methinks the reason so many people believe in gods is because throughout history, parents have had to justify their instructions to their kids. "Because I say so" won't do after awhile. "Because God says so" is much more effective. Of course, parents learned that tactic from _their_ parents when they (the current parents) were young and impressionable. So they probably believe it, partly or completely.
There also certain aspects of the "human condition," such as death and moral issues, which are extremely complicated and involve scary ambiguities and so can't be handled in a totally scientific way. So religion is going to be around for a long long time: it's based in the mortality of people and the fact that we live in groups. I think that agnostics (like myself) and especially atheists (Dawkins _et al_) need to learn to live it. It's better than heroin, after all. Yoshie writes: >Even systematic atheists can, however, very well have "belief in hope beyond reason." Crisis theory among leftists, many (or most?) of whom are systematic atheists, is informed by one such belief imho.< _all_ crisis theory among leftists? Yoshie, please avoid this kind of sweeping generalization. it's like Doug making his snide remarks about the opinions of pen-l without noting the existence of exceptions. Such stereotypes do not aid dialog within, and unity of, what's left of the left. -- Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
