[ExI] us

[Darren Greer]

William James called this entirely faith-based non-critical approach to
belief "second-hand religion." Christopher Hitchens stated a number of
times in his writing that most religions are borne out of a need to be
governed, a need to place control of your own life in the hands of a
benevolent dictator called God. When in North Korea he observed that the
general response to a public appearance by Kim Jong Il seemed very much
like religious hysteria. I think religion often remains unexamined because
the personal impulses that drive people towards it remain unexamined. Fear
of death, fear of uncertainty. fear of being alone, etc.

D.

On Tue, 8 Nov 2022 at 19:21, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> It's really kind of sad that most people don't look intellectually at
> their own religion.  Maybe it just serves a purpose of giving them a public
> face of respectability and opportunities to meet people.   But don't ask
> them to think!
>
> Contrarywise, I once taught an adult Sunday school class and one member
> told me that he had thought all week about what I said last week.  What a
> compliment!  bill w
>
> On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 3:14 PM Gadersd via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> We are using the same word “complexity” to refer to different ideas. You
>> seem to be referring to the conventional idea of complexity while I’m
>> referring to a mathematical definition. Occam’s razor applies exclusively
>> to the mathematical version, although many people erroneously believe that
>> Occam’s razor refers to the conventional concept of complexity. It’s really
>> apples and oranges.
>>
>> I understand your point though. People are more willing to accept ideas
>> that are simpler to understand at the outset. It’s easy to wrap an
>> extremely convoluted idea into a bag and label that bag God without looking
>> inside. All bags seem simple if one doesn’t look inside and see all the
>> baggage.
>>
>> On Nov 8, 2022, at 3:46 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>> Of what I can understand from your post, which is not a whole lot, you
>> are correct from your point of view.
>>
>> But from the point of view of the average person, God is quite a simple
>> thing:  an old man in a beard who lives in Heaven.  Most don't think past
>> that, certainly not to the depth your post displays.  By extreme contrast,
>> the many thousands of studies stemming from evolutionary theory are Greek
>> to the average person, and therefore are invincibly complex.
>>
>> bill w
>>
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