From: nanowave (nanowave@shaw.ca)
Date: Tue Sep 24 2002 - 01:40:36 MDT
Spike wrote:
>>Could it be that half the population
>>of this planet believe in an afterlife because of
>>this mechanism?
Damien Broderick wrote:
>Doubt it, happens too rarely. But look, the answer's staring us in the face
>every morning. During the day you run around with the other people in your
>tribe. When the sun goes down you enter a weird part of the world where you
>see all kinds of familiar animals and people you were just talking to over
>dinner and dead people and trees that jump in purple rivers of grass and
>all that stuff. When you wake up you sometimes go over to spear the bastard
>who was screwing your wife in the dream world, and everyone understands
>this. Half of your life, although it's a bit hazy, has dead people you used
>to see in the daylight running about in it. What more proof does a good
>hunter-gatherer need?
Yes I agree wholeheartedly. Combine that with the obvious insight that each
tribes eldest/wisest - the "the medicine man" would soon see personal
advantage in claiming to comprehend and commune with this strange "spirit
world" and bingo, you've got the birth of mysticism. Put three medicine men
in a cave with a campfire and some nifty mushrooms or herbs, and soon they
actually believe they're totally "in there" with this mysterious quality of
the subconscious mammalian psyche. Now someone pipes up - "You know
gentlemen, we really are "all that", yes we certainly are, but let's not
tell the thick headed hunters the whole story or they're bound to stop
sharing the meat and we'll be back out in the sun picking blueberries with
the women and children." The other two nod and exclaim - "brilliant!" and
organized religion is unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
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