On 1/28/2012 2:25 AM, Le_Forgeron wrote:
> Le 28/01/2012 02:53, Patrick Elliott nous fit lire :
>> And, must like the "divine right of kings", its purpose wasn't to
>> explain why bad things happened, or give some sort of hope (save in the
>> entirely false sense, rather like the after life of Christianity), but
>> to maintain how things already are. If you don't have a next life, or
>> there isn't someone telling you, "If you do all the right things, it
>> will be better next time", you will act to change things. If you think
>> your deserve what you get, or will be rewarded for suffering it, then,
>> the very act of apposing it is, by definition of how what those rules
>> say about your caste, life, choices, failures, and even luck, evil (or
>> bad karma).
>
> Yep, you have some clues.
> Human nature has a boon: consciousness of its own inescapable death.
> And a malediction: high vulnerability in early years of life.
>
> It generates so much stress on the long term that any derivative is
> happily welcomed: here comes the various religions and ruling systems.
> Most bad positions become acceptable (to most, not for all) if you have
> the possibilities or probabilities to reach the other position in the
> futur. children might become parents, young one might become old ones...
> the vassal system is that kind too: serf to lord, lord to count, count
> to duc, duc to king... and king need a top also to stay similar, it can
> be emperor or god(s). It's also a repetition of the parental scheme of
> younger time... "all is good, I have a powerful and mighty protector"
>
Like I argued just today, on someone complaining about "New atheists", 
the problem with entirely false ones, like religion though is that they 
anesthetize the people in them with respect to actually trying to change 
any inequity. This doesn't address the problems, it merely presents one 
with a seemingly plausible reason why they are not *as bad*, while 
allowing the problems to perpetuate (or possibly get worse). The example 
I used was the LA riots, where a few hundred people ran wild, destroying 
their own neighborhoods. Where where the rest of the people, who 
outnumbered them by a huge margin? In churches, praying that they 
wouldn't be victim to it, and that it would all magically go away. A 
tactic which didn't address the questionable verdict that triggered the 
event, the sense of powerlessness, the rage, or anything else. It simply 
gave people an easy way out of the immediate problem. And, since it did, 
it will again, and again, and again, without ever changing anything that 
causes the problems.

That is the core thing that makes such stuff dangerous. It doesn't deal 
with reality at all, it just hands people a bottle of pain pills, and 
tells them, "I hope it goes away on its own."

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