1. Richard Dawkins Replies to David Sloan Wilson

Comment #55637 by kmr214 on July 11, 2007 at 7:54 pm

Why is religion a treated as "special case" given "sympathetic" pages anyway?

Religion is no more special than, say, the military chain of command or executive authority in corporations.

It's a management system.

In any group that has them, the alphas in charge always have to deal with debate, dissent, mutiny, regime change and revolution. In short, they are driven to maintain power. (Who was it said that the greatest thing George Washington did was step down at the end of his term?)

Religion happens to have a very powerful psychological grip on those managed--maybe that's what makes it special.

But secular military command uses much of the same tactics as religion: absolute authority of those above, a shared sense of duty, a common cause (like the nation or the race) among those ruled. Lots of ceremony, pledging and need-to-know basis stuff.

Sure, debate whether religion is adaptive or by-product, that's fine. But take it off its pedestal and lump it in with the rest of the "management structures" animals create.

kmr

2. Inferior Design: Richard Dawkins reviews Behe's lastest book

Comment #55361 by kmr214 on July 10, 2007 at 7:30 pm

"The second is the book of a man who has given up. "

Given up? Are you kidding? One need only look at Ann Coulter to know that there's an audience for these ideas that can be milked into a very comfortable retirement.

You think it's easy to come up with that kind of stuff? Behe is earning every penny!