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What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God
- squarefoot 9y agoReligion was and still is all about making the masses believe there is a superior entity going to punish the evil king in the afterlife so that they won't hang him themselves in this life. And Santa Claus looks so close as a kids version of God probably because that way it forges their mindset long before they develop critical thinking, thus making easier the acceptance of a divinity later on. Losing religious faith is not just beneficial for the brain, but extremely dangerous for corrupt ruling classes.
- gamechangr 9y agoHow is losing religious faith beneficial for the brain? Is that a scientific perspective or something you just think?
- Zigurd 9y agoJust a hypothesis, but we believe in magical entities for the same reason we suck at statistics: We have evolved to be wired that way. We were made to do some quick estimates that make us bad at statistics generally, and were were made to tolerate otherwise intolerable conditions by believing in an afterlife and protective spirits. Overcoming evolutionary predispositions, especially when they make it hard to see the world objectively, is generally considered a good thing.
- coldtea 9y ago>Religion was and still is all about making the masses believe there is a superior entity going to punish the evil king in the afterlife so that they won't hang him themselves in this life. Sounds like a naive view of religion, based on a few constrained historical examples, for something that is a global phenomenon throughout history -- and that has survived with kings, without kings, in tribal societies with no hierarchies, and many other forms. Not to mention that religion and religious arguments were often used for the total contrary -- to prosecute, criticize and hang kings, to promote more equality and other such causes.
- coldtea 9y agoYou find some other outlet for the same evolutionary urges, e.g. californian ideology.
- r00fus 9y agoDo you have a link? I'm Californian but I've never heard of this supposed ideology.
- coldtea 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideol...
- gamechangr 9y agoTotally misleading title...not helpful from a scientific point of view. I expected a scientific discussion. I received a first person narrative with a handful of scientific words thrown in to dress up their journey as scientific.
- Zigurd 9y ago17 points and flagged dead