A friend thought "psychotic" was too strong a word to describe the religious...

Of course, there’s a survival value to religion that arises from not angering religious psychotics that you live among. But the survival value I’m talking about arose around the time of symbolic thinking – the ability to recall complicated commands of an alpha individual in the primate troop. Professor Julian Jaynes of Princeton University (The Origin of Consciousness, 1976) noted that certain portions of the right brain are virtually unused by modern humans. When these areas are stimulated, the subject hears authoritative voices and thunders. The subjects sometimes report that the voices remind them of parents or teachers from the past. I believe this area of the brain has a lot to do with the conscience. Jaynes also notes that ancient literature is filled with hallucinations, and he hazards that people in the past lived in hallucinated wisdom (and folly). Jaynes also notes that the first temples seem to have been built around the tombs of chiefs, suggesting the possibility that people would go to the tomb to listen for the voice of their fallen chief.

I believe the contents of the conscience are personal and these contents vary between individuals. I believe esteem issues and inability to discipline one's reason prevent people from taking their personal ethical positions seriously. Therefore, they recast their personal conscience as God’s will. Unlike their personal conscience, this “will” cannot and should not be questioned. This “will” doesn’t have to provide reasons. Since debate is foreclosed, the only tools of persuasion are unreasonable benevolence (Mother Teresa) or unreasonable violence or threats of such violence. This good cop-bad cop routine is a classic evangelical ploy. Many people overlook religion's over-the-top claims of singular infallible revelation because of all the "good" and community that seems to be generated. However, the goodness seen is not that different from the goodness shown by loving primate groups which operate, I assume, without any supernatural beliefs.

Abraham is considered the father of all three great western monotheisms. Abraham became an example of faith when he listened to a voice that asked him to murder his son upon an altar (Gen 22). Nobody says this, but Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, originated in this mad act. The madness continues and can easily be seen when you deny a religious person the use of his silly and bloody scriptures in debate.

Freedom of speech and thought is only 200 years old. I’m afraid we could lose it if our liberal politeness and courtesy allow these lunatics to say whatever they want without argument or evidence.

Mood for the day: feisty.