I am terrified by the statistic that Richard Dawkins gives us in an interview:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6804971.ece
40% of the American populace does not believe in evolution. My first reaction, of course, was to wretch (thankfully, I had an empty stomach). My second reaction was to be reminded that rationalization faces an uphill battle in the human mind to cement to belief and thus, action. This is because the memory mechanism is enhanced in the presence of strong emotion. So, to be statistical: we have a stronger correlation between memory-formation-enhancing emotion and religious/spiritual experience than we do between memory-formation-enhancing emotion and rational insight.
All theories of behavior or the brain that can be described so succinctly are probably vast simplifications and thus, possess gross misrepresentations. Oh well, one more: there is a tendency in individuals to seek out pleasing things - that is, to attempt to replicate pleasant experiences and to avoid repetition of unpleasant ones. Rational belief systems, beware. Without a rigorous latticework of mental safeguards against emotional decision-making, time is against you.
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