Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Demigawd · 08-15-2002, 04:56 PM

"However it's the shaman (pseudo-alpha) who gets the pork chops."

Priest (to believer): Bring us a bull so that we may sacrifice it to the gods, and read your fortune in its entrails.

Priest (to other priests): It's steak tonight, boys!

Demigawd · 08-15-2002, 05:00 PM

"They are intelligent beings made up of something other than matter. They affect random events like the weather, the fortunes of disease organisms, and decisions that are made very quickly. They are perceived, more or less, with certain kinds of emotional or mental experience."

And you understand this how? I'm honestly asking. For me, it's a case of "if it moves, then it's alive" type thinking. Very easy to fall into that type of reasoning. Alive is when we are up and about, breathing and all that jazz. Dead is when we don't. Bird flies, wind blows, volcano erupts. Change. Movement. It's alive. IT'S ALIVE!

RogerLeeCooke · 08-15-2002, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ojuice5001:

Theoretical knowledge is scientific knowledge of things that we have never seen--for example, the chemical processes that occur in your stomach and make you sick. Until the advent of modern science, that had no survival value, yet the capacity for it existed. When you see this distinction, WJ's argument seems like a good one.

[ August 15, 2002: Message edited by: Ojuice5001 ]

The capacity for rational scientific thinking, even when expressed in the simplest ways, such as observing hostile species and drawing conclusions based on the observation or inventing better forms of shelter or hunting tools, will have survival value. Probably the greatest survival value came with the creation of languages, to enable a greater variety of division of labor and cooperation possible. Modern scientific knowledge is merely the result of an accumulation of such advances.

RogerLeeCooke · 08-15-2002, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Demigawd:
I used to believe in "hostile spirits" as well until I spent several nights alone in an old house that groaned every couple of minutes or so. And it had nice, menacing trees in the yard that cast very ominous shadows through windows via the moonlight.

I really like Doctor S's summary of the beta male creating a problem then "solving" the problem to gain preferential treatment. Sounds alot like eternal damnation solved by eternal salvation.

I was never afraid of the dark except for a brief while after a neighbor asked me (aged 5 or 6) if I was, and I decided it might be a thrill to try being afraid of the dark. Took me several years to recover from my own thrill-seeking imagination.

I once had a house where you would swear there were people walking around in the attic. It happened only on windy nights, when the wind would lift the metal roof and drop it again.

[ August 15, 2002: Message edited by: RogerLeeCooke ]

Demigawd · 08-15-2002, 05:15 PM

"I once had a house where you would swear there were people walking around in the attic."

Exactly.

RogerLeeCooke · 08-15-2002, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ojuice5001:
They are intelligent beings made up of something other than matter. They affect random events like the weather, the fortunes of disease organisms, and decisions that are made very quickly. They are perceived, more or less, with certain kinds of emotional or mental experience.

[ August 15, 2002: Message edited by: Ojuice5001 ]

I'll say this for your theory: It explains why it is rational to pray to avoid a hurricane, but not rational to pray to avoid an eclipse of the sun. But it has, unfortunately, no plausibility.

lcb · 08-15-2002, 06:35 PM

is religion and religious beliefs a genetically programmed pre-disposition which (darwinistically) helps groups of humans survive?(share, fight bravely, sacrifice oneself for the rest of the group, feed the old people (whose wisdom helps the group survive) etc)just thoughts, not arguing

Jobar · 08-15-2002, 07:23 PM

Dr. S, I too have given some thought to how religion began in a completely natural world.

IMO shortly after protohumans became able to ask questions- "Why? What? How?"- some wily ape-man came up with the notion of the super-powerful ape-man in the sky who cast down lightning bolts, whose breath was the wind, whose eye was the sun. This ur-priest (or one of his successors) discovered that he could pretend that the sky-ape-man was his friend. He could convince others in his band to bring him food by claiming to intercede with S.A.M. to avert his anger and win his favor. By making up many different gods and goddesses all the processes of the natural world could be explained- and turned to the benefit of the ones willing to claim the gods were real.

