Is religious belief innate to our brains?

[ColoradoGuy]

We've talked before in several threads whether of not the human brain is hard-wired for language -- it's an old but still interesting discussion. Another old chestnut is whether the brain is predisposed for religious thought, if that confers some sort of evolutionary advantage (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925361.100-belief-special-how-evolution-found-god.html) -- preservation of the species and such.

Recently some have speculated (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126941.700-born-believers-how-your-brain-creates-god.html?full=true) that religious inklings (or superstitious ones, as Ruv might put it) may be instead a byproduct of how the human mind works. This makes religion more an effect than a cause. From the article:

"That's not to say that the human brain has a 'god module' in the same way that it has a language module that evolved specifically for acquiring language. Rather, some of the unique cognitive capacities that have made us so successful as a species also work together to create a tendency for supernatural thinking."

"So how does the brain conjure up gods? One of the key factors, says Bloom, is the fact that our brains have separate cognitive systems for dealing with living things - things with minds, or at least volition - and inanimate objects."

The evidence for this formulation derives from experiments in children as young as three years of age. The data are intriguing, though soft, in my estimation. Still, it's a fascinating summary and worth a look if you wonder about possible explanations for why we are the way we are.

[semilargeintestine]

Personal religious beliefs notwithstanding, I'm pretty convinced that humans are inclined to believe in high authority, aka gods, because of our ability to investigate things. We have an ability to understand, probe, and figure out things at a much higher level than any other species on the planet. Absent scientific knowledge and methods, it's pretty natural that a group of people would attribute something they couldn't explain to a god.

[veinglory]

If it was unversally innate it would be universally exibited. It might be innate in the same way heterosexuality, or the tendency to stereotype, or violence when frustrated, is--without there being any great implications of that fact. It is really just a tautology. People that do something do it partly because of their phenotype. But then in the absence of a phenotype (genes and physical development) it is rather hard to do anything ;)

If a religious person has a religious brain (this behavior must have a physical basis after all) it does not follow that an atheist person has a religious brain, or ought to, or that a religious brain is "normal".

[sunandshadow]

I would call it belief in magic and/or the supernatural because that's a lot more general than religious, but yes it's definitely innate to the human brain.

[veinglory]

It is innate to the brains of humans who believe in the supernatural--this also is not universal. There are, and have always been, materialists throughout recorded human history. Many of them having brains that were clearly highly functional, philosophers, scientists etc. There is not 'the human brain'. There are human brains--and their variability is as essential to their nature as their norms.

[semilargeintestine]

I'd like to see how many people were truly atheist before science really started to be able to explain things. I know from Judaism that many orthodox or conservative people find (and found) explanations for lots of life's mysteries right in the religion, so God and science were not exclusive (i.e., evolution, physics, astronomy, etc.).

[Higgins]

We've talked before in several threads whether of not the human brain is hard-wired for language -- it's an old but still interesting discussion. Another old chestnut is whether the brain is predisposed for religious thought, if that confers some sort of evolutionary advantage (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925361.100-belief-special-how-evolution-found-god.html) -- preservation of the species and such.

Recently some have speculated (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126941.700-born-believers-how-your-brain-creates-god.html?full=true) that religious inklings (or superstitious ones, as Ruv might put it) may be instead a byproduct of how the human mind works. This makes religion more an effect than a cause. From the article:

"That's not to say that the human brain has a 'god module' in the same way that it has a language module that evolved specifically for acquiring language. Rather, some of the unique cognitive capacities that have made us so successful as a species also work together to create a tendency for supernatural thinking."

"So how does the brain conjure up gods? One of the key factors, says Bloom, is the fact that our brains have separate cognitive systems for dealing with living things - things with minds, or at least volition - and inanimate objects."

The evidence for this formulation derives from experiments in children as young as three years of age. The data are intriguing, though soft, in my estimation. Still, it's a fascinating summary and worth a look if you wonder about possible explanations for why we are the way we are.

I think a number of things about the way people imagine the world might be seen as religious. First there is the just plain raw fear of the unknown. One can easily imagine (and here one is imagining an imaginary imagination -- so it ought to be easy to imagine) several "evolutionary" scenarios for that:

1) For much of protohuman history, protohumans were of the smaller more gracile humanoid forms. Ie for 6-8 million years or more there was always a much bigger version of humanity out there. They were no smarter than us, and might have been a bit less quick, agile and sneaky...but buddy, they could bash your head in in a second and cook you and eat you in less time than it takes to make a canoe. Now that may well have put the fear of something big and nasty and humanoid into our frightened heads.
2) This may have had an impact on thinking ahead. You could always plan to be home for dinner, but to be honest you always had to add, "as long as some big guy doesn't club me to death." Perhaps the earliest expression of faith. For obviously it was always possible the the Big Guy was elsewhere beating other people to death, and that left that little opening in the realm of possibility that I think many of us experience as a deep one-ness with all things that are not getting clubbed to death today
3) But some people (gracile, small and sneaky as they may have been) might have had a knack for putting a Quietus on the Big Guy. what Godlike fellows those gracile fellows must have seemed! Tricksters! Beings with unimaginable powers. Imagine strolling home for dinner and saying, "Honey, I was almost Lunch for the Big Guy but I caught him trying to start a fire and speared him to death." Well, this would be cause for massive proto-religious celebrations of a nearly unimaginable intensity. To have bested the thing that caused total fear all the time? What glory could equal that except for glory of the most supernatural kind?

[veinglory]

I am not sure how that idea really ties in at all. Science is a way of studying the physical world. On the meta-level it has nothing to do with whether or how one understands the non-physical world. Most scientists I know are believers, but all four combinations are well-represented.

People who think religiously see science as the religion or non-religious people. But hat has never made the slightest sense to me or many others (see Gould's discussion here: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html).

Honestly, I see a clear fallacy. Because it is normal for religious people to be religious in no way implies it is abnormal of atheist people to be athiest. No more than the normality of the male implies the abnormality of the female, or the same argument for race, adulthood, sexuality or any other human subtype.

One is, biologically and philosophically, what one is--but the most common or most powerful type is not "correct" just because it is natural. The minority type is equally natural. What would be unnatural and grist for extinction would be uniformity. Evolution simply cannot occur without innate and persistence variability producing innate and persistent variation in strategies within the community.

[WriteKnight]

Imagination is religion.

The human mind, because of the way it is constructed, has evolved to allow, and even reward imagination.

Ergo the human mind is 'religious'.


Of course, it all presupposes MY assertion that the definition of religion is imagination... all else being semantics. ;)

[rugcat]

It is innate to the brains of humans who believe in the supernatural--this also is not universal.Just because something is not universal doesn't negate the possibility that we're talking about an innate hardwired predisposition though. Certainly the vast majority of societies have developed ideas about God or gods, along with supernatural explanations about the world. It really is a cultural constant.

There are many similarities we hold with our primate cousins -- the study of aggression and dominance in baboon troops, and the existence of what can only be described as friendships are well documented.
(http://www.amazon.com/Primates-Memoir-Neuroscientists-Unconventional-Baboons/dp/B001OW5NNM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234127240&sr=1-1)
We can also see in primates the beginnings of language, although it is still debated whether primate communication is different in kind from what we term as language.

But the religious aspect doesn't seem to have any counterpart, even in the most dimly realized of ways, in the animal kingdom. Interesting article.

[veinglory]

Saying something is not universal does imply it is not uniformly hard wired into all people.

Is a gay person "predisposed" to be heterosexual?

If I was born "pre-disposed" to be religious I suspect I would have become so as it would infact be easier and is innately encouraged and assumed by the religious majority and was actively taught in school. I think I was born predisposed to develop exactly as I did--a life long atheist with a well developed imagination as expressed in my fiction and artwork. I can imagine God, be has has never, even for a moment, been real to me.

I think a normal religious person has a normal religious brain.

Whereas my normal non-religious outlook is a product of my normal non-relious brain--not some mis-development or perversion of my secretly religious brain.

[Higgins]

I think a number of things about the way people imagine the world might be seen as religious. First there is the just plain raw fear of the unknown.

Second, along side fears that are now purely imaginary (unless there really is a divine being with a club waiting to eat you), there are the hopes that work as the shadows of fear...for one cannot help (and here is something innate I guess) but hope that today you will not be clubbed to death and eaten. And suppose one goes for months without being clubbed and eaten? What can you do but conclude that your faith (ie that the Big Guy is clubbing somebody else to death) is sustaining you? You are ever hopeful and you don't get clubbed...obviously things (in an imaginary, supernatural religious way) are working out for you. And every day you report this hope and its fulfullment to everyone. Of course, once you are clubbed and eaten you aren't there to say many many many many more times that you were wrong wrong wrong wrong...no no all anyone remembers is that for a long time you were hopeful and had faith in no being clubbed or at least that the Big Guy was elsewhere clubbing others to death and eating them.

[ColoradoGuy]

If a religious person has a religious brain (this behavior must have a physical basis after all) it does not follow that an atheist person has a religious brain, or ought to, or that a religious brain is "normal".
Yes. I think there is always a danger in thinking about this sort of thing of question-begging -- implicitly assuming the presence of something you are trying to prove exists.

There is no reason why humans, when faced with something they cannot explain, somehow "need" to attach a supernatual explanation. Simply not explaining it at all would be a perfectly understandable approach. So arguing that religion is somehow a necessary human trait used to explain things we cannot otherwise understand is not convincing to me.

[rugcat]

Saying something is not universal does imply it is not uniformly hard wired into all people.
Well, this is a derail less interesting than the OP. I'm just saying that a predisposition, that is, a tendency to go in certain directions, does not need to be present in 100% of individuals for it to be a significant factor.

There's no escaping the fact that religious thinking has arisen at some point in all societies, and has dominated many of them. Whether that is a result of how the brain is wired is of course, the question.

For me, the argument that because not all individuals exhibit religious thinking it therefore cannot be an intrinsic property of the brain, doesn't hold water. We're not talking about absolutes or determinism, but possible explanations for the ubiquity of religious invention.

