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Comment by dustingetz | Hacker News Reader

The point of religion is to solve civilization-scale game theory coordination dilemmas. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is a mutually beneficial metastable equilibrium but is only stable to the extent that it is a universally adopted principle. A lot of modern tragedies like climate change can be tackled in this way if we can establish universal shared values that apply to all people independent of nationality, status and in particular, education. It needs to be comprehensible to all 7 billion people for them to adopt it, including areas of the world with low literacy.

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>"The point of religion is..."

Citation please

Excellent demonstration of the point of the peer-review religion.

Myerson, Roger B. 2009. "Learning from Schelling's Strategy of Conflict." Journal of Economic Literature, 47 (4): 1109-25. http://home.uchicago.edu/~rmyerson/research/stratofc.pdf

"To focus attention on one equilibrium with no higher appeal, it would be best to consult the highest possible authority. If the players share a cultural understanding that certain unpredictable processes may be used by the fundamental divine spirit of the universe to answer questions, and that this divinity cannot be bothered about the same question more than once, then a recommendation that is based on such a sacred randomization can serve as a focal coordination device that cannot be appealed to any higher arbitrator. Then the oracle's recommendations can be self-enforcing, without any further intervention by the divine spirit, provided that the recommendations to the players form an equilibrium. Thus the focal-point effect can admit a socially significant role for oracles and divination, as an effective foundation for social coordination. Indeed, when we look for effective focal factors, what can command people's attention more than the overall pattern of the whole universe? This divine pattern can serve as a focal determinant, however, only when players have a shared understanding about it can be interpreted into a selection among the set of Nash equilibria of their game.

...

"In any society, it is vital to maintain a broad general agreement about who has legitimate authority in any situation. Thus, from our earlier remarks about the focal power of the divine, we can see why societies may find it useful or even essential to call for frequent testimony that the local system of rules and authority is compatible with the divine pattern of the universe. Although coordination within a society can be improved by such belief in the universal nature of its principles of justice and legitimate authority, such universalization of local law and authority makes it harder for people in one society to recognize the different forms of justice and authority in other societies (see Myerson, 2006). That is, the same forces that help people to achieve consistent coordinated expectations in a successful society can become forces for inconsistency of expectations across societies in international relations. Indeed, in international conflicts throughout history, people on each side have regularly failed to understand the other side's perception of justice in their conflict.

...

"The focal-point effect may even offer a perspective on some ideas of theology, not about the nature of the divine, but about how societies use the divine. The focal-point effect is about environmental parameters that attract people's attention to one of many equilibria, and no aspect of our environment has a stronger claim on our attention than the divine pattern of the entire universe. Thus, coordination in a society can be strengthened when it culturally portrays local forms of law and authority as derived from universal divine principles."

Well played.

OP’s statement is too broad and thus incorrect, but it is essentially correct about Abrahamic religions where the religious texts are clearly concerned with upholding state power. This obviously does not apply to many, if not most, other religions.

Yeah. Successful religions are just a memeplex that have been exceedingly good at keeping themselves alive and growing.

They don't have a point.

They just exist.

The church I belong to says its mission, or our duty as mem bers, is to: 1) live the gospel 2) care for those in need (which we very actively work at, locally and worldwide) 3) invite others to come to Christ (love, share, invite) 4) unite families for eternity

My own notes/additions to the above include:

1) Live the gospel meaning to keep commandments (like the 10), do what one knows is right, be humble and faithful, etc in order to have the promised ~ "...peace in this life, and eternal life in the world to come." I have seen the results in stable multigenerational family organizations, and ability to work through very hard times. And to know life and hard things have a good purpose and is worth it. And so much more.

2-4) so very much could be said. example-- https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2021-10-25/nation... ... which resonates with my neighborhood experiences, including with those not of our faith.

And the extensive humanitarian work (where 100% of those specific donations go to those in need, none to admin overhead) and high voluntarism.

Not everything needs a citation. Some things can be hypothesised about based on observation and common sense.

It's not the point of religion, it's a side-effect. While religion is a remarkably effective control/coercion tool, there are more ethical ways to establish universal shared values. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" isn't exactly inspirational coming from a book filled with god-sanctioned rape, incest, genocide, and infanticide. People didn't adopt that principle because religion told them to, they adopted it because it allowed them to outcompete the primitive societies that didn't.

    People didn't adopt that principle because religion told them to, they adopted it because it allowed them to outcompete the primitive societies that didn't.

But the divine nature of mankind makes that commandment more powerful because, one, you're killing God's creation and, two, it directly comes from God. It is not a simple "yeah, lets agree on that".

In the end it's just falsely attributing divinity to pro-social human programming developed over millennia of natural selection. Religion came much later than pro-social behavior, and in fact it more resembles "let's agree on that": When it serves you, quote the bible verses that forbid killing, and when it serves you, quote the verses that justify killing indiscriminately.

That's what I used to think.

I'm not so sure anymore.

Hoping not to flame or anything, but personally the point of my religion (orthodoxy) is to be correct and to provide an understanding of reality. Morality and coordination stem from that for sure, but they aden't the purpose per se.

Except that problem is already solved by a bunch of things like empathy and reputation.

The point of religion is to solve civilisation wide coordination dilemmas like war. How do you get people to kill and die for strangers?

Religion's purpose is to get people to do horrible things not to behave nicely. It's used for wars mostly (plus genocides etc).

That's why we no longer need it. If we were fighting a ground war against a dangerous invading force it would be socially useful. But we're not.

This is also why religion has only flourished in places with exactly those issues (Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine recently).

Unless the plan for solving climate change is to convince x% of people to kill themselves, religion won't help with that any more than it helps with poverty or crime.

you're reducing religion to its dark spots, and I'm not religious..

we all have existential crysis, deep fear, doubts, dilemmas. These questions are also in religion, now religion was probably a huge pile of everything from existence, to social life, morality, sexuality and family and yeah converting / conquering other people or other faiths.

You don't go to church to gather weapons but to marry, celebrate birth and grieve death.

I think your analysis is spot on. With respect to the last part though:

> Unless the plan for solving climate change is to convince x% of people to kill themselves, religion won't help with that any more than it helps with poverty or crime.

Climate religion basically is telling people they need to go without the comforts of modern society (and generally live in some sort of centrally controlled societal construct that minimizes individual rights) in the name of some eternal paradise. It's not quite as severe as sending people to their deaths, but it's the same idea of convincing people to act against their own interests (and to let the priests continue to do what they want in the name of spreading the word) in order to fulfill some divine purpose.

(I should add as a sibling post did, I believe there are many positive points to religion as well, I'm responding to your post that essentially addresses religion as a coercion (sp?) mechanism

Meanwhile, the largest mass exterminations of humanity in the 20th century were carried out by regimes that expressly forbid the open practice of most religions.

Your view that religion is only really used to motivate war is incredibly shallow and I encourage you to broaden your horizons on this subject.

> Religion's purpose is to get people to do horrible things not to behave nicely. It's used for wars mostly (plus genocides etc).

Flat out false.

> Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature, which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars.

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