Re: [asa] Religious brainwashing

The whole "wish fulfillment" meme seems to collapse upon itself. Let's
grant for argument that belief in an afterlife is a sort of "wish
fulfillment" meme that has historically conferred some kind of survival
advantage. We should reasonably then ask, what other common beliefs are in
the same category? It seems very hard to find a stopping place. Why isn't
the optimistic belief that it is possible to separate "true" beliefs" from
mere "wish fulfillment" equally an exercise in wish fulfillment? It could
certainly confer a survival advantage to believe that one is able to make
some sort of autonomous, real, integrated judgments about an external
reality -- those who are able to construct a convincing picture of reality,
for example, tend to be able to control social structures such as politics
and religion. Broad judgements about the nature of reality, then --
including judgments about which broad beliefs are true and which are merely
wish fulfillment -- cannot be relied upon. The "wish fulfillment" meme
creates a reduction that ends up opening a gaping epistemic hole.

On 9/21/07, rpaulmason@juno.com <rpaulmason@juno.com> wrote:
>
> EVERYONE has religious/metaphysical ideas that they live by and pass on to
> their children. You SHOULDN'T lie, or hit your sister, etc. Any moral
> instruction or information about the value, purpose and meaning of life - is
> ultimately religious - even if it is that there is no soul or heaven.
> "Religions" are just a group of people with the same metaphysical ideas.
>
> Belief in an afterlife seems actually quite natural and universal - it
> actually takes some "brainwashing" to erase that belief.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
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Received on Fri Sep 21 09:55:38 2007