Carrol writes:
> I don't think this proposition holds water historically,
> because so much
> religion over time and space has _not_ offered any consolation for or
> even spoken to the fact of death.
you're right. I was writing in short-hand. Religions also deal with other aspects of the human condition as standard rituals (birth, rights of passage, marriage, etc.) and respect for the parents by the children. There is no obvious scientific way to really deal with these. Religion backs up tradition.
My thinking is that one reason for the persistence of religion is that it often happens that a kid says "why?" and the parent says "because I said so" -- but the kid says "why?" again and the parent says "because the gods say so."
Once we get rid of class society, I think that the obnoxious parts of religion will largely go away...
jim d.