[Higgins]

Second, along side fears that are now purely imaginary (unless there really is a divine being with a club waiting to eat you), there are the hopes that work as the shadows of fear...

Third, there are mysteries and the ego-centric illusion that one is some how more special than anyone else.
For example (and this must have happened a few hundred thousand times in the 6-8 million years we spent as relatively small humanoids), suppose somebody comes in from the valley next door and he says: "The Big Guy ate everyone but me." Well, why is that, your protohuman brain would ask itself. What is it about this one person who wasn't eaten? Could you be the one special person who doesn't get eaten? Would could you do? It's a mystery. You could spend your whole life telling everybody you are just like that skinny guy that didn't get eaten. You would be a mystery too. everyone else would wonder: why does he think he is like somebody who isn't going to get eaten? The mystery would grow. And as long as the mysterious didn't get eaten, the mysteries would get ever more mysterious. People would start asking, "Why? Why don't skinny people get eaten?" And science would be born...sort of...out of the mysteries of survival.

[semilargeintestine]

Saying something is not universal does imply it is not uniformly hard wired into all people.

Is a gay person "predisposed" to be heterosexual?

If I was born "pre-disposed" to be religious I suspect I would have become so as it would infact be easier and is innately encouraged and assumed by the religious majority and was actively taught in school. I think I was born predisposed to develop exactly as I did--a life long atheist with a well developed imagination as expressed in my fiction and artwork. I can imagine God, be has has never, even for a moment, been real to me.

I think a normal religious person has a normal religious brain.

Whereas my normal non-religious outlook is a product of my normal non-relious brain--not some mis-development or perversion of my secretly religious brain.

I don't think it's a pre-disposition to religion. Rather, I think it's a pre-disposition to want to explain what we observe. Lacking any method of scientific observation or theory, we resorted to imagination and a higher authority we could not see. If we had then the same opportunity to study things that we have now, religion might be very different if even around.

[AMCrenshaw]

A helpful book: Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett.

[kuwisdelu]

I don't think it's a pre-disposition to religion. Rather, I think it's a pre-disposition to want to explain what we observe. Lacking any method of scientific observation or theory, we resorted to imagination and a higher authority we could not see. If we had then the same opportunity to study things that we have now, religion might be very different if even around.

There is no reason why humans, when faced with something they cannot explain, somehow "need" to attach a supernatual explanation. Simply not explaining it at all would be a perfectly understandable approach. So arguing that religion is somehow a necessary human trait used to explain things we cannot otherwise understand is not convincing to me.

Combine these two, and I'd say that's what I believe.

I'd say humans have a predisposition toward understanding the world around them. Some people accept the lack of an explanation when something is beyond our comprehension. Others, the religious, attribute the explanation to some divine being.

[semilargeintestine]

I can live with that. :D

[AMCrenshaw]

I'm not so sure supernatural elements (angels, titans, god) are really much of an explanation, either, and it's interesting to think that they were or could have been at some point in time. I wonder if one could call that evolution.



AMC

[Higgins]

Third, there are mysteries and the ego-centric illusion that one is some how more special than anyone else.
Fourth: mysterious powers:
Being skinny and not getting eaten isn't a power, but the power to make skinny juice would be. Sure, you naturally wonder what skinny juice is, but that's your primoridal predisposition...skinny juice is that special stuff made by special people that allows either an extra bit of skinny non-edibility to the skinny or just the good side of skinny (not being as likely to be clubbed and eaten by the robust, extinct humanoids) to the not-so skinny.
But where does skinny juice come from...I mean really? Well there really is no such thing as skinny juice there fore it must be supernatural in origin. After all, one thing you have to recognize about human "predispositions" is that a lot of it is a matter of categories we don't have any direct experience of...We don't "believe in skinny juice" (or Lamarkian Evolution) so we don't have any idea how that fits into a "predisposition"...which would have to cover all the methods of moving categories around and only Levi-Strauss and other structuralists have ever even tried to look at what the predispositions of human thought are. So any idea of predisposition would have to actually start with how people actually think, which only structuralists have bothered looking at...

[Shadow_Ferret]

No! Innate belief in religion and god? No. I was raised outside a religion. My parents had me baptized and that was my last religious experience. I have no belief in god. I don't follow any religion. I'm not superstitious.

[KikiteNeko]

Oh God, I slept through every philosophy class I ever took...

I think it was Heidegger or Descartes (correct me if I have this wrong) who said a "higher power" must exist because if a higher power didn't exist, how would we humans have the idea of one? In other words, here we are on this tiny little planet. How did it occur to us that there was something bigger than the earth, beyond the sky? And it turns out there was a whole universe up there.

And while we are here, we are born, we live, we die. If that's all there is, where did we get the idea that something happens after death? How did we get the idea that there is a power greater than us? Our brains are wired to believe in things we haven't yet seen. I don't know if it's a GENE or just our way. Maybe there's a gene for everything, from our favorite color to our taste in food. But then we get into eugenics, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics) which is not a place we should go.

I'm not saying there is or isn't a higher power based on the above philosophy. But I liked that idea.

[AMCrenshaw]

Our brains are wired to believe in things we haven't yet seen.

More so, I think our brains are wired for survival.

AMC

[Higgins]

...something happens after death? How did we get the idea that there is a power greater than us?

It seems possible that the hardwiring to believe in a greater power was necessary when we were the smaller of the humanoid forms, ie the gracile form. There was also always a more robust form out there. Since the robust form probably spent some 6-8 million years clubbing and eating us, the gracile form, eventually we became hardwired to suspect there was something greater than us out there. Oh and after your death the robust from eats you...according to my hardwiring.

[Higgins]

Fourth: mysterious powers:
Being skinny and not getting eaten isn't a power, but the power to make skinny juice would be.

Fourth again (got sidetracked): mysterious powers...we can see how the smaller of two humanoids (our ancestor) would have quickly become hardwired to live in absolute abject terror of the robust form. Once that terror is hardwired, though, it can be used evolutionarily as something else...just as say, parts of the ear developed from jaws:
http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/evolution/Homology.shtml#earossicles

and even:

A widely used definition of mammals is based on the articulation or joining of the lower and upper jaws. In mammals, each half of the lower jaw is a single bone called the dentary; whereas in reptiles, each half of the lower jaw is made up of three bones. The dentary of mammals is joined with the squamosal bone of the skull. This condition evolved between Pennsylvanian and Late Triassic times. Evolution of this jaw articulation can be traced from primitive synapsids (pelycosaurs), to advanced synapsids (therapsids), to cynodonts, to mammals. In mammals, two of the extra lower jaw bones of synapsid reptiles (the quadrate and articular bones) became two of the middle-ear bones, the incus (anvil) and malleus (hammer). Thus, mammals acquired a hearing function as part of the small chain of bones that transmit air vibrations from the ear drum to the inner ear.

From http://www.agiweb.org/news/evolution/examplesofevolution.html

[Higgins]

Oh God, I slept through every philosophy class I ever took...

I think it was Heidegger (correct me if I have this wrong) who said a "higher power" must exist because if a higher power didn't exist, how would we humans have the idea of one?


I don't recall anything of that sort in the various bits of Heidegger I've read. I do recall that he had some notion of the gods in thinking, but for some reason I associate that with his scrutiny of the presocratics.

On the other hand, since Heidegger thought the weird assortment of Nazi ideologies was a great idea, perhaps he tossed in the mystery of how higher powers came to be as he taught a rigorous class of goosestepping 101.

[KikiteNeko]

I don't recall anything of that sort in the various bits of Heidegger I've read. I do recall that he had some notion of the gods in thinking, but for some reason I associate that with his scrutiny of the presocratics.

On the other hand, since Heidegger thought the weird assortment of Nazi ideologies was a great idea, perhaps he tossed in the mystery of how higher powers came to be as he taught a rigorous class of goosestepping 101.

It might have been Descartes....

[ColoradoGuy]

It might have been Descartes....
Yes. His was one of several so-called ontological proofs for the existence of God, the most famous of which was St. Anselm's.

But I'm not talking about God. I'm more interested in the general question of if humans' brains are innately predisposed to religious thought, if there there could be an actual physical locus for it like the language center.

[Higgins]

Yes. His was one of several so-called ontological proofs for the existence of God, the most famous of which was St. Anselm's.

But I'm not talking about God. I'm more interested in the general question of if humans' brains are innately predisposed to religious thought, if there there could be an actual physical locus for it like the language center.

There's always the terror center:


Methods: Intraoperative DBS in the region of the right and then left anterior limb of the internal capsule and nucleus accumbens region was undertaken to treat a 52 year old man with treatment refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Mood, anxiety, OCD, alertness, heart rate, and subjective feelings were recorded during intraoperative test stimulation and at follow up programming sessions.
Results: DBS at the distal (0) contact (cathode 0–, anode 2+, pulse width 210 ms, rate 135 Hz, at 6 volts) elicited a panic attack (only seen at the (0) contact). The patient felt flushed, hot, fearful, and described himself as having a "panic attack." His heart rate increased from 53 to 111. The effect (present with either device) was witnessed immediately after turning the device on, and abruptly ceased in the off condition Conclusions: DBS of the anterior limb of the internal capsule and nucleus accumbens region caused severe "panic." This response may result from activation of limbic and autonomic networks.

From:

http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/77/3/410

[ColoradoGuy]

There's always the terror center . . .
I'm not interested in the possibility of a terror center. If you are, perhaps you might start a thread about it. It does not surprise me at all that a subjective feeling that produces well known, clear-cut autonomic reflexes has an identifiable locus in the brain.

[Ken]

There is no reason why humans, when faced with something they cannot explain, somehow "need" to attach a supernatual explanation. Simply not explaining it at all would be a perfectly understandable approach.

...there is definitely a strong tendency, though, to account for all phenomena and an aversion to mystery and the unknown, among humans, which could have led to our "universal" invention of gods. Not saying this is so, but there is a possiblity of it.

