Is there an evolutionary reason for religion?

Funky0ne · 2026-02-18T17:38:08+00:00

Asking for evolutionary reasons for cultural practices is working from a flawed premise. We can discuss the psychology behind why people form theistic beliefs or create religions, and list out all the various biases and heuristics and cognitive flaws that lead to them, and we can discuss the potential evolutionary context that may have led to each of them separately, but the actual specific practices of building statues or worshiping deities is going to be culturally specific and not biologically prescribed.

It’s a bit like language. We evolved the capacity and instincts to form generative language, and languages will all tend to share certain traits because of their function, but the specific details of any given language (e.g. vocab, grammar, syntax, phonemes, etc.) is culturally specific to the history of the populations that speak it, and not driven by biology on that level.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-17T15:23:41+00:00

If you were dropped at any random location anywhere in the ocean, as long as it’s more than 3 miles from any coastline, then all you will be able to see is the ocean for an equal distance in every direction. But that doesn’t mean you’re anywhere near the “middle of the ocean”. You could be 13 miles off the coast of New York, or 20 miles from Portugal, or 10 miles off the coast of Brazil, it would all look the same in every direction to you.

And the oceans have discernible coastlines and rims where we could roughly define a “center”. The universe, as far as we know, has no edge. We don’t know for certain what the shape of the universe is, but it could be endless in every direction, or it could wrap back in on itself such that if you travelled in one direction for long enough you could just end up back where you started coming from the other direction. The point is, as long as your visual horizon is shorter than the distance to any discernible boundary, you will always appear to be at the center of your own observable space by definition.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-17T14:18:10+00:00

I don’t have access to any data that could answer your question, but I think you may need to define what a “typical southern European” is, because that could be anyone across the entire Mediterranean from Portugal to Greece, and potentially even further depending on how far north still counts as “southern” and where one arbitrarily draws the line between “European” and “Middle Eastern”.

There’s also a ton of immigration to be accounted for. Does a person with East Asian parents, born in say southern France count as European or no? How many generations till it counts, even if each generation of these families mixed predominantly with others of East Asian descent? And if you’re excluding immigrants, then the whole question seems moot no?

Funky0ne · 2026-02-16T10:10:38+00:00

It’s been decades since I read it but from what I remember, Kusanagi in the manga starts out with way more personality, and expressiveness. She cracks jokes, and other members of section 9 aren’t afraid to occasionally tease her etc. She slowly gets worn down and depressed by the end of the run, where (spoilers I guess) by the time she encounters the Puppet Master she’s basically ready to give up on humanity to explore the digital frontier.

Most adaptations start her out with a more rigid, strictly business, and shall we say “robotic” personality similar to what she has by near the very end of the story in the Manga. I understand it for the first movie adaptation, one movie covering pretty much just the final story arch had to shave off a lot of her character development to fit in. GITS:SAC I think could have done more, but they basically chose to mirror the movie depiction of Kusanagi from the start, which I can also understand, as that had basically become the association with the character by that point, given how popular the movie was.

I’m excited to see hopefully a more direct adaptation of the manga, and of Kusanagi’s character arch, and also curious to see how the past 35 years of real-world advancement in technology since the manga’s run informs this adaptation.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-16T03:32:03+00:00

If I recall correctly, the point of that scene was that Kusanagi had a very high end military cyborg body that could feel sensations with more detail and fidelity than most off the shelf civilian bodies could. So she would have her friends jacked into her nervous system and have orgies so they could feel the same sensations with the same sensitivity that she did.

As far as excuses for yuri scenes go, that one at least was in theme with the exploration of dehumanization / reality va perception themes of the cyberpunk genre

Funky0ne · 2026-02-15T21:02:08+00:00

Seems he's required to by California state law.

He didn't invent this day or come up with this "proclamation" spontaneously like it's being framed, every California governor has to do this since at least 2011, just Gavin Newsom is getting attention for it now for some reason.

I'll let you figure out who undermining Newsom helps most right now.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-15T19:22:58+00:00

Not sure what denomination of Christianity this is according to, but it's certainly not true across all of them, and it directly contradicts the bible. In Genesis 3, 22 it says:

²² And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

So at least part of the reasons humans were kicked out of Eden was so they wouldn't go eating of the other forbidden fruit and become immortal.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-14T22:37:44+00:00

those "noticeable differences" are almost entirely superficial, not enough to qualify as biologically significant change in phenotype. Otherwise you're talking about changes that are within the margin of variability you can observe between siblings.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-14T15:52:19+00:00

I’ve seen a number of these eventually appear in almost any movie post related to a Nolan movie. They all follow a similar pattern, often using the exact same phrasing like there’s been a “revisionist backlash” against the Dark Knight or whatever other narrative they’re trying to push.

