From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Mon Mar 01 1999 - 21:14:46 MST
> Spike Jones writes:
>
> > (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.
>
> Jonathan Reeves wrote: I remember reading about an experiment
> performed on pigeons. A group of pigeons was placed ...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.
Jonathan, I once managed to accidentally make my dog superstitious and
even
perform a worship service of me. I always gave him only dry dog food,
and not
too much of even that. One day, just for the hell of it, I cooked two
steaks and
gave him one. Right when I walked out with the steak, he happened to be
rolling
in the grass on his back. For several days after, whenever I came out
of the
house, he would immediately roll on his back and start worshipping.
{8^D
Oh mighty human, accept my humble canine supplication...
He was a good dog. Shoulda had him frozen.
> 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.
Perhaps you are right. I can imagine a group of cave humans,
superstitious and
afraid of everything, for good reason. One day when there was a wicked
thunderstorm, as they cowered in the back of the cave, one gutsy guy
stood
in the opening. Whenever a big flash happened, he would spread his arms
wide,
and right away a boom! After that, noooo one messed with that guy.
Power!
Had all the ladies he wanted, many offspring. And no wonder he wanted
to
propagate the god gene. He was in tight with god!
When you think it over, it really is no wonder that every human society
has
the god(s) meme. There are plenty of mechanisms that would start and
propagate it, whereas those mechanisms that overturn it are few and
sophisticated, such as logic and reason, forces which in human society
are
fragile indeed. spike
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