I read this yesterday on God is for Suckers. Pretty interestiing stuff.

In a nutshell, what about it did you find ?interesting??

I thought the concepts discussed were very compelling. I found the “infallible mother” belief in small children (and how once mother/father were found to be fallible through life experience, the belief is then transferred to the supernatural) very interesting.

I thought it was interesting how once this occurs, cultural influences then shape the specifics of the God belief.

All very interesting.

I find the concept of religion as an evolutionary adapdation very interesting, jcc. Don’t you?

I would if it had any scientific merit, but as this article amply demonstrates, doesn?t. It?s pure speculation. There?s virtually no supporting scientific evidence for it; it?s entirely hypothetical psychobabble.

It would explain why religion is so dominant even in our modern scientific world.

But the article doesn?t offer any ?proof? for it, only speculation disguised as hypotheses. I also found it quite telling that Henig presented it as though its veracity was indisputable?that it was, without doubt, an evolutionary byproduct. In doing so, he/she committed the most common sin of contemporary journalism by utterly failing to present any opposing points of view. God forbid he/she should actually endeavor to investigate what constitutes a ?religion??especially since that was the thesis topic of the article.

I would if it had any scientific merit, but as this article amply demonstrates, doesn?t. It?s pure speculation. There?s virtually no supporting scientific evidence for it; it?s entirely hypothetical psychobabble.

I might say the same thing for all the proof for that most ephemeral of things, the ’soul’.

But the article doesn?t offer any ?proof? for it, only speculation disguised as hypotheses. I also found it quite telling that Henig presented it as though its veracity was indisputable?that it was, without doubt, an evolutionary byproduct. In doing so, he/she committed the most common sin of contemporary journalism by utterly failing to present any opposing points of view. God forbid he/she should actually endeavor to investigate what constitutes a ?religion??especially since that was the thesis topic of the article.

Translation: “Why didn’t ‘gawd did it’ get equal time?”
The thing was 11 pages long, fer cryin’ out loud. It was a 1-sided piece. In a newspaper. It’s not a panel of ‘experts’ on CNN (that’s sarcasm), nor is it a debate between 2 sides.
Op-eds are like that. They usually only give one side to the story.
& if you disagree, that’s when you write a letter to the editor.
Having a ‘point/counterpoint’ to something of that length would require an entire section of its own, at least on paper.