Evolution and Religion

Via the Carpetbagger report, a computer programmer is using a computer program to try to determine whether evolution led to spiritual beliefs:

The model assumes that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to communicate unverifiable information to others. They passed on that trait to their children, but they also interacted with people who didn’t spread unreal information. The model looks at the reproductive success of the two sorts of people — those who pass on real information, and those who pass on unreal information.

Under most scenarios, "believers in the unreal" went extinct. But when [James Dow, an evolutionary anthropologist at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan] included the assumption that non-believers would be attracted to religious people because of some clear, but arbitrary, signal, religion flourished.

"Somehow the communicators of unreal information are attracting others to communicate real information to them," Dow says, speculating that perhaps the non-believers are touched by the faith of the religious.

UPDATE: I finished some edits at 1:08, so if you read this post right away, you may want to check it out again.

Link.

That is very interesting, but to answer what some of the faithful, self-righteous few-- that is, of course, the very specific, annoying set of the faithful, self-righteous few who have been trying to push the whole world around, not to mention the country, of late-- might read into it: this does not mean that God "planned" us to believe in him or in a particular religion.

If you're interested in stuff like this, a good place to look, I think, would be Joseph Campbell's stuff. He wrote several books on mythology including The Hero With A Thousand Faces and there is a CD of an interview of him by Bill Moyers sold at book stores. Joseph Campbell frankly acknowledged earlier civilizations' need for and use of these kinds of stories, and he tried to understand the very common, virtually identical themes and characters that occurred in these stories across the world. Interestingly, this impressive mythology/religion expert was a good friend of, and big influence on, George Lucas. When he was alive, George Lucas' Star Wars series did very well with its spooky, spiritual side (I think I've even heard or read that Lucas eventually modeled Yoda on him). But lo and behold, following Campbell's death in the late '80s, Lucas seemed to run out of a grasp of how to handle not only that aspect, but some of the more archetypal themes of the Star Wars movies, and the new films have somewhat disappointed fans (my guess is, Lucas was unashamed to solicit a lot of feedback from Campbell about his script, and Campbell, not being interested in collecting fees from a movie, was not ashamed to give his advice about what the warrior's path in Star Wars should be like to match our cultural history and ageless mythological themes). Those first three Star Wars flicks from the '70s are really the closest thing my generation had to the myths of much earlier cultures.

Anyway, here is my take on the story about the computer programmer:

People aren't born into the world with science. If no one teaches science to you, there is a lot of stuff to experience in the world that has a big influence on you (and that you have no explanation for- and not even a hope of coming to an accurate explanation for). Religion filled a gap. By making stuff up, people could experience more stability and order in their world- the natural world became less terrifying. Instead of a foreign, hostile environment that behaved fickly, the world became a vast, nurturing womb that operated according to some sort of mysterious justice. Humans' behaving in ways that promoted human survival (virtue) were tied into it, were rationalized as having to have something to do with that grander cosmic order.

It's no mystery that people who could accept these mythological models would be more survivable in past times, when man didn't have the technology, the know-how, to solve the riddle of the circumstances he was living in. But evolution is a process. What was hip yesterday, dies off today, to be replaced by something that better meets the conditions of today. Yesterday, we had to invent a God to give us comfort in our cave when we were scared and jostled by the unpredictable, savage storm outside. Now, humans can learn why things happen the way they do and learn how to predict and even control conditions in our world. It's simplistic, for most purposes, to try to sum up something like religion's role in humanity's history, and to declare it either bad or good. It had a grand place, and to the extent it tried to assert itself too insistently when its time was over, it often had a deplorable place, too. But that was then and this is now, and now there is a lot more to human life than believing in things that aren't real. Evolution often changes its natural selection according to changed conditions, too, and that is how a trait like the programmer thinks he may have identified arises, and perhaps eventually disappears.    

•  Think about Cro-magnon/Neanderthal family

  and clan units .... lightning then thunder rarely appear in a shocking/sudden way.

  The flickers appear in the distance, the rumbles follow in ever decreasing seconds as the clouds come closer.   There is time to find some sort of shelter when the storm rolls over.

  So, the answers to the unknown would take a "goddish" spin, and if halfway agreeable to the community, become accepted lore.

