roseweird posted:

i don't believe religion is the default position, i know religious history well enough to understand that religion emerged from human atheism. i believe that religion is a natural condition, though, that will always emerge in some form where humans live together. i agree that religions that continue over long periods in a fixed form rely on violence, conversion, and manipulation of reproduction, but i think that religion is a broader phenomenon than this.

i don't think religious beliefs are properly delusions any more than the delusion "i am a coherent individual rather than a loose collection of parts". it is a mistake to call a symbol a delusion, as though every user of a symbol takes it literally. you know that the physical reality of the universe is more complex than any abstraction could ever capture, yet you are capable of manipulating numbers. you know the difference between a photograph of a place and being there, or between a question and a statement.

self-delusion/deception is evolution's anti-depressant