Reply #68: The useful smurf

[Az]

I fear the smurf ref is soon going to fail but I shall try to nurse it along as best I can.

The creation of smurfs and gods are not deliberate acts. They arise out of our need to understand and desire to have control over our environment. Over time as the stories behind them increase they take on identity and form. Along the way they accumulate wisdom.

As different claims and ideas concerning these smurfs and gods accumulate the ones that resonate best with the social mind are the ones that find themself repeated. They are the notions we continue to hold true. Thus over time smurfs and gods accumulate wisdom beyond what single individuals can fathom on their own.

There is wisdom in the ideas behind smurfs and gods even if they are not based on true premises. It is social evolution that gives them strength. But is also this process that makes them dangerous.

The means by which this process works is not deliberate. It takes no responsibility for its outcomes. And history is full of when things go horribly wrong in this process. It cannot look forward. It can only draw from what it has learned. And powerful though it may be it is not deliberate.

We live in a time where we can ill afford to not make our descisions without looking forward. We don't need to jettison the wisdom that we have accumulated. But we have to use other means of determining our lives as well.

The utilitarian use of god may have some value. And for those that find such value I encourage them. But for me unweaving the rainbow has more value. In finding the truth of things we are better able to see how things connect together. There may be some observations that religious traditions have catalogged that carry value but that value is just as relevant without the trappings for some. In time perhaps a deliberate examination of these observations will gleen why they are true. So they have value yet.