  That is the moment of "birth of theology", I guess the birth of the soul, when those first primitives put a story behind natural events.

  by Theghostofkarlafayetucker on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:06:49 AM PDT

  •  I don't really follow your point entirely

    Lightning and thunder are often shocking and sudden. A lot of people nowadays, expecially children, are still scared of thunder amd lightning.

    I think some things like that are more things that people develop an ability not to fear, and that some individuals happen not to fear at all, regardless of what their other characteristics are like. I guess since emergencies and dangers are more likely to be shocking, loud, and sudden events, we just evolved to be alarmed by such events, no matter what form they took. Humans may have been rarely killed by lightning, but becoming alert when people heard loud noises in general tended to save them from a lot of other dangers that were much more real.

    by Swan on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:16:26 AM PDT

    •  Once they've been experienced/explained

      accepted (we have science, they had stories) future meetings with storms aren't as frightening.  The children might be most afraid, thats the comforting part of the stories.

      Sure, and occassional bolt will come out of nowhere, but after that initial fright, it is and always was human nature to kind of laugh it off with a funny/interesting story or tale.  

      Thor or Zues or Siva, whoever possesses that weapon, would then become the topic of the moment.

      by Theghostofkarlafayetucker on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:22:36 AM PDT

      •  They're Also Probably Less Frightening ...

        ... to huntergatherers, who spend their lives in the outdoors where storms can be seen coming long before they arrive.  Growing up walking in the outdoors, along ridgelines and across open plains (among other areas) where the horizon and the approaching weather can be seen probably does a lot to dispel the fright, as opposed to living the comfortable life out of the elements that we live, where the rain and the wind and the ever-changing air are things experienced not constantly but only when we occasionally venture out of doors.

        by Collideascope on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:27:14 AM PDT

        •  Walking around 80 acres fenced, every day

          you notice all the species of plants, insects, birds.  And you especially note when something new appears, and bird migratory changes seems to introduce 3 or more new types per year lately.

          What thrives, what wilts, pecans being last to leaf...prime stuff for tribal/shaman lore.

          But it is ever changing, which fits evolution so well.  I have 200 goats, and they were domesticated first, maybe 10,000 years ago, so animal breeders have a high interest in improving the stock, which kind of helps natural selection.

          And I can assure you that the birthing trends of goats does kind of follow conditions, survival rates improve with certain seasonal patterns, last years severe drought affected the NEXT birthing season, much higher incidence of triplets this spring.

          by Theghostofkarlafayetucker on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:40:24 AM PDT

•  I just finished making some edits at 1:08, so any

  people who read it before then may want to check it out again.

  by Swan on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:09:09 AM PDT

  •  Funny how they "discovered" another lost tribe

    in Brazil, whose "theology" is unknown to us, but just as valid to their society.

    Good diary !

    by Theghostofkarlafayetucker on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:12:10 AM PDT

  •  No diary on the subject...

    is complete unless it mentions the work of Teilhard de Chardin.

    by kalmoth on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:18:03 AM PDT

•  I suspect the appeal of those who tell us things

  which are unreal stems largely from the confidence they have in their unprovable and therefore undisprovable theses.  The same way we are frequently drawn to egotists and narcissists because we tend to envy their confidence.  As a social quality, the ability to present imagined "truths" and explanations was a plus.  Now, I hope we're beginning to see the flipside of that.  Bush (who has modelled himself after 9/11 on a mythic achetype) was full of certainty and "resolve and plunged us into several messes on several levels.  Maybe we've learned something.  Hope so.  

  "Faith" is becoming more of a liability than an asset in this campaign (Haggee, Wright, etc.).  Alleyloyah!!!

  by Urizen on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:22:50 AM PDT

  •  the assumption that

    these things are unreal is also an unprovable and therefore undisprovable thesis.

