Religions Have Depended On The

It's This Expandable Capacity To Represent Reasons That We Have That Gives Us A Soul. But What's It Made Of? It's Made Of Neurons. It's Made Of Lots Of Tiny Robots. And We Can Actually Explain The Structure And Operation Of That Kind Of Soul, Whereas An Eternal, Immortal, Immaterial Soul Is Just A Metaphysical Rug Under Which You Sweep Your Embarrassment For Not Having Any Explanation.

Human Consciousness Is Just About The Last Surviving Mystery... A Topic That Often Leaves Even The Most Sophisticated Thinkers Tongue-tied And Confused. And, As With All Of The Earlier Mysteries, There Are Many Who Insist - And Hope - That There Will Never Be A Demystification Of Consciousness.

Religion Is Defined As Social Systems Whose Participants Avow A Supernatural Agent Or Agents Whose Approval Is To Be Sought.

Churches Have Given Us Great Treasures Such As Music And Architecture. Whether That Pays For The Harm They Have Done Is Another Matter.

The Task Of The Mind Is To Produce Future, As The Poet Paul Valery Once Put It. A Mind Is Fundamentally An Anticipator, An Expectation-generator. It Mines The Present For Clues, Which It Refines With The Help Of The Materials It Has Saved From The Past, Turning Them Into Anticipations Of The Future. And Then It Acts, Rationally, On The Basis Of Those Hard-won Anticipations.