Darwin's God
Offline 'Why are people religious?'
This is a question that I've been thinking about for some time now. Throughout time, around the world, humans have believed in the super-natural in some way or another. Except for religions derived from other ones, the belief systems rarely concurred with each other. At some point this lead me to wonder if humans somehow were preprogrammed to believe in the supernatural. When I was growing up this realization really put a dent in my faith.
I read the piece Darwin's God in the New York Times the other day, and I have to say that the arguments were pretty convincing. The article basically discusses the debate between experts who believe that religion is an adaption that helped humans, and those who believe that religion is a useless by-product of evolution.
So do you believe that evolution and religion are most probably intertwined, and if so is religion a by-product or an adapation?
Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity. Saul Bellow, Herzog
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Warning: This is highly hypothetical and in no manner would I ever do or recommend the following..
If a baby was born and thrown inside a room 6 meters wide, 6 meters long, and 6 meters tall....and that baby was kept alive for a solid lifetime by feeding it and giving it water everyday......and that baby was never given any human contact what-so-ever..
The only thing that person would know of outside of the 666 room would be that something is sliding its food and water inside the 666 room at some point during the day(what we know as a day).
Would that person ever have been exposed to a deity? Never. Therefore it is apparent to me, that mankind's indoctrination of religion is man-made and not the product of evolution, we don't have instinctual diety capacity or else there would be no non-believers.. we all simply would just believe.
Would the person inside the 666 room ever wonder or have
pre-concieved ideas about what was outside the room?
probably
But even then, the person would never be exposed to a: Zeus, Thor, Xian God, Jesus, or any other man-made diety therefore that person would never know a diety such as we know it described to us by other humans.
the way I see it anyhow
"Science should be taught not in order to support religion and not in order to destroy religion. Science should be taught simply ignoring religion."
--Steven Weinberg--
What makes you so sure that the person wouldn't consider whatever provided the food as a deity?
"The powerful have always created false images of the weak."
I think speech and religion are intertwined.
The brain continues to grow and develope after birth. How it progresses, which pathways are connected where, has a lot to do with the presentation external stimuli. Without external stimulus your experimental subject will be little more than a lump of psuedo-human flesh. We need to add some sophistication to your thought experiment.
Humans, like heroes, are made not born. So, we need to add stimulus - some form of interaction. This will be tricky. You have to provide enough stimulus to generate a human (or else your experiment is flawed) but not so much that you've awakened the questioning portion of the brain. I don't think you can do that. Questioning is probably as inevitable to our makeup as gravity is to a ball rolling down an incline. And questioning leads to a need for answers. Isn't that what religion is? Answer made up to fit a circumstance?
Because that person wouldn't ever know the CONCEPT of a DIETY(What you and I know to be a deity anyway)... which is what I was trying to illustrate. If WE(the outsiders) never indoctrinate that person with any knowledge of anything what-so-ever, how can it rationally conceptualize "an all loving, all knowing, all present thing that we call a deity"
The only thing that person would EVER know is that something is giving it water and food. It would be no different than a caged animal with zero human contact.
It just so happens that humans are capable of freethought, therefore we don't keep humans in cages unless they are danger to other humans.
I think religion is what comes before philosophy, like alchemy is what came before chemistry.
JupiterCoyote,
I don't know why humans have, throughout history, succumbed to religion. I have heard religion refered to as a virus, which I believe is a very fitting term. Could humans be inherently susceptible to this virus, or do certain ideas just appeal to the masses?
I agree that if humans were never exposed to a religion then we would never have to deal with its baggage. But if humans, for whatever reason, are susceptible to religion I believe we should recognize it, and find a lasting solution for it. If not, the same behavior could just keep popping up over and over again.
Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity. Saul Bellow, Herzog
I think that two things evolutionarily predisposed human beings to believe in supernatural entities.
1. Inherent Dualism.
Humans may not have a concept of a diety from birth, but they certainly have a concept of dualism. If children are asked what will happen to them when they die, they almost always say they'd "go somewhere else". We find it easy to imagine our "spirits" traveling from one place to another, from one person or animal to another. Humans have an ingrained sense that our "selves" are floating up there in our heads, and we don't seem to feel, at least instinctually that we actually "are" our bodies, but something else.
This inherent dualism could actually be a byproduct of our social evolution. We humans developed entire neural networks dedicated to simulating the brains of other human beings and animals. This would have been incredibly useful for huntring prey, and even more useful for communication and social bonding. If we can so easily "put ourselves in someone else's shoes", then we find it easy to see our minds as separate from our bodies.
2. Pattern Recognition and False Intent
If asked what clouds are "for", children will say "to rain." If asked why rocks are rough, children will say "so animals can scratch their backs on them."
Humans have an ingrained mechanism for applying intent to random events. This would have been extremely useful for our ancestors, because any rustling of the leaves could be a predator, anything that felt like a plot could actually be a plot against us, and any social structure would be bound to have an intent and purpose.
Humans took this ingrained intent bias, coupled with extremely sensitive pattern-recognition algorithms, to invoke a false sense of intent and meaning on the entire universe. This, combined with inherent dualism, is the reason we have religion, and any ideas about the supernatural.
I have to disagree as you can always have philosophy without any religion or religious condentations to it. but you cannot have the religion without a philosophical foundation.
we can theorize the un-known as an absolute to our personal being through philosophy but it has no ties to a religion other than who we mentally project ourselves to be in our philosophical life. We as Free-thinkers have evidence of science to our philosophy but we take the "destructionist" veiw as we adhere to our skepticism of god. in this case it is not the negative nor the positive it is simply he can not exist if he has no proof there for he is debunked.
but its interesting I cant remember exacty which Great Philospher it was but I wanna say Galaleo or something like that wrote "Alchemy of the cave" wich was the general concencus matching the 666 room.
The story goes something like this...(short version) 3 men born into slavery within a cave lit by a fire in which shadowy figures danced around it for their known lives. but one day one of the men escaped to see out the-side seeing flowers sun bees etc. was to scared to venture the unknown when he returned and told the others what he had saw the others laughed at him denying any possibility such a world exist.
In the Matrix it is the reverse philosopy that the caves cant exist and the only realworld is within the Matrix from Neo perspective.
I got this whole book several years ago called philosophy of the matri, I reccomend checking it out it will make the movie that much more amazing.
for example neo playing Socrates talking to the oracle.
If God didn't want atheists than we wouldn't exist..
*cough* Urhm....that's Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". He lived like around 400 BC.
Galileo lived in the much more recent 1600's.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Well my mistake its been a long time since I read it, thank you watcher for clearing that up, I knew the general shite.. but man I referenced the wrong guy. I feel dumb, but an easy mistake of words I am sure.
Sorry dude.
If God didn't want atheists than we wouldn't exist..
No problem. It happens to the best of us.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
kickass
If God didn't want atheists than we wouldn't exist..
I was talking about the human race as a whole, not specific individuals but I get your point.
Also, i think plato perhaps used that example first, or maybe socrates?
Morte alla tyrannus et dei