[ExI] [Extropolis] morality

[Keith Henson]

Why do people have religions or the psychological trait behind having
a religion?

If you buy into evolutionary psychology, then at some point, the
ability to have a religion was selected, or it was carried along by
something else that was selected.

At the root of religions, they are xenophobic memes and part of the
process that starts with resource scarcity and progresses to wars.

Keith

On Sun, May 21, 2023 at 1:26 PM efc--- via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> I think Bill raises an interesting point. Can freedom of religion be
> compressed into freedom of speech and assembly?
>
> As far as your mind goes, you are currently free to imagine or think
> anything you like. The only way you'll get into trouble is if you express
> that belief. As long as freedom to express it and do it together with
> others are safe guarded, do you really need freedom of religion?
>
> On the other hand, you raise a good point. What if, in the future, through
> statistical means or direct neurological means, politicians can peek into
> the minds of people and indirectly or directly see what they believe.
>
> A horrible scenario. And if that was possible, will freedom of religion
> even matter when you consider all the other side effets of a government
> who is able to pick things out of minds?
>
> Best regards,
> Daniel
>
>
> On Sun, 21 May 2023, Tara Maya via extropy-chat wrote:
>
> > If you don't allow others the right to believe in a ghost in the sky, what will actually happen is that you will lose the right to be
> > an atheist. Whatever you would not have others do to you, don't do them.
> > Freedom of religion was learned to be necessary because the alternative is the Thirty Years War or the Gulag Archipelago.
> >
> > It's not optional.
> >
> > And freedom of belief, specifically, in addition to freedom of speech, it is even more critical now than ever, when we are on the
> > verge of having machines which can read your mind.
> >
> > Tara Maya
> >
> >       On May 21, 2023, at 11:18 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >
> > I would get rid of freedom of religion, as long as you have freedom of speech and freedom of assembly you get freedom of
> > religion automatically, it's just one of the infinite number of things you can talk about or have a meeting about. However the
> > fact that the US Constitution specifically mentions it has been interpreted to mean that worshiping an invisible man in the sky
> > gives somebody rights that somebody who doesn't worship an invisible man in the sky does not have.  If somebody does something
> > for a religious reason it's legal but if they do the exact same thing for a reason other than religion it's illegal, and that's
> > nuts.
> >
> >
> >
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