Then again, the fact that many still believe in gods, when much mystery in the world has been explained, argues against this view and makes a theory like this proposed one about the human brain being wired for belief in god seem feasible.

[KikiteNeko]

Yes. His was one of several so-called ontological proofs for the existence of God, the most famous of which was St. Anselm's.

But I'm not talking about God. I'm more interested in the general question of if humans' brains are innately predisposed to religious thought, if there there could be an actual physical locus for it like the language center.

Oh. As in, why some people believe in it and others don't?

I could tell you for me that it was based on my life experiences. I don't think it was anything other than that for me.

[ColoradoGuy]

Oh. As in, why some people believe in it and others don't?
As I understood the premise of the article in the link I put in my opening post, religious tendencies may well be a natural (and, by implication, predictable) result of how the human brain is wired. Thus religion becomes an effect of the way we are, part of our brain's pathways. This is a different thing than saying humans turn to religion to explain what they don't understand. Of course, as Veinglory pointed out upthread, there could be a wide spectrum of this, with the effect more pronounced in some individuals than in others, and even altogether missing in yet others.

[TerzaRima]

The mesial temporal lobe is interesting in regards to this question--for example, the writings of some mystics like Theresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich bear some similarity to reports from patients with seizure disorders localized to the temporal lobe.

[ColoradoGuy]

The mesial temporal lobe is interesting in regards to this question--for example, the writings of some mystics like Theresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich bear some similarity to reports from patients with seizure disorders localized to the temporal lobe.
Yes, I'd heard that. I have no doubt that ecstatic, mystical experiences have clear neurotransmitter-mediated causes (or maybe temporal lobe fits, as you point out). I'm stalking other quarry, though -- do the ways our neural networks function predispose to religious views? For example, the article posits that we may use different pathways when we think about concrete objects than we do for abstract ones.

[kuwisdelu]

I'm not interested in the possibility of a terror center. If you are, perhaps you might start a thread about it. It does not surprise me at all that a subjective feeling that produces well known, clear-cut autonomic reflexes has an identifiable locus in the brain.

What about all those god-fearing Christians?

As I understood the premise of the article in the link I put in my opening post, religious tendencies may well be a natural (and, by implication, predictable) result of how the human brain is wired. Thus religion becomes an effect of the way we are, part of our brain's pathways. This is a different thing than saying humans turn to religion to explain what they don't understand. Of course, as Veinglory pointed out upthread, there could be a wide spectrum of this, with the effect more pronounced in some individuals than in others, and even altogether missing in yet others.

I think you're taking the "explain what they don't understand," part too literally.

Something you don't understand can be as figurative as "where do we come from?" and "why are we here?"

The answers to questions like this can naturally lead to some form of imagining a higher being or higher power, be it Yahweh or a Flying Spaghetti Monster or The Matrix (religion), or it can lead to the theorizing of a personal human-based answer (non-religious philosophy), or it can lead to the mere acceptance of not knowing.

We're predisposed to questions that can lead to religious thought, and we're predisposed to imagination, but I don't think we're necessarily predisposed to religion. The acceptance of not knowing the answer yet is a perfectly reasonable (if not the most reasonable) course.

[ColoradoGuy]

I think you're taking the "explain what they don't understand," part too literally.
But that's my point, I suppose. I want to be more literal. In all these kinds of discussions it seems to come down to a kind of hand-waving Cartesian duality. We know the brain is a thing, and that this thing works using chemical reactions and electrical current to produce thought. But then something like this happens:
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j244/ColoradoGuy/miracle3.gif
So, up to a point, we're materialists. But then the miracle occurs and we go all vague and ethereal. I'm interested in that nexus point between the two.

[Shadow_Ferret]

As I understood the premise of the article in the link I put in my opening post, religious tendencies may well be a natural (and, by implication, predictable) result of how the human brain is wired. Thus religion becomes an effect of the way we are, part of our brain's pathways.
If that's the case, then wouldn't I, even though I had no exposure to religion, still be predisposed TOWARD religion? Wouldn't I have innately sought out religion because I was feeling some sort of void?

[ColoradoGuy]

If that's the case, then wouldn't I, even though I had no exposure to religion, still be predisposed TOWARD religion? Wouldn't I have innately sought out religion because I was feeling some sort of void?
That's exactly the question. But if there is an innate tendency with a physiological correlate in the brain there would still be a spectrum of expression of it, like all physical traits. The spectrum would include individuals who do not express the trait. That brings up a related question -- any potential evolutionary advantage of such a putative trait. The occurance of it would be expected to change over time if that advantage disappeared, say, between Paleolithic times and the Enlightenment.

[Higgins]

But that's my point, I suppose. I want to be more literal. In all these kinds of discussions it seems to come down to a kind of hand-waving Cartesian duality. We know the brain is a thing, and that this thing works using chemical reactions and electrical current to produce thought. But then something like this happens:
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j244/ColoradoGuy/miracle3.gif
So, up to a point, we're materialists. But then the miracle occurs and we go all vague and ethereal. I'm interested in that nexus point between the two.

Something like this?

https://psychiatry.wisc.edu/gustafson/docs/Chp10-TheOrchestralScoreofLevi-Strauss.pdf

The nexus is all of culture and language. Not vague or etherial, but too material to be anything but what it is. Not transmittable except as itself.

[Shadow_Ferret]

That's exactly the question. But if there is an innate tendency with a physiological correlate in the brain there would still be a spectrum of expression of it, like all physical traits. The spectrum would include individuals who do not express the trait. That brings up a related question -- any potential evolutionary advantage of such a putative trait. The occurance of it would be expected to change over time if that advantage disappeared, say, between Paleolithic times and the Enlightenment.
So what you're saying then is I'm an anomoly. An evolutionary oddball.

[TerzaRima]

any potential evolutionary advantage of such a putative trait

Wouldn't a highly expressed religious gene...believer phenotype...whatever... actually put one at a disadvantage?

[Higgins]

That's exactly the question. But if there is an innate tendency with a physiological correlate in the brain there would still be a spectrum of expression of it, like all physical traits. The spectrum would include individuals who do not express the trait. That brings up a related question -- any potential evolutionary advantage of such a putative trait. The occurance of it would be expected to change over time if that advantage disappeared, say, between Paleolithic times and the Enlightenment.

I would suspect the trait has the same selective advantages for anyone of our genus, ie, none. It might have had selective advantages for proto-humans before the advent of homo erectus.

[Higgins]

Wouldn't a highly expressed religious gene...God phenotype...whatever... actually put one at a disadvantage?

It might once you are at a homo erectus stage of physical size. On the other hand if you are a small, gracile proto-human, it might be adaptive.

[ColoradoGuy]

So what you're saying then is I'm an anomoly. An evolutionary oddball.
You know I'd never say that . . . . (Although it's hard to tell until eons later if one is a small rodent with newly-useful evolutionary skills, say, a proto-ferret, or a mastodon.)

[ColoradoGuy]

I would suspect the trait has the same selective advantages for anyone of our genus, ie, none. It might have had selective advantages for proto-humans before the advent of homo erectus.
We can't know if that's true, of course, until much later.

[Higgins]

We can't know if that's true, of course, until much later.

But we can be pretty sure about the timing of major changes in the brain. (the figure shows features of brain blood flow) note how different the robust proto-human is. (from http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/research/falk/concepts.html )

http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/research/falk/images/fig3.jpg

[ColoradoGuy]

I deal with global brain blood flow studies all the time and I don't think that figure helps much. It shows the redistribution of predicted venous return flow, which apparently changes with time. It doesn't say anything about arterial flow and substrate (e.g. oxygen and glucose) consumption by the brain. But even assuming that global blood flow increases with brain size (which is logical), the question is where in the brain that blood is flowing. To the developing speech centers? To the primitive limbic regions? To the cortex? Or . . . to the "religion center."?

[robeiae]

This is a good book: The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/books/tbs/index.html

It may not be "religious" belief, per se, that is innate. But it is the human condition--for lack of a better way to say it--predisposed to such that is innate.

As an added bonus, he mentions Hobbes inside the first fifty pages or so.

[Dawnstorm]

But I'm not talking about God. I'm more interested in the general question of if humans' brains are innately predisposed to religious thought, if there there could be an actual physical locus for it like the language center.

Okay, I'm not a brain-expert, but a lot of what we know about language localisation we know from various types of aphasia. So what, then, would the equivalent for "religious thought" be? What's a "stuttering believer"? Get my drift?

The thing is, unlike language, most of the conventional religious practise (praying etc.) can be faked. Heck, I could become a priest and not really belief (which was probably more common in a time when most of the intelluctual pursuits were organised within the clergy). It's obvious that - if we're looking at language - we'll start with speaking, writing, listening, reading. It's not obvious at all where we start with religion, especially since you're ruling out mystic experiences (which, I think, have been reproduced in lab conditions).

I haven't read the first article (as it requires a subscirption), which might address this. But what do we actually mean when we say "religious thought". What's the definition? What are we looking at? Have we established that the phenomenon in question is actually a single phenomenon, and not a social contruct, i.e. lots of people doing different things under the same heading?

Take, for example, this interesting quote from the second article:

Petrovich adds that even adults who describe themselves as atheists and agnostics are prone to supernatural thinking. Bering has seen this too. When one of his students carried out interviews with atheists, it became clear that they often tacitly attribute purpose to significant or traumatic moments in their lives, as if some agency were intervening to make it happen.

Depending on how you define "supernatural" you get different results. Is any sort of teleological principle, by definition, "supernatural"? For example, I remember, reading in an article about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, about a man, an atheist, who tried in vain to start his car. He reportedly mumbled something like: "Come on, Spaghetti Monster." Now other people, both believers and non-believers, might address the car itself, as if that helped. But we wouldn't conclude from that that we believe the car will listen to us. Both believers and unbelievers will be aware that they're really talking to themselves, substituting the car. They're expressing a wish as a proposition to someone else without really expecting an answer. How significant is the step to address a third, absent party?

"Come on, car, start already." --> "Please, God, make the car start!" --> "Please, Spaghetti Monster, make the car start."

