[extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare

[CurtAdams at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/1/03 14:06:56, david at lucifer.com writes:

>An excellent book on religion from an evolutionary psychology perspective
>is Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained". Boyer does a great job of showing
>where more simplistic theories of the origins of religions fall short, and
>explains how religions and supernatural beliefs evolved with human inference
>systems.

I really liked Boyer's book and the idea that many characteristics of religion
arise from how human minds are geared up for survival.  But I was very
unconvinced that religion is *entirely* an accident of how we're geared up.
First, people usually get profoundly attached to their religions in a way
I don't expect from such accidents.  Second, religious belief is very strongly
influenced by genes, more so than any other human behavior I'm aware of.
Third, many of us are quite irreligious even though we have the systems
Boyer was talking about in perfectly functional form.  

I think religion per
se serves some kind of function - I'd guess a social one - which is very 
important to successful human reproduction in a premodern context.  I'm
inclined to the idea that it serves as a mechanism for irrational (in a strict
personal cost-benefit sense) group identification.  As with many interactions,
sometimes it can be beneficial to commit oneself to a course with no way to
get out later even if it becomes beneficial at that time.