We don't need claws and sharp teeth anymore because we have tools and houses and such. And maybe soon we won't need religion to survive because we have... I don't know the right word for it. Science, certainly. Logic. Reason. Humility. Respect for the universe we live in which is born of **understanding** it, not just trying to be better than it.

I don't mean that this is to be some "upward" step of evolution. It's not about superiority. It's about what makes us survive. We have reached the technological point of being able to destroy ourselves. Our reliance on Blind Beliefs has to also shift, or we're done for.

As I said - new thought for me, though the basic tenets have been in my brain for a while. Please add/expand as you like.

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Saturday, April 19, 2014 8:41 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Very very interesting post. I'll ponder it at length.

Thank you.



To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. - Thomas Paine The American Crisis
OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.
"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."

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Saturday, April 19, 2014 9:05 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Pretty much what I've believed about religion for a long time now. I'm just without the hope that enough of "us" have grown beyond it or have the desire/ability/whatever TO grow beyond it to allow us to evolve further as a species...at least in time.


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Saturday, April 19, 2014 10:52 PM

OONJERAH



Religion: "OK, Tribal members. The Great One wants us all to do
things according to His will, otherwise, we're toast. And I am the
spokesman for the Great One. Listen to MY words as you kneel
to Him!"
That message has been successful thruout written history; it
appeals to many people. Don't expect that to change soon.
.....

The Last Castle is a science fiction novella by Jack Vance.
It won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1967 and the Nebula
Award for Best Novella in 1966.

"One day one of those races, the Meks, revolt and start destroying
the castles until only Castle Hagedorn is left. Most of the nobles
try to ignore the revolt of the Meks, preferring to die instead of
fighting. One of them, Xanten of Hagedorn castle, decides to fight
the Meks and searches for allies inside as well as outside the castle."

To me, this story speaks of flexibility of self-image, reason, and will.
Which the majority lack. Just born that way; true to their training.

My reality: About 15% of humans can & do reason pretty well with
training. Indeed, they are Thinkers to begin with. And 3-5% of
humans reason extremely well even without training: the Geniuses,
inventors. Born that way.

The remaining 80% are doomed to blind belief. Period.

That's my studied assessment of our race.

Some of the 3-5% geniuses have their gift in the area of leadership-
power-manipulation. A few of them are running the world now I suspect.
.....

Most of the things we do on a daily basis to survive and live well are
learned-trained, can be done very well. We can make the effort to
learn a thing until it becomes reflexive. But not everything can be
learned by everyone.

Example: Try to reason sometime with someone who already knows
everything, but what they know just ain't so.

Signym in "What's your Political Compass?"
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to look at motivation is to
figure out what it will take... if anything... to keep the crime from
being repeated. A crazy person needs meds, a brain-damaged person might
need meds and therapy, a PTSD person (which prolly describes many of
our inner city residents) need something else, and a person who has been
programmed to be hate-filled needs deprogramming.



Most people take some damage to the psyche while growing up. Others
take a truly incredible amount of damage. Even if they reach the point
of saying, "I can & will change into a person I can respect, my true self"
... Long is the way and hard that up from Degradation leads to Self-
determination.

Each person is unique, and we cannot know what they are capable of.
I cannot judge those who were not Gifted.
.....

Having watched this serial movie (Life on Earth) for a good while, my
intellect says, "We are doomed!"
OtOH:

Kitta: "I was never afraid before, because I always expected to win."
Sallow: "Then win."
Kitta: "Win?"
Sallow: "Win."

~The Blood Of Heroes.




... oooOO}{OOooo ...

I've given up looking for the meaning of life. Now all I want is a cookie.

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Saturday, April 19, 2014 10:53 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Quote:

My point is simple: religion was necessary to our survival.



Certainly needed for civilization.

I believe much of why libertarianism ( and skepticism ) doesn't get more followers is because it unveils the hard, cold truth.

You have to rely on yourself to achieve your goals.

Obama was elected because of hope and change. An utter, total and complete lie!

Per 'evolution'...

Fossils don't lie


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Saturday, April 19, 2014 11:00 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"You have to rely on yourself to achieve your goals."

And that's why capitalists get wealthy on the labor of others? Really?

Your beliefs are full of holes and self-contradictions. And btw, they are beliefs b/c you can't discuss them with any level of evidence.



To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. - Thomas Paine The American Crisis
OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.
"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."

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Saturday, April 19, 2014 11:08 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"You have to rely on yourself to achieve your goals."

And that's why capitalists get wealthy on the labor of others? Really?

Your beliefs are full of holes and self-contradictions. And btw, they are beliefs b/c you can't discuss them with any level of evidence.



Full of holes ? The greatness of the USA completely and totally destroys your cynicism.

As for human evolution... LUCY says "hi!".

IMO, evolution, INCLUDING HUMANS, is far from a "belief".

It's a FACT.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Saturday, April 19, 2014 11:23 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"The greatness of the USA completely and totally destroys your cynicism."

