The deeper reason I value religion

Insanity is alone-ness.

To keep functioning as a mind, you have to bounce your ideas off of other people.

But audiences can be self-selecting.  If you only bounce your ideas off of people who already agree with you, that's almost as bad as being totally isolated - you can fall victim to audience capture.

(As I like to put it, excommunication is bad for the church.) 

You want to communicate not only with minds, but with other minds, with different minds, with people who believe different things from you, who think differently, who live differently, who have different forms of consciousness.

This is why I value religions - because they have the power to make minds different.  

I value you for your difference. 

(For this reason, I especially love new religions.  Creative ways of making minds different.) 

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