Religion is the result of the fusion of several social behaviours and which, according to me at least, is part of human evolution (as a social result not a biological feature). One of the more primitive social phenomenon still present in religion being magic, i.e. the imaginary explanation of reality.
One aspect of religion, that I think is both paramount and its primary function, is that it teaches the masses lessons without the people
Religion is the result of the fusion of several social behaviours and which, according to me at least, is part of human evolution (as a social result not a biological feature). One of the more primitive social phenomenon still present in religion being magic, i.e. the imaginary explanation of reality.
One aspect of religion, that I think is both paramount and its primary function, is that it teaches the masses lessons without the people actually learning them from their own experience. The "good" thing about it is that people can behave in a sensible way without being sensible themselves.
Religion is the most common form that experience has taken to pass on to the next generation. The sensible behaviours that I have already mentioned I ritualised so that a huge amount of individuals can adopt them and benefit from them when their original motivations have been lost for years.
But there comes the harmful side of it, if those behaviours are unhistoricised and repeated in a mechanic way, then there is no possibility of adapting them when they are obsolete. The consequence is that religion can be the vehicle of an enormous proportion of useless, if not harmful, attitudes.
I suppose that what I am trying to explain will not be clear until I give an example. So let us consider the case of marriage and fidelity a feature which is common to at least all Judeo-Christian religions. We can assume that the original motivation for fidelity is to prevent the spread of VDs. I believe (notice the choice in the term) that it is anterior to religion as we know it today. It is first present in the old testament, VDs being explained by demons and the alleged impurity of the female body, especially "loose women" (see magic explanation). The idea is developed in parallel with the concept of marriage and fidelity, being "good", i.e "God's will", i.e "what you should do, even if you don't know why". As an illustration of the split between ritual behaviour and actual motivation, we can notice that no direct and explicit link between VDs/demons and fidelity is made - to my knowledge.
From that point, we can understand how religious "advices" may be misinterpreted, so that instead of thinking that unfaithful people will be punished because demons will possess them, believers come to think they should enact God's will themselves by stoning unfaithful people (generally women).
Still in the sexual area and for the same reasons, thousands of years later, when society and technology have evolved so much that VDs can be prevented (condoms, for those a bit slow on the uptake), we can understand why the commandment "be fruitful, and multiply" (Ge:1:28) can be harmful when the fidelity aspect is considered as a given.
This was only a very brief introduction of my views on religion and is criticisable, which is a good thing since I am open to critic. I developed what I considered to be the most important point of my opinion and stop there for the time being because it must be tedious to read already. I hope that I made myself clear and that I will not be misinterpreted myself.
Slashdot Mirror
Religion is the result of the fusion of several social behaviours and which, according to me at least, is part of human evolution (as a social result not a biological feature). One of the more primitive social phenomenon still present in religion being magic, i.e. the imaginary explanation of reality.
One aspect of religion, that I think is both paramount and its primary function, is that it teaches the masses lessons without the people
Religion is the result of the fusion of several social behaviours and which, according to me at least, is part of human evolution (as a social result not a biological feature). One of the more primitive social phenomenon still present in religion being magic, i.e. the imaginary explanation of reality. One aspect of religion, that I think is both paramount and its primary function, is that it teaches the masses lessons without the people actually learning them from their own experience. The "good" thing about it is that people can behave in a sensible way without being sensible themselves. Religion is the most common form that experience has taken to pass on to the next generation. The sensible behaviours that I have already mentioned I ritualised so that a huge amount of individuals can adopt them and benefit from them when their original motivations have been lost for years. But there comes the harmful side of it, if those behaviours are unhistoricised and repeated in a mechanic way, then there is no possibility of adapting them when they are obsolete. The consequence is that religion can be the vehicle of an enormous proportion of useless, if not harmful, attitudes. I suppose that what I am trying to explain will not be clear until I give an example. So let us consider the case of marriage and fidelity a feature which is common to at least all Judeo-Christian religions. We can assume that the original motivation for fidelity is to prevent the spread of VDs. I believe (notice the choice in the term) that it is anterior to religion as we know it today. It is first present in the old testament, VDs being explained by demons and the alleged impurity of the female body, especially "loose women" (see magic explanation). The idea is developed in parallel with the concept of marriage and fidelity, being "good", i.e "God's will", i.e "what you should do, even if you don't know why". As an illustration of the split between ritual behaviour and actual motivation, we can notice that no direct and explicit link between VDs/demons and fidelity is made - to my knowledge. From that point, we can understand how religious "advices" may be misinterpreted, so that instead of thinking that unfaithful people will be punished because demons will possess them, believers come to think they should enact God's will themselves by stoning unfaithful people (generally women). Still in the sexual area and for the same reasons, thousands of years later, when society and technology have evolved so much that VDs can be prevented (condoms, for those a bit slow on the uptake), we can understand why the commandment "be fruitful, and multiply" (Ge:1:28) can be harmful when the fidelity aspect is considered as a given. This was only a very brief introduction of my views on religion and is criticisable, which is a good thing since I am open to critic. I developed what I considered to be the most important point of my opinion and stop there for the time being because it must be tedious to read already. I hope that I made myself clear and that I will not be misinterpreted myself.
Oh, sorry about that, mate. I thought your PS2 and I had been pretty discreet.
The moral is: You should always choose video games, because you can cheat on a video game but the video game can't cheat on you in return.