What is the evolutionary advantage to religion?

Religion is a quick and easy way to get a moral system going in order to have a working society. Instead of coming up with philosophical concepts, all you have to do is threaten the people by saying, "Do this or enjoy eternal damnation."Religion persists because, again, it is quick and easy. "Goddunit" is the only thing you need to learn and it is more preferable to many people over spending years learning philosophy or science. This can be demonstrated by this very forum. The fact that most YEC's that have visited this place are either crackpots or stupid people should tell you something. The ones that are a little better than what I just described tend to misrepresent scientific and philosophical concepts (perhaps they read something out of a flier and thought they've learned everything there is to know about those concepts?).Natural Selection tends to give advantage to the systems with the least complicated design yet have the most efficient yields. Take the male breasts/nipples for example.Religion is a quick and easy way to give one a sense of know-it-all. Why bother spending a life time studying complex scientific mechanisms when all you have to do is read the scripture and say "goddunit" to your 6 year old when he asks a question?Added by edit.Besides, it justifies a lot of hate that people have. Slavery was justified by religion. Genocide was justified by religion. Racism was justified by religion. Sexism was and still is justified by religion. Homophobia was and still is justified by religion. I wouldn't be surprised if a future nuclear holocaust will be justified by religion.All in all, religion can so easily replace human reason and science for a simple reason: People have a reason for feeling bigger than other people and such a feeling is like the feeling you get from smoking pot or sniffing glue.This message has been edited by Lam, 12-28-2004 20:38 AM

Well, if this isn't an indication that the stupid people are trying to eliminate the rest of us and take over the world, I don't know what is.

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Malcolm Wright, 41, said he suffered trauma in the accident in which Richard Jones, 18, of Dyserth, died.

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It has emerged he received 500 in an out of court settlement but had previously had to pay a premium of 440 on a no win, no fee, basis.

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Mr Jones' family say the legal action has put them "through hell".

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The teenager had been walking home to the family farm from a works' Christmas party in 2000 when he was struck by the car driven by Mr Wright.

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No action was taken against Mr Wright and an inquest jury later returned a verdict of accidental death after hearing the details of the collision.

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Mr Jones' mother Megan said: "To be blunt, he has put us through hell for three years.

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"I never wanted him to have a penny from the accident in which Richard was killed.

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Richard had applied for a place at Cambridge University after gaining four A grade A levels and was working at a Prestatyn engineering firm as part of a year away from his studies.

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He suffered serious head injuries in the accident on 23 December, 2000 and died in hospital on Christmas Eve.

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The Puritans also used the same slogan to unite, and in many cases, control their people.

Read what I stated again. The whole point was that religion was a quick and easy way to get a society going. Even though I never said that there were times when it was absolutely horrible, to our standards at least, you jumped to the conclusion that I stated such. It says something about how you approach someone else's statements.

Actually, no. I think it was something like:Person A: What's fire?Person B: Um... uh... it must be beyond our comprehension.Person C: Hey, you're right. There must be a "supernatural being" of some sort to maintain the fire.Person A: Ok, let's all worship the fire "god".*Some time later*Person D: Killing each other is not going to get our society very far.Person E: Hooga booga kooga shooga...Person F: I am the translater for the oracle. The oracle said that the fire god wants us to stop killing each other and start fighting off outsiders. It's a quick and easy way to justify a lot of the things that come naturally to people. People have the tendency think too highly of themselves. Putting black people down sure made a lot of them feel better. But sometime along the way, some must have asked a question like "why are blacks inferior?""Because they're descendants of Cain," said someone else. It made it a lot easier for people to swallow the concept of an inferior race.So no, it wasn't a rant about how bad religion is. I was stating my opinion that religion has an advantage over science and philosophy because it is easy to swallow and it justifies a lot of prejudice and hate that people tend to have.

Yes and no. I wouldn't say lazy because they didn't have any choice. They didn't have the motivation or the equipments to investigate certain forces of nature. It was a lot easier just to say "Zeus bestowed the lightning upon thee...."

Tell me where I criticized the people in history.

If you see it that way, the truth hurts.

Why thank you.