From: Jonathan Reeves (JonathanR@mail.iclshelpdesks.com)
Date: Mon Mar 01 1999 - 02:23:23 MST
Spike Jones writes:
> I have a notion that I tried once before, but it didnt catch on: that
> the first societies to invent god acheived a military advantage. the
> alpha male could more successfully talk the others into fighting his
> battles, robbing and raping the neighboring village if he could
> say god told him to tell them if they died in battle, (or during
pillage,
> mid-rape, etc) then god would reward generously in the afterlife.
> (And would punish in this life and the next, if they failed to
> pillage, rape and rob the other village.) The invention of god
> *might* be as simple as this: it made for more enthusiastic warriors.
I dont think god was invented to inspire warriors to fanatacism,it is a
natural result of trying to learn ways of manipulating our environment.
I remember reading about an experiment performed on pigeons. A group of
pigeons was placed in a room and at completely random intervals grain
was dropped from the ceiling. Over quite a short period of time the
pigeons started to move strangely, some holding one wing up, others
keeping their heads down all the time, etc. This is where
superstition/religion originates - it is natural (and intelligent) for
us to try and control our environment for our own purposes. The pigeon
walking around with one wing in the air was simply trying to conjure
more food from the roof, as in it's experience the food had tended to
fall when it had one wing in the air.
Obviously (hopefully) as beings become more intelligent and rational
they will begin to realise that various kinds of superstitous behavior
does not actually cause the desired results - any correspondence caused
merely by chance.
Religion is a primitive form of science - attempting to understand and
control the world by means of observed phenomena. Unfortunately, just
like most scientific theories when they have outlived their usefulness,
it is very hard to convince people of their irrelevance once they have
gained a strong group of followers.
Jon Reeves
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