I see that as being mutually beneficial. Altruism is doing something that doesn't benefit you.

Exactly! There is little that we can't explain nowadays, mainly what we were before we were born, and what happens to us after we die.

I think the bible was also an excellent guide for the survival of the species. Most of the rules in the old testament are helpful in keeping you alive, and making more humans.

Browbeat? How about indoctrinated, brainwashed, habituated?

So many deep explanations. I think it's much simpler... just different schools of thought. What's new is in the third generation of a highly mobile society, we have been moving to be with people who think like us. We have been segregating ourselves according to beliefs. It used to happen at the neighborhood level, now it happens at the urban vs rural or even state vs state level.

That is a very true statement. Even in my own family we learned early on as children not to bring up religion at family reunions since we had Baptist, Methodist, Jehovah Witnesses, Pentecostals, and even some open minded free thinkers all sitting around the same dinner table.

By the way...thanks for inviting me to the gutter, dana and clod! I'm putting on my gutter boots now! :p

Boots? Boots?

Okay, but only if they have spike heels.

Could it be that the religion you are thinking of is just tribalism? It is much easier to live the tribal us vs. them life in rural areas with people who look, think, and act just like us. I'm reading something right now by a guy trying to sift out from the mysticism a bare-bones no nonsense message about who Jesus was. He seems to be coming to the conclusion that the end of tribalism was his goal, which is pretty ironic as Christianity has played out.

That is pretty smart and interesting but don't more people move to find work than a better belief fit?

As I was driving today,I was wondering how people bring themselves out of a funk if it isn't faith in some positive outcome or by finding something beautiful? ( as I am inclined to do )

Don't we have a natural instinct to have faith in positive outcomes and striving always to reach the next level whether it is spiritually, physically,financially?

(edit) tailpost

That is pretty ironic Griff. What is the name of the book if you don't mind?

No, because my experience living in rural areas, was there was more than one flavor of religious people, and many more that never went to church but had their own relationship with God. I think people who only experience nature on TV, and live in secure (sub)urban cocoons, are more likely to feel smug in their superiority over the universe.

Jesus for the Non-Religious by a one time Episcopalian bishop whose name escapes me.

We have three flavors of Christianity here. ;) You make a good point about urban vs rural as far as realism about the natural world goes, but not so much as a proof of God's existence. Atheists experience wonder as well. I'll think on it more while I haul water to the goats and listen to the wind drifting snow into my driveway.

No, not proof of God's existence by a long shot. It's just a reminder that "you" are not the be-all, end-all. I'm not trying to justify these people's faith, that's not for me to judge. Just saying, putting "yourself" in perspective compared to the world around you, could heighten the desire to search for a higher power, which would explain more faith in rural areas.

Huh?

The Abrahamaic religions put humans (made in God's image), pretty much at the top of the heap with just one being (and possibly angels) superior. Humanity is the acme of Creation.

A nonreligious viewpoint can only say we're cleverer than anything else we've met, and we're unlikely to meet anything else, due to the staggering size of the universe. Smarter than anything else on this speck of dust is hardly superiority over the universe.

Heh, he said acme... beep beep zip bang!

Maybe universe was a poor choice of words, but people talking about colonizing other specks of dust, impress me as feeling we are the masters of everything.

You seem to think that everyone that becomes a member of a particular sect, subscribes automatically to all the statements of the leaders of that sect. My experience is most people have a much more casual relationship with the church. Sure, there are rabid followers that expound chapter & verse, and wackos like Fred Phelps who are completely out of left field, but the majority are just doing their own thing.

Where did that come from?

From here;