[ExI] Ants for spike! Dawkins and Wilson

[Mike Dougherty]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 3:14 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> I can see that and raise you one.  My own experience in that area is with a
> particular religion that is not only a belief system but also very much a
> culture.  When one is immersed in that culture, it soon becomes apparent to
> the analytical type, that acceptance of the culture is actually more
> important than actual belief in, or worship of, the particular higher
> power.
> [snip]
> Observations or questions welcome on these comments.
>
>
My wife asked me to join her for church today.  I'm not sure what value she
finds- possibly a place to socialize with a closed-network of friends.
Whatever.  I find it an interesting hour to speculate about why people feel
compelled to congregate in the name of *whoever's-name-they-congregate-in*.
Seems like there should be a reason for it.  I find myself thinking
hyperrationally about evolutionary psychology (thanks to Keith for the
introduction) and church politics and group dynamics and mathematics.
During all this thought about others, I realized there is another
observation in my mind about my own thinking.  Am I incapable of the kinds
of emotional investment of the people around me?  They're jumping up and
down and earnestly singing praise to someone I am unable to see.  I wondered
if others on this list experience the same sense of disconnect from "fellow"
humans while immersed in this type of gathering.  Then I started on a
feedback process imagining that maybe others in the room have a similar
sense of disconnect and that they each manifest it differently - perhaps I
am simply unaware of their internal state and am mis-perceiving the
situation.  Then I started to imagine that it doesn't really matter what
they're doing, because this is time for me to be myself and think whatever I
want - so I imagined why this deity stuff matters to so many people in so
many cultures...
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