There is no afterlife, only thermodynamic equilibrium.

Jan 20, 2012 15:45

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 ( Read more... )

Leave a comment

Comments 6

squeekiemouse January 21 2012, 09:44:12 UTC
Interesting. I will think on this, thank you ( ... )

Reply

ribbin January 21 2012, 18:18:35 UTC
That actually makes a lot of sense. So just to play the devil's advocate in the original sense: as you pointed out, chimps know their audiences and have even been known to lie. They can certainly see cause and effect in others. Even dogs will bluff sometimes. So clearly it isn't only humans who would benefit from this if pack behavior were the only motivation, but as far as we can tell we're the only ones who have evolved the brains to do it. Certainly we've never seen monkeys praying (as far as we know). Furthermore, I don't know to what degree being a leader requires empathy- rather, it seems to require a certain level of sociopathy- indeed, the inability to feel empathy. This, to me, indicates that manipulation does not require the same sense of putting oneself in the shoes of another that religion does. Thoughts?

Reply

josenritno February 2 2012, 12:35:44 UTC
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 ( ... )

Reply


barnabas_truman January 22 2012, 02:18:13 UTC
Fascinating ideas! In high school I wrote an essay on the causes of religion, and a big part of my writing was on the observation that nomadic hunter-gatherer groups tend to have simple, often monotheistic religions, while sedentary agrarian societies develop more complex polytheistic religions. I posited that the adoption of Christian monotheism (with nomadic roots) in the settled agrarian Roman Empire led to the creation of a hierarchy of angels and saints as a means of "having it both ways."

Reply

barnabas_truman January 22 2012, 02:26:12 UTC
Here it is if you'd like to read it.

Reply

ribbin January 22 2012, 21:16:27 UTC
Cool, thanks!

Reply


Leave a comment

Up