The brewing storm [Religious Responses Only]

antiskeptic

yutta wrote: »

You do realise you're on the Christianity forum, right?

You should head down to the pub or the bookies and convert the gullible. You might even enjoy yourself while you're at it.

You clearly haven't noticed Wicknights post count..

yutta

antiskeptic wrote: »

You clearly haven't noticed Wicknights post count..

Fair play to him. On a personal mission, is he? Has he a calling? (I assume he is a man, probably single too).

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

We have evolved the tendency to search for God in other words.

Not exactly. It is not just God, it is far more general than that. We have evolved the tendency to see human like agents acting in nature in a benevolent fashion because it is easier for our brains to process nature in such terms, in the same way it is easier to understand animals in terms of human emotional structures.

The Judeo-Christian concept of God is just one of many different ways these instincts manifest themselves in humans. Humans were doing this long before anyone had even heard of the Abrahamic deity, and they continue to do this even if they have no exposure to the religion or have rejected the idea (atheists do this as well as Dawkins demonstrated when he caught himself doing it in an interview)

This explains all religion and a range of supernatural ideas as well, not just Christianity.

prinz wrote: »

It has no bearing on whether or not a God exists

Not directly. It has bearing on whether we invent the concept, ie whether humans would belief and follow a religion irrespective of whether it is true or not.

Using an example from earlier in the thread, if you hear voices in your head that you attribute to demons and then a doctor diagnoses you with schizophrenia that doesn't prove you don't have demons in your head. But it puts forward a theory as to why you would think you have demons in your head even if there weren't. For most people that is good enough.

This basically does the same for religion. It puts forward how and why humans would believe in the various religions and supernatural superstitions on Earth without requiring that any of them actually be true.

So you are left with the situation where you can explain all this without the need to suppose the existence of God, or Allah, or Ganesha or Zeus or ghosts or spirits or fairies or any other agents in nature.

Which leads to the question of what then is the point if supposing their existence in the first place.

prinz wrote: »

Not really. It would raise questions as to why my brain works that way, and to what end.

It answers that question through evolutionary biology, which is the point. It is not simply what happens when you believe but why this exists in the brain in the first place.

Now having said that you can always inject extra unsupported reasons. Ice cream tastes good because it has lots of sugar and we have evolved the instinct to find sugar appealing because for most of human existence sugars were rare and those who evolved this instinct were more likely to consume sugar and thus have greater energy.

That is the evolutionary why.

You can of course inject anything you like after that, such as "And also because Xenu liked ice cream and wanted us to share in this".

But that is mere supposition, and can take any form you like based on any religious deity or supernatural being. Interestingly though this research goes some what to explaining why we actually do that in the first place, why we try and bring all explanations of natural events back to a human like agent doing something in terms of human experience. So this research explains why people are prone to saying things like God created the universe because he loves us.

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

Ah right, yes I understand. Well that is the case with anything in science I guess, you don't have to accept a scientific theory and with the realm of the supernatural you can always suppose an alternative supernatural explanations. If I said there were fairies in my computer that that is what caused it to work, not electricity, you would have a hard time proving me wrong

Pull out the plug?

Remember that this scientists theory is attempting to demonstrate a naturalistic source of religious belief. He can't start out assuming that which he is attempting to demonstrate - he must be led there by the facts. Now the fact that there is a sticky problem to address, namely that:

a) all religions cannot be true

b) one religion might be true

c) if one religion is true then lumping all into one pot would be bad science

.. is his problem to address. It's not something that can be handwaved away like this.

Again science doesn't make the distinction you are making, so it is not really relevant.

Do you see a massive assumption in the science then?

My point is that science does not concern itself with your definition of a Christian because your definition of a Christian requires a supernatural element to begin with (ie someone who has been given the grace of God, or what ever supernatural theological belief you think makes someone a Christian)

Science looks a humans, humans who proclaim different religious beliefs. And so far they have found nothing out of the ordinary with any particular religious group.

If you believe there is a different sub-set contained within one of these sets the onus is on you, as the person making the claim, to bring that forward and demonstrate it.

I'm quite happy to agree with the finding of science regarding what it classifies as Religion - my own theology agrees with it finding much similiarity between them. My point was to illustrate why it need say nothing to any believer of any hue - if they don't classify themselves under sciences definition of Religion.

It's simply the logical response that can be justly made - not an attempt to prove something to you.

Fanny Cradock

I think Dr Thompson is rallying the faithful - preparing them for a secular jihad, if you will. "Bring it on!", he says. The conflict thesis is clearly an idea that is very, very close to his heart (43:30 mins onwards). He desperately wants a new Scopes Trial and this desire pervades his talk.

antiskeptic

yutta wrote: »

Fair play to him. On a personal mission, is he? Has he a calling?

Good question. I can understand me evangelising him (like who'd want Hell to happen to even their worst enemy). I can't understand him evangelising me though.

Given the relative import between our respective evangelical goals (his and mine), and the input input, I must be a right lazy git.

Fanny Cradock

yutta wrote: »

Fair play to him. On a personal mission, is he? Has he a calling? (I assume he is a man, probably single too).

