Interesting background context.

I agree with you about those points. The Guardian is not normally reactionary in outlook or pro-religious in intent, like some papers. The headline was certainly intended to attract, however, and some pro-religious people will read it gloatingly.

then why do they all think the same way? why are we in so much trouble unable to stop our own destruction?

@john20 Not all think the same way and I'll just stop there.

@john20 We don't all think the same way. Simple example some of us have empathy whereas others are seriously lacking. Your average sociopath/psychopath or narcissist does NOT think like other humans do, for example.

That's the primary addiction of religion: feeling good and loved from above.

Interesting. I've always wondered why some people just seem addicted to religious thinking, while others just see through it from an early age and that's it. It doesn't have to relate to being raised in a religious environment or not.

@David1955 The way I see it, there seem to be two main reactions when someone comprehends how vast the Universe and the history of our evolution truly are. One reaction is to marvel at the wonders of it all and the sheer luck that led to us being here to contemplate anything at all. The other is to cower from and deny it, and pretend humans are on a pedestal above everything else, here on our tiny blue dot in this corner of the Galaxy, in the corner of the Universe... and blind oneself to the absurdity of such a viewpoint.

@David1955 Amazing, isn't it...

@Paul4747 I know this Cassini shot. Wonderful.

My mom kept babbling shit like one of us boys was gonna be a Priest.....she had hopes, but no plan....and no boys that ever even began to see it her way

I most certainly do not fail to recognize that. If anything I focus on it constantly. The point with this story is the writer comparing his religious devotion to his family and the background he was raised up in.

@David1955 so you did not say this? "we are all born atheists. I would LOVE to believe that. But I dont."

@Mofo1953 doesn't mean socialization doesn't exist. Some are born predisposed to religion, I think. Others are born utterly resistant to it, I think, like me. Huge numbers go along with religion, born into it, raised in it, and they make the bulk of the numbers of religion. Hence millions of Buddhists in Buddhist countries, millions of Christians in Christian countries, and millions of Muslims in Muslim countries.

No, we don't "all want answers to life's big questions".

For some us, none of that stuff matters.
Survival is enough to keep us occupied.

@KKGator I just want food in the fridge & "enough" money in the bank...heat, lights, furniture, and a frippery or 2. I finally have that, and if you have never lacked one or more of the above, ever, you can have absolutely No idea of how wonderful it feels! Unbelievable, the freedom from want & fear!

@AnneWimsey Preach, sister!!!

@KKGator You point is taken. I forgot about people who are satisfied not asking the big questions and living a barer life.

@dare2dream Wow.
Whatever constitutes what the "big questions" are, is highly subjective.
As is what "living a barer life" means.

I think that is about right.

Me too. Like all addictions, however, it can be managed and beaten.

@OwlInASack understandable statement. Even agreeable. It's a shame!

@OwlInASack I agree. Whatever the reason or where ever it came religion and overpopulation are the most serious problems facing the world today. Most of the war and killing is due to religions. All of them.. Albeit currently, Islam is the most violent, the others are equally as dangerous. Only China has dealt with them. Their one child law and what the Chinese call re-education for the encroaching Islamic majority in their eastern provinces.. Do-gooders feel this is a violation of human rights, I disagree.

@MichaelCooley2 um what the actual fack! Uigars are not ok to send to death camps. Communism is just as much a dogmatic ideology as TRoP® but the Uigars are just people, they don't deserve concentration camps cos they dig an Islam that is considered by other more terrifying sects as harram. Are you nuts? Or just missing the needle on your compass?

@MichaelCooley2 ironically, that one problem seems to point to an easy solution to the other. Could be why it's allowed to continue. Nobody had to make that moral argument of who deserves to live, when so many are deciding who they need to kill. No easier argument then blaming the heathens of another religion. It's a type a bigotry that has no end.

@K9Kohle789 A single, all-encompassing definition of “alpha” can’t — and doesn’t — exist for humans.>>> Every wolf pack has an alpha, every troop of baboons has an emperor, every pride of lions has a king. It's the old nature vs nurture controversy. I tend to side with Richard Dawkins and selfish gene theory.

