<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 5:08 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</span><br></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">>> </span>I've heard various arguments that suggest religion confers some sort of evolutionary advantage but I've never found them to be very convincing;</font></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>### The ancient Greeks lost faith in their gods, started murdering their children, especially their daughters. They got conquered by the ancient Romans, </i></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Yes but c</span>onquered or not Greek<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">s</span> still exist today<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">.</span> Evolution doesn't care <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">about </span>who <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">has </span>conquer<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">ed</span> who<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span> it just cares about who gets <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">more</span> <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">genes </span><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">into </span>the next generation<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">, so Evolutionarily speaking a sniveling coward could be much more successful than a great fearless hero.</span></font></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span><i>The Romans lost faith in their gods, started killing their children and soon the Vandals had their way with the leftovers, for lack of legions.</i></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4">And yet Romans<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">, just like the Greeks, </span><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">did not go extinct.</span></font></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span><i>Or take those Iranians - from 6 children per devout Muslima 50 years ago to 1 point something per faithless modern Iranian girl.</i></div></div></div></blockquote><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">I don't think <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">that</span> has much to do with religion<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">.</span> </font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">J<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">ohn K Clark</span></font></div></div></div>