(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

I recently finished reading Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained, which I enjoyed greatly and which I found to be very illuminating. I do wish there was some way to cogently summarize his argument, but there is no "sound bite" summary. It is a complex (but IMO convincing) argument involving several parts of the mind and cultural mechanisms which interact in complex ways. In his estimation, we are rather "stuck" with religion because it is not a system for answering the big questions -- this is a recent add-on -- but is a way of reacting to experiences in every day life. Certain things about the way our minds work -- emotions and inference systems -- make it slightly more likely that religious memes will persist.

Okay, I'm stopping there. I'd told myself I'd resist the temptation to try to summarize the book's argument and I meant it. Any further than that and I'll just be botching it.

Now I'm re-reading Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media and I'm certain to have some things to say about that.