Yes, b/c the US has the highest per capita GDP, highest standard of living, most educated populace, longest lifespans, happiest people, cleanest environment, most open government ... or not. See what I mean by evidence?

You seem to think that assertions are facts, and snark is evidence. The rest of us see right through your pathetic pretenses.



To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. - Thomas Paine The American Crisis
OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.
"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."

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Saturday, April 19, 2014 11:27 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


divergence here...

Yes, everyone wants to come here... why?

As for human evolution... stick to the gorram topic. Piece of go-se.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Saturday, April 19, 2014 11:34 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.





To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. - Thomas Paine The American Crisis
OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.
"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."

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Saturday, April 19, 2014 11:36 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"And I'm not looking anything up because I prefer to pursue my own thoughts for a while."

I'd like to see what you eventually conclude. That would be interesting.

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 1:56 AM

MAL4PREZ


I think people are missing the basis of the lightbulb that went on for me recently.

Quote:

Originally posted by Oonjerah:
Religion: "OK, Tribal members. The Great One wants us all to do
things according to His will, otherwise, we're toast. And I am the
spokesman for the Great One. Listen to MY words as you kneel
to Him!"
That message has been successful thruout written history; it
appeals to many people. Don't expect that to change soon.
.....



The point is: I'm beginning to understand why I shouldn't expect it. If the human brain wasn't so easily seduced by such a speech by The Man In Charge, perhaps we wouldn't have survived. Hey now, I'm a godless heathen feminist chick who hates the patriarchy as much as anyone, but think about it - Neanderthal man/woman looks at the stars and realizes he/she is a separate entity from that inexplicable universe and wtf are all those stars and why is there lightening and these bright meteors and the way the earth shakes and the wind blows and then there are these cute little creatures that I kind of like but when I'm hungry I kill them and eat their flesh...

I'm saying: without the band-aid of religion to get the collective Us over that extremely large bump of becoming self-aware, could we be here?

Damn, I really wish I had a time machine because I want to understand how the self-awareness happened. Can you imagine? I can't. Did it start in one place? Was there a fight against it? How long did it take to happen?

Perhaps other species have approached self-awareness with the attitude of: "Fuck it this sucks I can't handle it I'm out!" We'll never know. All we see is what survives, and the only species we know that made this step did it by going bat shit religious for thousands of years.

The Ancient Greeks had a good thing going, and I have always felt some bitterness that their brilliance was crushed by the Big Church. Their science lived on in the Middle East while Europe dug itself into the Dark Ages and simmered there until the enlightenment.

But really, the Greeks sucked at physics and weren't so good at equal rights either. They were not kind to women, to foreigners, to the poor. They talked lofty philosophy while maintaining a culture of slavery. They didn't take the step. Perhaps the Dark Ages happened because the Greeks didn't get to that level of LOGIC that would allow the human race to let go of religion.

BTW, I will have no Rappy takeovers of any thread I start. The Rap is a troll. Ignore him, or go after him in some other thread, please. Not here.



*-------------------------------------------------*
What trolls reveal about themselves when they troll:
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57532
*-------------------------------------------------*



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Sunday, April 20, 2014 2:06 AM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by Brenda:
I think there are different levels of awareness in all species on this planet. Primates can be taught human sign language and humans can learn in the wild to understand other primates.

So all species of life on this planet are aware.


Not in the same way. I think my cat example is clear: have you ever watched a cat toy with it's prey? My cats are well fed and cared for, and I know them to be loving, cuddly, somewhat aware, emotional beings. But when they get a mouse or a bird or whatever in their power, they will be absolute horrors to it.

Isn't that the advancement of humanity - the ability to empathize, to choose not to put another being into such a state? Why do we choose not to do such things?

1. Because the Bible says it's wrong
2. Because I am horrified by seeing another creature suffer because I see that it is a living being like me. I have empathy. The pain this creature feels is painful to me too.

Clearly I am all about the second option, but I wonder if we could have reached our present state without the first option.

Also, an extension on my last post, I think the human race is not ready to fully embrace the second option because we are not all fully empathetic. Our race still needs blind worship to make the collective us behave.

We may be like the ancient Greeks. We may need another Dark Age before we are ready to move on. Sad.




*-------------------------------------------------*
What trolls reveal about themselves when they troll:
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57532
*-------------------------------------------------*



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Sunday, April 20, 2014 9:12 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:

BTW, I will have no Rappy takeovers of any thread I start. The Rap is a troll. Ignore him, or go after him in some other thread, please. Not here.




Uncalled for and totally unnecessary.

Funny, you speak of fear of the masses falling for 'The Man in Charge', yet when anyone shows an iota of individual thought, or not falling in line, you brand them a troll.


Not cool.

What I thought IS cool is this...

Photographer Robert Clark was recognized by the National Press Photographers Association for his work documenting the story of evolution for National Geographic. In an interview with NBC's Ann Curry for the original web series Depth of Field, Clark reviews his most iconic images.

Published April 8th 2014, 5:13 pm

http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/ann-curry-reports/was-darwin-wrong-photog
rapher-describes-evolutionary-journey-220258883794

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 10:08 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Our race still needs blind worship to make the collective us behave.

