Social / cultural norms don’t require belief systems and made up deities to function. Putting that magical thinking to it makes people fanatical and works against logic or ideological evolution. Religion has always worked against societal advancement. It was a collective delusion to soothe ancient fears of a world we could not comprehend. Clinging to it now is just a salve to people’s fear of death. It’s a weak minded cope to fragile egos who can’t stand that we are just animals and there is no greater purpose to our existence. It helps powerful people to get poor people to die for their causes and to manipulate emotions. It’s a disease against progress.
The supernatural claims are just a byproduct of the mechanism that passed along the creation myths and cultural norms. It would be great if that wasn’t how it happened, but it did. Rational people can agree at this point that the magical thinking is a net negative for society, but IMO, to ignore that there were some positives to come along with religion is the same sort of blind denial that religious folks use.
It was a collective delusion to soothe ancient fears of a world we could not comprehend
Agreed, but can’t you see that that was an advantage during the formative ages of society and civilization?
I can say it was a way to reach an end, but it wasn’t the only way to reach that end. Society in the formative ages could have just as easily organized around collective strength and pack principals instead of magical thinking. It served some purpose, but it was a poor way to reach that end. It is a net negative on humanity, but it’s how we got here so we have to deal with its corrosive residue in society today.
Agreed, that’s my whole point. It was not the ideal way to get where we are, but it’s how it happened. There was a… I don’t want to say purpose, but “benefit,” might be the right word.
If we were designing things from scratch, then obviously religion would be left out. But it’s an unfortunate accident of the evolution of consciousness and evolution of civilization that certain societal benefits were included with the magical thinking. Just like the health of the human gut biome is tied to the existence of the appendix, even through the appendix doesn’t provide much in the way of direct benefits these days and can become inflamed and kill us.
Social / cultural norms don’t require belief systems and made up deities to function. Putting that magical thinking to it makes people fanatical and works against logic or ideological evolution. Religion has always worked against societal advancement. It was a collective delusion to soothe ancient fears of a world we could not comprehend. Clinging to it now is just a salve to people’s fear of death. It’s a weak minded cope to fragile egos who can’t stand that we are just animals and there is no greater purpose to our existence. It helps powerful people to get poor people to die for their causes and to manipulate emotions. It’s a disease against progress.
The supernatural claims are just a byproduct of the mechanism that passed along the creation myths and cultural norms. It would be great if that wasn’t how it happened, but it did. Rational people can agree at this point that the magical thinking is a net negative for society, but IMO, to ignore that there were some positives to come along with religion is the same sort of blind denial that religious folks use.
Agreed, but can’t you see that that was an advantage during the formative ages of society and civilization?
I can say it was a way to reach an end, but it wasn’t the only way to reach that end. Society in the formative ages could have just as easily organized around collective strength and pack principals instead of magical thinking. It served some purpose, but it was a poor way to reach that end. It is a net negative on humanity, but it’s how we got here so we have to deal with its corrosive residue in society today.
Agreed, that’s my whole point. It was not the ideal way to get where we are, but it’s how it happened. There was a… I don’t want to say purpose, but “benefit,” might be the right word.
If we were designing things from scratch, then obviously religion would be left out. But it’s an unfortunate accident of the evolution of consciousness and evolution of civilization that certain societal benefits were included with the magical thinking. Just like the health of the human gut biome is tied to the existence of the appendix, even through the appendix doesn’t provide much in the way of direct benefits these days and can become inflamed and kill us.