Behave. Read the charter and stop your messing.

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

Pull out the plug?

What would that do? I can simply claim my invisible fairies require the plug to be in to work for reasons unknown to me.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Remember that the scientists theory is attempting to demonstrate that naturalistic source of religious belief. He can't start out assuming that which he is attempting to demonstrate - he must be led there by the fact. The fact that there is a sticky problem to address (namely that a) all religions cannot be true b) one religion might be true c) if one religion is true then lumping all into one pot would be bad science) is his problem to address. It's not something that can be handwaved away like this.

Not really, it is actually you starting with the assumption that one religion must be true. That seems unsupported at the moment.

If the scientists come across a person who, unbeknown to them is a member of the true religion, and when examined they discover a vastly different set of biological functions going on, then the theory will be updated.

But at the moment scientists have carried out these experiments on a large range of people from different backgrounds and claiming different religious persuasions and they haven't found this theoretical person yet.

It is always possible this person might come along, given that in science nothing is ever proven and new data can always invalidate current understanding. But as it stands it is only your faith that supposed this person exists in the first place. So again it is not of any concern to science, it is the case with any and all scientific theories. Any new data that has not yet been discovered can lead to a change in theory. But science doesn't start guessing as to what that new data might be, it deals with it when it encounters it.

Can you explain to me how you think a scientist would be able to prove that there is in fact no true religion? Even if they examined everyone on the planet plenty of religions could simply claim that no one at the moment of examination was a member, or any other supernatural explanation such as supposing that God removed his grace during the examination in order so that it would not be detected. The possibilities are infinite, as broad as the human imagination.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Do you see a massive assumption in the science then?

No, since as you have not established there is a true religion there is no reason, from a scientific position, to assume there is over any other assumption. That would be in fact unscientific.

Science can only deal with what it can examine, not what people can imagine or suppose might exist or be true. You can imagine there is one true religion and the members of said religion have difference brain interactions, but you can't present that to science and say Here examine this. It simply becomes one of the infinite number of other things that could or might be true.

There is an infinite number of things we can imagine, but until we can present something tangible to science there is nothing for science to examine.

antiskeptic wrote: »

I'm quite happy to agree with the finding of science regarding what it classifys as Religion. My point was to illustrate why it need say nothing to any believer of any hue - if they don't classify themselves under sciences definition of Religion.

True, but again that is the case with anything. The theory of electromagnetism will say nothing to me if I believe my computer is run by magic fairies. No matter how detailed that theory is or becomes if I choose to believe my own magic fairies theory there is nothing you or any scientist can do about it.

But equally science isn't going to stop and say Umm, he claims his computer is run by magic fairies, we probably should update our theories to take account of this

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

Not really, it is actually you starting with the assumption that one religion must be true.

Not must be. Can be. If the scientist excludes this possibility from the outset then he has already assumed what he is attempting to demonstrate.

If the scientists come across a person who, unbeknown to them is a member of the true religion, and when examined they discover a vastly different set of biological functions going on, then the theory will be updated.

But at the moment scientists have carried out these experiments on a large range of people from different backgrounds and claiming different religious persuasions and they haven't found this theoretical person yet.

Have they been looking? It seems to me that the scientists are interested in the commonality across religions - not the exceptions. Isn't this commonality the very thing that demonstrates what is being sought?

It is always possible this person might come along, given that in science nothing is ever proven and new data can always invalidate current understanding. But as it stands it is only your faith that supposed this person exists in the first place. So again it is not of any concern to science.

My very point. This science isn't attempting to deal with Religion as I understand it and so isn't presenting a useful result.

Assuming for the sake of argument there is a true religion. And assuming the relative numbers in said religion are few (such as Christianity purports to be if you exclude Christendom), is there a chance that his study didn't pick up on one of them? And even if it did and there was one true believer in 100 sampled, don't you think the findings would tend to conclude the same as now?

True, but again that is the case with anything. The theory of electromagnetism will say nothing to me if I believe my computer is run by magic fairies. No matter how detailed that theory is or becomes if I choose to believe my own magic fairies theory there is nothing you or any scientist can do about it.

But equally science isn't going to stop and say Umm, he claims his computer is run by magic fairies, we probably should update our theories to take account of this

Such are the limits of science. It can only measure what it can measure. Which was the point at outset - why it is that evolutionary believing believers could have cause to wonder.

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

Not must be. Can be. If the scientist excludes this possibility from the outset then he has already assumed what he is attempting to demonstrate.

Scientists don't exclude any possibility. Not just the ones you come up with. Like I said the things that are possible are infinite.

Science doesn't treat any possible unknown to any higher degree than any other possible unknown just because it happens to be the one your religion came up with.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Have they been looking? It seems to me that the scientists are interested in the commonality across religions - not the exceptions.

Well yes they have been looking, but you dismissed them going to particular religious groups based on what the person claims is their religion because you don't trust the person's claim since you subscribe to a supernatural cause for whether they are or are not true Christians.

Can you think of a better way?