It is your choice: Theism is explained by “We the Robots” or by a more abstract explanation at
www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/02/24/post-debate-reflections/
www.chrisharding.net/wetherobots/intro.php




The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 10:49 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"I'm saying: without the band-aid of religion to get the collective Us over that extremely large bump of becoming self-aware, could we be here?"

Chimps, dolphins and elephants appear to be self aware, at least as far as being able to recognize themselves in a mirror. We don't know what goes on inside them though. And we don't know if they have language, though for dolphins it appears they might have one that at least allows them to closely coordinate movements.


To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. - Thomas Paine The American Crisis
OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.
"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 11:04 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



More than once, I've had super Christians, aka Bible Thumpers, Young Earth Creationist types, tell me that , were it not for their belief in God™, they'd be free to do just about anything. Steal, rape, murder... pretty much as they saw fit.

When I'd tell them that I can choose NOT to do any of those things, with no belief, they didn't have any reply. Just 'god is great' or claim that I really was a believer, I just am denying god, or some such go-se.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 11:21 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


MAL4
Quote:

For me, this frightening reality is filled by my understanding of nature. The natural world is so fascinating that it's enough for me to have some number of decades to be part of it. I don't have to be part of some ever-lasting here-after in order to be satisfied with my existence.

For countless other humans, especially in the way-back past when they had no means to quantify nature, they had no such comfort. They had to invent an uber-human deity so they could vicariously control nature to feel safe, and create an afterlife so they could have immortality and meaning.

I propose that any species that achieves self-awareness without taking such a step will struggle to survive. Survival for the self-aware is not just about being able to beat a predator. It's about being able to overcome our own psyche. Our psyche is not a trivial thing!


I'm sometimes too mechanistic to understand things, so maybe that's the source of my problem.

I get that self-awareness is the source of the capacity to believe, but I don't see how that translates to survival.

Thought experiment: if we humans were self-aware, but DIDN'T develop a religious belief, what would we wind up doing (or not doing) that would negatively impact our survival? Would that cause us to realize our helplessness in the grand scheme of things, the futility of action in the face of inescapable death, and sit around in existential despair, not shuffling out of the cave often enough to find food? In other words, is it an antidepressant of sorts? A motivating factor?

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 11:31 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"I get that self-awareness is the source of the capacity to believe ..." I'm still stuck here FWIW.

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 11:45 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Oh, yanno, a very smart person told me, many years ago, that animals are capable of abstraction. They have to be in order to comprehend a familiar object in a new context. They understand "water" whether it's in a puddle, toilet, stream, or lake.

Animals which are self-aware, maybe they're abstracting themselves. They are aware that "they" exist, even in different contexts... as a group, in a mirror etc.

So possibly humans are able to abstract even more things: lightning. Possibly even things that don't exist: god.

But, thinking out loud here...

Maybe it's related to language. When we teach language to an animal with the capacity to learn (parrots, gorillas) are they able to retain complex abstractions? I've heard of a parrot that could properly identify materials, colors, shapes, and numbers. (How many yellow square blocks? How many wooden ones?) And of course, there is (was?) Koko, the gorilla that learned sign language. I don't know whether she ever learned complex abstractions.

Anyway, won't be able to get back to this for about a week. Sorry.

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 12:17 PM

BYTEMITE


Science says: if you want to understand some aspect of this world, look for it happening currently, and look for evidence that it happened in the past. Because all nature follows natural laws, it follows that no occurrence is a one time thing.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/03/123129-dogs-are-even-more-adorable-whe
n-theyre-being-freaked-out-by-a-magic-trick
/

How any animal (human or not) reacts to or rationalizes experiences and certain instinctive/learned fears or phobias depends entirely upon the individual and their background.

Animals engage in magical thinking and have a small degree of self-awareness and sense of mortality... Just as very young children do. If you want to know how our specific kind of awareness develops and evolves, and how it developed and evolved from ancestral species, watch the progression of young children to maturity.


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Sunday, April 20, 2014 12:49 PM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

Thought experiment: if we humans were self-aware, but DIDN'T develop a religious belief, what would we wind up doing (or not doing) that would negatively impact our survival? Would that cause us to realize our helplessness in the grand scheme of things, the futility of action in the face of inescapable death, and sit around in existential despair, not shuffling out of the cave often enough to find food?


Not necessarily. Current non-believers who are depressed are still compelled to seek out means of survival.

Quote:

In other words, is it an antidepressant of sorts? A motivating factor?


It is for some people, though in terms of human development, I would say on an individual level it likely developed as a means of rationalizing phenomena with limited available data. And remains so today, despite scientific progress that is concerned entirely with gathering data, there are some things that we still don't have enough data about to satisfy our thirst for answers.

On a social level, as distinct groupings of peoples turned into tribes and cultures, it then became a means of centralized control of classes of people over other classes of people. Storytellers were probably originally the wise and elderly, but at various times the storytellers realized that if they were particularly persuasive and appealed to people on a psychological level, they could gain followers and benefit themselves.

