Religion: a survival mechanism?

The Jewish people did survive, though. Even under the most extreme of pressures, they didn't fall apart. Their distinctive genetic makeup was neither eradicated nor diluted.Without religion, is there any doubt that they would have folded into the general populace? That would spell death for most of their genes.

Was there a point to this exercise in free association?

As far as DNA is concerned, there is no other type. It starts with the first reproductively isolated group. The boundaries of the group define the contents. Dissolve the boundaries while immersed in a much larger pool, and genetic material will be lost. 7 generations, and you're down to individuals with only 0.78% of the original group's material.
They are effectively extinct. 'Falling apart' = dissolution. This has not happened.
The boundary has become somewhat porous, but the survival of the genetic material is not in jeopardy as long as it remains dominant within the group.This message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 03-03-2005 20:29 AM

I'll take that as a no, as your 'point' is that a possibility is a possibility.This message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 03-03-2005 20:36 AM

As I did, I obviously can. I don't care what anyone else said. The point is that you are saying absolutely nothing. This is not a sentence. And I have no idea where you came up with that 'impossibility'. All I did was point out that all you were doing is referring to a possibility as being possible. I don't think anything you write qualifies as 'clarification'.Here's a hint: Write out the WHOLE thought.This includes refraining from posting something out of the middle of some obscure paper, since if nobody has any freakin' clue where is started or ended, they ain't gonna be able to tie it into the debate. "The situation still looks the same."And now clarify just what situation you're talking about.

Bifurcation logical fallacy, but at least it's English. (Sort of)Anyway, what I'm saying is that you haven't tied this into the debate. Until you do, whether I agree, disagree, or even understand is beside the point. And now you're back into your own private language."...that not this view supports which can support..." You're still not writing out the whole thought.
You say, "this style," but leave it undefined -- as though I can use telepathy to figure out which style you're referring to. Thinks which way? (And why is this 'Para' relevant?)
Again, you seem to think that I can read your mind. 'Lack of sentence'?? No definitive answer may be possible, but that doesn't mean that it's silly to look into the issue. We can, for example, determine that no successful meme is detrimental to the survival of the group, as killing off your hosts is not exactly a recipe for success. You never established that you even needed a defense. You made a post that you didn't connect to the topic in any way. Your position is undefined, so there's nothing to attack; hence nothing to defend.
All I can do is attack your manner of 'communication'. Posting free-floating bubbles of disjointed thoughts doesn't allow me to pin down your position, which is a prerequisite for agreeing or disagreeing with said position. Can't you read?
Whether or not the author is well-known has nothing to do with whether the paper you're referencing has been widely read. If you simply want to write your thoughts down, try Microsoft Notepad. Good for you. Nobody else cares. Heh heh. Did you have fun talking to yourself?

Completely irrelevant.We're talking about the survival of the group. When and where a group became reproductively isolated has nothing to do with whether their religion is conducive to the continuation of the genetic material within its group. What group?If you answer that, you have your answer. The group.

I'm just showing him to a mirror, and pointing out how he looks to others -- and why.
If he isn't made aware of how others perceive him, he can't tell whether the image he's presenting is the image he wants to project. If he can't tell if the image he's presenting is the image he wants to project, he can't make a determination on whether any changes are needed to align the two.It's just feedback, which is necessary for any sort of correction to take place.
It works no matter what. If he doesn't want to be understood, then my feedback tells him that he doesn't need to change a thing. The image he would want to project is exactly the image he is projecting, so he'd know that he's reached perfection.Feedback is a wonderful thing.
Yours, for example, tells me how you are perceiving me. This post is an attempt to correct that -- not by modifying my behavior, but by attempting to get you to see it in a different way.
If I'm successful, the image that I want to project will be the image that you perceive.This message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 03-04-2005 09:55 AMThis message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 03-04-2005 09:57 AM

I'm pretty sure that a roundabout approach would get lost in translation.
Hinting that someone has a booger hanging from their nose only works if they can interpret your hints. Coming right out and saying, "Dude, you got a booger comin' outta your nose," is rather hard to misinterpret.

