More Atheisim

Why some people distrust Atheists (theconversation.com)

I can't disagree with the survey findings, but I think they do show that prejudice towards Atheists is at least equal to prejudice towards other religions, or any tribal/ political, racial group. So the problem appears to be with the security of identity within ones own group. (I believe this because my friends believe it and they're my friends and we have rules of behavior, like the Ten Commandments, the Scouts oath, a motorcycle club charter, or whatever.) More precisely: we need that security because the world is a big raunchy place and someone can get bumped out by events unless we have committed friends.

If you get bumped out (& become homeless or Hikikomori), you have to fit yourself back in by appearing to be a member of some cliche' group, which may be demeaning. Prejudice is a group phenomena & it can be identified by someones attempt to transform or impose their values on others. That's not always the case though, many tribal cultures don't evangelize, in fact many of their traditions are private, even secret.

So then comes Gautama Siddhartha AKA, "The Buddha". He's said to be a prince but archeological records of the town where he grew up show it wasn't a palace, more like a mud brick farming/hunter/gathering town on the edge of someone else's kingdom. So our hero was just a guy who'd had it w/ social games & came up w/ his own plan. The only reason we know about it is because he discussed it with people & some came to the conclusion that yeah dude, that sounds ok. The basic teaching is "relate if you must but don't take the bullshit. Don't resist it, just ignore it". His teachings got tuned up during the succeeding years to appeal to the upper classes who need it as much as anyone, and can also provide food and housing. They'd be skeptical of grubby hobos so the story changed him into a prince.

Where religion comes from

The broadest definition of religion (that I can think of) is: the attempt to classify everything we DON'T KNOW into an intellectually graspable concept. It's distinct from spiritual experience by being recognizable and communicable among a group of people. A spiritual experience is something that happen to individuals, it's subjective. Religion attempts to communicate that and make it (somehow) objective.

Some people say awe is a prerequisite for a religious experience. Awe might be bliss or it might be terror, but it's the same as not knowing what's going on. So we ask someone and pretty soon find out the world was created by a super being who's sort of like us but knows and does everything. So they say, and it puts some kind of handle on it. We can't argue because honestly we just admitted that we don't know.

Religion brings positive evolutionary benefits by exchanging information between people. The information can easily be bull, but sometimes it's verifiably true. For example, by the above definition, Science is a religion too.

The net result is that the individual gets what seems like a satisfactory answer from someone else and is forced to admit that there is a system of knowledge beyond himself (Donald Trump excepted of course). Then, being a part of the whole instead of the whole, the individual extends self preservation benefits to the group which amounts to self sacrifice and altruism. Bad for the individual but good for the group. The group is the larger self, a super being.

How superstitions spread (sciencedaily.com) Just take my word for it.