The comic two posted is probably pretty accurate, although lacking detail in exchange or the laughs. It's been postulated that the religious obsession with procreation and the Abrahamic religion view of it being evil likely was due to resource constraints on the original desert dwelling groups that had to learn to moderate their reproduction for the group's survival. Unfortunately that then introduced control over and oppression towards women that quickly evolved beyond any constraints that were originally also placed on the men. Other religious that arose from different cultures are not always so fastidious.

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 3:05 PM

OONJERAH


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

More than once, I've had super Christians, aka Bible Thumpers, Young Earth Creationist types, tell me that , were it not for their belief in God™, they'd be free to do just about anything. Steal, rape, murder... pretty much as they saw fit.

When I'd tell them that I can choose NOT to do any of those things, with no belief, they didn't have any reply. Just 'god is great' or claim that I really was a believer, I just am denying god, or some such go-se.


^^ Yep. ... And it was just as true in my hunter-gatherer lifetimes.

"Primitive" people were not/are not fools.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 4:02 PM

OONJERAH



Movies I saw a long time ago depicting Primitive people:

The Gods Must Be Crazy 1980 Great!

Walkabout 1971. Good!

Quest for Fire 1981. It sucks. Intended as comedy?



... oooOO}{OOooo ...

I've given up looking for the meaning of life. Now all I want is a cookie.

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 6:27 PM

MAL4PREZ


Second - that cartoon pretty much sums up what I've always thought about religion. No matter its root, people misuse it.

Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"I'm saying: without the band-aid of religion to get the collective Us over that extremely large bump of becoming self-aware, could we be here?"

Chimps, dolphins and elephants appear to be self aware, at least as far as being able to recognize themselves in a mirror. We don't know what goes on inside them though. And we don't know if they have language, though for dolphins it appears they might have one that at least allows them to closely coordinate movements.



I think it's a different kind of self-aware. Cats don't worry about the meaning of their existence. Don't get me wrong, I totally love the critters and I know they have personalities and emotions, but we are in a different place than them.

Sig's thought experiment is really where I mean to take this. Part of it is that religion was a form of anti-depressant for early humans, yes, but maybe it's more than that. Maybe religion and the development of "higher intelligence" go hand and hand. Yeah, a large part of this conversation would be in defining wth "higher" means.

Perhaps this: proto-human has to hunt and fight with the beasts to survive. Proto-human starts imagining a human-like deity who stands above and beyond nature, controlling it. PH can now imagine himself standing above nature and controlling it. He takes steps that other species have tried -- using tools, building houses, wearing clothing, cultivating planets -- but really goes all out.

The traits I've heard assigned to "intelligent" beings seem to go along with all that. It's not random chance that the traits we give to the Gods we invent are the traits which we think make us superior to other animals. (I know, the "superior" part is debatable, I'm going with the stereotypical ideas here) So maybe inventing God was part of the process of becoming advanced. He/she/it was our model to live up to.


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Sunday, April 20, 2014 7:26 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"Maybe religion and the development of "higher intelligence" go hand and hand."

Or perhaps religion and the development of symbolic language. If I have seen red flowers and a brown dress, my language allows me to contemplate a red dress, a thing which I have never seen.

I've been thinking about Byte's proposal that to trace the development of consciousness (she argues language) in humans, one should trace it in individuals. To see if language and consciousness go hand in hand, it would be nice to test consciousness in people both with and without language. Children don't remember. And feral children - those without language - can't describe to us the world they live in and the thoughts they think. Perhaps the role of language in consciousness could be gotten from people who've had strokes and lost language, then regained it.


To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. - Thomas Paine The American Crisis
OONJERAH - We are too dumb to live and smart enough to wipe ourselves out.
"You, who live in any kind of comfort or convenience, do not know how these people can survive these things, do you? They will endure because there is no immediate escape from endurance. Some will die, the rest must live."

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Sunday, April 20, 2014 10:08 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Well, OK. I thought this was going to take significant cogitating - and for now I'm stumped. I can neither grasp Mal4's insight nor approach the topic using the mental tools I have at hand. (biology) Sigh.

I hope everyone has a productive discussion. I'll just have to watch and try to learn.

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Monday, April 21, 2014 12:55 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
maybe inventing God was part of the process of becoming advanced. He/she/it was our model to live up to.

Flood? Pillars of salt?

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Monday, April 21, 2014 3:03 AM

OONJERAH



"Primitive people needed religion"?

Slowly the premise sinks in. Do I agree with it? My gut says, No.
Primitive people had a lot going for them; & their life-style, ex-
perience, reality, expectation was Sooo different from us now,
we can't go there ... we cannot fathom their minds or inventory
their emotional needs.

What are the essential benefits of religion? Like government, it
can be either unifying or divisive in a community. In our modern
Judeo-Christian religion, we get: God cares about Me personally;
& I get everlasting life: I have an immortal soul. Did primitive man
have the additional benefit of God will always take care of us?
We are His chosen ones? Seems likely.

