[ExI] atheists/religion

[Keith Henson]

William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I think for anyone who follows a religion, to characterize atheists as
> anything negative is patronizing.
>
> I think for anyone who is an atheist, to characterize people who follow
> some religion as anything negative is patronizing.
>
> It ain't nothin' but bigotry, folks.  Either way.

It still leaves room for the meta question of why humans have religions at all?

Being religious is such a  widespread psychological trait that (in
terms of evolution) it must have been selected at sometime in our
past.  Since it is common in Africa, the selection must have been
before humans left Africa, something like 60k years ago.

I suspect the selection for religions was the same as the selection
for the traits behind wars.  At the root, religions are xenophobic
meme.

The trait for religions is less common than the capture-bonding trait,
so the selection may have been less intense.

Keith