    Just another flavor of 'faith'

    by buzzsaw on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:31:59 AM PDT

    •  Depends

      the faithist's goalposts of what's unprovable have to keep moving in order to keep the illusions of their faiths in the realm of (extremly remote) possibility.  Ask Gallileo.  The track record of "faithbased" information is pretty shitty and it seems pretty reasonable to question that error prone methodology at this point.

      by Urizen on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:08:17 AM PDT

      •  howso

        have the goalposts of the unprovable moved?

        by buzzsaw on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:10:59 AM PDT

        •  Well once upon a time

          no one could prove the earth wasn't the center of the universe.  When people offered such proof (Galileo) they were punished by the faithbased oligarchy.  Eventually they had to move those particular goalposts.  Faith informed the same oligarchy that women weren't equal to men.  Now they've moved those along too.  The examples are limitless.

          by Urizen on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:20:59 AM PDT

      •  likewise scientific goalposts keep moving

        look up aether, humours, etc.

        Faith is the inspiration to keep trying. Have faith that your children will turn out ok. Have faith that there will be food on your table next year. just remember that love is officially more important (of the trinity of faith, hope and love)

        I don't understand why you demand a scientific approach to faith, you are just falling into a fundamentalists' meme. Let it go and just help your brother out, even if you start out despising him.

        Just remember, Obama has a lot of faith in what ordinary Americans can do. We are not used to having politicians on our side who use faith language powerfully and appropriately, yet we need it to win elections, whether you like it or not.

        by Lefty Mama on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:30:25 AM PDT

        •  Hope is a different experience than mysticism

          We have hope (some more than others) that events will have a benefit or "good" outcome.  This is different than "faith." Faith should also be distinguished even from  "belief" as an expectation that past events give a reasonable of future events. (eg. I believe that the sun will not explode today).

          Faith might be called a belief in what we have not experienced.

          by Gary Hurd on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:56:41 AM PDT

  •  This is exactly why...

    I adopted my signature line.

    by LookingUp on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:47:13 AM PDT

    •  In one of the Gnostic gospels...

      Jesus says,

      If a man says, "I seek the way," I shall seek with him.
      If a man says, "I know the way," he is lost.

      by kalmoth on Sat May 31, 2008 at 12:01:16 PM PDT

  •  Accrual of power

    that's why so many religions are hierarchical, or at least have a clerical class.  Having the basis for that power not be disprovable helps in the retention of power.

    It requires a certain leap of logic to favor supernatural explanations over natural ones, but many people seem prone to that mode of thinking.  I've even had dogs that fit into one category or the other, based on their behavior.

    by skrekk on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:49:36 AM PDT

•  It struck me as an interesting coincidence

  that you added the views of Joseph Campbell to this, as I had just yesterday looked into his views on "stories" in regard to a set of ideas I've been working on.

  The basic hypothesis is that cultures/civilizations have been built on the the basis of "Supernormal stimuli," which are sometimes called Superstimuli.

  As indicated in the above link to wikipedia,

  A superstimulus or superreleaser is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus that normally releases it.

  In my view stories in a general sense that relates to traditions are among the superstimuli that hold together every culture, and religions are also superstimuli that are themselves made of stories.

  To the extent that stories and particular sets of stories that we call religions produce group cohesion, they increase the likelihood of survival of individuals within the group.

  In a way this supports the results of the computer program in that even people who more often than not look for rational objective explanations may still buy into story lines as stimulating and motivating.  Even when they don't, they may prefer to stay with a cohesive group that accepts subjective story lines, including religion, in order to gain the protection of the group.

  Much has been written on the power of stories, story lines and traditions.  Seeing these as superstimuli in the sense that the best of these concentrate scenes, ideas, etc. that are stimulating when encountered naturally can help to understand how individuals and groups so consistently accept irrational ideas and explanations.  It also helps the understanding of why this doesn't always result in early death.

  by LookingUp on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:44:09 AM PDT

•  Religion helps togetherness

  Any human group is more effective if its members feel closely tied together. A belief in a tribal god would help bind tribe members together and give them something bigger than themselves to believe in. Religion buttresses all sorts of altruism and pro-society behavior. Therefore a society that had a religion will likely function more effectively than -- and outcompete -- a society without it.

  by Crafty Screenwriting on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:52:48 AM PDT

•  isn't karma real?

  It's interesting that you respond so positively to the mythology of the original Star Wars movies, yet  you call this yearning "unreal". It's fascinating to think that it's very difficult to place the mythology in the context of a film, so hard that Lucas could not do it properly after Campbell had died.