How about this?
Now we understand the Universe well; our understanding & techno-
logy give us self-reliance. But primitive man could not understand the
Universe, so he needed reassurance? No again. My sense is: I respect
primitive people & see them as pragmatic; I don't feel superior to
them. More like: Civilization stands on their strong shoulders.

One thing I got from doing a bit of genealogy: Revised Expectations.
Before the 20th century, people didn't assume they would live long.
Death was closer then. They knew they could live to be 90 if they
managed to avoid famine, disease & a crippling accident. But they
didn't take their luck in that for granted.

Perhaps Cave-Men had more in common with my great-great grand-
parents than I do.


... oooOO}{OOooo ...

I've given up looking for the meaning of life. Now all I want is a cookie.

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Monday, April 21, 2014 9:02 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by Oonjerah:

"Primitive people needed religion"?

Primitive leaders needed God's cooperation to take charge. Because of scheduling conflicts, God was always too busy to publicly and visibly transfer authority so, on one occasion, He allowed Moses to use a simple idea, the easily understood concept of God, to give himself authority over Israel. Here he is about to pass along God's Ten Commandments: “Moses summoned all Israel and said: Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them.” - www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%205&version=NIV

And Moses said that God handed Moses even more authority over Israel than just today's list of Ten Commandments because when you talk to Moses, you're talking directly to God, too:
Quote:

The Lord heard you when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. 29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever! 30 “Go, tell them to return to their tents. 31 But you stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands, decrees and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess.”
For the rest of Moses's life, every word from Moses's mouth is backed by the authority of God. Take Moses's word for it . . . There never are witnesses except some wannabe Moses to God's voice speaking from the burning bush. Billions of bushes and billions of people to witness, yet it has never been repeated in thousands of years.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, April 21, 2014 9:59 AM

BYTEMITE


Oonj: I know I promised not to talk to you, but I'm having a hard time finding any place where anyone in this conversation said that primitive peoples were fools...

Or even anyone saying that believers are now.

Actually I have a strong suspicion that psychologically people haven't changed for a very long time. Neither science nor religion are really new concepts, even if there has been some modernization. And a vast majority of people now and any time in the past seem to just be going through the motions, too busy with their own problems and lives to think about big questions. Even the very religious don't ponder the bible every second of the day. Even physicists aren't always thinking about the Unified Field Theory.

We hear history from the point of view of kings and priests and the idle rich - the illiterate peasant couldn't even afford to buy a plot in the church graveyard, let alone buying a place into heaven and forgiveness for sin. I suspect that unless their feet were being held over a fire or unless they were trying to impress someone, most people really didn't care. They had children out of wedlock and cohabited while they were unmarried and left babes they couldn't support for the wolves. They swore and made false oaths and used holy names in vain. They'd never been touched by god or felt a holy presence, never encountered a prophet or holy relic, never saw a witch or a ghost or believed they were cursed or blessed.

I think people who try to ask "how are we different" are asking the wrong question, it should be "how are we the same?"

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Monday, April 21, 2014 9:00 PM

OONJERAH



Jocks vs Writers
Workers vs Inventors
Conformity vs Individuality . . .
Man the Thinker? . . . no. Not most of them.

Too lazy to do an essay on this, but my previous post now seems
off to me. I want to retrack or modify my "noble savage" offering.
He was a cro-magnon, just about like us, conditioned by a different
environment, and alert to a lot of dangers that we no longer face.
In general, his life was simpler than ours. I see him as our equal.

Conformity is instinctive: "I want to go out and play with Johnny
& the gang." "I want to go out and hunt with John & the other men."

But wait ... I am focused now on the "Green Monkey" conflict -- the
principle that oddball thinkers tend to get offed by the norms; and
the surviving thinkers, if they have no support group, will keep a
low profile. That clearly is the less frequent conflict among us.

The Law exists mainly to keep Order. Thinkers rarely cause disorder.
Outlaws do. My essay (that I'm not writing) would have to address
both problems.

So ... does Civil Law exist to control Outlaws, while "God's Law" is
contrived to control Free thinkers? Maybe so. Maybe primitive people
needed religion to survive in the presence of those who "think too
much" and babble on about (incomprehensible) ideas and possibilities.

"Shut Up, Newton!! Go back to your tent; work on the improved bow
& arrow, and leave me Alone!"


... oooOO}{OOooo ...

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Tuesday, April 22, 2014 1:34 PM

DEVERSE

Hey, Ive been in a firefight before! Well, I was in a fire. Actually, I was fired from a fry-cook opportunity.


There are a number of different theories on how religion evolved as humans did. I only specifically disagree with the theory that humans are “hardwired” to have some form of religious belief.

Simply as I see it (and in general agreement with G’s point);
Humans developed a larger and more complex brain as they evolved. The two important points of evolution are humans became aware of self and of cause and effect.
Cause and effect enabled the vision of taking separate unrelated items and joining them together to make something useful - tools.
Self awareness led to understanding that others existed and that while all were generally the same, they were different - opinions, thoughts, feelings – an emotion evolution.

