Interesting Article

[shipperx]

Interesting article

Selected quote:
"Violence between people often comes about when they fight over limited resources, but sometimes there is no such “rational” explanation. In those cases, clan dynamics are almost always to blame. Intellectuals like to think that ideas are what matter most, but listen to what average murderers say. Kids who shoot other kids in the streets of Oakland, California, near where I live, usually report that it was either gang retribution or a response to being “disrespected.” The latter often involves the nasty business of sexual selection. These are the universal and tragic themes you find in the literatures of all peoples.

Religion placed immortal supernatural beings at the top of the clan, thereby reducing everyday violence between adherents. Crusades, jihads, and bloody schisms were the price paid for this improvement, though in the grim context of human behavioral history, that was probably a bargain.

The idea of God (or gods) also served in ancient times as a way to apply the clan-centric cognition of the human species to the problem of comprehending the dynamics of the world. In the Hebrew Bible, for instance, God is the "King of the Universe,"  so God served at least two duties: as clan leader and as explanation of reality. Thus when scientists tell believers they’re flat-out wrong, we think we’re making a point about nature, but I think we’re often heard as giving the primal message, “We elite persons reject your clan status.”  Entire article