Basically, you're addressing the car, but you don't believe the car will answer. The next step is that you're addressing someone absent (an ancestor, a god, a friend with remote car starting abilities...); because the thing your addressing is absent, you have no immediate relieve for not-being-answered. It's a one-way communication, really. But this also allows you to believe that the absent party actually listens. In a final step, you can parody that: you can address an absent party that you explicitly don't believe will listen. It's unlikely that you take that step without first hearing about people believing in, say, God. Now, I can understand step 1 and step 3; I'm an atheist. But I don't understand how it feels to talk to absent people and actually expect them to listen.

The thing is this: in how far is the absent listener represented in the brain - in a way that an actually present car that won't answer isn't, and also in a way that an actually absent entity that you don't expect to answer isn't. Is there a basic difference, or is it a difference of time? I might for a split second treat the car as if it had a mind; I might for a split second believe that the Spaghetti Monster actually really can help. Are these different brainstates? Or is there some sort of process that makes something temporal linger?

Is this the gist of the problem? I'm not sure.

[LaceWing]

Yes, Dawnstorm, I think there are linguistic artifacts involved; your examples IMO show how language can lead one to process an abstraction in much the same way as a tangible. It would be interesting to do MRI studies to see how different sentences are processed; it would be interesting to know if some languages make an effort to differentiate abstractions from tangibles explicitly.

~

Anthropologist J. Stephen Lansing (http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=482) (video link) has an interesting observation about the role of ritual: that it synchronizes the emotions of a group. Since religious practice is primarily social, in my experience, the question of being wired for religious thought or activity would be concerned significantly with aspects of our social brain. We're wired to be social, talkative, and curious about cause and effect; I see religion as an emergent side-effect of these capacities.

[Higgins]

I deal with global brain blood flow studies all the time and I don't think that figure helps much. It shows the redistribution of predicted venous return flow, which apparently changes with time. It doesn't say anything about arterial flow and substrate (e.g. oxygen and glucose) consumption by the brain. But even assuming that global blood flow increases with brain size (which is logical), the question is where in the brain that blood is flowing. To the developing speech centers? To the primitive limbic regions? To the cortex? Or . . . to the "religion center."?

The Chart just gives and idea of what the major shift points are in brain organization:
1) a flat run from the chimplike protohumans to gracile to H. Erectus (our days of fear)
2) H.erectus
3) Early (ie Archaic) Homo

If millions of years of selection have an impact on hardwiring (and if they don't there's no point in trying to find an evolutionary side to the problem), then we spent a long time trapped in Africa with other protohumans that were much bigger. This 6-8 million years (that ended only 1-2 million years ago) must have had a bigger impact on hardwiring than the stage of being a victorious H. Erectus and a lot more than the impact of becoming wired like archaic H sapiens about 200,000 years ago (which might be where abstract thought met language).

[Ruv Draba]

I think it would be a mistake to conflate superstition (a belief in the nonmaterial) with religion (a way of organising and making sense of such belief), or religion with spirituality (a way of finding meaning and purpose in our lives, whatever we might believe).

Every culture has its myths and its superstitions, but it doesn't take everyone in the culture to believe them for them to propagate. Further, we know that a child's mind behaves very differently to an adult mind. Children are predisposed to believe whatever authority figures tell them, for instance -- even when such information is patently untrue.

In the light of what we've learned about the diversity of human minds, I think that it would be a silly and inhumane mistake to confuse a cultural tendency toward superstition with a psychological mandate for it as a definition of normality.

[Dawnstorm]

Since religious practice is primarily social, in my experience, the question of being wired for religious thought or activity would be concerned significantly with aspects of our social brain. We're wired to be social, talkative, and curious about cause and effect; I see religion as an emergent side-effect of these capacities.

I tend to view it much like this; but at this point I'm still trying to figure out what a "religion centre" in the brain would govern. On the one hand there's metaphor (things I can't perceive work like things I can perceive) and there's conviction in the face of adversity.

My point is this, but I'm not yet sure that it's a strike against a "religion centre" in the brain: Compare speaking and praying: When you're speaking, you're really speaking. You're producing words that I can understand and react to. But when you're praying, are you really praying? Let's say I'm in a Catholic Church, and I'm going through the motions of a "Hail Mary" (which I've done before). I know I wasn't really praying; I was kneeling, I was bowing my head, and I was mumbling the words, and that was that. If there is a "religion centre" in the brain, it either didn't fire, or I was mistaken about myself, and I was really praying. But if a "religion centre" fires, it must fire in addition to the things that make me kneel, bow my head and speak formalised text. Religion cannot be reduced to behaviour, as behaviour can be faked. So a religion centre might fire even if I'm not engaged in any overt religious activity, say when I'm eating an orange. But this line of thinking leads to "ecstatic, mystical experiences" which are explicitly not the point of this thread (ColoradoGuy in response to TerzaRima). Or we are approaching "intention" (in the phenomenological sense) rather than "behaviour"; which sounds - in the end - like a consciousness problem, which I doubt we're in a position to talk about in terms of the brain, but I said, I'm not a brain expert.

I think it would be a mistake to conflate superstition (a belief in the nonmaterial) with religion (a way of organising and making sense of such belief), or religion with spirituality (a way of finding meaning and purpose in our lives, whatever we might believe).

Every culture has its myths and its superstitions, but it doesn't take everyone in the culture to believe them for them to propagate. Further, we know that a child's mind behaves very differently to an adult mind. Children are predisposed to believe whatever authority figures tell them, for instance -- even when such information is patently untrue.

In the light of what we've learned about the diversity of human minds, I think that it would be a silly and inhumane mistake to confuse a cultural tendency toward superstition with a psychological mandate for it as a definition of normality.

That there is a language centre in the brain doesn't mean that we're all speaking English. It only says that - whenever we speak - a certain area in brain is "active" (= flooded with blood). This is part of the old debate: Is atheism a belief? If there is a religion centre in the brain, we could have an atheist say "There is no god," and then see if the "religion centre" triggers. That would be neat. But it doesn't work the other way round; we can't check whether something fires with the believer that doesn't fire with the atheist; that would be circular: We know the atheist is not religious because the thing doesn't fire, and we know the thing is a "religion centre" because it did not fire with an atheist.

If we're not defining religiosity, we're stuck with a Wittgensteinian family resemblance and that's kind of hard to correlate to brain states.

Thus religion becomes an effect of the way we are, part of our brain's pathways. This is a different thing than saying humans turn to religion to explain what they don't understand.

Here's the thing: I'd argue that we'd need to know if "explaining what we can't understand" is a function of religion before we can tackle the question of hardwiring at all. In other words, I see no reason that "We feel the need to explain things we don't understand, because that's the way our brains are wired," and "we are religious, because that's the way our brains are wired," could not overlap. The difference is that the former is more conrete and thus easier to tackle than the latter.

[steveg144]

Apparently our brains have "a natural inclination for religious belief, especially during hard times." This does not bode well for advancing the interests of reason and science in the continuing economic crisis -- especially if you believe, as I do, that what we're seeing now is just the beginning.


Born Believers: How Your Brain Creates God
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126941.700-born-believers-how-your-brain-creates-god.html?full=true
WHILE many institutions collapsed during the Great Depression that began in 1929, one kind did rather well. During this leanest of times, the strictest, most authoritarian churches saw a surge in attendance.

This anomaly was documented in the early 1970s, but only now is science beginning to tell us why. It turns out that human beings have a natural inclination for religious belief, especially during hard times. Our brains effortlessly conjure up an imaginary world of spirits, gods and monsters, and the more insecure we feel, the harder it is to resist the pull of this supernatural world. It seems that our minds are finely tuned to believe in gods.

See also:
The Credit Crunch Could Be A Boon For Irrational Belief
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126943.600-the-credit-crunch-could-be-a-boon-for-irrational-belief.html

[Don]

Sounds about right. Religious fervor isn't reserved for churches, however. Pied Pipers come in all shapes and sizes, and the rats will follow anyone who plays a catchy tune.

[William Haskins]

might want to jump in the thread (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130605)in critical theory, steve.

thanks for the link.

[brokenfingers]

Apparently our brains have "a natural inclination for religious belief, especially during hard times." This does not bode well for advancing the interests of reason and science in the continuing economic crisis -- especially if you believe, as I do, that what we're seeing now is just the beginning. I think it's a built-in species self-defense mechanism.

By relinquishing "control" to another, higher power, we absolve ourselves of responsibility and all the ensuing hard, demanding tasks that entails. As well as stress, worry and responsibility.

But, here's the kicker - I also believe that there's more to it than that. I'm not saying it doesn't work. (And I haven't read the articles yet so I have no idea if this is said or not.)

I truly think that the mind is a powerful and largely unknown thing. There are many instances we've all experienced where, when you stop trying too hard, when you let yourself go and relax, when you change your focus to something else - you actually accomplish a "hard" task with ease.

I think this ties into it somehow. Some call it faith, some call it other things (like the "laws of attraction" etc.), but I think that sometimes, by "believing" in something, we can actually set about on the course to a solution, whether we know it or not.

[Mumut]

I think this is also called clutching at straws.

[James81]

I don't think the mind creates God in hard times.

I think that the people you see massively flocking to church during hard times are people who actually believe in God anyway, but they only want to seek him DURING hard times.

I don't think their belief in God actually hinges on hard times...I think the belief is already there. I just think that most people don't think to be religious until times are hard.

[Plot Device]

This does not bode well for advancing the interests of reason and science in the continuing economic crisis --


Thinking like this does not bode well for mending the divide between reasonable people of science and reasonable people of faith.

BTW: Scully rocks.

[steveg144]

Sounds about right. Religious fervor isn't reserved for churches, however. Pied Pipers come in all shapes and sizes, and the rats will follow anyone who plays a catchy tune.

That's my concern as well. If the 1930s taught us anything, it's that the Father Coughlins and the Aimee Semple McPhersons were the least dangerous of the various Pied Pipers that were running around loose.

