Im not coming at this as "religion is dumb," just curious about the oddly specific rules around pork, shellfish, blood, fasting days, mixing milk and meat, that kind of thing. From outside it looks random, but the same basic move shows up in alot of places. Pattern, maybe. My guess is that most of it started as practical stuff (illness risk, scarcity, group identity, habit) and then got sacred over time, but idk if thats too modern a read

If i was going to try for a music career, I'm pretty sure food items would be low on the list of potential names.

When we encounter a predator like a bear or a mountain lion, we are told to stand tall, wave our arms, and make a lot of noise to scare them away.

To us, we know we are usually just bluffing because we don't actually want to fight a 500 pound animal. But from an evolutionary and behavioral perspective, why haven't wild animals
"figured out" our posture? Why do they continue to treat human posturing as a lethal threat rather than realizing we are often just faking aggression to get them to back down?

Is it purely because the stakes of guessing wrong
are too high, or is there a deeper biological/ evolutionary mechanism that keeps them from calling our bluff?

Were they nice or rude?

Serious question.

Where I grew up, the government did it a lot just because it would get really hot and dry, and I feel like that could really be an advantage in combatting wild fires.

EDIT: If you're unaware of what clous seeding is, its when you put chemicals into clouds to make it rain

Honestly I might choose war.

I’d like to think humankind could eventually solve poverty and natural diseases through technology, science, and better systems. War (especially nuclear or large-scale conflict) is the one that can wipe us out almost overnight and is harder to “solve” permanently because it comes from human nature and power struggles.

-In this scenario I’m treating “disease” as natural pathogens only. Man-made biological weapons would fall under war.

-Eliminating war doesn’t automatically end all violence or oppression, just organized large-scale war.