There is no afterlife, only thermodynamic equilibrium.

[ribbin]

Yesterday, I shared an interesting article about religious arguments on Google+, and mentioned atheism. Specifically, I've always been an open minded atheist, almost agnostic at times, but in the past couple of years I've become increasingly hard-nosed, culminating in a final puzzle piece last spring that nailed the subject shut forme

Comments

[josenritno]

Two things I have to say here- One is that I would say that any predator benifits from what you might call empathy. What makes humans different from dogs and apes is that they have been removed from a hunting society. So dogs and apes don't pray because they still rely on empathy for their food. Their empathy has something to do.

So in some ways one could sum up this conversation by saying that religion is the result of idle empathy. I do know that dogs have empathy. That is obvious to any dog owner. So here's a question. Since the domestication of dogs, what is a dog's empathy doing? Maybe dogs have a secret religion. Maybe they do pray, but we can't tell because they don't put their paws together. Or more insterestingly, perhaps dogs have put their empathy to use in worshipping humans. One could argue that a dog who has more empathy can sense when their owner is in distress and therefore have an evolutionary advantage over a less sensitive domestic dog.
What about cats then? They don't seem to benifit from any possible sense of empathy. Do they have gods? Maybe they never developed empathy so they worship themselves.

Alright, cats aside, I think this idea of idle empathy giving rise to religion is a good idea. Now if we put our empathy back to use, will religion go away?