If they go to a bunch of Christians but can't trust they are actually Christians then by what criteria should they be using to find "true" Christians and where should they be looking for them?

antiskeptic wrote: »

My very point. This science isn't attempting to deal with Religion as I understand it and so isn't presenting a useful result.

But there is nothing science can do about that since how you understand religion is through a supernatural claim that you yourself can't even verify using science, so how can the rest of science deal with your claims?

If I believe that invisible fairies run my computer there is nothing science can do to convince me otherwise. But equally no one but me cares. Dell don't care, Intel don't care. They use the current scientific models of electricity and that works out pretty well for them.

There is nothing science can do about people who reject science and who prefer to believe their own personal interpretation, so they are out of the scope of this discussion given that they are already rejecting the premises that the research is based upon.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Assuming for the sake of argument there is a true religion. And assuming the relative numbers in said religion are few (such as Christianity purports to be if you exclude Christendom), is there a chance that his study didn't pick up on one of them?

Yes.

But then replace what you just assumed with anything else you can imagine and there is a change that this study didn't pick up on that. There are an infinite number of assumptions or imaginary things that any particular scientific theory might not have discovered yet.

Science can only deal with what it has picked up upon, not the infinite things it might have missed.

If you choose to pick one of these infinite possible things that it might have missed and choose to believe that this is true based on non-scientific reasoning you are basically on your own since that is no different to picking another one of the infinite possible things that it might have missed.

If science can't tell the difference between the random one you picked and all the others in terms of how accurate they are at modeling reality then they are of no practical use.

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

Not exactly. It is not just God, it is far more general than that. We have evolved the tendency to see human like agents acting in nature in a benevolent fashion because it is easier for our brains to process nature in such terms, in the same way it is easier to understand animals in terms of human emotional structures.

OK, I still don't understand why this would lead to a loss of faith in a supranatural being though.

Wicknight wrote: »

The Judeo-Christian concept of God is just one of many different ways these instincts manifest themselves in humans. Humans were doing this long before anyone had even heard of the Abrahamic deity, and they continue to do this even if they have no exposure to the religion or have rejected the idea (atheists do this as well as Dawkins demonstrated when he caught himself doing it in an interview)

Again the reason becomes why? Is there any actual benefit other than making it easier to comprehend the complexity of nature? What happened before this trait manifested itself... did people die trying to process an understanding of nature?

Wicknight wrote: »

This explains all religion and a range of supernatural ideas as well, not just Christianity.

Well yes it does. Which makes it even odder that Christianity is explicitly mentioned IIRC by the scientist in the OP.

Wicknight wrote: »

Not directly. It has bearing on whether we invent the concept, ie whether humans would belief and follow a religion irrespective of whether it is true or not..

I think that has already been shown to be true. Same can be said for various political systems/racism etc.

Wicknight wrote: »

It answers that question through evolutionary biology, which is the point. It is not simply what happens when you believe but why this exists in the brain in the first place. That is the evolutionary why.

..but what is the major evolutionary benefit? Is it just that it made things easier for people to comprehend the world, to imagine someone up there pulling the strings?

antiskeptic

Wicknight wrote: »

Scientists don't exclude any possibility. Not just the ones you come up with. Like I said the things that are possible are infinite.

Science doesn't treat any possible unknown to any higher degree than any other possible unknown just because it happens to be the one your religion came up with.

As you say yourself, a point is reached where we just go in circles. I accept the limitation on science and I accept that science has produced great results despite this limitation. But the question I was addressing came from the viewpoint of a believer who would hold as I have suggested. In which case, your OP question might be so answered: water off a ducks back.

Well yes they have been looking, but you dismissed them going to particular religious groups based on what the person claims is their religion because you don't trust the person's claim since you subscribe to a supernatural cause for whether they are or are not true Christians.

Indeed. And if it is as I say then we'd just be dealing with a limitation of science.

If they go to a bunch of Christians but can't trust they are actually Christians then by what criteria should they be using to find "true" Christians and where should they be looking for them?

I have absolutely no idea.

There is nothing science can do about people who reject science and who prefer to believe their own personal interpretation, so they are out of the scope of this discussion given that they are already rejecting the premises that the research is based upon.

WHich is really where this should end. Some aren't so totally signed up to science that they navigate their whole according to it's modelling. This doesn't mean rejection of science - one can still appreciate paracetemol. It's a recognition of the limitations of science to address everything there is to address. S'all.

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

OK, I still don't understand why this would lead to a loss of faith in a supranatural being though.

Well ultimately it depends on what you base that faith on and how you view science.

prinz wrote: »

What happened before this trait manifested itself... did people die trying to process an understanding of nature?

That is a good question and the answer seems to be yes, or at least it process high levels of stress that decreases survival. This insight is gained from studies of modern animals and studying fossils of our ancestors.

prinz wrote: »

Well yes it does. Which makes it even odder that Christianity is explicitly mentioned IIRC by the scientist in the OP.

Fair enough, I can't speak for Andy Thompson. Like I said to Jakkass if anyone is troubled by Thompson himself feel free to ignore him.

prinz wrote: »

I think that has already been shown to be true. Same can be said for various political systems/racism etc.

