[ExI] No gods, no meaning?

[William Flynn Wallace]

 an understanding of why humans have religions.Keith

What religions offer:

 freedom from fear - "I know where I am going when I die."  "I know that my
sins are forgiven."  "God will protect me from .........." - (fears are the
most powerful motivators we know of)

rapture - feeling of oneness with the universe and god- nirvana - feeling
of lost identity

forgiveness of sins by a representative of higher powers- purification into
a better person perhaps through suffering and flagellation and fasting

merging identity with fellow believers - being a part of a whole - loved
and loving in return - getting out of yourself

focuses on values beyond materialism, sex, appetites, violence

offers opportunites to talk to god through prayer

offers opportunities to worship the god through hymns and such

So - these are a gracious plenty of good reasons for people to have a
religion that in most cases in history were taught to children from birth.
To deviate from their religion might, and I will suspect usually did,
result in expulsion from the tribe - or worse (see current Muslim thinking
on this one)

bill w


On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 5:18 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Jason Resch <jasonresch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> snip
>
> > There's no reason I see that religious ideas cannot be extended and grow
> together with advances in scientific understanding. To assume otherwise and
> say religious ideas must stagnate perverts and restricts not only religion
> but science as well.
>
> The only way I can see this sort of convergence is if science
> eventually understands the psychological mechanisms that result in
> religions.  Science is supposed to lead to an understanding of
> everything.  At some point, it should lead to an understanding of why
> humans have religions.
>
> Keith
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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