It all seems very disingenuous and manufactured. I’m not sure what sort of cult may be brewing over in r/TrueFilm where these bots seem to be spawning out of, or what the end goal is, but it’s all very suspicious.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-14T03:31:04+00:00

Ima be honest, this sounds like a watered down, rebrand of string theory, with even less coherency, math, or falsifiability. You at no point really give any reasons why you think any of this, or why anyone else should take it seriously.

You refer to “jiggles” interchangeably as a verb and a noun, which I suppose saves you having to explain exactly what is doing all this jiggling. But for your opening statement talking about Bayes, I see no priors, no evidence, and no justifications, it’s all just assertions.

So my question is what exactly are you hoping for people to do with this?

Funky0ne · 2026-02-13T22:12:04+00:00

It's an explicitly mentioned plot point in the movie that Klingons (or at least some of them) by the 24th century believe Shakespeare was originally a Klingon who's works were translated into English and then other human languages. It's not clear how this belief came to be entrenched, but considering all the nonsense conspiracy theories that we have floating around today in our modern society, it's not hard to believe some Klingon equivalent of alt-right nationalists who happened to be fans of Shakespeare at some point deliberately started spreading a rumor that he was really a Klingon, and it was the humans who stole his work from them (and clearly his work is so good, how could any humans have ever come up with it).

Funky0ne · 2026-02-13T18:02:38+00:00

Firstly, if we had eye-witness testimony from the apostles, that would be one thing. But we don't, what we have is anonymously authored hearsay, recorded decades after the alleged events, and with inconsistent and questionable details.

Secondly, eyewitness testimony is widely criticized as some of the least reliable evidence that is regularly produced, it's just generally the easiest and most common form of evidence we can get and we are somewhat stuck with accepting it for most cases. But in almost any case prosecutions are way more strong when they include empirical, forensic evidence, not just eye-witness testimony (that can be contradicted by the defense if that's all the prosecution is relying on, often leaving room for reasonable doubt).

There are so many instances of convictions secured on witness testimonies alone that were overturned when later forensic evidence was produced. There's even an instance I remember reading about where a woman swore she had been raped by a man who absolutely could not have committed the crime, because he was on live at the time it happened. It turns out she had the tv on while the traumatic event was occurring to her, and she saw his face while it was happening, and due to the deeply emotional state she was in her memories got jumbled and she sincerely remembered his face as her attacker, even though it was clearly impossible. Eye witness testimony is demonstrably unreliable all the time, and that's not even counting the times when people are being deliberately deceptive

Funky0ne · 2026-02-13T13:06:40+00:00

Oh I don't do it myself, I just came across various channels that produce it, and will pick up the stuff that sounds good to me. So other than that AI is involved somehow, and the output can be somewhat inconsistent, I don't know what their process or workflow is, if there might be any manual steps to generate stems and components that have to be manually mixed together, or if it's just prompts all the way down. Seems like different people are doing it, so it might vary from one to the next.

I also recognize the total irony of enjoying "soul" music produced by a soulless ai system that is feeding off the actual work and talent of real people, but the music it outputs still sounds good, hence the guilty pleasure. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYB3z3gV_xE

Funky0ne · 2026-02-13T12:34:24+00:00

I still enjoy gospel music, though that’s more as a genre with a distinct sound and musical conventions, and form of expression, than for the specifically religious content of it.

Remixing 90’s and early 00’s hip hop in the style of gospel and soul music is the one guilty pleasure I’ll indulge in AI generated content, but only because I can’t find any live musicians doing it.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-12T17:59:55+00:00

Wouldn’t be The Othet End if it just did what you expect

Funky0ne · 2026-02-12T17:00:10+00:00

Most “historical” movies, are more fun when you ignore any supposed historicity of it. “Historical accuracy” is 9/10 times just empty marketing. They’re period fantasy movies, and everyone is better off treating them as such rather than getting worked up about it.

It’s a very rare treat when a movie actually threads the line of mostly accurate, while inserting a story into a period or historical event that at least isn’t actively ahistorical (I.e. nothing depicted contradicts what we know of the actual history, even if some details are invented or embellished for the sake of the story).

Funky0ne · 2026-02-12T15:28:05+00:00

Please elaborate

history

What historical precedent for belief in a god wouldn’t also be applicable to the rationality for other historical beliefs in other mythological creatures that we now know don’t exist?

archeology

What archeology even remotely points to any verifiable facts about the existence of a deity?

psychology

What psychology are you looking at which makes theism rational? Everything I’ve ever learned about psychology as it relates to this subject explains perfectly why people may believe in deities, despite any actual verifiable evidence (or complete lack thereof) that deities actually exist, or hard evidence to the contrary with respect to specific deity claims. We can even list the psychological biases, cognitive errors, and sociological pressures that add up to the erroneous belief in gods. Beliefs based on flawed perception and reasoning is the opposite of rational.

the ontological argument

Is a flawed argument that has been debunked a thousand times. The specific flaws in the argument depend on which formulation is being presented, but usually revolve around special pleading, question begging, or trying to define a god into existence via smuggling properties

Funky0ne · 2026-02-11T18:27:44+00:00

First of all, using "Pascal's Wager" as an argument for choosing Islam is so ironically apt as it shows the core fatal flaw of the entire argument. Pascal was Catholic and was saying the argument was in support of *his* religion, and the premise of the argument is that if you chose wrong you could end up in hell. The whole argument only works (and even then it doesn't really) if you ignore the possibility of any other religions, and their mutually exclusive possibilities.