Not in relation to religion which was until recently something scientists struggled to understand.

prinz wrote: »

..but what is the major evolutionary benefit? Is it just that it made things easier for people to comprehend the world, to imagine someone up there pulling the strings?

Yes. It decreases stress on the brain because we have evolved a brain that is primarily taken up with social interactions between people.

It is easier for our brain to then view nature in terms of human like agents doing things for human like reasons because so much of our brain has evolved to deal with these sort of interactions.

God made the world because he loves us is easier to process and fit into our out look than to try and process the world in terms of millions of un-connected objects that behave with their own systems and rules. Some human like thing doing something for a human like emotion or reason is something our brains have evolved to very quickly understand. String theory not so much.

I'm sure you have met religious people who have commented that the world just makes a lot more sense if they imagine a deity behind it. That is not a coincidence. It is not a coincidence that the deities we imagine end up being similar to us (most religions even explain this by saying they made us so we are similar to them). It is not a coincidence that we are much more likely to embrace this sort of thinking when we are stressed or feel the world is out of our control (such as during "rock bottom" conversions).

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

As you say yourself, a point is reached where we just go in circles. I accept the limitation on science and I accept that science has produced great results despite this limitation. But the question I was addressing came from the viewpoint of a believer who would hold as I have suggested. In which case, your OP question might be so answered: water off a ducks back.

Agreed, we are just repeating ourselves.

That is certainly an answer to my question, there will be no conflict if the person takes this position that they believe in supernatural things that science can't test.

Fairies in the computer

Fanny Cradock

Perhaps all this can be surmise in the following way. If you believe that science and religion are in conflict then cognitive neuroscience can support this theory. If you don't see a conflict then there isn't a problem and the findings of CN will be absorbed into faith.

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Perhaps all this can be surmise in the following way. If you believe that science and religion are in conflict then cognitive neuroscience can support this theory. If you don't see a conflict then there isn't a problem and the findings of CN will be absorbed into faith.

I agree with the last bit, but I think that it is more a cause that if you believe in the validity of your personal interpretation and religion above anything science can or ever will be able to say, you will always interpret the scientific theory in the context of your religion. And there will never be conflict, since such interpretation is not limited by anything. You can suppose any and all reasons why such a thing is the way it is still within the context of your religion.

You see this straight away with this. How do we know God didn't make us like this in the first place

You can always imagine that God did something a particularly way for some unknown reason. There is no limit to supposing such a thing. You don't have to explain or justify it because it is only supposition.

This will hold to any and all extremes.

Even if scientists some how opened a time portal to 2000 years ago and video taped Jesus laughing about he tricked everyone there is nothing stopping a religious person supposing that this is how God wanted these scientists to see a false imagine. How would you disprove that? The science supports one conclusion but you can't prove that is the correct conclusion. How do we know God isn't testing us?

So how invested a person is in the scientific method will determine how much conflict there is.

The problem with things like the Creationist movement is that they really care about scientific conclusions, they want the science to support them.

Fanny Cradock

Wicknight wrote: »

Even if scientists some how opened a time portal to 2000 years ago and video taped Jesus laughing about he tricked everyone there is nothing stopping a religious person supposing that this is how God wanted these scientists to see a false imagine. How would you disprove that? The science supports one conclusion but you can't prove that is the correct conclusion. How do we know God isn't testing us?

Of course there would! But this cuts both ways, no? We have seen over in the A&A forum people stating that in principle there is nothing, absolutely nothing that would convince then that there is anything beyond the material universe. No amount of miracles, signs, visions, prophecy apparitions, testimony or indeed any other form of evidence you care to mention will budge them from their position.

Aside from all of the above, I'm not sure it is helpful to talk about the various mental hoops that the dyed-in-the-wool "faith-heads" (to use a Dawkinism) would need to jump through without acknowledging those many Christians who would face the evidence head on. Paul had something to say about this. But perhaps all of this was so obvious that you felt it needed no mention

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Of course there would!

Of course there would what? Be a way of telling that the video appearing to show Jesus alive after the resurrection wasn't supernatural in origin? How?

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

We have seen over in the A&A forum people stating that in principle there is nothing, absolutely nothing that would convince then that there is anything beyond the material universe. No amount of miracles, signs, visions, prophecy apparitions, testimony or indeed any other form of evidence you care to mention will budge them from their position.

I can't speak for others on the A&A forum, but if you replace miracles, signs, visions, prophecy apparitions, testimony (all of which are based on personal assessment of what someone thinks they have see, which is unreliable to the point of uselessness) with no amount of verifiable and testable evidence will budge them from their position then I think they are being quite silly.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Aside from all of the above, I'm not sure it is helpful to talk about the various mental hoops that the dyed-in-the-wool "faith-heads" (to use a Dawkinism) would need to jump through without acknowledging those many Christians who would face the evidence head on.

Agreed, these are the people where I think the actually conflict will arise, people who feel uncomfortable simply introducing any explanation to try and sandwich God into a scientific theory that works perfectly well without him.

