DZ wrote:
> Bob Pastorio <pastorio RemoveThis @rica.net> wrote:
>
>> DZ wrote:
>>
>>>So my FUNDAMENTAL desire may result in punishment and isolation? NOT
>>>good enough, John. What about the needed sense of comfort, integrity,
>>>and lack of contradiction.
>
> Not your fundamental desire, your specific actions. If you break the
>>social covenant, you are punished. If you uphold it, you are
>>generally rewarded with a more pleasant life free to seek your other
>>desires. Integrity and lack of contradiction? You find this in your
>>religious teachings?
>
> What my religious teachings?
The question above, expanded, is "Do you find integrity and lack of
contradiction in your religious instruction?" The religious
information you have been taught. Is there integrity, whatever that
means here. Is there lack of contradiction? I say that no organized
religion offers either. All the sacred books have internal contradictions.
> Hominoid spesies are cannibalistic, violent, banging on the chest,
> sneaky, lying, racist, hating animals - put in a place where we can't
> be what we really are.
You could have made this more emotional, I just can't imagine how.
We behave just like all other predators with the solitary exception of
having the tool-using capacity well-developed. Tools for manipulation
with our opposable thumb and tools for manipulation like language.
The charged descriptors you've used to characterize human behavior are
all elements of primitive self-preservation imperatives. We eat to
survive. We kill to eat. We practice stealth just like all predators.
We deceive to conquer and, so, to live another day. We're wary of
people who aren't like us because they might be unsuspected hazards;
not members of our family/tribe/clan/village/town/city/state/country.
All pro-survival characteristics in a less technological setting. The
problem is that we've altered our environment so much that we've
outstripped our evolutionary capacity. We've changed our world faster
than we could change. So we still bear that brainstem that governs our
primitive functions and we temper it with our civilizing influences.
But both still exist and both are still strong.
We are what we are all day, every day. It's just that we express it
differently now that we live in cities and have essentially unlimited
electric, mechanical and electronic power.
> In addition to that, hypertrophy of the human
> brain makes it susceptible to extreme variety of ferocious
> overwhelming desires (that includes sucking on the mammary gland AND
> MORE), and brings it awarenes of suffering, death etc.
Please. This one-sided view serves no one well. Our relatively large
brain isn't some homogeneous mass created yesterday. It has all the
layers of animal development since there were brains. Much of our
behavior is instinctual, hard-wired into place. Our "lizard" brain is
that primitive, wary, violent, self-preserving contributor. Our
developed forebrain creates technology, literature and society. And
amplifies the unique characteristics we all have and lets us express
them through language of all sorts.
It isn't like our brains are one commonly-operating thing.
> Countries like USSR with nearly 100% of the population educated and
> taught atheistic concepts, starting elementary school or earlier,
> totally failed to produce religion-free societies.
>
> Why do you think this this so?
You won't like my answers.
Every society we know anything about has appealed to invisible forces
to deal with things they didn't understand or couldn't control. So
Aztecs cut hearts out of millions of conquered enemies to make it rain
or make the sun shine. Shamans pour mineral salts into fires and take
credit for green fire. Clergy, by whatever name, all through human
history have been a caste apart. They say mass or preach from pulpits
or dip people into water or cut off their foreskins. They've
identified themselves with these invisible forces and asserted that
only they can communicate with them. It more demonstrates that while
100 is the average IQ, it probably isn't enough.
So all that lying and conniving you decry above is brought sharply
into focus by the organizers and designers of religions. All the
ritual, all the special clothing, all the restrictions, all the
special privilege, all the gold and silver - are all there to exploit
the superstitious fears of the common people and benefit the
clergy-caste from that exploitation. It's all about power, money and
sex. What else is there?
Back to the basic question you raise. Why are so many people
believers? Because it's too scary not to. Because there are so many
things not fully understood that some comforting superbeing offers
seeming rationality in an infinite and, therefore, incomprehensible
universe. Because most people don't understand the reality of
coincidence; of mathematics, of probability. Because most people would
rather ascribe events to a plan or a design rather than the
impersonality of the laws of physics. Because we're all primarily
concerned with our own survival and minimizing hazard and maximizing
benefit, as all living things are.
So, not because there's any evidence for divinity; just because the
universe is reduced to a more human scale if there's a daddy
supervising it all.
Pastorio
>>As long as there are honest people with opposing views and needs,
>>there can be neither. Integrity means oneness. Religion and
>>religious belief is based on desire for these things, but nowhere
>>are they externally delivered. We each choose that portion that
>>pleases us. The bible is replete with contradiction and mutually
>>exclusive conditions.
>
>
>
>> http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/bibleanalysis.html
>>
>> Pastorio
>>
>
>
> >> Stay informed about: Maximizing life expectancy/enjoyment 
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