<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">witch doctor/chief:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">"I was told that this is true...."</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">"By whom?"</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">"By this entity"</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">"Can we see him?"</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">"No, he's invisible. Only I can see him and get his messages. Therefore only I have the power to lead this tribe."</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">Most people are authoritarians in one way or another. You could claim that the chief knows the power of it and invents a way to make it his.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">Agency could explain nature gods, of course, which I think is most of them.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jun 13, 2022 at 2:57 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<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>
On 12/06/2022 21:33, Darin Sunley wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Human
beings are hard-wired to attribute agency to anything with
sufficiently complex and environmentally-contextual behavior.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>...
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This is why pagan gods are a thing</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
'Pagan' gods? That qualification basically rules out any gods the
reader happens to believe in, making the whole sentence meaningless
(and perpetuating religious arguments: "your belief in <i>your</i>
gods are explainable by evolution. Mine are still real, though").
I'd say the agency-attribution tendency explains religion in
general. If we didn't have it (and managed to survive), religion
wouldn't be a thing, and gods would never have been conceived of at
all.<br>
<br>
Ben<br>
<br>
</div>
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</blockquote></div>