As humans evolved they moved from survival based to social based. A tribe became larger in number than family and “rules” for social behaviour became necessary to allow a larger group to function. Not everyone could be a hunter, gather water, plant crops or whatever, so division of labour became necessary. In order to function effectively, social systems developed.
With a social system in place and survival not being a 24 hour function, leisure permitted humans to question and ponder events and life around them. Where did the sun go at night, why do the crops grow and when we die where do we go? It also led to the two great questions of life, why am I here and what is my purpose?
Without a way to formulate an answer by scientific means, events were related to what could be observed. I put my tools away at the end of the day, so someone must be putting the sun (their tool) away as well. Thus story and myth evolved.

A bit further on in time and we see some individuals whose purpose is to protect and hold the history and mythology of the tribe. Obviously, they became someone of importance and are listened to and who others go to for advice, including the designated leader of the tribe or social group.
Not hard to see how eventually individuals and those they say are involved in events (the guy who puts the sun away at the end of the day) need to be appeased by some manner of ritual in order to have the events (crops grow, water flows and the sun comes up) continue and be beneficial.

As G pointed out, this didn’t happen in a week to ten days, but over thousands of years.

Anyway, just a theory.
However, I do find the term “blind belief” to be highly amusing, particularly with it being attributed only to the theist. All belief is “blind” because what cannot be proved nor disproved by knowledge and fact, requires faith in the belief.
Which, to me, sort of demonstrates neither group is specifically intelligent nor overly evolved as they are unable to figure it out, nor answer the “great questions” (why am I here and what is my purpose) and thus spend time and effort in argument of a trivial point rather than just enjoying life.



Oh let the sun beat down upon my face;
With stars to fill my dream;
I am a traveler of both time and space;
To be where I have been

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Tuesday, April 22, 2014 2:18 PM

MAL4PREZ



Many interesting updates here that I mean to address, probably not until tomorrow when I'm on a plane for several hours.

A few that caught my eye: saying that religion/spiritualism is just story-telling and had nothing to do with our evolution and state of being is an under appreciation of the power of imagination. The idea I'm putting out there is that without this imagination we would not be what we are today, and our spiritual side - whether it be wood nymphs or an old man in robes - is central to our imagination.

The more recent posts seem a risk of turning this into a theist/atheist who-is-better contest, which is as far as possible from my intent. I tried to be clear about that. However...

Quote:

Originally posted by DEVERSE:
However, I do find the term “blind belief” to be highly amusing, particularly with it being attributed only to the theist. All belief is “blind” because what cannot be proved nor disproved by knowledge and fact, requires faith in the belief.

Yeah, which is why I specifically gave the caveat that though my OP may focus on religion, my intent was to address all kinds of "Blind Belief." It most certainly is not solely a trait of theists.

However, it does indeed go hand in hand with theism. Blind faith, belief in that which can't be proved. Religion is exactly blind belief.

Quote:

Which, to me, sort of demonstrates neither group is specifically intelligent nor overly evolved as they are unable to figure it out, nor answer the “great questions” (why am I here and what is my purpose) and thus spend time and effort in argument of a trivial point rather than just enjoying life.


So much to reply to in this paragraph!

"Great questions..." the ones you pose are on the religious/spiritual side. I mean to ask "How am I here" and "How did the world become the way it is?" Science and religion are good at answering some questions, not good at others. The problem comes when they overreach their bounds. Shoot, could add more here, but out of time.

If, by "groups", you mean theists versus atheists, I argue that the scientific process has led to far more useful *stuff* (ie medicine, buildings, transportation, TVs, phones, etc) than religions, but this may not be more "intelligent." The end products of science may well destroy the human race. Goes to show: there is no absolute definition of intelligence. It varies.

As for arguing over what you call a trivial point, if you're taking about the questions I posed here: if this issue is not part of you enjoying your life, then by all means don't waste your time and effort! For me, however, I quite enjoy asking and pondering these questions. I will proceed. When I have time. :)




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Wednesday, April 23, 2014 3:25 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by Brenda:
Quote:

Originally posted by G:
Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:

Many interesting updates here that I mean to address, probably not until tomorrow when I'm on a plane for several hours.

A few that caught my eye: saying that religion/spiritualism is just story-telling and had nothing to do with our evolution and state of being is an under appreciation of the power of imagination. The idea I'm putting out there is that without this imagination we would not be what we are today, and our spiritual side - whether it be wood nymphs or an old man in robes - is central to our imagination.




I think you are missing the point. Story Telling isn't "just story telling." It isn't the stories you tell children to put them to bed. Look at the bible, think of North American Indians, any early Man - their spirituality is communicated with stories. Most early education at the time of the bible was anecdotal, it was solving problems with examples, with stories, with imagination. You have this problem with your neighbor, here's how someone else solved a similar problem via a story. It is Imagination and through the telling and retelling of stories grew questions and from that, Spirituality. Seems to me that that's at the core of Spirituality: a system that tries to answer the impossible questions.

