Re: virus: Why People Believe in Religion

maggs (c680910@showme.missouri.edu)
Sat, 27 Feb 1999 15:19:38 -0600 (CST)

                        Usually its because you've been raised with it and
its bases are in violence and fear. Even if you grow up to be a rational adult there's all that programming to weed through. alot of people don't have the time or more tragically think they can't or don't understand why they can't.

Maggz c680910@showme.missouri.edu

"A Husband is a Convenient Part of the Furniture of the House" Mary Wollstonecraft

"I am more than what you define and delienate me to be" Elizabeth Wurtzel

On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Freespeak wrote:

> In my opinion, there are three fundamental reasons
> why people believe in religion.
>
> The first factor is the human predilection for
> anthropomorphism. See '#TL05AB: ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND
> RELATED PHENOMENA' <http://www.buildfreedom.com/tl/tl05ab.htm>.
>
> [The above was inspired by the book 'Faces in the Clouds:
> A New Theory of Religion' by Stewart Guthrie -- mentioned
> on this list some months ago.]
>
> The second factor is what remains in the human brain
> and psyche from our "bicameral heritage." See 'The Other
> Side of Religion' <http://www.buildfreedom.com/otherside.htm>,
> with particular emphasis on 'Appendix - The Biological Basis
> for Religion.'
>
> The third factor can be inferred from Al Siebert's book,
> 'Peaking Out: How My Mind Broke Free from the Delusions
> of Psychiatry.' It could be called the "aggrandized-noun"
> phenomenon. It derives from Melanie Klein's insight she
> called the "good-mother/bad-mother split": "...each infant
> experiences two different beings in its life -- a good,
> powerful, nurturing, comforting, all-knowing being and
> a bad, hurting, dangerous one." [Look up "Melanie Klein"
> in the Index.]
>
> These factors may also illuminate why certain memes are
> more powerful than others.
>
> Frederick Mann
>
>
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