  Emotionally, Mythos is very real. It's about our place in time and destiny, imagining how to do the impossible in the name of love, confronting overwhelming evil. Seeing the beauty in a dew-drop, how that moment is intentional for you to see how wondrous the world is, inspire you to sacrifice some of your selfish urges for a better good.

  I don't see how television preachers have anything to do with this, because they sure don't work for me, or (truth be known) most people. They use a scientific approach when they say "the bible is literally true" which is very wrong-headed. The bible is metaphorically true, and none of its authors had the notion of being factual reporters. The stories are bigger than life because the listeners demanded this. We crave stories about heroes. Religion is supposed to provide a framework of hero stories and a community in which to live together. The community protects it weaker members, and allows increased survival rates for everyone. That in turn relieves stress in the stronger members.

  by Lefty Mama on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:10:52 AM PDT

•  I tend to differentiate religion and belief

  in unseen entities. There are several very good explanations to account for belief in the unseen, the most compelling being that it confers survival advantages. For example: when you high grass move in the distance, it is better to anticipate there is an intelligent agent moving the grass (lion) than to suppose it's the wind. Of course, there also needs to be explanations for hallucinations, dreams. Since dreams may anticipate future events, you have another recipe for belief in the unseen.
  Religion, on the other side of the coin, is a way to organize your tribe or society and give meaning to bad events, origins and endings. It also helps differentiate your tribe from the next.  Hopefully your religion helps you to navigate the world better than in its absence.

  by the fan man on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:13:39 AM PDT

  •  Religion is tribalism writ large

    It may help some individuals navigate life, but it's an overall detriment to modern society.  Maybe at one time thousands of years ago it conferred a survival benefit, but now it just serves to separate one society from another, and marginalize individuals in a society.

    by skrekk on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:53:54 AM PDT

    •  We have such a tender grasp on what human

      life is like without religion, it is still an aberration in human culture.

      by the fan man on Sat May 31, 2008 at 12:42:43 PM PDT

•  Dissociative States and Religion

  The model of how religious ideas can spread as reported in NewScientist, is a rather unsophisticated application of game theory. (The source code is available).

  The "utility" of expressing a religious/supernatural belief was merely assumed. Any discrete value can be entered, and the higher the utility factor the sooner the trait spreads. What is absent is far more important than what was present.

  The first question that was sidestepped is "Why would a group of non-believers attend to fantastic stories?" The answer is approximated from game theory as an attempt to minimize risk by minimized uncertainty. The second would be "What advantage would there be to the person promoting their "visions." This is also in the utility factor assumed by James Dow.  From ethnographic and historical sources, we are aware that the role of shaman is very dangerous- witchcraft accusations are frequently lethal. So, this must be offset by an increased reproductive advantage. Dow has seemingly lumped these together as "attractiveness."

  There is actual biological evidence for the evolution of religious experience, the responce that humans have to dissociative drugs is different from any other mammal. Most mammals when challenged by a dissociative, for example phencyclidine (PCP), will lose consciousness.  Humans instead report euphoria, and hallucination as well as a dissociative state. These are hallmarks of mystic/religious experience.

  What could the evolutionary advantage be to dissociation- the feeling of not being in one's body? This needs to be looked at as either a direct advantage, or as a disadvantage offset by some other advantage. Considering this as a direct advantage we recall that PCP was developed  as a surgical anesthetic. It had the advantage of not being a strong CNS suppressant, and so respiration and cardiac function were not as depressed as with opiate anesthetics, or ether. Anesthesia was so effective that patients didn't even need to be unconscious during surgery.  Dissociative states can be entered in ways other than drugs, and members of a group protected by warriors (temporarily) unaffected by pain would have a great advantage in intergroup conflicts. I think this direct advantage alone would be adequate to promote a dissociative trait.

  The secondary benefits of "mystic" dissociation would be related to improved group cohesion, etc. which have long been considered in the spread of religious practices.  

  by Gary Hurd on Sat May 31, 2008 at 11:41:23 AM PDT

•  Analysis like this is so simplistic

  Religion is not just a set of unverifiable beliefs people made up when they were frightened of lightning. It is not just creation myths, either. If it were, I would agree that religion is of the past, given what any open-minded person can now know of the world through science, knowledge that makes it silly to believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God who runs everything. But those sorts of beliefs are different from the benefits one can seek from spirituality as one lives one's life, whether one uses the idea of God for that or not. Direction, strength, comfort, hope, and love are all things one can get through prayer and following God everyday that have nothing to do with creation myths.

