God & the Fairy Tree

Well, the fact that they all call it "God" (in English, anyway) pretty much disproves what you're saying.You're asking us to believe that all these people, acting rationally and independantly of each other... arrived at the exact same religious conclusion as the vast majority of the people in their society.That's a little ridiculous. What you're asking us to believe is that there's something, then, in the air or water that makes people in America believe in God and people in India believe in Shiva.Clearly that's stupid. People in America tend to come to Christian conclusions because most Americans are Christians, while most people in India come to Hindu conclusions because most Indians are Hindu. Obviously.You'd never allow the same reasoning for languages, you know. If I were to come here and tell you that I didn't actually learn English growing up - that, working completely independantly, I developed my own unique language... that turned out to be identical in every way to English, you'd rightly call "bullshit." But make the argument about religion, and suddenly it convinces you.Evidence for the incredible power of religion to turn off parts of your brain, I guess.

I don't know that it's precluded, but in practice, is it ever exhibited? What with nearly every single religious person adopting the same basic religion as everyone else around them?I think there's a pretty extensive burden of evidence for anyone trying to assert that religion is something people come to through a process of independent thought.

Indeed - atheists. Sure. But just saying "we shouldn't generalize" doesn't prove that it's reasonable to assert that people are acting independently when they come to exactly the same conclusions as everybody else around them. Yes, but it's relatively rare for someone in the middle of one faith community to abandon that faith completely and live some other faith. I don't think anybody said anybody was a drone. But it's abundantly obvious that humans are actually quite terrible at developing truly independent reasoning. The influence of the "mob" is always upon us.

Several million people? I hardly think that's the case.Imagine a small town of Christians. Consider one person born and raised in that town, living there all her life, going to church every Sunday.What are the odds that, continuing to live in that town, she'll completely abandon Christianity and become a committed Buddhist for the rest of her life? Pretty low, I should think. One in a million, perhaps. Why? Well, of course not. (They just think its wrong for all the other religions.)But I don't see what that has to do with what we're talking about. Now it seems like you're defending my position - that adopting a religious faith is usually a matter of going along with the crowd. I've long felt that God would be better compared to Santa Claus:1) Creates things
2) Long white beard
3) Watches over all persons
4) Knows if you've been good or bad
5) Punishes the wicked, rewards the virtuous
6) Answers requests in written or spoken form
7) Able to visit every home in a single night, or even fasterof course, the similarities don't end there - they're both complete make-believe.The only difference between belief in fairies and belief in God is the popularity of the belief. That's not a qualitative difference, it's just a quantitative one.

Consider the favor returned. Personally I wouldn't consider someone who wastes their time wondering about questions to which answers can't be known to be particularly smart, or possessed of any particular curiosity into the world around us.What you're talking about isn't "deep"; it's the sort of freshman navel-gazing that gives the impressive appearance of depth.But anybody can ask questions that have no answer. That's the easiest thing in the world. Asking questions to which answers can be found is very difficult, indeed, and it's somewhat hilarious that the importance of these two very different activities are so often mistakenly reversed. I imagine we tell children whatever we think they need to hear, without much regard for what is true. Being an adult, however, means putting an end to childish things - like the arrogant assumption that the world exists for your convenience. We have a difference of opinion about what the "big questions" - worth spending time on - are. "What are species related?" is a big question. "What is the meaning of existence?" couldn't be a bigger waste of your time. Not really. What makes a great scientist is an adherence to the scientific method and a sense for what research will be fruitful.What makes for great philosophers and theologians is an incredible talent for making bullshit sound like wisdom.

If you spend your time answering your own questions, eventually you start to get a sense for which questions have answers and which don't. Even mathematics has tools for determining the answerability of questions. No, of course not, because all you would have to do to find out is go there. I know how I got here. My parents had sex and I was born. Same as you. That's an answerable question. But that's not what people usually want to know when they ask "how did we all get here."If you're asking "what is the point of all this", that's a poorly-framed question that can't really be answered. Therefore it's really a waste of time to think about it for more than a minute - you might as well pick whatever answer you like best and be done with it. Oh, come on. You were a kid once, I'm sure. Don't you remember that watershed day when you realized that most of what adults were telling you - there's a Santa Claus, Grandma is in Heaven now, storks bring babies - was bullshit?Clearly we lie to our children, because they're not ready for some truths. (Or we're not ready to tell them.) No, come on. The meaning of life is what the idle ponder. Starving people are thinking about food. Sick people are thinking about pain. Pondering the "meaning of life", since it's a waste of time, is a luxury that the sick and starving can't afford. No, but I believe Norman Borlaug gave hope to a billion people by answering questions that you would find pointless. Mother Theresa accomplished jack shit (and was a thief, incidentally) compared to the contributions of Norman Borlaug - over one billion people are alive today that wouldn't be, thanks to him and his team of researchers.

I don't know how to tell you this, but plenty of people are still lonely. I think you'll find it's a definite overstatement to suggest that Mother Theresa "eradicated" loneliness, or anything else.