As reported by penstemo, Viv Pope writes:
...if the universe were a Machine, then since there can be no morality in a machine, and if we and our society were no more than parts of that Machine, there could be no morality in our society...
But if that machine, amongst its outputs, can produce sentient beings (which obviously it can) with the neural apparatus for emotions - including the sense of fear, the sense of awe, the sense of wonder, and the sense of empathy - then it is equally capable of producing such beings with an innate sense of justice and morality, or even a compulsion for such behaviors. Viv Pope is simply just plain wrong in limiting mechanisms to pulleys and wheels.
....since it would make no sense to worship a Machine, far less make supplication to it in prayer.
And so the six billion people who do exactly that do not do so because it makes sense. They do it because that is what their neural "cogs and gears" compel them to do. And this is independent of whether any god actually exists.
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