[ExI] atheists/religion

[John Clark]

On Mon, Aug 3, 2020 at 6:53 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> *Well, religion can eliminate or reduce the fear of death, and this helps
> performing fearlessly in battle.*


Fear confers an obvious evolutionary advantage, individuals who are absolutely
fearless would not live very long. Too much courage would be bad as would
too little, so the amount of courage in a population would probably follow
a normal distribution curve aroud an optomal point. I can see an
evolutionary advantage in admiring and thus hanging around someone who is
more courageous then I am so he could be the first one to sneak up on a
woolly mammoth and try to stick a wooden spear with a flint tip Into the
enormous beast. The anamal is far too big for him to eat all by himself, so
if his attack is successful I'll be able to pick up lots of scraps. And if
the attack is unsuccessful, as such a dangerous activaty very well might be,
well ... better him than me; It's time to look around for somebody else who
is braver than I am. Such a strategy could result in more of my genes
getting into the next generation that any of the genes from any of the
superheros.

John K Clark
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