  Atheistic analysis does not have to be this simple. Have you read Religion Explained by academic anthropologist Pascal Boyer? Boyer doesn't use the term "God-shaped void" to describe the universal needs he sees humans having worldwide for religion, but one could label them that way. That's not just a need for information to fill in unknowable gaps. Ideas about God can fill in our desire for knowledge about something like death, but we also desire power, love, and goodness, whether from religion, philosophy or our secular society in action.

  I don't suppose I'll live long enough to see all 20,000 of our genes known well enough to know which ones promote religion. I doubt any promote religion as purely as the one supposed by this computer program. What in neuroscience corresponds to a trait to tell unverifiable stories? How is that genetic? Maybe there are genes for conformity or skepticism that matter for many aspects of cultural evolution, not just religion. Maybe there are a lot of traits like that.

  How one becomes a scientist is a good point. I'm sure part of my devotion to science is that I experienced the power of science in so many ways, power to give a detailed explanation of fundamental things like who I am and what the world is, to debunk bad ideas like cold fusion, not only failing to reproduce it, but also explaining where the mistake was made, such as with any type of poorly controlled experiment. I desire power and knowledge, and science gives me both, but science doesn't tell me what's good to do with that, doesn't love me and there are parts of life where science has neither power nor knowledge. Nor does science ever have the final word, as current attempts to understand dark matter and dark energy demonstrate.

  I doubt any religion has been successful without demonstrating its utility to people in its own way as science demonstrates its utility scientifically. That creation myths are obsolete doesn't mean all of religion is obsolete. It doesn't mean atheism is the future.

  Atheism has a place in the ongoing cultural evolution of how we live our lives, but I don't think it's the odds-on favorite for the future to outcompete all spirituality. Bible-believing Christianity will have a significant following for at least another hundred years, I would think, but maybe in 500 years, genetics will be so far along and evolution so obvious that no one will believe in God as Creator the same way ancient people did. Atheism isn't the only alternative to that. Hopefully the healthiest way to fill our God-shaped void, whether that is spiritually or with denial of anything beyond the physical universe, is something science can determine in the distant future. What genes do matter for that? What desires do matter for that? What is a desire neurophysiologically anyway?

  We can all place our bets. We can all explore different possibilities with our life now. To say the direction, strength, comfort, hope, and love some people get from religion is all the product of imaginary and arbitrary beliefs is what comes from someone who hasn't explored how much there is to religion beyond beliefs. There are plenty of 12-step groups where people learn they don't have to believe much of anything to look to a higher power for help and get help. Some people experience that. Some people don't. That's just one example one could approach scientifically instead of with speculation only.

  by DavidCD on Sat May 31, 2008 at 12:30:49 PM PDT

  •  I think you're missing the point

    I was trying to write a simple, easily readable diary. Sometimes I when I write, I end up making a point too simply, that actually deserved an additional sentence or two. But I just can't write in that hedging, cover-all-the-bases style that turns a molehill into a mountain to try to avoid offending anyone or to make sure my conclusions look unassailable even to those who don't think about them for more than a half second and aren't going to give them a fair shake.

    When I wrote about fear of lightning, it was a metaphor and an example of being scared of things we can't explain in our lives. You took it is a reduction and a minimization, or that is how you're portraying the line, but I think I abstracted the point enough in elsewhere in my post to make it clear that my explanation for why we created religion could apply to anything in the unknown that gives us pause- it could be just fear of the unknown, fear of death, or wanting for purpose / fear of purposelessness. And if I didn't draw it out well enough, it should have been self-evident on thinking about my post for the briefest amount of time that is fair, anyway. Obviously, all these fears can apply in the current day, which is what you are clearly concerned about.

    But when, in addition to understanding the abstract idea I wrote about (above) correctly, one gets my other point that I am distinguishing religion's origin as the pre-science world, and distinguishing from that in which religion still exists, but science has been discovered, I think your objection loses all of its steam. This is because my ultimate point was never that religion could never provide any comfort or have anything to say in a world that also includes science. Rather, all that could be ascribed to me was the conclusion that once science is the new kid on the block, it is a whole new ball game.

