Comments by "Kristopher Driver" (@paxdriver) on "John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion u0026 the Search for Wisdom | Lex Fridman Podcast #317" video.

  1. The most reasonable explanation for the functional benefit to religion in the pursuit of wisdom is the time dedicated to existential thought through routine, ritual tradition and communion. The benefits of this steady practise are mildly offset by the rigorous memorization of dogmatic textualisms, but once memorized they serve as meditations when practised. Discipline and making time and leveraging our group to encourage more introspection which is simply not easy for most people to self direct without a religious fervour. Relions are functional in their promotion of making routine of reflexive diligent consideration which most people don't do on their own. Hard things take motivation; our feelings are great motivations; make love and death myths to encourage introspective rituals and you wind up with religious stories which all read like echoes of one another anyway. If it helps make us more appreciative of philosophy and living better lives on aggregate then it's useful to us all, whether we believe or share the doctrines or not. Even if the texts are all wrong, if they bring a person closer to wisdom than without, then the religious texts have truly made the person transcend their capacity and are thus at least partially true to their raison d'être. It's another one of those recursive arguments - if the bs text makes a person motivated to think more about harder, more important questions, then they served the their stated functions and proved themselves to be inspired by a higher power lol
    1