I am.
I just think that he has a rather specialized knowledge base -- one that nearly nobody else shares, but that he assumes everyone else shares; and he also tends to start in the middle of a thought.If I say, "It can't be 1A1A13 Q4, as we're still transmitting P2," you'd have no clue what I was talking about. I'd be assuming that you have an in-depth knowledge of the AIMS MK XII IFF suite, and already know what the fault indication is. As you (presumably) have neither, my statement is both free-floating and unintelligible.
If you made me aware that you had neither, I'd know what I'd have to do to cut you into the loop. I'd have to teach you the entire system, and then take you step-by-step from the beginning of the troubleshooting effort to where I was when I made that statement. At that point, everything would be tied together. You'd see where I came from, and would be able to follow me as I continued on. I'm just the test equipment, with a dash of the tech manual. Using me, you can tell where you are, and where you should be if you want to be within specs -- but there's no obligation to change to be within spec.
Non-standard configurations will work. For example, I can tweak an interrogator and transponder so they're waaay outta spec, but so they still talk to each other just fine. No other transponder will respond to the modified interrogator's interrogation, and no other interrogator will process the modified transponder's response, but they'll work just fine as a pair.
If you don't care or don't want them talking to anything else, no correction is needed. However, you still need feedback to tell you that those two are, indeed, talking to each other -- that they are doing what you want. The work is a lot easier if you don't have to guess at where you are.

And this is why I don't read the works of philosophers.
Humans are good at pattern matching, and reading someone else's reasoning creates a rut along that line of reasoning leading to their conclusion.
You seem to have matched something in this discussion to something Kierkegaard said, and then skipped merrily along the rut, right to his conclusion.As for me, I don't have to deal with any creationist issues. My line of reasoning -- which is rigourously tested every step along the way -- doesn't lead in that direction. You can take as much time and space as needed. However, as I think there's at least one or two basic assumptions that we differ on, we need to find the point of divergence."You exist."I accept that, and I'm pretty sure you do too. (It's not axiomatic for me, though)
Take it from there. You qualified that nicely. Didn't define how you think Gould might have been thinking, but nice nonetheless. Why was it a mistake?
You didn't posit a goal, which is necessary for a determination of 'mistake' to be made. I am free. In fact, I don't think it's even possible to get a pragmatist stuck.
As a last resort, we can always flip a coin. That breaks all stalemates. Understanding wouldn't be a problem if you'd explain what your nouns refer to. I mean, it might be simpler for me to enter a debate with, "You are wrong as per DominionSeraph's reasoning," but that doesn't tell anybody what that reasoning is. Logic will be sufficient. That page is in the middle of an argument. What's there to discuss?Post the entire argument, and I'll be happy to point out any and all flaws. It may boil down to something as simple as, "He got lost in the abstract." Southwest.
If you're south of Providence, you better know how to swim.

Thanks for the link.
That thread does have more posts than I like to enter into, though. I don't much like getting lost in the crowd.

I don't think anyone denies the idea.
I'd say we're hardwired for the type of reasoning, but it's basically the same thing.Snap judgments are undeniably useful.

'Trust' is the default state. If someone never received any contradictory information, they'd never leave that state. However, as there are liars and people who don't know what they're talking about, contradictory information abounds.
But that's a separate issue entirely. Anything dealing with death is likely to have only come about long after things dealing with nature. Death, being so common, would likely have not garnered even a second thought.

Well, the idea of immortality was in there -- but it was in the tree of life.
Of course, it seems the idea of omnipotence wasn't in there. God was afraid that Man would eat of the tree of life, implying that he could not reverse its effects.Anyway, why are we going from 'the emergence of thought' to a written myth? I mean, there's like a couple hundred thousand years in between. I see you're not familiar with animism.