The book i promoted at vFRIAM - Excellent Beauty by Eric Dietrich does a good 
job of dealing with the question "why religion" AND "why science?" Pretty much 
the same question.

Anyone aware of a religion that claims an afterlife that is other than "eternal 
damnation" or "eternal bliss." Some kind of existence that is not basically 
static. I have been looking and yet to find one. Different nuances of course, 
but all basically claiming a static state. BTW this includes the static state 
of "nothingness."

Mormonism is an exception, but I and trying to find if it is the only one.

davew


On Sat, May 23, 2020, at 9:59 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> Hi Russ,

> 

> Hawking my wares again. I am sorry but SOMEBODY has to read this crap. The 
> argument of this paper 
> <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311349078_The_many_perils_of_ejective_anthropomorphism>
>  is that the flow of inference is actually in the other direction. We model 
> our view of ourselves on our experience with others. 

> 

> Nick 

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

> [email protected]

> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

> 

> 

> 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Russell Standish
> Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2020 9:39 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] God

> 

> The theory which makes some sense to me is that we humans (as social

> creatures) have evolved to anthropomorphise. This make sense for dealing with 
> other humans, who might be competitors, or compatriots. And the modelling 
> makes use of a remarkable trick - observe one's own mind, and use those 
> observations to model somebody else's mind. This explains why we have 
> self-awareness, if not consciousness.

> 

> The thing is, the same trick also works quite well with other animals, who 
> may be predators or prey, irrespective of whether other species actually have 
> minds or not.

> 

> So it makes sense that when some relatively rare phenomenon occurs, perhaps a 
> thunderstorm, that the alpha male stands up and makes threatening noises. And 
> it seems to work when the thunder goes away

> 

> 

> eventually. And so the thunderstorm has been anthropomorphised. This got 
> extended to other phenomenon, eg famines get blamed on angry gods who can be 
> appeased by making the appropriate offerings. Eventually con-artists 
> exploited this with ever more elaborate stories that leveraged this innate 
> tendency to anthromorphise. I'm sure astrology started out as a cunning plan 
> to garner research funds for early astonomers from ignorant kings.

> 

> Like most evolutionary stories, this is a "just so" story. But I think it has 
> a grain of truth.

> 

> Cheers, Russell

> 

> --

> 

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)

> Principal, High Performance Coders [email protected]

> http://www.hpcoders.com.au

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 

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