Brilliant Huxley!

Intelligence spawns the capacity for reality & fantasy. A creative but two-edged sword.

Yes, it’s Huxley, he generally makes sense; one of the reasons so many people enjoy his work!

So lets go back 10k, 20k or 30k years. Before writing as we know it. They could, however, communicate.

Then, take into account that some people want to lead large groups and some want to follow... Or are made to follow.

Then, Thag dies! The community wants to know more. Most say they have no idea what is next. Then Thig (Thag's brother) makes up a story about what happens after death and has his audience captivated. All he has to say was that "It was revealed to him by the great oracle" or whatever. He sees they are all eating out of his hand so he keeps making stuff up. Thig likes being respected and followed. Then, the following year, the rains don't come as expected. Thig says "The gods are angry! Your new god wants____! It's not hard to use your imagination. 33% of the population is stupid, 33% just doesn't care and the other 33% will say or do anything to get ahead. It's the missing 1% that resides on this website! lol

Mankind in general are bullshitters when they feel they need to be. I know that when cornered and I know I am correct... I may whip out a statistic. 92.7% of the people believe you automatically when you quote a percentage!

In the end... Humans will always follow what is told to them over someone saying, "I don't know." They do this because they want to know... If they can have that they will take whatever they can get even if it sounds outrageous, is a lie or a general best guess.

as it were...

Except of course Huxley is wrong.
We now know that Apes, dolphins, canines, elephants and other species Do indulge in rituals especially at times of a death in their groups, some even performing what might be designated as funerals.
Wolves do howl at the moon in what can be seen as an act of supplication.
Formal mating for life happens in may species, tribalism, hierarchies, even aberrant behaviour such as in pods of rogue dolphins who choose to go against natural behaviour and attack there own species for what appears to be fascist doctrines of false racial superiority.

Religion seems to be simply a justification and/or redirection of natural instincts present in many animals especially mammals

Damn, he almost makes religion sound ridiculous. If only the apologists hadn't already done so.

One of my favourite philosophers. This was true in the age of mythology(religion) when ignorant man sought answers and prayed for good fortune the only way they knew how. Mans big brains led to this but also to science. As daring individuals risked death by church with their discoveries. If not for them we’d still be living in the dark ages.

It is not intelligence that make humans do stupid things at all. It is our ability to have abstract thought. We are animals that can assign agency to cause and affect. Our abstract thinking often leads us to assign or make up false agency.

Man is a malfunction.

There are more forms of stupidity that rain dances and supplications to a god. Bill Gates, for example. He thinks he's God.

men invented god in the ancient times because there was much that they couldn't explain... the more we understand about science the less powerful religion will be.....

Most of us know better NOW, don't we, than to do rain dances?
We slowly learn, then slip back into darkness, then emerge again a little higher...
Then a hurricane comes with massive flooding and washes it all away!!!
It's all rather pointless if there isn't some kinda explanation, right??! So...we keep searching and wondering because...hey, what ELSE is there to do?!?!?

the rest of your post disproves your original statement.. i think it's a better explanation to say that humans are molecular beings, and molecules are flawed.. so, whatever molecules are in a human that makes them behave stupidly, it sure is NOT intelligence..

I would say simply , which is being stated is based in Egoism more than intelligence. There are fields of intelligence: science, medicine, astronomy, business, and so on , my own understanding of a aspect of intelligence is merely having awareness of what’s within and around you and being present. What’s described in that statement to me is based in Ego .

I thought humans belonged to the animal kingdom.

A proclivity for abstract thought gives the human species the ability to philosophize about things beyond mere survival drives. This same ability allows humans to shape a projectile point from a common cobble, or a steel beam from nodule of iron.

The last morphological increase in human brain capacity to 1500 cc, saw an increase in the logical-mathematical parts of the brain. This advancement increased the abstract thinking abilities, but did little to the reinforce the instinctual aspects of the brain.

As logical-abstract thinking dominated, a greater attention in this area began to subvert the evolutionary instinctual messages that keeps a species "fitness" for their environment. The greater our successes in suppressing nature and separating ourselves from our instinctual selves, the more dysfunctional we became. Evolution doesn't necessarily work on a specific time line. We have been evolutionary unfit for our environment (the planet) since the advent of agriculture allowed for permanent settlements. There is a point of diminishing returns and evolutionary processes will reclaim the species. Either through extinction or massive population reduction worldwide.

We have a famous football player who is extremely religious here. He was sacked from his very lucrative football club for saying that guys and people who had abortions would go to hell. After he was sacked he took them to court but did not win, it was settled out of court in the end. Anyway now he is saying that the fires that are raging around Australia is gods punishment for letting the guys marry or allowing women to have abortions.

I agree.