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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to look at motivation is to
figure out what it will take... if anything... to keep the crime from
being repeated. A crazy person needs meds, a brain-damaged person might
need meds and therapy, a PTSD person (which prolly describes many of
our inner city residents) need something else, and a person who has been
programmed to be hate-filled needs deprogramming.

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My point is simple: religion was necessary to our survival.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
"You have to rely on yourself to achieve your goals."

And that's why capitalists get wealthy on the labor of others? Really?

Your beliefs are full of holes and self-contradictions. And btw, they are beliefs b/c you can't discuss them with any level of evidence.

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:
Religion: "OK, Tribal members. The Great One wants us all to do
things according to His will, otherwise, we're toast. And I am the
spokesman for the Great One. Listen to MY words as you kneel
to Him!"
That message has been successful thruout written history; it
appeals to many people. Don't expect that to change soon.
.....

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Originally posted by Brenda:
I think there are different levels of awareness in all species on this planet. Primates can be taught human sign language and humans can learn in the wild to understand other primates.

So all species of life on this planet are aware.

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Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:

BTW, I will have no Rappy takeovers of any thread I start. The Rap is a troll. Ignore him, or go after him in some other thread, please. Not here.

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Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Our race still needs blind worship to make the collective us behave.

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For me, this frightening reality is filled by my understanding of nature. The natural world is so fascinating that it's enough for me to have some number of decades to be part of it. I don't have to be part of some ever-lasting here-after in order to be satisfied with my existence.

For countless other humans, especially in the way-back past when they had no means to quantify nature, they had no such comfort. They had to invent an uber-human deity so they could vicariously control nature to feel safe, and create an afterlife so they could have immortality and meaning.

I propose that any species that achieves self-awareness without taking such a step will struggle to survive. Survival for the self-aware is not just about being able to beat a predator. It's about being able to overcome our own psyche. Our psyche is not a trivial thing!

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Thought experiment: if we humans were self-aware, but DIDN'T develop a religious belief, what would we wind up doing (or not doing) that would negatively impact our survival? Would that cause us to realize our helplessness in the grand scheme of things, the futility of action in the face of inescapable death, and sit around in existential despair, not shuffling out of the cave often enough to find food?

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In other words, is it an antidepressant of sorts? A motivating factor?

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

More than once, I've had super Christians, aka Bible Thumpers, Young Earth Creationist types, tell me that , were it not for their belief in God™, they'd be free to do just about anything. Steal, rape, murder... pretty much as they saw fit.

When I'd tell them that I can choose NOT to do any of those things, with no belief, they didn't have any reply. Just 'god is great' or claim that I really was a believer, I just am denying god, or some such go-se.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
"I'm saying: without the band-aid of religion to get the collective Us over that extremely large bump of becoming self-aware, could we be here?"

Chimps, dolphins and elephants appear to be self aware, at least as far as being able to recognize themselves in a mirror. We don't know what goes on inside them though. And we don't know if they have language, though for dolphins it appears they might have one that at least allows them to closely coordinate movements.

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Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
maybe inventing God was part of the process of becoming advanced. He/she/it was our model to live up to.

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:

"Primitive people needed religion"?

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The Lord heard you when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. 29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever! 30 “Go, tell them to return to their tents. 31 But you stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands, decrees and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess.”

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Originally posted by DEVERSE:
However, I do find the term “blind belief” to be highly amusing, particularly with it being attributed only to the theist. All belief is “blind” because what cannot be proved nor disproved by knowledge and fact, requires faith in the belief.

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Which, to me, sort of demonstrates neither group is specifically intelligent nor overly evolved as they are unable to figure it out, nor answer the “great questions” (why am I here and what is my purpose) and thus spend time and effort in argument of a trivial point rather than just enjoying life.

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Originally posted by Brenda:

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Originally posted by G:

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Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:

Many interesting updates here that I mean to address, probably not until tomorrow when I'm on a plane for several hours.

A few that caught my eye: saying that religion/spiritualism is just story-telling and had nothing to do with our evolution and state of being is an under appreciation of the power of imagination. The idea I'm putting out there is that without this imagination we would not be what we are today, and our spiritual side - whether it be wood nymphs or an old man in robes - is central to our imagination.

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I think you are missing the point. Story Telling isn't "just story telling." It isn't the stories you tell children to put them to bed. Look at the bible, think of North American Indians, any early Man - their spirituality is communicated with stories. Most early education at the time of the bible was anecdotal, it was solving problems with examples, with stories, with imagination. You have this problem with your neighbor, here's how someone else solved a similar problem via a story. It is Imagination and through the telling and retelling of stories grew questions and from that, Spirituality. Seems to me that that's at the core of Spirituality: a system that tries to answer the impossible questions.

This statement is in fact the opposite of what I'm saying: "A few that caught my eye: saying that religion/spiritualism is just story-telling and had nothing to do with our evolution and state of being is an under appreciation of the power of imagination." Story Telling is imagination, it is what fires our imagination, it's how we answered and communicated many of our greatest ideas, like; what are all of those lights in the sky and how did they get there?

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You have a point G. Also those stories that my ancestors told also is how they passed on knowledge of the tribe and how messages and news was passed from one group to another. It's how they built networks for working together. A large hard of food animals was seen a runner was sent to the next group over to let them know. Maybe asking if they wanted to join on the hunt. Story telling at its basic is a form of communication.

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:

"Primitive people needed religion"?

Slowly the premise sinks in. Do I agree with it? My gut says, No.
Primitive people had a lot going for them; & their life-style, ex-
perience, reality, expectation was Sooo different from us now,
we can't go there ... we cannot fathom their minds or inventory
their emotional needs.

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Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Not just religion, but spiritualism, the idea that there is more to the world than what you see, and that human life can do more and mean more than just living long enough to procreate.

I think there's a lot to the fact that every people, even those living far apart, developed such sort of spiritualism/religion. The only way we'd really know if this is "thing" would be if we became a Star Trek society, visiting countless developing societies and noting whether disparate races share the trait of spiritualism.

Also very interesting would be whether the rote religious thing, the blind belief and abuse of it to make people "behave" so that power could concentrate with the few in charge, was just a temporary stage. That's what I hope it will be with us.

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Originally posted by G:
My apologies - forums are great, forums suck - I can see that interpretation now, glad to read it that way. It felt funny you being dismissive of such a thing, next time I'll ask first.

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:
OK. I'm not up to posting coherently yet today ... hmmm.

But you just hit on one of my hang-ups where our words-concepts
aren't in tune.

To me, "spiritualism/religion" doesn't grok. They're not the same.

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But aside from that, I've been trying to express that, if most
people lacked their own connection with Nature but had only
their intellect, would they not still be self-reliant & face life
head-on?

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I get that self-awareness is the source of the capacity to believe, but I don't see how that translates to survival.

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I'm with others that question how you can know that cats are not self-aware. They may be much more sophisticated in their self-awareness even. And as for playing with their pray - we see that on this board.

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If humanoid life exists on other planets, do you see those humanoids creating Religion as a natural, even unavoidable form of evolution?

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Since we'll never know what rolls around in that cat skull I'm happy to agree with, "Cats are not self-aware like we are."

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I like the idea that if we ever encounter other humanoids on another planet of a similar age, they will have passed through very similar set of growing pains. I think it's unavoidable. I also think that at some point we'll progress beyond old forms of religion, Humans 3.0. It's like there are markers for survival, "where are the Earth humanoids now? They have just achieved the first stage of their Digital Age? This is where their ride gets bumpy..."

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