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shadowfyr · 09-25-2007, 11:28 PM

Yeah, they have an advantage. Its called group dynamics. It has **zero** to do with the content of the belief system and everything to do with tribalism. You survive better "if" you belong to a group, and all groups develop rules that govern, as well as explain, accepted behavior. Some of us just have a real hard time comprehending why, if we can manage to derive such rules without magic beans and fairy wands, other people think those things *by themselves* are an evolutionary trait. Mind you, we quite well understand *why* people follow them. For the same reason that 5 people will talk each other into driving 50 miles to buy an ice cream, which they used to do when they *lived* 50 miles closer to the store. Groups don't think like individuals, and we desperately want to be part of a group. Some people are so desperate to be part of groups that they are actually nearly incapable of making decisions without a group to guide them. In extreme cases is considered a psychological disorder, because it means they can't function on their own. Most people fall between the extremes. They feel real uncomfortable being alone, but are not so obsessed with the group that they can't make their own choices, which includes abandoning the group for another, if needed. However, it hasn't been **until** this last 100 years or so that religion of some form has not been the core of such ideas. Even in the times of Plato, Aristotle, etc. it was the idiocies of the clergy and the absurd antics of gods that where questioned by them, not the *existence* of such things.

Believe me, most people don't *ever* think about what religion is, does, came from, or how it connects to the way our culture or brains work or formed. There are those that do, and do so *widely* within all contexts that religion exists, and not in the narrow and obsessive definitions of one sect or overall concept. Such people, quite often, started out as evangelicals, or fundamentalists, then had a crisis of conscience, where something about what they where told was true just couldn't be. They spent years reexamining their views, then branched off into exploring other faiths, in an attempt to find one, any one, that made more sense, only to find the same basic things, both the good and the bad, and the same crazy excuses for why it is somehow impossible to get the "good" parts without believing it something. Invariably, such people come to realize that religion is just an edifice of justifications for the things that the group feels it "must" do to protect itself from foreign or dangerous people/ideas, and a list of excuses for why all the shared ideas, concepts and perceptions that *everyone* forms through their lives (if raised with some sense of decency at all) are somehow *not* shared. That those universals, which arise out of our being human, are *only* possible via their specific religion and that everyone else is either faking it, pretending at it, mimicking it, or (and this is the silliest argument) may be doing the same things as everyone else, but are not *truly* doing them, because its only real if you believe in some divine force that makes it real.

One may as well argue that there is an evolutionary advantage to playing computer games, based on the fact that everyone *evolved* a tendency to play them in the last 20+ years. It misses the point entirely. Yes, there may be an advantage to competition, but that is not the same as claiming, 2,000 years from now, that video game playing, by itself, evolved. There is an advantage to being in a group, with set and clear rules, where there is some promise for betterment of oneself and ones position, if you follow them. That isn't the same as saying that the promises and gains made by being a church member makes believing *its* rules, promises or proposed gains is itself an "evolved" trait, any more than dressing boys in blue or girls in pink is an "evolved" trait, instead of simply an odd reversal of a trend that, in 1918, placed boys in pink and girls in blue. Its really not a good idea to confuse the prevailence if something that is undeniably cultural with evolved systems, which are generally never so exact or specific as to demand that people be, by nature, driven to "believe" things.

09-25-2007, 11:28 PM	#67
shadowfyr Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 310	Re: Sex & Violence Yeah, they have an advantage. Its called group dynamics. It has zero to do with the content of the belief system and everything to do with tribalism. You survive better "if" you belong to a group, and all groups develop rules that govern, as well as explain, accepted behavior. Some of us just have a real hard time comprehending why, if we can manage to derive such rules without magic beans and fairy wands, other people think those things by themselves are an evolutionary trait. Mind you, we quite well understand why people follow them. For the same reason that 5 people will talk each other into driving 50 miles to buy an ice cream, which they used to do when they lived 50 miles closer to the store. Groups don't think like individuals, and we desperately want to be part of a group. Some people are so desperate to be part of groups that they are actually nearly incapable of making decisions without a group to guide them. In extreme cases is considered a psychological disorder, because it means they can't function on their own. Most people fall between the extremes. They feel real uncomfortable being alone, but are not so obsessed with the group that they can't make their own choices, which includes abandoning the group for another, if needed. However, it hasn't been until this last 100 years or so that religion of some form has not been the core of such ideas. Even in the times of Plato, Aristotle, etc. it was the idiocies of the clergy and the absurd antics of gods that where questioned by them, not the existence of such things. Believe me, most people don't ever think about what religion is, does, came from, or how it connects to the way our culture or brains work or formed. There are those that do, and do so widely within all contexts that religion exists, and not in the narrow and obsessive definitions of one sect or overall concept. Such people, quite often, started out as evangelicals, or fundamentalists, then had a crisis of conscience, where something about what they where told was true just couldn't be. They spent years reexamining their views, then branched off into exploring other faiths, in an attempt to find one, any one, that made more sense, only to find the same basic things, both the good and the bad, and the same crazy excuses for why it is somehow impossible to get the "good" parts without believing it something. Invariably, such people come to realize that religion is just an edifice of justifications for the things that the group feels it "must" do to protect itself from foreign or dangerous people/ideas, and a list of excuses for why all the shared ideas, concepts and perceptions that everyone forms through their lives (if raised with some sense of decency at all) are somehow not shared. That those universals, which arise out of our being human, are only possible via their specific religion and that everyone else is either faking it, pretending at it, mimicking it, or (and this is the silliest argument) may be doing the same things as everyone else, but are not truly doing them, because its only real if you believe in some divine force that makes it real. One may as well argue that there is an evolutionary advantage to playing computer games, based on the fact that everyone evolved a tendency to play them in the last 20+ years. It misses the point entirely. Yes, there may be an advantage to competition, but that is not the same as claiming, 2,000 years from now, that video game playing, by itself, evolved. There is an advantage to being in a group, with set and clear rules, where there is some promise for betterment of oneself and ones position, if you follow them. That isn't the same as saying that the promises and gains made by being a church member makes believing its rules, promises or proposed gains is itself an "evolved" trait, any more than dressing boys in blue or girls in pink is an "evolved" trait, instead of simply an odd reversal of a trend that, in 1918, placed boys in pink and girls in blue. Its really not a good idea to confuse the prevailence if something that is undeniably cultural with evolved systems, which are generally never so exact or specific as to demand that people be, by nature, driven to "believe" things.