@K9Kohle789 To my mind Desmond Morris of Oxford is hard to beat. He was the mentor of Richard Dawkins, another great zoologist. I remember in The Human Zoo, he compares baboon society to humans. Please answer this one: Why does President Trump live in the penthouse of the Tower and have yellow hair? It's clearly baboon behavior.

@K9Kohle789 Also, I hope you'll agree that humans evolved from primates -- tree dwellers. Rigid hierarchy is in their DNA because it's a lot healthier on the top branches than the lower. I heard that the alphas on top consider the lower members as a bunch of shit heads. But the lower caste looks up and considers the alphas a bunch of assholes.

@Aristippus Also he's the spitting image of a baboon. Somebody should check his DNA!

@K9Kohle789 In considering this subject please bear in mind that 3/4 of all sex chromosomes are female. Dawkins describes this FACT beautifully. It's the female that determines the traits of the next generation. I hope you'll accept that if a metazoan species doesn't have a maternal "instinct" the entire species will go extinct. Especially humans because the infant is born totally helpless. It's a strong gene, n'est-ce pas? The female chooses to mate with a male that satisfies her genetic needs. It's the male robin that sings the song but the female that chooses the tune.

Even more primitive life below metazoa show this phenomenon. Consider the most successful life on the planet, the insect family hymenoptera -- bees, ants, wasps and termites. It you spot a bee in you garden buzzing around a pretty flower, it's a hundred percent certain it's a sterile FEMALE worker bee.

I'd say opium; like true opiate addiction, religious aspects are hard for people to shake.

Quoting Marx?

@GipsyOfNewSpain thank you! I couldn’t remember where I’d heard that before. I’ve never actually read Marx but had heard this before. Wasn’t sure if it was contemporary in origin or what

@OwlInASack not sure how being a catholic is enabling child rapists. How exactly does that work?

@OwlInASack Thanks for your answer.
I see two parts to your argument. To the first I'd make an analogy. Cyril Smith and Jimmy Saville turn out to have been notorious child rapists. They were British. The British establishment appear to have allowed their crimes to have been covered up. I'm British, I turn up at work, I pay my taxes; I watch the BBC and pay my TV licence fee. I allow the British to claim me as a member of their Nation the BBC to claim me as a viewer. Would you say that this makes me more or less of an enabler of child rapists than a Catholic and why? I'd say the same. i.e. not at all. Though a small portion of our money may have ended up in the pockets of these vile criminals and those that covered up their crimes we were not aware of or those crimes at the time let alone complicit in them.
The second part of your argument hangs on the word "typically" I acknowledge that there are those who do parrot the hierarchy’s lies and apologetics. I agree that those who do so fit the description of enabling child rapists. However the assertion that this applies to Chiles hangs on it typically being the case for any Catholic. Even if true, it's a weak argument for such a strong accusation. Maybe it is true. However if so, it runs counter to my experience. Like I said I'm aware of the parrots, but only through the media. Those I know of are are very vocal and have been afforded a platform. That doesn't make them typical. My Mum was a lapsed Catholic and so I've attended many social events on that side of the family where Catholics are well represented. Their reaction to clergy accused of these crimes was no different to my own. So I ask if you can provide any specific reason to believe that Adrian Chiles expresses these views?

@OwlInASack In what way?

@OwlInASack Fair enough. I'd say that though I was born British I do have a choice to remain so and there's also a choice to pay the BBC license fee. I'll take your word for it that the church continues in it's obstruction of justice though that my not be obvious to Chiles. Women's rights and gay and trans rights are new elements of your argument and I agree that the Church of Rome is very flawed in this respect., I also accept that joining a church that persists in these views is not a good look, However it doesn't necessarily mean that he shares those views.

If only religions and religious people WERE like that. Personally, if people want to stay at home and worship the Cosmic Duck I couldn't care less. But religions are theologies, sins, commandments, churches, moral teachings, frightening children, ripping off money from people, influencing politics, imposing morals on others, calling non believers names and fighting war against them, and all the rest of religious catastrophe. That's the problem.