This statement is in fact the opposite of what I'm saying: "A few that caught my eye: saying that religion/spiritualism is just story-telling and had nothing to do with our evolution and state of being is an under appreciation of the power of imagination." Story Telling is imagination, it is what fires our imagination, it's how we answered and communicated many of our greatest ideas, like; what are all of those lights in the sky and how did they get there?



You have a point G. Also those stories that my ancestors told also is how they passed on knowledge of the tribe and how messages and news was passed from one group to another. It's how they built networks for working together. A large hard of food animals was seen a runner was sent to the next group over to let them know. Maybe asking if they wanted to join on the hunt. Story telling at its basic is a form of communication.



I think we're having some imperfect communication, likely due to how quick I oerused the thread yesterday and how slow my damned connection is now in the airport. I thought that earlier posts were poo-pooing storytelling, and my whole argument is that storytelling in IMPORTANT. I'm not sure how my posts could be interpreted any other way!

Yet I saw an earlier post saying that storytelling is just getting uppity kids to shut up and go to sleep. My mistake, is I read that wrong. But do you see that my posts are upping the importance of narrative on the formation of the modern human way of thing, ie "intelligence"? Right? You do get that from the sentence you quoted? I was specifically saying that storytelling is important!

I really think we're saying the same thing, but I won't know for sure until I have a real computer and real connection, which might not happen on this trip. All I have is an iPad and a beach waiting for me at the other end of this flight....

Happy mal4prez. :)

Apologies for typos...


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Wednesday, April 23, 2014 3:52 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by Oonjerah:

"Primitive people needed religion"?

Slowly the premise sinks in. Do I agree with it? My gut says, No.
Primitive people had a lot going for them; & their life-style, ex-
perience, reality, expectation was Sooo different from us now,
we can't go there ... we cannot fathom their minds or inventory
their emotional needs.



Not just religion, but spiritualism, the idea that there is more to the world than what you see, and that human life can do more and mean more than just living long enough to procreate.

I think there's a lot to the fact that every people, even those living far apart, developed such sort of spiritualism/religion. The only way we'd really know if this is "thing" would be if we became a Star Trek society, visiting countless developing societies and noting whether disparate races share the trait of spiritualism.

Also very interesting would be whether the rote religious thing, the blind belief and abuse of it to make people "behave" so that power could concentrate with the few in charge, was just a temporary stage. That's what I hope it will be with us.


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Wednesday, April 23, 2014 6:39 PM

OONJERAH


Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Not just religion, but spiritualism, the idea that there is more to the world than what you see, and that human life can do more and mean more than just living long enough to procreate.

I think there's a lot to the fact that every people, even those living far apart, developed such sort of spiritualism/religion. The only way we'd really know if this is "thing" would be if we became a Star Trek society, visiting countless developing societies and noting whether disparate races share the trait of spiritualism.

Also very interesting would be whether the rote religious thing, the blind belief and abuse of it to make people "behave" so that power could concentrate with the few in charge, was just a temporary stage. That's what I hope it will be with us.



OK. I'm not up to posting coherently yet today ... hmmm.

But you just hit on one of my hang-ups where our words-concepts
aren't in tune.

To me, "spiritualism/religion" doesn't grok. They're not the same.

Spiritualism was always there: earth-sky-water-creatures, all
had spirits, divas. We had shamen to communicate with those &
help us live well with them - following their lead was voluntary.
Then along comes some heavy-handed religion to say the sha-
men are wrong & evil, you have to do it our way or be damned.
Shackle your minds to your betters. "Don't you dare think for
yourself!"

But aside from that, I've been trying to express that, if most
people lacked their own connection with Nature but had only
their intellect, would they not still be self-reliant & face life
head-on?



... oooOO}{OOooo ...

I've given up looking for the meaning of life. Now all I want is a cookie.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2014 7:20 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by G:
My apologies - forums are great, forums suck - I can see that interpretation now, glad to read it that way. It felt funny you being dismissive of such a thing, next time I'll ask first.



Lol! No. I figured that was happening, because I agreed with all you were saying!


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Wednesday, April 23, 2014 7:35 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by Oonjerah:
OK. I'm not up to posting coherently yet today ... hmmm.

But you just hit on one of my hang-ups where our words-concepts
aren't in tune.

To me, "spiritualism/religion" doesn't grok. They're not the same.


No, you're right that the aren't the same. But they do have similarities when compared to other kinds of thought. They both involve believing in something Other without required direct reliably repeatable observation. You and I might entry a forest and feel the presence of entirely different spirits, so to speak, and that's ok. But a theory of gravity is no good until it can be confirmed by experiments by anyone anywhere.

I do understand your feeling of *ick* when I mix those terms, as spiritualism seems a personal and freeing thing while organized religion seems more of an abuse of might originally have been spiritual.

What I am thinking about, and the reason I group the terms, is the development of Belief before there was today's culty religions. I'm talking what the process must have been when humans weren't really human, when they weren't aware of earth-sky-water creatures. I wonder if the ability to imagine these things was part of developing the kind of thinking that makes me different from the complex but clearly quote different creature that is my cat.

