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

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

The idea of non-existance after death used to scare the hell out of me, until one day it clicked in my brain, "Oh hey, by definition, I'm not going to be there to experience not existing, so how could it be scary?" Of all the after-death possibilities, it's not only the most likely, but also one of the most preferable.

-- Schwa ---