[ExI] Atheists and agnostics know more about religion

[Ben Zaiboc]

Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> observed:

> I don't know how one would refute religion.  It's a
> near universal
> feature of human cultures.
> 
> Rather than refute something that is a widespread feature
> of humans, I
> would think it more important to understand how the
> psychological
> mechanisms that result in religions (i.e., religious memes)
> evolved.
> 
> At some point in the past, having these mechanisms must
> have improved
> the survival of genes for the mechanisms.
> 
> I hope the logic here is not beyond the average person on
> this list.


Isn't that confusing truth and utility?

Refutation has to do with showing that something is not true, not that it's no use.

Something can be both false and useful. The placebo effect and some aspects of NLP show this in action.

Ben Zaiboc