Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The whole point of religion is to control 
> people "now", in order to save them "later", in some vague sense.

I actually had an interesting thought about this a long time ago that I 
never wrote up extensively.

Consider the tragedy of the commons, or any other problem where individual 
selfishness is bad for everyone compared to individual altruism, *if* you 
can get everyone to cooperate.

Government can avoid this by making the "cost" function of being selfish 
high enough that the altruism mechanism is more attractive. E.g., cheating 
on a contract can cost you more than the value of the contract.

Religion can avoid this by making the "reward" function of being altruistic 
high enough that the selfishness is less attractive. E.g., cheating on a 
contract now gets you money but loses you eternal bliss.

In the best of worlds, both government and religion are in the same business.


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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