    Doubtless, spiritual traditions and religions contain some genuine insights that will always be helpful to people. People who don't know this and dismiss these traditions and 100% fairy tales will always lose out, and will indeed live somewhat neurotic lives if they don't get from some other source some of the lessons formerly learned from religious / spiritual traditions. But it you take the mass of the world's traditions and look at them, or look at almost any specific tradition, these lessons were piled on top of and lumped in with a vastly greater amount of 100% fairy tales that were usually meant to be taken literally. I can totally appreciate that you find something beneficial in your life to religion, and I found those things in my life as well. Indeed, a part of the whole point of my post was that religion has provided people with benefits. But even if some of those points don't require a fairy tale to understand, and even if they are in themselves true knowledge (as a beneficial insight into the human condition), I don't see how it changes any point I made. It really just makes those insights (which, as I wrote, were few-and-far-between among the mass of the world's religious doctrine) more like science (political science or pre-Freudian psychology, usually) that happened to be discovered by a religious thinker.

    Incidentally, I think Joseph Campbell would agree with me that religion has been at its most engaging when (probably the most gifted among the clerics of the various religion) have come closest in their ruminations to acknowledging how much we don't really know, and spurring us on to endeavor and discover. This was when religious men came closest to realizing the need for something beyond the stories-- for science-- and I am confident many of them realized (perhaps even proclaimed) the people they shepherded needed just that, although the dogmas they themselves created and promoted certainly often prevented them from outrightly saying it, once they themselves realized it. A good book and movie that perhaps makes a point like this (in addition to other points) is The Name of the Rose.

    by Swan on Sat May 31, 2008 at 01:33:19 PM PDT

    •  I have some unfortunate typos in this comment

      that I should have checked over.

      Here are a couple of the worst:

      when, in addition to understanding the abstract idea I wrote about (above) correctly, one gets my other point that I am distinguishing religion's origin as the pre-science world, and distinguishing from that in which religion still exists, but science has been discovered,

      Should have been something more like "and distinguishing that from one in which religion exists, but science has also been discovered"

      People who don't know this and dismiss these traditions and 100% fairy tales will always lose out,

      Should have been "as 100% fairy tales"

      by Swan on Sat May 31, 2008 at 01:39:01 PM PDT

    •  another typo

      I can totally appreciate that you find something beneficial in your life to religion, and I found those things in my life as well.

      Should have been "I found those things beneficial in my life as well" (meaning I as well got those kinds of benefits from religion).

      by Swan on Sat May 31, 2008 at 01:41:02 PM PDT

    •  A shorter way to put my 4:33 response:

      In my post, I wasn't trying to eviscerate religion completely (although, in retrospect, I notice I did include a couple of perhaps too-strongly-worded sentences- all I can say in my defense was that the task in hand this day was not to defend religion, but to point out one of its limits or inadequacies, and I didn't notice the risk I might sound more absolute than I'd intend to), but point out the distinction between a condition in which religion is our only set of answers, and the condition in which science also appears on the scene to compete for the job of giving us answers. For some purposes- perhaps for a whole issue or question or investigation, or, on the other hand, merely some purposes within a single investigation or whatever- religion might prove useful, but for other purposes, it would only offer a totally fictional tale, however comforting, whereas science would offer a useful and repeatedly demonstrable truth as an answer to our question. In other words, not that religion is totally useless, but that in the age of science it at least becomes the second-place finisher in the race for our devotion, often useless and inadequate.

      If you think of anyone you know, I'm willing to wager a wise psychological counselor proves more useful to them than someone who just knows the Bible a lot but not a lot about the human condition beyond the pages.

      by Swan on Sat May 31, 2008 at 10:28:55 PM PDT

  •  For my part

    I am not often concerned with whether one calls beneficial knowledge like you are talking about religion, spirituality, science, or just know-how, so long as I personally can recognize the difference between beneficial insight, and something that is just another fairy story (or another version of some same-old fairy story).

    Some people would call me very religious and some people would call me and atheist and neither of them are quite right, although there are very few people who see the world just like I do, so it's a very narrow and obscure pigeon-hole that I fit in.

    by Swan on Sat May 31, 2008 at 01:45:58 PM PDT