Reply #8: provocative points

[leftofthedial]

I agree about the "Mate" scenario. There is no rational approach that works. I also agree that the believer is childlike and inevitably becomes angry when their belief is challenged.

Is there any clinical evidence or academic pursuit of the notion that the need to believe is "...a regression to childhood."

At the risk of opening a physiology-versus-analysis can of worms, It almost seems innate to the primate brain to me. Like we have a missing bit of wiring that creates a hole in our ability to parse reality, but also the creative capacity to "fill in the blanks" with whatever material is at hand. If this were true, then religion propagates itself by providing carefully evolved and adaptable raw "filler" material for each new generation. When its "truth" is challenged, as by science, it simply changes the prevailing interpretation. When the challenge reaches the point where no further stretching of interpretation is possible, funcamentalism rises and religion starts killing the challengers.

But why, then, would many of us not fall for the "filler"?