Quote:


But aside from that, I've been trying to express that, if most
people lacked their own connection with Nature but had only
their intellect, would they not still be self-reliant & face life
head-on?

gotta admit, I don't really understand the question. Can you expand?

If you are talking about modern humans, then yes, I think we have reached the point where we can operate on intellect - but not without emotion. Like rappy, I have had religioso folk assume that being a rational creature means having no morals. I think we might be able to live decently without being scared into it by an angry daddy figure threatening to take away our eternal salvation.

I feel like everything I'm talking about must have been a Star Trek episode. Really. Chrisisall?

Btw - my access will be spotty, so dont be offended if I don't reply for a few days.



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Wednesday, April 23, 2014 8:06 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

I get that self-awareness is the source of the capacity to believe, but I don't see how that translates to survival.

The way I've always imagined it is that the tribes with the religion 'gene' will outperform those without it. They may have more cohesive, orderly, cooperative societies; they will be fearless in battle against other tribes knowing that the gods are on their side...

To repeat myself a little bit, one of the theories about why modern humans outperformed and supplanted neanderthals in Eurasia was because we are cultural/social creatures - we form cooperative networks which are very helpful for our survival. And religion is a socially cohesive force: people with shared gods/spirituality will form cooperative bonds with each other.

I wonder what neanderthal spirituality was like.

Quote:

I'm with others that question how you can know that cats are not self-aware. They may be much more sophisticated in their self-awareness even. And as for playing with their pray - we see that on this board.

I would back Mal on this point. I had this exact debate with someone a while back...

Quote:

If humanoid life exists on other planets, do you see those humanoids creating Religion as a natural, even unavoidable form of evolution?

I would be surprised if it didn't.



It's not personal. It's just war.

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Thursday, April 24, 2014 7:05 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

Since we'll never know what rolls around in that cat skull I'm happy to agree with, "Cats are not self-aware like we are."

It will sound a bit silly but one of the times I first became convinced about this was some years back when one of my mum's female cats was still quite young, but started going on heat. She didn't get neutered for like a whole summer, and so every few weeks she would go on heat, and go around yowling, and sticking her bum in the air, and in the faces of the other two (neutered) cats, and generally annoying everyone in the house. After a few days she would come off it, and then revert to her normal calm, composed, haughty, queen-of-the-house manner. I remember staring at her one such day after, thinking, 'how can you not be even a little bit sheepish and ashamed after your ridiculous behaviour over the last few days?' But then I realised, she's not a rational creature; she doesn't rationalise her behaviour - she just follows her instincts without thinking/analysing/rationalising what she's doing.

Quote:

I like the idea that if we ever encounter other humanoids on another planet of a similar age, they will have passed through very similar set of growing pains. I think it's unavoidable. I also think that at some point we'll progress beyond old forms of religion, Humans 3.0. It's like there are markers for survival, "where are the Earth humanoids now? They have just achieved the first stage of their Digital Age? This is where their ride gets bumpy..."

I think a big shock to man's theistic mindset will come if/when we discover life on another planet (or witness it spontaneously originate in a lab). At the moment it's a bit of a mystery how life came to be, and that leads to the belief that life on Earth is special, and leaves a lot of room for a creator. But if science can ever answer this mystery then that will be almost as big a blow to religion as the theory of evolution.



It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, May 2, 2014 11:23 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Just a quick $0.02.

I rummaged through my old insights about religion (haven't really thought about it in a long time!) and it still seems to me that our gods look an awful lot like an anthropomorphized version of where we feel "power" resides.

Back in the day, when people lived in small bands and interacted much more directly with nature, the gods were thunder, or rain, the sun, or life (recall the "venus" statue which reveres a heavily pregnant woman). The gods then were female and male, as societies (such as the Iroquois) were matrilineal. In many of the ancient religions there is embedded a tale of when the male destroyed the female... when Apsu kills Timat (who was the ancient primordial mother of all, including Apsu) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat , and the Jewish myth of Lillith who in some versions predates the creation of Adam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith

Then, when humans lived in squabbling bands headed by male leaders (think early Greece) the gods were squabbling bands of male superhumans who nonetheless engaged in stupid male human behaviors- rape, jealousy, war, betrayal etc.

As human society coalesced under a single leader, the panoply of gods also coalesced... around the main Greek god Zeus, ruler of Mount Olympus; around the Sun God Ra, under Akhenaten (a major heresy at the time!); and Mithra under pagan Rome. Also, as societies become more trade-oriented, religion becomes less like a clan/ family, and more like a voluntary organization.

So I think belief is part of our social evolution, not necessarily our physical evolution, because our power structure and our religions tie in rather closely.

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Friday, May 2, 2014 4:42 PM

OONJERAH



So ... it's natural, feels like common sense to us, that
Relgion and State are two sides of the same principle?

As in, "Right is right!"
Could be.



... oooOO}{OOooo ...

I've given up looking for the meaning of life. Now all I want is a cookie.

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