Thread:User talk:WaitingforGodot/"Dawkins and Pinker are jerks."/reply (28)

Religion persists because it gives human important things they do not get anywhere else. not "cannot" get - just "do not get". A sense of purpose; a meaning to life; a reason why "life sucks" or why there is "suffering". "I just want to know that all of these deaths meant something".

Religion persists because of the sense of community, shared moral and social values, shared sense of exploring the universe.

Science, especially the really deep science can be "like" a religion in those ways. It can awe, inspire, give you a sense of meaning and reason, etc. People who spend their lives staring at the "Wonders of the Universe" often talk with teh language of mystics. But - most people cannot or will not have that relationship to things like how vastly huge the universe is, and how incredibly tiny an electron and it's sub parts are.

Religion persists because it is a wonderful way to control people. But that's why Rational Wiki, Facebook, chocolate, hot baths, and other human diversions persist. We are, by and large, sheep most of our lives. We only really get a voice some percentage of our day, or year. If we as humans were not controllable, not only would we not be big things, like the 99%, we woudln't go to work, or listen to our stupid boss who really does know less than we do. WE would not take our parent's griping about our dates, or our children's whining about the new ipad.

Perhaps it's "one more stupid humanity thing", but as a 20 something yourself (well, actually, i think you said you're still in highschoo - which blows me away), much of your disgust still comes from that space of "teen rebellion" for want of a better word. But for every one stupid thing you change, another will grow. It's so much better, in my life, anyhow, to understand why humans want and need religion, than to disparage it, or attack it, or wish it gone.