Re: virus: Origin of religion theory

Sodom (sodom@ma.ultranet.com)
Fri, 17 Apr 1998 13:07:53 -0400


I had never thought of this in this way before, but I understand enough
about visual triggers to suspect that this is responsible for at least
some superstition.

Sodom

David McFadzean wrote:

> Some of you may have been around here long enough to read
> my theory on the origin of religion. Basically it goes something
> like this: Humans have evolved a natural (not learned) ability
> to recognize faces; it is highly sophisticated, robust and
> hard-wired into our brains. However, due to the nature of the
> problem, it isn't possible to avoid getting a few false positives,
> hence humans tend to see faces in natural formations such as
> tree trunks, rocks and babbling brooks. Our ancient (million
> years ago) ancestors accounted for this phenomenon by attributing
> spirits to the natural words: forest dryads, rock trolls, and
> water sprites. This belief complex, animism, is the memetic
> ancestor of all our modern (superstition-based) religions.
>
> The reason I bring this up again is that I just noticed that
> someone else has arrived at the same theory independently and
> published a book on it called "Faces in the Clouds : A New Theory
> of Religion".
>
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0195098919>
>
> --
> David McFadzean david@lucifer.com
> Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/
> Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/