Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

The Meaning of Life 555comfort in the thought of a benevolent shepherd, a universal plan, or anafterlife—is unsatisfying, because it only raises the question of why amind would evolve to find comfort in beliefs it can plainly see are false. Afreezing person finds no comfort in believing he is warm; a person faceto-facewith a lion is not put at ease by the conviction that it is a rabbit.What is religion? Like the psychology of the arts, the psychology ofreligion has been muddied by scholars' attempts to exalt it while understandingit. Religion cannot be equated with our higher, spiritual,humane, ethical yearnings (though it sometimes overlaps with them).The Bible contains instructions for genocide, rape, and the destructionof families, and even the Ten Commandments, read in context, prohibitmurder, lying, and theft only within the tribe, not against outsiders. Religionshave given us stonings, witch-burnings, crusades, inquisitions,jihads, fatwas, suicide bombers, abortion-clinic gunmen, and motherswho drown their sons so they can be happily reunited in heaven. AsBlaise Pascal wrote, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully aswhen they do it from religious conviction."Religion is not a single topic. What we call religion in the modernWest is an alternative culture of laws and customs that survived alongsidethose of the nation-state because of accidents of European history.Religions, like other cultures, have produced great art, philosophy, andlaw, but their customs, like those of other cultures, often serve the interestsof the people who promulgate them. Ancestor worship must be anappealing idea to people who are about to become ancestors. As one'sdays dwindle, life begins to shift from an iterative prisoner's dilemma, inwhich defection can be punished and cooperation rewarded, to a oneshotprisoner's dilemma, in which enforcement is impossible. If you canconvince your children that your soul will live on and watch over theiraffairs, they are less emboldened to defect while you are alive. Foodtaboos keep members of the tribe from becoming intimate with outsiders.Rites of passage demarcate the people who are entitled to theprivileges of social categories (fetus or family member, child or adult, singleor married) so as to preempt endless haggling over gray areas. Painfulinitiations weed out anyone who wants the benefits of membership withoutbeing committed to paying the costs. Witches are often mothers-inlawand other inconvenient people. Shamans and priests are Wizards ofOz who use special effects, from sleight-of-hand and ventriloquism tosumptuous temples and cathedrals, to convince others that they are privyto forces of power and wonder.