Jeff Schloss touches on this near the end of this interview with the head of the Faraday Institute, that it would be troubling if science discovered that people will believe a religion completely independently of whether it is true or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL4PjLP0F3w

Even he though in the end does retreat (possible because Denis Alexander is glaring at him ) to what is fast become the standard apologetic excuse in relation to this research, that God may have designed us to be prone to believing in religion independently of whether it is true or not.

How comfortable someone is with simply accepting that will I think ultimately define how much conflict they do or do not feel over this research. You can after all insert God any where and walk away happy that God is the ultimate cause behind anything.

It does seem that even the most evidence facing believer is not immune to retreating to a god of the gaps style concession, simply move God once again to a place where he cannot be tested yet causes the things we have discovered have natural processes.

Yes religion is a complete delusion but that doesn't mean God didn't design us to be completely deluded

yutta

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes religion is a complete delusion but that doesn't mean God didn't design us to be completely deluded

Yawn. The Wheaton College, Illinois graduate should stick to the biology and leave the theology to the experts. He must have been bitten by a Christian colleague at some point during his academic career.

Fanny Cradock

Wicknight wrote: »

Of course there would what? Be a way of telling that the video appearing to show Jesus alive after the resurrection wasn't supernatural in origin? How?

Of course there would be people who refused to accept the evidence. I'm sorry but I thought this would have been clear from the thrust of my post.

I can't speak for others on the A&A forum, but if you replace miracles, signs, visions, prophecy apparitions, testimony (all of which are based on personal assessment of what someone thinks they have see, which is unreliable to the point of uselessness) with no amount of verifiable and testable evidence will budge them from their position then I think they are being quite silly.

In principle a miracle, prophesy or whatever need not be based solely on personal experience, and if it is based on personal experience it need not exclusively be visual. Still, if you are going to classify all personal assessment as unreliable to the point of uselessness and live by this I wonder what manner of human you would be. A lonely one, I guess. And possibly a dead one if you decide to cross the road.

Agreed, these are the people where I think the actually conflict will arise, people who feel uncomfortable simply introducing any explanation to try and sandwich God into a scientific theory that works perfectly well without him.

I'm not sure anybody is sandwiching God in. It's just your unreliable personal assessment. So far input from professional Christians has avoided mention of magic, miracles, a divine homunculus or "God did it".

possible because Denis Alexander is glaring at him )

I didn't notice the glare myself. I've sat across a table from him and he has a intense stare.

Yes religion is a complete delusion but that doesn't mean God didn't design us to be completely deluded

Ugh

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Of course there would be people who refused to accept the evidence. I'm sorry but I thought this would have been clear from the thrust of my post.

Ah right, I understand now. Thank you for the clarification

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

In principle a miracle, prophesy or whatever need not be based solely on personal experience, and if it is based on personal experience it need not exclusively be visual. Still, if you are going to classify all personal assessment as unreliable to the point of uselessness and live by this I wonder what manner of human you would be. A lonely one, I guess. And possibly a dead one if you decide to cross the road.

Fanny my dear boy is that an appeal to emotion, shame on your sir

Even if I end up a sad miserable lonely person that really has nothing to do with the reliability of personal assessment.

But what I meant is the reliability of personal assessment in relation to building accurate models of the world (ie science). If I ask my girlfriend is the milk off I'm not going to put that answer through a rigorous double blind scientific examination. I don't care that much if she is wrong which she may well be.

On the other hand when dealing with fundamental questions about reality it does matter, as I'm sure you will agree, to build accurate models we can have confidence in.

I would like to know, to a much higher degree than if the milk is off, if someone is actually talking to an angel because that has significant repercussions for the nature of reality. And it is then that personal assessment becomes pretty much useless because there is a whole host of possible explanations other than he was actually talking to an angel, and it is important we narrow this down to ones we can have strong confidence in.

Believing the wrong thing is worse than believing nothing. Which is probably why people on the atheist forum are very reluctant to accept the claims about Christian miracles or prophecies.

But I digress. The point is if someone is actually building scientific models of these miracles and people on the atheist forum are ignoring them then they are being very silly.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

So far input from professional Christians has avoided mention of magic, miracles, a divine homunculus or "God did it".

I'm not sure how you can say that. Every video I've seen from the Faraday Institude on this matter (including the one I linked to) ended with the supposition that maybe God decided that he wanted us to evolve in such a way as that we have natural tendency to think in religious terms as by-product of other evolved instincts. That is basically "God did it"

Here is another one where the person says basically the same thing by the end

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqecbqXnjpY

At 3:51 He says

I would argue that belief in a creator god isn't undermined in the same way that a spirit acting in the world because a creator god would have made the world in such a way that we would be prone to believe in him.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I didn't notice the glare myself. I've sat across a table from him and he has a intense stare.

Maybe that was it

roosh

Interesting video, and it certainly explains a lot. It really clarifies how religious beliefs have been formed, throughout the history of humanity. It explains how people have developed the concept of God, as a "supernatural" entity that lives outside our world, who listens to prayers, and occasionally intervenes in the universe. It explains the erroneous beliefs of so many "believers".


