RE: Belief?
September 29, 2008 at 6:38 pm
(This post was last modified: September 29, 2008 at 6:44 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
(September 24, 2008 at 10:47 am)chatpilot Wrote: In my opinion religion in general serves the purpose of a placebo for mankind.It is nothing more than a security blanket for many and is derived primarily from societal influences and family ties.There is nothing logical about religious beliefs or it's ritualistic pracitices.Yeah...I don't think religion particularly serves any purpose...I do however think it is a by-product of something that evolved that DID have evolutionary merit.
Considering religion has no merit... it must be a by-product of something that does (or atleast did) have merit. For evolutionary reasons.
I guess the only real merit for religion is it CAN give hope, and it CAN be an effective delusionary placebo.
However it can't have evolved for evolutionary reasons - other than a by-product for something that did - because it does more harm than it does good....religion produces despair....and fear of God...the Devil....and hell...puts serious demands on behavior that you can't possibly control to 'God's satisfaction' and it causes a lot of war and violence because of blind faith and love of only the 'in group' and hatred of the 'out group'. Etc etc etc.
