this is an excerpt:
"Why do people have different religions?" I asked. "It seems like the
best one would win, eventually, and we'd all believe the same thing."
The old man paused and rocked. He tucked both hands inside his red
plaid blanket.
"Imagine that a group of curious bees land on the outside of a church
window. Each bee gazes upon the interior through a different stained
glass pane. To one bee, the church's interior is all red. To another it is
all yellow, and so on. The bees cannot experience the inside of the
church directly; they can only see it. They can never touch the interior or
smell it or interact with it in any way. If bees could talk they might argue
over the color of the interior. Each bee would stick to his version, not
capable of understanding that the other bees were looking through
different pieces of stained glass. Nor would they understand the
purpose of the church or how it got there or anything about it. The brain
of a bee is not capable of such things.
But these are curious bees. When they don't understand something,
they become unsettled and unhappy. In the long run the bees would
have to choose between permanent curiosity -- an uncomfortable
mental state -- and delusion. The bees don't like those choices. They
would prefer to know the true color of the curch's interior and its
purpose, but bee brains are not designed for that level of
understanding. They must choose from what is possible, either
discomfort or self-deception. The bees that choose discomfort will be
unpleasant to be around and they will be ostracized. The bees that
choose self-deception will band together to reinforce their vision of a
red-based interior or a yellow-based interior and so on."
"So you're saying we're like dumb bees?" I asked, trying to lighten the
mood.
"Worse. We are curious."
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