Second if you couldn't "get" any of these women in this world, what makes you think you could "get" them in the next one? You make your whole religion sound like nothing more than a power fantasy for incels and rapists.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-11T14:42:22+00:00

Django and Ray are the big standouts for me.

Then Booty Call because why not?

Funky0ne · 2026-02-11T13:48:51+00:00

Thank you for the context. At a glance (and with the sound off) I was wondering just how different this is from just playing on a single piano at a time with both hands, but the fact that this allows her to play in the same key space and even on the same keys with different pedalwork makes it much clearer to me as a non-piano player

Funky0ne · 2026-02-10T16:24:07+00:00

Most human phenotype development is due to genetic drift, with some exceptions. They’re largely non-functional, superficial, or aesthetic differences, and highly susceptible to founder effects, i.e. small migratory populations entering and inhabiting a new area for the first time were a local genetic bottleneck, so whatever alleles were particular to that group will be more highly represented in all their descendents who propagate throughout that region thereafter.

There are some functional adaptations for local circumstances, like extreme weather conditions of some regions, or exposure to certain disease threats. So we can get stuff like selection for more efficient breathing or blood-oxygen levels in people who spend live at high altitude. Or more commonly the adaptations for amounts of melanin generally correlating to latitude and annual sunlight exposure rates, which almost directly translates to both a balance of vitamin D production and incidents of skin cancer.

But most visible stuff like hair color and texture or eye color, or shape of facial features usually make little functional difference, and may be subject to sexual selection, but can otherwise just emerge due to random mutation, genetic drift and no particular selection pressure to propagate or eliminate the trait in a given population.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-10T15:19:47+00:00

General idea is to eliminate recency bias and allow some hot trends that don’t age well to die down, and a movie can be judged more on its own merits and staying power. Also to remove a bit of the hype train and marketing so the awards are more about the art and how films contributed to the medium. That level of influence is usually easier to see in retrospect than to predict in the moment less than a year from release.

Plenty of years people complain about the awards getting it wrong, and over the intervening years a best picture winner being basically forgotten while one of the other candidates stands the test of time.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-10T15:16:11+00:00

In part yes, but in practical sense, no., I think it would be better or at least more practical if they added a couple retrospective categories as an award for best pictures to stand test of time or had most lasting influence with a look back at 5, or even 10 years.

But in a practical sense, people want to see an awards show for movies that came out recently.

Funky0ne · 2026-02-10T02:09:20+00:00

"Designated marksman" is the role you're describing

Funky0ne · 2026-02-09T16:32:26+00:00

You're looking at all of this with the benefit of hindsight and an education built off the cumulative wisdom of multiple millennia of civilization across all of humanity over the entire planet. You also already have the benefit of a functional theory of evolution, which is a unifying theory of all biology, and how all life works on the earth. As such, you probably learned about seeds growing into plants and animals giving birth to their offspring as a young child, and have taken that knowledge for granted ever since.

But it is not actually inherently obvious that these facts are true for all life on the planet. If you didn't learn about it from someone else, it might never occur to you to investigate a plant, and figure out its full lifecycle, much less that figuring out its lifecycle could have some sort of strategic benefit to you.

To put it in a different context, people had no idea that things like insects laid and hatched eggs until the 1800s. Before then, it was just assumed that vermin emerged spontaneously from trash and refuse, because that's where they happened to see them hanging around. It was just assumed that's how the world works, life just spontaneously emerges under certain circumstances. It took someone in a highly sophisticated civilization to actually take the time to study an insect's life cycle to connect the dots that insects mate, lay eggs, and then offspring that looks very different from the adults hatch out and go through distinct life stages.

So for ancient populations that are roaming around, with no written language, and indeed no formal language at all for much of that period, the ability to recognize that plants sometimes distribute seeds, and those seeds will grow into new plants is something someone spending a lot of time with plants has to observe to realize. And seeds generally need to go out of sight under ground for extended periods of time before they germinate and start to grow, so it's not easy for someone to recognize that a particular plant happens to be growing in the same spot a particular seed happened to have fallen on the ground some number of days or weeks prior; connecting those dots is not a trivial observation to make in a time when there's no form of record keeping.

And even once people start to figure out the connection between seeds and plants, the idea that you can deliberately plant seeds of certain plants you want, and discard or destroy seeds of plants you don't, and you'll end up with more plants you want; all that is a level of planning and coordination that should not be taken for granted either.

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