It's possible, I suppose, that at first these tales of gods were considered jokes- tall tales to be told around the campfire. I suspect it did not take too long before the older ape-men discovered that the children took the tales quite literally- and that this gave them a lever with which to manipulate the young and strong ones, and a way to hold on to power and influence when they became too old to hunt, gather, and fight effectively. Ever notice how many god-men, even today, are old? And that many religions use the term 'elder' as a synonym for priest?

Dr S · 08-15-2002, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lcb:
is religion and religious beliefs a genetically programmed pre-disposition which (darwinistically) helps groups of humans survive?

No, there really isn't anything quite that positive about religion. These are claims that religion makes for itself but doesn't actually deliver.
The pre-disposition that is Darwinistically (nice word, mind if I steal it?) embedded in us is a fear of the dark and a fear of man eating big cats. These fears help us avoid being eaten. Of course now they are useless left over from an earlier version of ourselves like the appendix.
Religion is a con that is able to be played on us because this outmoded survival adaptation
leaves us open to the unscrupulous who profit from fear and weakness.

Dr S · 08-15-2002, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ojuice5001:
They are intelligent beings made up of something other than matter.

And what is this "something?
The only things I can think of would be energy-which we could easily measure- and feeble imagination-- which we should probably ignore.

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08-15-2002, 04:56 PM	#21
Demigawd Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place Posts: 2,254	"However it's the shaman (pseudo-alpha) who gets the pork chops." Priest (to believer): Bring us a bull so that we may sacrifice it to the gods, and read your fortune in its entrails. Priest (to other priests): It's steak tonight, boys!

08-15-2002, 05:00 PM	#22
Demigawd Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place Posts: 2,254	"They are intelligent beings made up of something other than matter. They affect random events like the weather, the fortunes of disease organisms, and decisions that are made very quickly. They are perceived, more or less, with certain kinds of emotional or mental experience." And you understand this how? I'm honestly asking. For me, it's a case of "if it moves, then it's alive" type thinking. Very easy to fall into that type of reasoning. Alive is when we are up and about, breathing and all that jazz. Dead is when we don't. Bird flies, wind blows, volcano erupts. Change. Movement. It's alive. IT'S ALIVE!

08-15-2002, 05:15 PM	#25
Demigawd Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place Posts: 2,254	"I once had a house where you would swear there were people walking around in the attic." Exactly.

08-15-2002, 06:35 PM	#27
lcb Banned Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: washington d.c. Posts: 224	is religion and religious beliefs a genetically programmed pre-disposition which (darwinistically) helps groups of humans survive?(share, fight bravely, sacrifice oneself for the rest of the group, feed the old people (whose wisdom helps the group survive) etc)just thoughts, not arguing

08-15-2002, 07:23 PM	#28
Jobar Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: secularcafe.org Posts: 9,525	Dr. S, I too have given some thought to how religion began in a completely natural world. IMO shortly after protohumans became able to ask questions- "Why? What? How?"- some wily ape-man came up with the notion of the super-powerful ape-man in the sky who cast down lightning bolts, whose breath was the wind, whose eye was the sun. This ur-priest (or one of his successors) discovered that he could pretend that the sky-ape-man was his friend. He could convince others in his band to bring him food by claiming to intercede with S.A.M. to avert his anger and win his favor. By making up many different gods and goddesses all the processes of the natural world could be explained- and turned to the benefit of the ones willing to claim the gods were real. It's possible, I suppose, that at first these tales of gods were considered jokes- tall tales to be told around the campfire. I suspect it did not take too long before the older ape-men discovered that the children took the tales quite literally- and that this gave them a lever with which to manipulate the young and strong ones, and a way to hold on to power and influence when they became too old to hunt, gather, and fight effectively. Ever notice how many god-men, even today, are old? And that many religions use the term 'elder' as a synonym for priest?

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