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January 23, 2015 at 1:28 pm (This post was last modified: January 23, 2015 at 1:30 pm by Davka.)
I have a pet "theory" which posits that religion was a necessary evolutionary development to allow our distant ancestors to cope with the potentially paralyzing realization of our own mortality. I can imagine a proto-human staring dejectedly at a pile of human bones in existential malaise until he either starved to death or was eaten by a predator. They needed something to give them hope, because people without hope don't survive all that well, and certainly don't thrive.
I remember clearly when I myself first confronted my own mortality. I was 8 years old, laying in bed at night, and it occurred to me that one day I would cease to exist. It was a terrifying realization. When (a few years later) I encountered new-Age flakey claims of reincarnation and the eternal NOW and whatnot, I embraced it with a sense of relief. Maybe there was an available reprieve after all!
I often sense that same desperation in those who try to convince me that human life is eternal. They cannot even hear the facts, because the concept of death and annihilation of the self is unbearable.
(January 23, 2015 at 11:55 am)robvalue Wrote: Yeah! That's a cool movie. It also shows how people in general have no problem accepting determinism, when it's displayed that way.
Except it's not classical determinism, because Bill Murray deliberately makes different choices every day, changing the timeline temporarily. Until he wakes up to Sonny & Cher again (Sonny and Cher forever - an allegory for Purgatory if I ever saw one!).
(January 23, 2015 at 1:28 pm)Davka Wrote: I have a pet "theory" which posits that religion was a necessary evolutionary development to allow our distant ancestors to cope with the potentially paralyzing realization of our own mortality.
I can imagine a proto-human staring dejectedly at a pile of human bones in existential malaise until he either starved to death or was eaten by a predator. They needed something to give them hope, because people without hope don't survive all that well, and certainly don't thrive.
I remember clearly when I myself first confronted my own mortality. I was 8 years old, laying in bed at night, and it occurred to me that one day I would cease to exist. It was a terrifying realization. When (a few years later) I encountered new-Age flakey claims of reincarnation and the eternal NOW and whatnot, I embraced it with a sense of relief. Maybe there was an available reprieve after all!
I often sense that same desperation in those who try to convince me that human life is eternal. They cannot even hear the facts, because the concept of death and annihilation of the self is unbearable.
(January 23, 2015 at 11:55 am)robvalue Wrote: Yeah! That's a cool movie. It also shows how people in general have no problem accepting determinism, when it's displayed that way.
Except it's not classical determinism, because Bill Murray deliberately makes different choices every day, changing the timeline temporarily. Until he wakes up to Sonny & Cher again (Sonny and Cher forever - an allegory for Purgatory if I ever saw one!).
Faith and the belief in an afterlife is evolutions tasty little antidepressant.
January 23, 2015 at 2:31 pm (This post was last modified: January 23, 2015 at 3:04 pm by robvalue.)
Davka: Yeah, determinism for everyone but the guy who has new information I mean Of course it oversimplifies, because the main guy doing anything differently would have a ripple effect. The audience doesn't scream in protest that the same decisions are being made by the others in the same situation when replayed.
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(January 23, 2015 at 3:38 pm)Xeno Wrote: I don't know. I find the idea that there is nothing after death much more comforting than the idea of judgement including possible eternal damnation.
Yes, but what about all the other possible afterlives? Like Valhalla, where you get to go into battle each day - if you win, you get to return victorious, eat a huge feast, screw lots of wenches, and drink yourself into oblivion. If you lose, you simply die, then you wake up the next morning and try again. It's like the ultimate real-world RPG, with infinite lives!
Or reincarnation, where you get to experience all sorts of different kinds of lives.
Or Universalism, where everyone goes to Heaven and god's not mad at all, that was just a story someone made up.
I suspect that the first afterlife stories were free of the whole "wrath of gods/judgement of souls" thing. That came later, as a tool to control people when nobody was looking.
(January 23, 2015 at 3:45 pm)Davka Wrote: Yes, but what about all the other possible afterlives? Like Valhalla, where you get to go into battle each day - if you win, you get to return victorious, eat a huge feast, screw lots of wenches, and drink yourself into oblivion. If you lose, you simply die, then you wake up the next morning and try again. It's like the ultimate real-world RPG, with infinite lives!
Or reincarnation, where you get to experience all sorts of different kinds of lives.
Or Universalism, where everyone goes to Heaven and god's not mad at all, that was just a story someone made up.
Add getting your own planet to rule over if you're a Mormon.
I'll take the infinite RPG one.
(January 23, 2015 at 3:45 pm)Davka Wrote: I suspect that the first afterlife stories were free of the whole "wrath of gods/judgement of souls" thing. That came later, as a tool to control people when nobody was looking.
I was once told I was going to hell because I went to church on a Saturday instead of a Sunday. Not making that up.
You can tell it's your last resort when you have to threaten people with an eternity of suffering in order to get them to listen to you. Imagine if parents did that.
(January 23, 2015 at 4:07 pm)Xeno Wrote: You can tell it's your last resort when you have to threaten people with an eternity of suffering in order to get them to listen to you. Imagine if parents did that.
Not hard to imagine. Perhaps you've heard of the boogie-man (not 70s disco version)? And if you read Grimm's tales, there's lots of cooking of children and cutting off of body parts. Maybe not eternal torture, but still pretty coercive.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?
Of course it oversimplifies, because the main guy doing anything differently would have a ripple effect. The audience doesn't scream in protest that the same decisions are being made by the others in the same situation when replayed.
