DescentBB

vision wrote:My hunch is that religion is something very similar. We might not know yet how it works, but it might be a very effective control parameter for the smooth operation of large scale societies. Do we really want to replace it and start fiddling with all the hundreds of single control parameters? Religions have similarly evolved over thousands of years to be as effective as they are, in the same way as our motor system.

Richard Dawkins touches on this idea in "The God Delusion." If I remember correctly, he says that religion certainly played an important role for early humans for some of the same reasons you mentioned. However, he sees religion as more of an evolutionary byproduct that manifests due to certain structures, and is likely on the way out as it becomes less useful to us (from an evolutionary standpoint). Interesting idea I guess.

I do believe they said the same thing during the reformation, and for centuries before that. and Evolution and Faith really have little in common

Personally, I don't think religion will go away completely because it is intertwined with our imaginations and desires.

and reality

But, I think religion will keep transforming over the next few thousand years until it becomes unrecognizable to anything we know today. My guess is it will be absorbed into a new, more useful paradigm. You can see it happening right now. Christianity is one of the more progressive religions (but not the most progressive by a longshot) and knows that it has to stay current. That's why theologists keep reinventing god in more obscure forms. And, you can see how people (in the US for instance) are more and more often rejecting membership of the major religions in favor of the blanket term "spiritual." It's evolution at work.

we'll have to agree to disagree on that. I see "religion" as some will call it as being cyclical. it strays then comes back to it's roots. and it has since the beginning

I'm resurrecting this because of the abortion topic in the other thread....

From my perspective, we're sacrificing our babies by the millions to the god of convenience. And here you thought we'd evolved past that kind of nonsense.

snoopy wrote:From my perspective, we're sacrificing our babies by the millions to the god of convenience.

We are doing a terrible job keeping the population down. You have nothing to fear from the equally impotent god of convenience. Plenty of babies being born. If you like them so much, go adopt a couple hundred. Or thousand. Oh wait, do you just want to complain about dead babies instead of helping live ones?

snoopy wrote:And here you thought we'd evolved past that kind of nonsense.

Who said that? Human beings are in their infancy and there is much to learn about how to harmonize with the planet. Will take several generations at the very least, and thousands and thousands of years more realistically. But humans will survive, thrive, and evolve -- and the thoughts our descendents have will be incomprehensible to us and way beyond our understanding of the universe. Also, they still probably won't be a god.

vision wrote:Oh wait, do you just want to complain about dead babies instead of helping live ones?

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19400

What Jeff said.

[EDIT]
Lest you be a doubter:

Yes, we have fertility issues
Yes, we were working on the adoption/foster process before we found out about our issues.

Keep up the good work, but don't judge others for their inability to provide what you can.

...

I'd sacrifice roid if my cat demanded it.

vision wrote:Keep up the good work, but don't judge others for their inability to provide what you can.

All it takes is a heart big enough to let kids in.

(Yes, it's harder for some than others, but when it comes to foster care fiscal ability isn't a factor... the state provides enough to cover the bare essentials.)