RE: virus: Why people cling to faith

Richard Brodie (richard@brodietech.com)
Mon, 25 Jan 1999 17:42:45 -0800

Jake MemeLab wrote:

> The
>reasons driving religious thinking are many (belonging, security, comfort,
> simplicity, and on and on).

Same as the reasons driving scientific thinking, right?

> The reason permitting it is always one, not using
>critical thinking skills. Either having a general pattern of not using
them,
>or putting them on hold for one or a few emotional exceptions.

Do you know how arrogant and naive this sounds? I guess you do:

>After more than a decade of striving to understand religious folks, I can't
>put it any more charitably than that - though I spent a fair amount of
effort

>in the past trying to be more "politically correct".

And if they spend a decade trying to understand you, would you advise them to give up? Get it through your head: they've got something GOOD that you don't got. Maybe you should learn what it is!

...

>Religion (at least as it is traditionally understood), is doomed for
>extinction.

You make the common mistake of the evangelistic atheist: irrationally assuming that the pursuit of Truth is a more important value than the pursuit of happiness.

Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/ Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme" http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm Free newsletter! Visit Meme Central at
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm