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by MattPalmer1086 1549 days ago
In practise, both are probably true.

I fundamentally dislike religion and the tribal, irrational cult like mind control they seem to all exhibit. But I have seen it in a different light after reading "Sapiens" by Yuval Harari. So I now acknowledge that it has probably played a useful role in human society, despite its large negative traits.

1 comments

Yeah, I've been against religion most of my life, but softened the stance a bit. There's good and bad.

We need a modern social construct that fulfills and replaces some of what religion provided. I don't think we've nailed that yet.

It's not that easy to replace something that arose semi-organically across large swaths of space and time. The whale is dead, and we've been living in its carcass for the last 200 years. Can you build a replacement whale whole cloth? Do you understand what all the little fiddly bits do, and why they're there? It sounds hard
Alain De Botton makes this argument in Religion for Athiests.

https://www.alaindebotton.com/religion/