Question to Athiests

1. Comfort in the belief that there is purpose to life/something better after this life/someone cares/listens/provides.

We've already talked about this somewhere but here are a few ideas:

1. Religion is a good way to create a set of norms meant to guarantee a group survival. In pre-modern societies the murder rate was particularly high. To prevent this an all-mighty and all-seeing nightwatcher imagined to punish bad deeds was pretty useful. The same way good religions insist on quite good strategies: have kids, work, be just, don't let yourself die, be generous with the poor, etc. Obviously cults that do not create these positive results never make it to the level of religion. For instance, a cult based on suicide will have little chance to have a second generation of followers.

2. Concentration is good for the brain. It releases endocrines. That's why meditating monks often look high. Prayers is a good way to reach a meditating stage.

3. A sophisticated answer could be that in the wild, animals have a vision of hell and paradise. Heaven would be to reproduce very successfully and thus have your selfish genes survive for ever. Hell being the contrary. Social life very much disturbs this, you are not allowed to mate with all the females you meet, you need something to compensate: the immortality of the soul pretty much does the trick.

5. Another reason could be resignation. We are a curious species, if we don't have the answer for something, we could be severely bothered. God could be a useful answer.

6. Religions also have a strong bonding element. It creates strong communities and thus allow to have access to spouses, credit and protection more easily than alone.

7. It is possible that religion channels aggressiveness towards other groups rather than other individuals. It thus makes a religious group more likely to dominate a non-religious one than the other.

The comparative advantage of religion is made obvious by the fact that pretty much every single society has one. But it is obvious that rapidly changing environment have made many of these advantages of church and religion seem very pass�. A CCTV is more likely to decrease one's incentive to commit a crime than the fear of god. A bank brings you more opportunity for finding credit than belonging to a church, etc.

Some advantages may still exist. The relaxing effect of prayers has not disappeared. Others have been diminished but many still like it. For instance, many don't rely only on science to bring answers.

Religion comes with a cost (if anything the coin you give the priest once in a while). Aggressiveness may turn in a mere killing frenzy. The effect of the "good" norms of religion (thou shalt not kill) has decreased, but the one of the bad ones hasn't (thou shalt not put a condom). The ability to bring answers has been diminished by the realisation that so many religions existed in the first place, who is to say yours is the good one?

A society ruled by religion would thus be suboptimal � theoretically. But nothing shows that less religious place fare specially better than more religious ones. Czech Republic (the most atheist country) should be the #1 power in the world if religion was significantly costly. On the other hand, within the USA, the most religious states are not the most prosperous. So religion has no massive macro effect (as long as we are not talking about the Talebans). Not being granted abortion, divorce and so on and/or having very politically influential priests does not make a country significantly worse.

One could point out that the richer the people get the more atheist they are, but it is a side effect, not a cause. A poor atheist is just as likely to stay so as a poor religious person.

The only thing we can remark is that the cost of religion has significantly lower in the past 300 years. There is no religious taxes anymore, religious practice became cheaper (a bible costs $2, you go to church less often, etc.). What we have nowadays is a religion light. Its cost has gone down, meaning that people are aware they are getting less out of religion than before. Religion has adapted.

People like Dawkins concentrate on whatever reminds us of the past high cost of religion. They are right to be offended to see some people paying too much for the potential benefices they can get out of religion. The same way one would be offended to see people paying 80% taxes. They focus on people in the West that try to make religion costlier (by preventing the march of science for instance). But they don't see the larger picture: religion light with lemon.

It's a symptom of evolution rather than being of any advantage.  The human intellect has evolved such that it ponders questions such as the meaning of life.

Aelfgifu has it right...

....did I just say that?!.....





Edited by JanusRook - 11-Apr-2008 at 03:57

Umberto Eco puts it nicely:

Edited by Yiannis - 11-Apr-2008 at 16:00

Originally posted by Zagros It's a symptom of evolution rather than being of any advantage.

There is a glitch in all of this.  There are several cultures that do not have a deity concept.  They don't have a need to explain everything.  They have an "it is what it is" attitude.  2 of these are Island cultures in Indonesia somewhere.  One of them doesn't even have a word for time.