What do you suppose would happen if a Man On A White Horse were to show up on the scene and tell Americans: I can bring back your 401Ks to their old value, and much much more. I can bring back all the jobs, and make the USA Number 1 again in every way. I can give you back your pride and self-respect. All you need to do in return is ... follow me.

In the current circumstances, I fear he'd have no shortage of followers.

[Plot Device]

Sounds about right. Religious fervor isn't reserved for churches, however. Pied Pipers come in all shapes and sizes, and the rats will follow anyone who plays a catchy tune.


http://www.tiglath.org/yahoo/oldsmilies/big25.gif

[Plot Device]

That's my concern as well. If the 1930s taught us anything, it's that the Father Coughlins and the Aimee Semple McPhersons were the least dangerous of the various Pied Pipers that were running around loose.

What do you suppose would happen if a Man On A White Horse were to show up on the scene and tell Americans: I can bring back your 401Ks to their old value, and much much more. I can bring back all the jobs, and make the USA Number 1 again in every way. I can give you back your pride and self-respect. All you need to do in return is ... follow me.

In the current circumstances, I fear he'd have no shortage of followers.

Except for those who might fear there'd be three more horses to follow.

[Plot Device]

I don't think the mind creates God in hard times.

I think that the people you see massively flocking to church during hard times are people who actually believe in God anyway, but they only want to seek him DURING hard times.

I don't think their belief in God actually hinges on hard times...I think the belief is already there. I just think that most people don't think to be religious until times are hard.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif

[donroc]

Years ago, I read a book by a psychiatrist who was in the Nazi concentration camps. He concluded that those most likely to survive had either a strong belief in God or were well-organized, specifically the communists, to help their fellow members survive.

[Don]

Sounds about right. Religious fervor isn't reserved for churches, however. Pied Pipers come in all shapes and sizes, and the rats will follow anyone who plays a catchy tune.
http://www.tiglath.org/yahoo/oldsmilies/big25.gif


I was referring to Rats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin) as in the original story. YMMV. :roll:

[GeorgeK]

I'm confused Steve. Are you trying to assert that there is no God? Or are you saying that there are a lot of confused people who during times of crisis are easily swayed by false prophets? Or are you saying something else?

[steveg144]

Except for those who might fear there'd be three more horses to follow.

And those others -- otherwise sensible people, people you'd see at work or in the neighborhood or in the checkout line at the supermarket -- who would rejoice at those three other horses following on behind, those would would rejoice that their precious, prophesied End Times had finally arrived to relieve them of the awful burdens of freedom and having to deal with the million and one ambiguities of the real world.

[steveg144]

I'm confused Steve. Are you trying to assert that there is no God? Or are you saying that there are a lot of confused people who during times of crisis are easily swayed by false prophets? Or are you saying something else?

I am repeating what the article says at much greater length:

1. human brains seem to have an innate capacity and need to manufacture gods in order to deal with the world.

2. this need seems to increase dramatically during hard times.

If you're asking my own personal thoughts on the topic, then I'd say you summed them up nicely: I believe there is no God, and further that a lot of confused people will be easily swayed by false prophets during times of crisis.

[Plot Device]

I was referring to Rats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin) as in the original story. YMMV. :roll:


I know the story. But the point is that if you're going to draw an analogy with multiple symbolic references, each symbol has a referent.

In this instance the referent to the rats would be people who believe in God.

Nice. REAL nice. About as nice as saying "you people" or "these people" or "those people."

[Plot Device]

And those others -- otherwise sensible people,


"You people" or "these people" or "those people."

[Plot Device]

I believe there is no God, and further that a lot of confused people will be easily swayed by false prophets during times of crisis.

That's fine. That's an unoffensive position to take.

What I find offensive is:

belief in a deity = unreasonable thinking

And I also take offense at:

people who believe in a deity = people who block the advances of science and reason

And I suspect Isaac Newton would be equally offended.

[GeorgeK]

Scientifically, the article is utter tripe and rife with non-sequitors. It is blatant religious opinion disguised as science and is another false prophet in an of itself.

With regard to your own opinion, we have free will. You are free to not believe.

[steveg144]

That's fine. That's an unoffensive position to take.

What I find offensive is:

belief in a deity = unreasonable thinking



You're welcome to be offended by whatever you feel the need to find offensive. As it happens, I do think that belief in a deity = unreasonable thinking. But take comfort from the fact that such unreasonable thinking isn't your fault; if the article I originally posted is correct, then you can't help it, belief in god(s) is down to nothing more than brain chemicals.

[GeorgeK]

You're welcome to be offended by whatever you feel the need to find offensive. As it happens, I do think that belief in a deity = unreasonable thinking. But take comfort from the fact that such unreasonable thinking isn't your fault; if the article I originally posted is correct, then you can't help it, belief in god(s) is down to nothing more than brain chemicals.

If your religion likes to say that all other religions are false...then join the club.

[Susan Gable]

I believe God created our brains to be hardwired to believe in Him.

:)

How could something as amazingly complex as the human brain have originated by absolute chance? Take a look at a single strand of DNA. The complexity will blow your mind.

Does a tornado in a junkyard create order and complexity? Can you pile a bunch of junk on top of explosives, blow it up, and have a house form when the junk comes down? (Big Bang theory of creation - maybe there WAS a big bang - but Someone guided things into ORDER.)

Poo-poo God all you like.

He believes in you. Which is why He wired your brain the way He did -- to give you a shot at a relationship with Him.

I'm not a crazy fanatic. I don't even go to church on Sundays. I'm not going to condemn or kill people who don't agree with my beliefs. I'm not going to berate, or bash, or force my ideas on them.

I'm not a hard-time only believer. I talk to God on a daily basis. We have nice little chats. (No, He doesn't talk back to me like THAT. I'm a crazy writer, but I'm not that crazy. <G>)

I think you'd find that there are a lot of folks out here like me. And maybe when times get tough, they will go to church -- but that may be more about seeking the support and fellowship of other like-minded people than seeking God. Although some may seek and find Him in a nearby church.



:)

Susan G. - wondering how much bashing she will take for this post, but hitting submit anyway.

[steveg144]

Scientifically, the article is utter tripe and rife with non-sequitors. It is blatant religious opinion disguised as science and is another false prophet in an of itself.



Hmmm ... seems to me that as soon as you used the phrase "false prophet," you revealed your own "blatant religious opinion."

[Plot Device]

You're welcome to be offended by whatever you feel the need to find offensive. As it happens, I do think that belief in a deity = unreasonable thinking. But take comfort from the fact that such unreasonable thinking isn't your fault; if the article I originally posted is correct, then you can't help it, belief in god(s) is down to nothing more than brain chemicals.


Well in THAT case, I guess that means your brian chemicals must be inferior to mine.

Oh no wait! Could it be that you actually take the OPPOSITE position?

[James81]

You're welcome to be offended by whatever you feel the need to find offensive. As it happens, I do think that belief in a deity = unreasonable thinking. But take comfort from the fact that such unreasonable thinking isn't your fault; if the article I originally posted is correct, then you can't help it, belief in god(s) is down to nothing more than brain chemicals.

There is logic behind the belief in a deity. I urge you to check out Aristotle's "First Cause" arguement for a logical approach at "proving" the existence of a higher power.

And, actually, all beliefs come down to brain chemicals don't they? All thought processes are, at the root, brain chemicals. So I find it funny that you use that arguement in such a derogatory way because even your DISBELIEF in a deity is due to the same chemcial process.

[GeorgeK]

Hmmm ... seems to me that as soon as you used the phrase "false prophet," you revealed your own "blatant religious opinion."

I laugh at the bait on your hook and swim away. Atheism is just another religion.

[Cranky]

I believe God created our brains to be hardwired to believe in Him.

:)

How could something as amazingly complex as the human brain have originated by absolute chance? Take a look at a single strand of DNA. The complexity will blow your mind.

Does a tornado in a junkyard create order and complexity? Can you pile a bunch of junk on top of explosives, blow it up, and have a house form when the junk comes down? (Big Bang theory of creation - maybe there WAS a big bang - but Someone guided things into ORDER.)

Poo-poo God all you like.

He believes in you. Which is why He wired your brain the way He did -- to give you a shot at a relationship with Him.

I'm not a crazy fanatic. I don't even go to church on Sundays. I'm not going to condemn or kill people who don't agree with my beliefs. I'm not going to berate, or bash, or force my ideas on them.

I'm not a hard-time only believer. I talk to God on a daily basis. We have nice little chats. (No, He doesn't talk back to me like THAT. I'm a crazy writer, but I'm not that crazy. <G>)

I think you'd find that there are a lot of folks out here like me. And maybe when times get tough, they will go to church -- but that may be more about seeking the support and fellowship of other like-minded people than seeking God. Although some may seek and find Him in a nearby church.



:)

Susan G. - wondering how much bashing she will take for this post, but hitting submit anyway.

WRT the bolded: dead on. :)

[Plot Device]

Hmmm ... seems to me that as soon as you used the phrase "false prophet," you revealed your own "blatant religious opinion."


I took his phrase as being the deliberate employment of irony and allusiveness. But since this is a writer's forum, I guess it would be foolish of me to imagine than the particiapnts here would bother with poetry, irony, allusion, or other such literary tools.

[steveg144]

Well in THAT case, I guess that means your brian chemicals must be inferior to mine.

Oh no wait! Could it be that you actually take the OPPOSITE position?

Actually, I don't buy his "it's all brain chemicals" argument. To me, this whole recent societal emphasis on "it's all the fault of your brain chemicals" reeks of an earlier generation's "it's all the fault of how your mother nurtured you and potty-trained you." If it were true then it would be quite literally impossible for any human being to not believe in gods. When as we know, there are millions of otherwise sensible human beings, the sort of people you'd see at work and in the neighborhood and in the checkout line at the supermarket, who -- GASP!! -- do not believe in any gods. So no, at the end of the day, the writer is off-base, I think. You are a free moral agent, as am I. You are free to believe in gods or not, as am I. Blaming religious belief (or lack thereof, for that matter) on "brain chemicals" relieves the individual of the moral responsibility for accepting the consequences of their belief (or lack thereof).

