[Sonart]

Quote by: Prometheus I was not trying to make a point about where it came from.

I know, that's why I put the little smiley wink on it Just wanted to share my previous post with you, since you hadn't seen it.

Quote by: Prometheus The only real point to take from this is that maybe religion should not be treated with such abject scorn, even by atheists. It's gotton us this far hasn't it.

Agreed. I'm a complete and total atheist, but I believe that religion has been an overall benefit to mankind, despite a few horrific downsides. That's why nature gave it to us.

Quote by: Prometheus But if we can agree that it is a trait of evolutionary fitness, maybe that says something about the atheists...

If you read to the bottom of my link... I think nature finds it beneficial to have a few unbiased observers of nature within the ranks.

Quote by: RickSp The "gotten us this far" argument doesn't hold much water.

Sure it does. If faith has provided individuals with courage, comfort and hope in their daily struggles, and bound social groups together with a common guide to living their lives in harmony with each other, I'd call that a benefit.

Quote by: dev fear. We're scared by that which we cannot understand, so we create understandable boundaries and limits for our own existence.

We fear what we don't understand, yet have evolved brains with the capacity and imagination to understand a great deal. Again, evolving a "God Spot" (religion gene) would benefit humans in coping with this paradox of having the capacity to ponder all the whys of the world but not knowing all the answers.

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 For humans to have the best chance of survival, men need to impregnate as many different women as possible. I also disagree that it's better for human children to have 2 parents. I think mother's are programmed by evolution to care for their children until their children can live on their own.

And needed fathers to hunt and provide for the mothers and children, as well as to provide male role models, for both boys to emulate and girls to learn how to relate to.

Indeed, men need to spread their genes around, but only to the point where they start raising families. They still needed to have lots of sex, just with the mother of their young, in order to have enough children to ensure that a sufficient number would survive childhood. An instinct to compell such behavior, to counteract their simultaneous instinct to "spread it around", is therefore beneficial.

I'm as pro-women's liberation as anyone, but I think the benefits of having a two parent family are beyond doubt.

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