Re: THEOLOGY: Extropianism & Theology & dopamine

Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Mon, 01 Mar 1999 22:00:01 -0800

Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> <big snip>...They just developed faith that if they did as the shaman
> instructed, it would be better. It was not an irrational belief,
> because it really worked....

All this reinforces my earlier notion that there are *plenty* of mechanisms to explain the rise of god memes. I will toss in yet another: The god meme supplies a nifty shortcut for instilling the moral values in its members that any stable society needs. With kids, it is much more difficult to explain why they need to wash before meals than to just issue the command, then shriek "Because IM the MOM, THATS why now DO IT!"

To explain a rather complex prisoner's dilemma situation where the societal members must all cooperate, it provides a shortcut to just say "god said so, now shut up and DO IT!" spike