Not for or against theology (in this discussion), but here's an answer to your question: [long, but hopefully useful]
-the human brain needs abstractions, explanations, and shortcuts to be most efficient in everyday function; just about every theology fits this profile
-for the same reason stereotypes persist, homo sapiens need generalizations, and you will find similar techniques in programming [after all, it is modeled after our own thought processes] to shorten code, make it more easily understood, and able to be collectively shared/used/developed
I'll use racism/ stereotypes/ racial profiling as the example:
-imagine the flip side, that for every person you meet, interact with, or even see, you had to learn and keep track of all of their attributes => personality, health, education/ career, manners, talents and abilities, heritage, beliefs .............and on and on as you walk through a mall
-we are very visual, in sensory terms, so link patterns in these attributes to sight ie skin/hair/eye colour to get black people came from africa, are poorly educated, and are physically strong
this way, every time you walk down the street and see a person of colour, you relax in the pseudo-knowledge that they fit your profile, instead of asking about them beyond what you can see
-imagine security, asking everybody their intentions, opinions, values, abilities, life histories, etc to get on a plane, the flight would take a week to fill; so they say "based on past experiences, what groups pose the greatest threats to safety, and how do we identify them?" radical Muslims are blamed for the 9/11 event, but beliefs are not visible, so then Middle Eastern natives are more likely to be muslim, and muslims are more likely to be radical muslims than non-muslims are, so target the middle eastern immigrants (or those descended from Middle eastern races, with visible relation)
-now, back to theology:
for humans, basic facts of life are birth, the world we live in, and death [some may argue taxes and stupidity should also be included, but for another time] imagine if everyone had to discover and understand the physical world/ universe in its entirety, as well as what goes on after death/ pre birth etc; it would be like a complete study of the combustion engine, the chemistry of fuels and metallurgy, manufacturing, the physics of mechanical efficiency and power transfer and harnessing, etc every time you went for a drive? just accept that it is, that some other guy made your car go
-so who would this be for life? parents are the manufacturers, but they didn't design life; and besides they have to follow the birth/life/death pattern of everybody else ==> a deity that is aware of your world, your life, is constant and outside of your life is the designer, why not? with a satisfying explanation, you can focus on your life, then living in society (why not kill/maim everyone? just because? fine, move on)
-science makes an effort to discover and explain the nature of reality, but most advanced theorists/ thinkers have adapted their minds to this purpose, and focus less on life itself, don't focus on a job to pay the bills, become socially awkward because they don't have to be regular, etc equations and models are nice, but then how do you abstract these theories, such that the general public can use them for everyday explanations without intensive brainwork
-once this explanation is clearly presented, religion will lose its foothold because science will truly explain everything like religion, just as easily but with a commonly shared path to arrive at it
until then: a god did it, because that's the way it should be, so safe in that knowledge I will go do my job [to make money, to buy food that I don't grow, to continue living] without fretting over the fabric of reality
Answered By: Nonymous - 6/9/2012 |