What it really explains is how erroneous beliefs have arisen from the teachings of spiritual teachers, such as Chirst, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, etc. While the lecture explains the erroneous beliefs of "ordinary believers", it doesn't make any attempt to interpret the beliefs and teachings of those spiritual teachers. This isn't to say, that any of them were any more divine than any of us, that includes JC, but rather they were realised spiritual practitioners.

It's interesting, that fMRI scans were carried out on "normal believers", while fleeting mention was given to the Buddhist monks who have also been examined using fMRI technology. The reason the Buddhist monks are of particular importance is because they are one of the few subjects that are available, that may perhaps give us an insight into the minds (and brains) of Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, et al. All of these aforementioned protagonists were spiritual practitioners who practiced meditation.

The practice of meditation, and other spiritual practices actively affect the physiological systems that give rise to the religion, that most of the rest of us practice. Spiritual practice, in particular meditation, changes the physiological structure of the brain, and helps to negate many of the systems,in particular things like attachment and pattern recognition (where there is none).

What the video explains, is how [some] "ordinary believers" misinterpreted the teachings of those spiritual masters, which lead to many of the erroneous concepts that still abound among religious believers, namely, as he puts it, that God is a "guy".


He also falls into his own trap. He "accuses" religions of hijacking certain cognitive processes. Clearly he is falling into the trap of imbuing inanimate concepts with intentionality.

Fanny Cradock

Wicknight wrote: »

Fanny my dear boy is that an appeal to emotion, shame on your sir

My words were not an appeal to emotion, they were an appeal to the faith you put in your personal assessment of the things that go into making up your life - simple daily tasks, relationships and even your god, science.

Wicknight wrote: »

I would like to know, to a much higher degree than if the milk is off, if someone is actually talking to an angel because that has significant repercussions for the nature of reality.

And that is perfectly reasonable. If you think of a way of double-blind testing God then fire away.

Wicknight wrote: »

I'm not sure how you can say that. Every video I've seen from the Faraday Institude on this matter (including the one I linked to) ended with the supposition that maybe God decided that he wanted us to evolve in such a way as that we have natural tendency to think in religious terms as by-product of other evolved instincts. That is basically "God did it"

You are in conversation with Christians, people who believe in a creator God who is also a personal God. At the most fundamental level there is always going to be a belief that God interacted (and interacts) with creation. That, however, is not to dismiss the science.

Other than providing a novel yet tellingly pejorative analogy with Big Mac Meals, I'm not hearing anything new in Thompson's objections over what some people have been saying since the Enlightenment (give or take). While the vehicle may have changed slightly since Darwin's days - people are now talking about explaining away God as a by-product of the brain instead of natural selection being incompatible with God - the message is the same: science and religion are incompatible. At root it's the same old conflict thesis repackaged - nu-atheism's super-stimuli.

Wicknight wrote: »

I would argue that belief in a creator god isn't undermined in the same way that a spirit acting in the world because a creator god would have made the world in such a way that we would be prone to believe in him.

And that is a perfectly reasonable statement. We are the way we are because God made us this way. "How did he make us this way?", you ask. At this point you and the scientists at the Faraday Institute or whoever can begin to find some common ground when you start to describe the biological processes involved in what makes us human.

philologos

Wicknight wrote: »

I'm not sure how you can say that. Every video I've seen from the Faraday Institude on this matter (including the one I linked to) ended with the supposition that maybe God decided that he wanted us to evolve in such a way as that we have natural tendency to think in religious terms as by-product of other evolved instincts. That is basically "God did it"

Hold up here, you're objecting to the Faraday Institute with the presupposition that this is God's intention, when you yourself are holding up a video which presupposes that God is imaginary, and that God doesn't exist?

bnt

A small correction: there's no P in Dr. Andy Thomson's name. It's quite safe to take the P out of his name ... Apart from that, I have nothing to add to this thread that wouldn't get me banned from this forum.

Fanny Cradock

Thanks for the clarification

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

Hold up here, you're objecting to the Faraday Institute with the presupposition that this is God's intention, when you yourself are holding up a video which presupposes that God is imaginary, and that God doesn't exist?

I'm not sure what you think I'm saying, but I'm not objecting to the Faraday Institute at all.

I'm pointing out that this seems to be a common religious response, with even members of the Faraday Institute, a mainstream religious research group, taking that position.

This is to the counter the idea put forward that no one is taking this position. There is no objection to anything.

raah!

In leaving cert biology they don't really go too far into evolution. They outline it and all that, they certainly don't go into any psychology. That they would start now with a specific emphasis on "religious belief is just this or that" seems a tad biased to me.

I don't see any contradiction between this and religious belief, nor do I think that there is anything new here which isn't contained implicitly within the position of a materialist who seeks to explain things through evolution. Also, I think it would be much easier for the likes of creationists to repudiate any theory once it drifts into the area of psychology. Because if they are able to say "this is bad science" about biological theories, then it wouldn't be too hard for them to do this about a psychological one.