[Lyv]

Poo-poo God all you like.


I'm not the poster you're addressing, but I'd like to chime in. I don't "poo poo" God. I simply don't believe in him or any deities. And I do believe that all gods, all deities, are the result of man trying to understand the unknown. All creation myths have the same source and they're all simply man's way of trying to deal with the natural world. I hope that doesn't offend believers, but it's what I believe, so in a discussion like this, it seems appropriate to share it. Just as you have shared what you believe.

[James81]

Actually, I don't buy his "it's all brain chemicals" argument. To me, this whole recent societal emphasis on "it's all the fault of your brain chemicals" reeks of an earlier generation's "it's all the fault of how your mother nurtured you and potty-trained you." If it were true then it would be quite literally impossible for any human being to not believe in gods. When as we know, there are millions of otherwise sensible human beings, the sort of people you'd see at work and in the neighborhood and in the checkout line at the supermarket, who -- GASP!! -- do not believe in any gods. So no, at the end of the day, the writer is off-base, I think. You are a free moral agent, as am I. You are free to believe in gods or not, as am I. Blaming religious belief (or lack thereof, for that matter) on "brain chemicals" relieves the individual of the moral responsibility for accepting the consequences of their belief (or lack thereof).

This reminds me of a quote:

“In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners.”
-- Jonathon Miller

The trouble is that you are looking at a pattern of behavior and extrapolating beliefs based on that pattern of behavior, rather than looking at the evidence and allowing the beliefs to form on their own.

Or, rather, you assume that because a majority of people use religion as a crutch for their lack of moral responsibility, that that must mean that religion itself is a crutch for a lack of moral repsonsibility.

It's akin to people who hate the Muslim religion because it was Muslim extremists who attacked us on 9/11.

It's not the religion that's bad, it's the way people USE religion. Religion is most tainted by the religious, but that does not inherently make religion flawed.

[Plot Device]

Actually, I don't buy his "it's all brain chemicals" argument. To me, this whole recent societal emphasis on "it's all the fault of your brain chemicals" reeks of an earlier generation's "it's all the fault of how your mother nurtured you and potty-trained you." If it were true then it would be quite literally impossible for any human being to not believe in gods. When as we know, there are millions of otherwise sensible human beings, the sort of people you'd see at work and in the neighborhood and in the checkout line at the supermarket, who -- GASP!! -- do not believe in any gods. So no, at the end of the day, the writer is off-base, I think. You are a free moral agent, as am I. You are free to believe in gods or not, as am I. Blaming religious belief (or lack thereof, for that matter) on "brain chemicals" relieves the individual of the moral responsibility for accepting the consequences of their belief (or lack thereof).


This back-peddling post of your does NOT expunge the statement you made earlier where you said:

"As it happens, I do think that belief in a deity = unreasonable thinking."

So, by the transitive power:

unreasonable thinking = unreasonable person = I don't like that person, I don't trust that person, I don't want that person taking public office, I don't want that person anywhere near children, that person and all persons like him/her are a scourge on society

[Susan Gable]

I'm not the poster you're addressing, but I'd like to chime in. I don't "poo poo" God. I simply don't believe in him or any deities.

Sorry. That's how I define "poo-poo"ing something. Poo-pooing a thing simply means dismissing it, to me.

No offense intended, I assure you.

Susan G.

[Plot Device]

I'm not the poster you're addressing, but I'd like to chime in. I don't "poo poo" God. I simply don't believe in him or any deities. And I do believe that all gods, all deities, are the result of man trying to understand the unknown. All creation myths have the same source and they're all simply man's way of trying to deal with the natural world. I hope that doesn't offend believers, but it's what I believe, so in a discussion like this, it seems appropriate to share it. Just as you have shared what you believe.


Wow!

Now what I want to know is: How come THIS non-deist-subscribing poster is capable of NOT using the words "unreasonable" and "irrational"??? How come THIS poster is not being insulting??

[Lyv]

Sorry. That's how I define "poo-poo"ing something. Poo-pooing a thing simply means dismissing it, to me.

No offense intended, I assure you.

Susan G.
I didn't dismiss anything. I studied. I considered. I do not believe. Maybe you also have a different definition of "dismiss" than I do, but to me that means rejecting without thoughtful consideration.

[GeorgeK]

All creation myths have the same source.

and what are you calling that source?

[James81]

This back-peddling post of your does NOT expunge the statement you made earlier where you said:

"As it happens, I do think that belief in a deity = unreasonable thinking."

So, by the transitive power:

unreasonable thinking = unreasonable person = I don't like that person, I don't trust that person, I don't want that person taking public office, I don't want that person anywhere near children, that person and all persons like him/her are a scourge on society

To be fair, I think you are making a lot of assumptions that last part of your quote.

Personally, I find a lot of the stuff you post here to be "unreasonable" but that doesn't mean I don't like you or trust you. In fact, I get a kick out of you and think this place wouldn't be quite the same without you. I wouldn't consider you to be a scourge on society (lol).

In other words, I think you have a lot of unreasonable beliefs, but I still <3 you.

[Lyv]

and what are you calling that source?
Sorry, I thought I'd explained it--those myths arise from man's desire to understand the natural world and cope with the unknown. That's what I have come to believe after much thought and study.

[Plot Device]

To be fair, I think you are making a lot of assumptions that last part of your quote.

Personally, I find a lot of the stuff you post here to be "unreasonable" but that doesn't mean I don't like you or trust you. In fact, I get a kick out of you and think this place wouldn't be quite the same without you. I wouldn't consider you to be a scourge on society (lol).

In other words, I think you have a lot of unreasonable beliefs, but I still <3 you.

I do NOT mind if an individual person is deemed irrational and/or unreasonable on the basis of their individual conduct or words. If you want to call me irrational based upon your thoughtful assessment of my words, THAT is an acceptable criterion for such a judgement call.

But I do mind when an entire group is lumped together as being irrational or unresonable on the basis of what amounts to a civil right, specifically their civil right to believe in a deity (or even to NOT believe in a deity).

[GeorgeK]

those myths arise from man's desire to understand the natural world and cope with the unknown.

That's the same origin as scientific theories.

[Plot Device]

Sorry, I thought I'd explained it--those myths arise from man's desire to understand the natural world and cope with the unknown. That's what I have come to believe after much thought and study.


I personally don't mind when the word "myth" gets used in a purely scholarly fashion, even in regard to my own religion. I have heard people say "creation myth" and "apocalyptic myth" and even take a side step into the sister word of "mythos." But some deists take offense at the word, feeling it's employment when speaking of religion has the additional connotation of suggesting that a story is patantly false on all levels.

But I am probably in the minority there.

[Lyv]

That's the same origin as scientific theories.
Yes, it is.

[James81]

Sorry, I thought I'd explained it--those myths arise from man's desire to understand the natural world and cope with the unknown. That's what I have come to believe after much thought and study.

They call that "God of the gaps" if I remember right.

To which I would say that God by any other name is still God.

Or to put it another way (using an example):

If one person says: "Things fall to the earth because God made it that way."

And another person says: "Things fall to the earth because of gravity."

Neither statement is contradictory to each other. One is a more educated, scientific statement than the other, but the two statements do not contradict each other.

[Susan Gable]

I didn't dismiss anything. I studied. I considered. I do not believe.

Can you respond, then, to my tornado in a junkyard/explosions-creating chaos-not-order questions?

How did randomness create order?

(I'm not being cheeky, I'm seriously curious as to the answer.)

thanks!

Susan G.

[Plot Device]

They call that "God of the gaps" if I remember right.

To which I would say that God by any other name is still God.

Or to put it another way (using an example):

If one person says: "Things fall to the earth because God made it that way."

And another person says: "Things fall to the earth because of gravity."

Neither statement is contradictory to each other. One is a more educated, scientific statement than the other, but the two statements do not contradict each other.


The people to worry about are the ones who say: "Nothing falls to the Earth. Everything levitates. Even right now: I'm levitating. See??"

[Susan Gable]

Or to put it another way (using an example):

If one person says: "Things fall to the earth because God made it that way."

And another person says: "Things fall to the earth because of gravity."

Neither statement is contradictory to each other. One is a more educated, scientific statement than the other, but the two statements do not contradict each other.

Or we can combine those statements:

Things fall to earth because of gravity, which God created. Cause He didn't want us floating off the planet. That would have made things difficult. <G>

Susan G.

[Susan Gable]

The people to worry about are the ones who say: "Nothing falls to the Earth. Everything levitates. Even right now: I'm levitating. See??"


LOLOL!!!

Susan G.

[Lyv]

Can you respond, then, to my tornado in a junkyard/explosions-creating chaos-not-order questions?

How did randomness create order?

(I'm not being cheeky, I'm seriously curious as to the answer.)

thanks!

Susan G.
It sort of looks like you're unwilling to believe I have not "dismissed" God unless I give you a satisfactory answer to your scenario. That's how it's worded.

[Norman D Gutter]

This does not bode well for advancing the interests of reason and science in the continuing economic crisis

Steve:

Please explain how increasing religious belief does not bode well for advancing the interests of reason and science--especially science.

Also, how, in your mind, are reason and science related to getting us out of this economic crisis?

NGD

[Lyv]

They call that "God of the gaps" if I remember right.

To which I would say that God by any other name is still God.
Only if one believes. A myth can just be a myth.

Or to put it another way (using an example):

If one person says: "Things fall to the earth because God made it that way."

And another person says: "Things fall to the earth because of gravity."

Neither statement is contradictory to each other. One is a more educated, scientific statement than the other, but the two statements do not contradict each other.Neither statement is contradictory, but you don't have to believe both. I believe only the second.

[GeorgeK]

Things fall to earth because of gravity, which God created. Cause He didn't want us floating off the planet. .

religion dude: "Aha! Proof that aeronotics is blasphemy! Burn those textbooks!"

science dude: "No, it disproves the existence of god!"

