Ramana Juvvadi
Aug 23, 2017 · 1 min read

The author makes an attempt to defend superstitions and religious beliefs with rather unconvincing arguments.

What we call as human intuition is a short cut to decision making, something that consumes less of brains time and energy. Not everything that scientists do has to have precise formulas and reasoning. Simplified models of natural phenomena, approximations, rules of thumb are quite common in engineers and physicians. A lot of what passes as research in medicine is merely studying statistical correlation with empirically observed facts.

To extend this to superstitions and religious beliefs is a really long leap. Even if a false belief leads a person to do some good things, I find it to be a dangerous practice. The least harm to a society is done only if its beliefs are based on truth. To give an example, one can argue that a belief in Jannat leads its adherents to do good things whether Jannat exists or not. I can argue that a belief in 72 houries can lead a person to ignore this life and cause destruction on the earth in search of Jannat in afterlife.

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    Ramana Juvvadi

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