Also, given the strong and perservering tradition of rationalism in theistic ideologies, I don't think it's wise to use the term "imaginary" in such an offhand way.

Also, while this isn't related, things like determinism shouldn't be ignored in conversations like this. (not that anyone here has done that, it hasn't been mentioned, but it often is, in other discussions)

Soul Winner

Even if religious belief could be explained in evolutionary terms, in what terms do you explain the heartfelt love that people have for their God? Religious believers don't just believe in God they also love Him. So if religious belief is merely the by-product of an evolutionary societal adaptation then it is one born out of pure delusion, meaning that Natural Selection will use any device once it aids the survival of the species. The thought of that being actually true is more scary than any religious idea I know, and should it be proven to be true then I really hope that Dawkins is correct when he says that we can be the controllers of our own evolution going forward and put away such false beliefs for good.

A religion that teaches what Christianity teaches (should it be proven to be false) is not just an illusory survival device though, its a cruel and wicked deception of the highest order. I cannot understand how such false beliefs could have evolved in order to aid the survival in our species. If the fight for survival is such a harsh aspect of living, then adapting false beliefs seems somewhat of an obstacle and a waste of time when one considers the many other factors that our species would have been preoccupied with. Granted, in the case of very primitive peoples, believing that the sun or the moon were gods is very understandable in this way or that thunder and lightening and storms were other gods but Christianity? It's total focus on a historical Person being the incarnate Son of God almighty creator of the universe? If that's not true then its a craftily contrive lie designed to fool people into believing in Somebody who not only wasn't who He claimed to be but was a fraud and liar. It doesn't make sense how people who would propagate such a belief system would then die knowing that they were dying perpetuating a lie for no other reason than they all agreed in one accord that it was just a good idea to do.

This explanation can only satisfy the materialist who will never accept the much better and original explanation that the story is simply true and that's what explains the genuine belief of the original eye witnesses to these things which in turn explains why they were happy and willing to undergo rejection, ostracism, humiliation, torture and death for it. If our physical capacity to believe in religion can be shown to have evolved it is solely down to the fact that what were are believing in is in fact true i.e that a creator God of the universe and all that we see actually exists. If this wasn't actually true then that physical capacity to believe in such a being would degrade over time not grow, just like the way they say our appendix became obsolete due to lack of usefulness over time.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

Even if religious belief could be explained in evolutionary terms, in what terms do you explain the heartfelt love that people have for their God? Religious believers don't just believe in God they also love Him.

That is not actually that difficult to explain in an evolutionary context, it is probably easier to explain than the belief bit.

Soul Winner wrote: »

So if religious belief is merely the by-product of an evolutionary societal adaptation then it is one born out of pure delusion, meaning that Natural Selection will use any device once it aids the survival of the species. The thought of that being actually true is more scary than any religious idea I know, and should it be proven to be true then I really hope that Dawkins is correct when he says that we can be the controllers of our own evolution going forward and put away such false beliefs for good.

Can I ask why you find it scary? The evolutionary instincts and emotions that resulted a by-product of religious behavior obviously helped us survive. You, almost by definition, wouldn't be here without them

Soul Winner wrote: »

A religion that teaches what Christianity teaches (should it be proven to be false) is not just an illusory survival device though, its a cruel and wicked deception of the highest order. I cannot understand how such false beliefs could have evolved in order to aid the survival in our species. If the fight for survival is such a harsh aspect of living, then adapting false beliefs seems somewhat of an obstacle and a waste of time when one considers the many other factors that our species would have been preoccupied with.

The instincts that produce religious like thinking can be very useful.

For example believing the world has agents in it (such as spirits or gods) that act in human likes ways greatly cuts down on the mental energy required to process the world around us, given that the majority of that processing is to do with human interaction.

It might be false to think that it rains because Thor says so, but it means you don't require a separate set of cognitive ability to process why it rains (weather is still something that people have hard time understanding even though we know so much about it), you can use the same one that processes why Bill gave you flour or why Mary was flirting with you.

We know that when people feel stressed or feel the world around them is out of control they instinctively revert viewing the world through the context of individual human like agents doing specific things for human like reasons. That is irrespective of something as structured as religion, we do it on a basic level as well.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Granted, in the case of very primitive peoples, believing that the sun or the moon were gods is very understandable in this way or that thunder and lightening and storms were other gods but Christianity? It's total focus on a historical Person being the incarnate Son of God almighty creator of the universe? If that's not true then its a craftily contrive lie designed to fool people into believing in Somebody who not only wasn't who He claimed to be but was a fraud and liar.

It is still God and the devil.

Jesus was God, Jesus came down to Earth, Jesus died for some doctrinal reason, he went back to heaven. The general pattern is still pretty much the same as any other religion, a powerful but human like agents in nature that through their easy to relate to reasons explain the why things are the way they are and happen the way they happen.

You can say that no other god ever sent his son to Jerusalem to die on a cross, but that is specific details of the particular religious narrative of a particular religion, not that relevant to the evolutionary biology, in the general sense, than any other particular story in a particular religion. You could say that Islam is the only religion that sent an angel to the cave the follower was staying in. It is not particularly relevant. The religions of the world all follow very similar patterns in the general sense.