[James81]

Only if one believes. A myth can just be a myth.

Neither statement is contradictory, but you don't have to believe both. I believe only the second.

Understandable.

I was speaking in terms of how some atheists use the phrase "God of the gaps" to DISMISS religion.

It's a logical fallacy to use "God of the gaps" as a dismissive reason as to why God doesn't exist.

Personally, I've discovered that atheists are extremely dismissive. I'd much rather debate the existence of a God with an agnostic than an atheist, because, in my experience, atheists are as close-minded as they claim the people they dismiss are.

[Plot Device]

I'm going to leave this thread now. But before I do, here's my final position:

I have zero desire to debate God in this sub-forum. This is a sub-forum to discuss contemporary political issues and the latest stuff in the news. The OP gave us two news articles, both quite legitimately related to "the latest in the news," and the OP also gave a reaction to the issues raised by the two artciles.

But I take issue with the needless inclusion in the OP of the prejudicial stance that:

religious belief = irrational thinking and a hinderance to the advancement of science

I do not deny that history shows us that religion and science have not always agreed. I do not deny that history shows us that some religious leaders have deliberately blocked scientific advancement. I do not deny that some religious leaders have even persecuted scientists. What I take issue with is the blanket position that "All wood floats. Therefore, all that floats must be wood," a position that all of us here KNOW to be incorrect.

Meanwhile, the unflinching position put forth in the OP is that "ALL religious people are irrational." And that's unacceptable to me. It's a form of prejudice that keeps people out of job positions and blocks people from attaining public office. And it's just as unacceptable to say "ALL non-religious people are irrational." Or (worse) "ALL atheists are cold-hearted unfeeling machines with no sense of morality and utterly lacking in imagination." Blanket prejudice is blanket prejudice, no matter which demographic you aim at.

I'm done. Carry on.


::ETA::

I have returned. But only to say this: The original OP for the thread that I was particiating in was found in the sub-forum called "Politics and Current Event." And here was the OP for that thread:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3275421#post3275421

And then that thread got merged into "Critical Theory and Philosophy of Language."

So NOW the OP is by Colorado Guy. (And I take no issue with his OP at all.)

[James81]

I'm going to leave this thread now. But before I do, here's my final position:

I have zero desire to debate God in this sub-forum. This is a sub-forum to discuss contemporary political issues and the latest stuff in the news. The OP gave us two news articles, both quite legitimately related to "the latest in the news," and the OP also gave a reaction to the issues raised by the two artciles.

But I take issue with the needless inclusion in the OP of the prejudicial stance that:

religious belief = irrational thinking and a hinderance to the advancement of science

I do not deny that history shows us that religion and science have not always agreed. I do not deny that history shows us that some religious leaders have deliberately blocked scientific advancement. I do not deny that some religious leaders have even persecuted scientists. What I take issue with is the blanket position that "All wood floats. Therefore, all that floats must be wood," a position that all of us here KNOW to be incorrect.

Meanwhile, the unflinching position put forth in the OP is that "ALL religious people are irrational." And that's unacceptable to me. It's a form of prejudice that keeps people out of job positions and blocks people from attaining public office. And it's just as unacceptable to say "ALL non-religious people are irrational." Or (worse) "ALL atheists are cold-hearted unfeeling machines with no sense of morality and utterly lacking in imagination." Blanket prejudice is blanket prejudice, no matter which demographic you aim at.

I'm done. Carry on.

Heh, just do what I do and detach emotion from the debate at hand.

In fact, in MOST "emotional" discussions I've discovered that emotion is a killer to the debate because you can't debate something rationally when emotion takes over.

I've discovered that the stronger I am in my beliefs, the less emotional I get when someone challenges my beliefs. And I am strong in my beliefs about certain subjects (the subject of "the existence of God" being one of them) because I've looked at it from both sides and have analyzed it frontwards and backwards.

So a statement such as "All religious people are irrational" doesn't bother me because I see the ridiculousness of the statement itself (that it's a generalization and not aimed at ME, because I am fairly religious), and that most sweeping generalizations like that are rooted in personal bitterness or insecurity of some kind. Which actually falls back to the original post, in that these "chemicals" that are driving us to believe certain things to "reconcile" other things, are the same chemicals that are driving the exact opposite, equally close-minded beliefs.

When you approach a debate in that fashion, and realize the logical fallacies behind a lot of the statements that are made in debates like this, it helps keep emotion in check because you understand that the people making these assertions are just like you and me.

So assert your opinion with the same loftiness, the same confidence, that they assert theirs and don't back away just because they say something ridiculous.

Pick off the parts that are relevant, and ignore the rest. :)

[GeorgeK]

So assert your opinion with the same loftiness, the same confidence, that they assert theirs and don't back away just because they say something ridiculous.

Yes, but eventually the entertainment value and or educational value approaches the point of diminishing returns and it simply becomes unproductive. That's why people leave threads. That's why threads die. That's why some posters are placed on ignore.

[Susan Gable]

It sort of looks like you're unwilling to believe I have not "dismissed" God unless I give you a satisfactory answer to your scenario. That's how it's worded.

No, not at all. You have not dismissed God. You just don't believe. Fine by me. I believe you.

But you said you have carefully considered it. Cool. I thought since you've carefully considered it, you might be able to respond to my questions.

I'm just looking for an answer to my question, that's all. :Shrug: It doesn't have to be you who addresses it, but I would like to hear from someone in response to them.

:)

Susan G.

[Tirjasdyn]

:ROFL:

As a pagan I'd have to say that belief in a god is unreasonable thinking...that's why it's faith...it's not based on reason at all. :D Oh sure, folks try to rationalize it but that's not reason.

Course I believe that the gods don't give two shits about us and have better things to do...so I'm all for science and tech. :D

[steveg144]

This back-peddling post of your does NOT expunge the statement you made earlier where you said:

"As it happens, I do think that belief in a deity = unreasonable thinking."

So, by the transitive power:

unreasonable thinking = unreasonable person = I don't like that person, I don't trust that person, I don't want that person taking public office, I don't want that person anywhere near children, that person and all persons like him/her are a scourge on society

Very much the way a lot of religious people feel about us atheists, I'd say. To many religious people, my lack of belief in a deity is unreasonable thinking, and so the rest of your ='s follow in their thinking about me. So yes, I'd say it's sauce for the goose for me to follow their same train of daisy-chained ='s from "you don't believe in God" to "you are a scourge on society", flip it on it's head, and say yes, all those things you've strung together with your ='s do follow from my position. And I'm 100% OK with that.

[aka eraser]

Interesting article. From it:

These cognitive biases are so strong, says Petrovich, that children tend to spontaneously invent the concept of god without adult intervention: "They rely on their everyday experience of the physical world and construct the concept of god on the basis of this experience."

Maybe they're not constructing the concept of god. Maybe they're remembering something. Children are closer to the source than adults. And most of us have forgotten what they know.

[kuwisdelu]

No, not at all. You have not dismissed God. You just don't believe. Fine by me. I believe you.

But you said you have carefully considered it. Cool. I thought since you've carefully considered it, you might be able to respond to my questions.

I'm just looking for an answer to my question, that's all. :Shrug: It doesn't have to be you who addresses it, but I would like to hear from someone in response to them.

I'm with Lyv, there, I kind of took issue with your suggestion that non-believers are just "poo-pooing" god.

Personally, I've also thought about it, and just can't come to a good reason to believe in a god's or gods' existence. I'm not really an atheist, but I do believe the burden of proof should be on the positive, and ultimately I'm completely open to the idea; I just don't subscribe to it.

I don't think one necessarily has to deeply consider religion to not be "poo-pooing," it. It just might not be that important to someone. Just because someone doesn't deeply consider the many-worlds interpretation of the Schrodinger equation but still doesn't believe in it, that doesn't mean they're poo-pooing or dismissing quantum physics. It's just not important to them. At least that's my perspective.

With regard to the question you posed to Lyv, I don't think this is the thread to debate that, but I'll point you to my own general thoughts and ideas from this post (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3241889&postcount=35) of mine from this (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129504) thread. It doesn't directly address your question as a whole, but it addresses some of the basic principles with specific examples.

That said, I won't be debating that in this thread, but since you asked for someone else's thoughts, I just thought I'd point you to mine. ;)

:ROFL:

As a pagan I'd have to say that belief in a god is unreasonable thinking...that's why it's faith...it's not based on reason at all. :D Oh sure, folks try to rationalize it but that's not reason.

Course I believe that the gods don't give two shits about us and have better things to do...so I'm all for science and tech. :D

This is along my own thinking.

I do think most religious belief is, by definition, not reasonable. Where people run into difficulties is that this does not mean the person is unreasonable. It's just the religious belief tends to be based on faith, which doesn't have to be reasonable. If faith is completely reasonable, it's not usually really "faith" as most people understand it.

There are a few religions I think that get closer to "reasonable" than others. For example, Deism believes one can only arrive at religious truths through logic and reason from the natural world. However, it still presupposes the existence of a divine being as a postulate, so it isn't entirely reasonable either.

What I'm saying is that faith usually isn't reasonable, and that isn't a bad thing. If most religions could be found through completely unbiased reason, we'd all be religious. What needs to be remembered is that people with faith can still be reasonable.

[billythrilly7th]

IMO.

Anyone who says "I KNOW there is a god" is an idiot.

And

Anyone who says "I KNOW there isn't a god" is an idiot.

Having faith or belief in god or there not being a god is different from knowing.

On the subject of god, no one KNOWS.

Thank you.

[GeorgeK]

IMO.

Anyone who says "I KNOW there is a god" is an idiot.

And

Anyone who says "I KNOW there isn't a god" is an idiot.

Having faith or belief in god or there not being a god is different from knowing.

On the subject of god, no one KNOWS.

Thank you.

You don't know that. Maybe God came down and gave somebody a swift kick in the pants and said, "Hi, I exist. Have a piece of fairy cake. Would you like fries with that?"

