Anders Sandberg says
> The genetic explanation is simplistic and simply
> skirts the issue: what systems in our brains produce an urge to
> worship, and why?
Genetic explanations are seldom simplistic and far from skirting issues,
focus in tightly on the answer to your "why" question above.
> I can't see any obvious evolutionary benefit from
> worshipping, so it might be a secondary consequence of other
> features.
Well, excluding the fact that "what I can see" is irrelevant, it almost
certainly is a secondary consequence of a basic advance, and in fact that is
exactly what I argued in my post.
> As I see it, we need to find ways of making extropianism or
> transhumanism as emotionally fulfilling as it is intellectually
> fulfilling. I think it can be done, but it is an unusual (i.e. new)
> use for psychology and critical thinking to come up with it.
That is why we each of us on this list talk about the weather and go to the tea room to meet people with whom we mostly disagree, or all the other little tricks we have set up to give some solace to the intellectual view we have adopted.
best,
tim