the science of belief

[rone]

I've been meaning to share this with you for months now, but i kept forgetting.  Something whipartist posted reminded me about it.

Despite the vast number of religions, nearly everyone in the world believes in the same things: the existence of a soul, an afterlife, miracles, and the divine creation of the universe.  Recently psychologists doing research on the minds of infants have discovered two related facts that may account for this phenomenon.  One: human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena.  And two: this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry.

The companion interview to this article, "Wired for Creationism?", should also be read.

Comments

I read that article when it came out.

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

I was thinking recently that because of those feelings, religion works really well as a dominance tool. The Mayans were just more upfront about doing that, but organized religion is to humans as rolling oil barrels down a hill is to chimpanzees (one of Jane Goodall's young male chimps did this and was instantly the alpha male of the group).

The religious folks are now trying to do this to Dawkins. "But we're still the most aware because you didn't study our esoteric inside information that we keep from the average believer because they wouldn't get it."

Being a god used to be the most effective way to get power over people.

I've met a few religious people who didn't use faith as a dominance tool, but they're rare and none of them are in the ministry. "I speak for the Man who created you. Accept your lot in life."