They would not be able to proove that they met God but they'd know. And they'd have some really awesome fries...but of course they would have already eaten them so they couldn't proove that the fries existed either.

[kuwisdelu]

For some believers, believing is the same as knowing.

In a way, to blatantly plagiarize a South Park episode, even God isn't real, there are so many who believe in Him, and for those people he has transformed and affected their lives. For true believers, God will always be there for them.

It could be said that believing in God *is* His existence, and for many, it seems, that should be enough. Who cares whether a god or gods or higher powers exist or not?

I'm not among those believers, but sometimes it's nice to think about it that way.

[kuwisdelu]

You don't know that. Maybe God came down and gave somebody a swift kick in the pants and said, "Hi, I exist. Have a piece of fairy cake. Would you like fries with that?"

They would not be able to proove that they met God but they'd know. And they'd have some really awesome fries...but of course they would have already eaten them so they couldn't proove that the fries existed either.

Or they could be hallucinating. Wouldn't be the first time in history.

[steveg144]

You don't know that. Maybe God came down and gave somebody a swift kick in the pants and said, "Hi, I exist. Have a piece of fairy cake. Would you like fries with that?"

They would not be able to proove that they met God but they'd know. And they'd have some really awesome fries...but of course they would have already eaten them so they couldn't proove that the fries existed either.

Screw the fries, where can a brother get some of that fairy cake????

;)

[James81]

For some believers, believing is the same as knowing.

In a way, to blatantly plagiarize a South Park episode, even God isn't real, there are so many who believe in Him, and for those people he has transformed and affected their lives. For true believers, God will always be there for them.

It could be said that believing in God *is* His existence, and for many, it seems, that should be enough. Who cares whether a god or gods or higher powers exist or not?

I'm not among those believers, but sometimes it's nice to think about it that way.

I've always taken great interest in the belief that believe that WE are God.

A lot of people criticize that belief, but if you think about it it makes way more sense than a separate entity in the sky somewhere.

To me it makes more sense to belief that we are all parts of God, not Gods among ourselves, but the whole of us combined make up God. And that the reason we can't see a physical "god" (in the traditional sense) is because we ARE God...all of us together.

Or, Conversations with God puts it in a much more concise understandable way:

"There is only one of us." (pertaining to the question as to where is god and who is God)

[GeorgeK]

Or they could be hallucinating. Wouldn't be the first time in history.

So then... God... invented mushroom fries?

[kuwisdelu]

God's in the brownies.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/143553/brownies.jpg




Yes, this is the same picture I used in the Phelps thread.

[GeorgeK]

I guess there won't be any brownies left by the time Plot Device gets back.

[Plot Device]

I guess there won't be any brownies left by the time Plot Device gets back.


Plot Device has returned, but only to tidy up her legacy in this thread (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3276076#post3276076) now that it has been merged with a pre-existing thread from an entirely different sub-forum.

[Ruv Draba]

That there is a language centre in the brain doesn't mean that we're all speaking English. It only says that - whenever we speak - a certain area in brain is "active" (= flooded with blood). This is part of the old debate: Is atheism a belief?There is potentially useful science in a question that asks whether belief in the immaterial (or the ability to think about the immaterial) might be genetically predisposed and even beneficial to species survival. Bear in mind that all humans have to deal with questions of materiality and immateriality -- questions that extend far beyond religious concerns. What do we think happened to the thing we called a tadpole when it became a frog? What do we think happened to the object we called a sandwich when we ate it? Which objects do we think persist when we look away and what makes us continue to believe in them when we can no longer see them?

Unfortunately, the moment we frame the question using the word 'religion', we've made it a matter of tribe rather than brain-function and it ceases to be ethical science, or indeed much science at all. We've also skewed the question to support political positions, not to find legitimate answers. I think that the number and quality of responses in this thread rather proves that point.

I believe that the question as it's currently framed and most of the responses belong more in the P&CE forum than here.

[billythrilly7th]

You don't know that. Maybe God came down and gave somebody a swift kick in the pants and said, "Hi, I exist. Have a piece of fairy cake. Would you like fries with that?"

They would not be able to proove that they met God but they'd know. And they'd have some really awesome fries...but of course they would have already eaten them so they couldn't proove that the fries existed either.

All clear minded people would admit that they BELIEVE they saw god, but do not KNOW for a fact that it was him.

Right, maybe they were hallucinating.

[Lyv]

Understandable.

I was speaking in terms of how some atheists use the phrase "God of the gaps" to DISMISS religion.

It's a logical fallacy to use "God of the gaps" as a dismissive reason as to why God doesn't exist.
I don't think you're saying I am doing that, but just in case: I've simply said that I do not believe in God. I've also stated that I believe the idea of god(s) came from man's need to understand and cope with the unknown. But my lack of belief in God is not based on any one thing. I used to believe. I no longer do (and not because anything bad happened to me or I had some crisis of faith or someone was mean to be in church, which people often assume).

Personally, I've discovered that atheists are extremely dismissive. That may be saying more about you than atheists. But at least you're stopping short of making a negative generalization and instead speaking only of your experiences.
I'd much rather debate the existence of a God with an agnostic than an atheist, because, in my experience, atheists are as close-minded as they claim the people they dismiss are.Now we're not just dismissing God; we're also dismissing people who believe in him?

I say that tongue-in-cheek, but you're perpetuating some myths here. You have issues with atheists. I get it. Perhaps you need to meet more atheists. I think I'm being pretty reasonable, though I've had some negative comments lobbed my way. I'll continue to be, too.

[Higgins]

It only says that - whenever we speak - a certain area in brain is "active" (= flooded with blood).


As I write this I'm verbally dangling over the gap between two merged threads on how the brain (the brain mind you, not its problems getting up in the morning) is "wired" (neuronally?...but the language area shows up in the plumbing or scaffolding) for some abstact god thing to happen to it.
I of course think the divine strikes in man just like fear or lust or any other limbic (a general term for some emotional parts of the brain) event. But apparently if you "believe" (a rather abstract idea) you don't want to think your belief is mixed in with primordial horror and if you don't "believe" (a rather vacuous term) then you don't want to think anyone's beliefs might be grounded in their primordial experiences (and they don't either)...so one thing believers and unbelievers agree on is that there's nothing limbic (primordial and terrifying)about religious experience even though all the hard evidence and adaptive uses suggest otherwise.
Yours....from the limbic void: Higgins

[Magdalen]

Damn! That's a fine post, Higgins! All through this thread (well, I skipped pages 3-5) I kept wondering when someone would bring up the goosebumps on my arms and the tiny little hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up as I read your entry.
Yours . . . from the core of the limbic node!!

[AMCrenshaw]

omg

What happened in here anyway?


AMC

[Higgins]

omg

What happened in here anyway?


AMC

Stuff from politics and current events got dumpped in Critical Theory. There's an allegorical lesson in there somewhere.

[ColoradoGuy]

Moving this from Lit/Crit to our shiny new comparative religion forum.

[Ruv Draba]

Moving this from Lit/Crit to our shiny new comparative religion forum....where it's a non-issue I think. If someone were to claim that religious belief were innate to our brains then they'd be saying that the irreligious are somehow defective or deluded, which isn't allowed.

But I've long conjectured that superstitions (or tendencies thereof) are very common, even among fairly rationalistic folk like myself. Speaking personally there's a part of my brain that makes all manner of symbolic associations between cause and effect. For instance part of my mind holds that if you boast about something before doing it, you're likely to fail.

There's another part of my mind that says 'There's no analysis behind this; it's pure conjecture', but still I grow uncomfortable in groups that self-congratulate before a task is commenced.

Of course, our mythic lore is full of examples of 'pride cometh before a fall', and I'm not sure that my subconscious differentiates fictional examples from factual examples in developing its intuitions. It's also true that if you set high expectations early, you can be more disappointed later, and you may be less alert during the task -- so it's not bad advice even if it's not true in general.

Anyway, I thought that might be vaguely relevant.

[Bartholomew]

...where it's a non-issue I think. If someone were to claim that religious belief were innate to our brains then they'd be saying that the irreligious are somehow defective or deluded, which isn't allowed.


Haskins is broken. I knew it.

#

Is it odd that I don't really have a running dialogue in my head, the way you've just described? I think of everything in pictures and symbols; I can't even imagine having a word in my head.

Good lord, now I'm broken too. Thanks, Mac. Your forum broke two of us.

[Guffy]

I kind of hate to join a discussion that has been going on this long. I didn't read all of the pages but there seems to be some great points being shared.

[MarkR]

...so one thing believers and unbelievers agree on is that there's nothing limbic (primordial and terrifying)about religious experience even though all the hard evidence and adaptive uses suggest otherwise.
Yours....from the limbic void: Higgins

I found an interesting article about altered activity in the frontal lobes (more highly evolved section of the brain) during religious experience.

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/oct06/glossolalia.htm

[Guffy]

One of the things that seem to separate humans from animals, (when I was in middle school they used to teach us the difference was the use of tools, which they had to change) is burial and reverence for the dead. The earliest civilizations discovered all seem to have this, no mater how poor their circumstances seemed to be. IMO this points to some sense of eternity in spite of all the evidence that everything is temporal.

[veinglory]

There are records of both elephants and chimpanzees showing bereavement behavior around a body.

[Guffy]

I'm talking about the entombment and veneration of the dead for many generations.

[Higgins]

One of the things that seem to separate humans from animals, (when I was in middle school they used to teach us the difference was the use of tools, which they had to change) is burial and reverence for the dead. The earliest civilizations discovered all seem to have this, no mater how poor their circumstances seemed to be. IMO this points to some sense of eternity in spite of all the evidence that everything is temporal.

There are a lot of ways that people have ritually removed the dead from the living. Zoroastrians have towers where the dead are eaten by birds and other forms of defleshing the bones are pretty common.
Its true that some sort of ritual surrounds the deaths and funereal events of high status people in societies with status markers. Elaborate burials (and even in the case of cremations, some kind of burial occurred) seem to be associated with social heirarchies.