Soul Winner wrote: »

It doesn't make sense how people who would propagate such a belief system would then die knowing that they were dying perpetuating a lie for no other reason than they all agreed in one accord that it was just a good idea to do.

There is little evidence to suggest that the early Christians knowingly conspired to tell lies. The conclusion though that therefore what they claim must be true doesn't hold, we know that people will report things as facts, believing them to be true, when they are not and there is a whole host of psychological and neurological reasons why this can happen. If you choose to believe that the only explanation that makes sense is that they had to be telling the truth I can't stop you, but the science doesn't support that conclusion.

Though this is perhaps getting a bit off topic.

Soul Winner wrote: »

If our physical capacity to believe in religion can be shown to have evolved it is solely down to the fact that what were are believing in is in fact true i.e

Well considering that if Christianity is true the vast majority of people in the history of the planet believed a set of supernatural religious beliefs that were in fact false that seems an odd conclusion.

Soul Winner wrote: »

If this wasn't actually true then that physical capacity to believe in such a being would degrade over time not grow, just like the way they say our appendix became obsolete due to lack of usefulness over time.

What are you basing that conclusion on? Why would it degrade over time? If the mental and cognative abilities still produce evolutionary advantage why would it degrade?

Soul Winner

What we have are 2 known explanations for the origin of our beliefs systems. 1.) That the beliefs themselves are actually false but they serve a purpose in the survival of our species. Or 2.) That the beliefs are simply true although there are many variations of the belief but all have a common source in truth.

As an actual believer in God I will obviously agree with number 2 because I don't think that what I actually believe in is false. So for me to argue for number 2 lends no credence to my position because it is wracked with bias.

But the same goes for those who hold to position number 1. Unless we can find any believers in God who hold to position 1 of course. So the study is pointless going out the gate as it sets out prove up the rightness of an already held view of the world by those carrying out the research. What is found was not stumbled upon, it was actively sought out and as such also wracked with a biased intent.

Atheist: We've found evidence to show that we were right about our world view - namely that God doesn't exist.

Theist: We don't agree with you that this is good evidence for your position.

Atheist: But the evidence is clear you're just being close minded because of your religion.

Theist: No, your evidence can also support our position if we just re-word your interpretation of it.

Atheist: It doesn't matter what we do to get you to see our side of the story you just won't accept any evidence that we present.

Theist: We do but you fail to see that there are multiple ways to interpret evidence.

Atheist: We don't agree

Theist: Welcome to the world of competing religious view points.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

What we have are 2 known explanations for the origin of our beliefs systems. 1.) That the beliefs themselves are actually false but they serve a purpose in the survival of our species. Or 2.) That the beliefs are simply true although there are many variations of the belief but all have a common source in truth.

I'm not following 2. What is the common source of truth between say the Greek/Roman religious stories, the Native American religious stories and the Christian religious stories?

You agree I assume that people and groups of people can believe and follow complex structured supernatural stories and narratives that are false?

Soul Winner wrote: »

What is found was not stumbled upon, it was actively sought out and as such also wracked with a biased intent.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Are you saying that no one can ever produce evidence or support for a position that they already think is true because that means they must be bias?

Imagine the same type of conversation but between a Flat Earther and a Round Earther in the 16th century.

Round Earther: We've found evidence to show that we were right about our world view - namely that the world is round and rotates around an axis. Here it is, it builds up a comprehensive model of a round Earth.

Flat Earther: We don't agree with you that this is good evidence for your position.

Round Earther: But the evidence is clear you're just being close minded because of your religion.

Flat Earther: No, your evidence can also support our position if we just assume that God did it. If God moved you unknown to you in your sleep at different points in your journey hat could also account for this evidence.

Round Earther: You are inserting a flat Earth into the theory with a convoluted explanation that you cannot support. Why not just accept a round Earth?

Flat Earther: Because I know my religion is right.

Round Earther: We don't agree

Flat Earther: Welcome to the world of competing religious view points.

Round Earther: Get back to us in 500 years :pac:

Morbert

I think it's important to distinguish the interplay between Christianity and this research from the interplay between Creationists and evolution. With the latter, convoluted mental gymnastics are used to contradict a scientific theory. With the former, no scientific theory is being contradicted or opposed, and the hypothesis is fully accepted by both Christians and atheists without any convoluted suppositions.

Turtwig

(Sorry this such long a thread so sincere apologies and laziness if this has been mentioned before.)

The brewing storm will probably not just consist of religious folks. Thomson, himself, doesn't accept the scientific consensus regarding suicide bombers religious beliefs not being the dominant factor. Thomson, claims it's religion yet he offers little evidence in his talks and presentations. More to the point has Thomson actually explained the neurology of atheists? There is little understanding of the neurological and psychological reasons for atheists. What if science ends up revealing an aspect of neurology that goes counter to an atheist's intuitions? There may a storm brewing but to say it's going to impinge on the religious is taking a leap of faith.

Soul Winner

Wicknight wrote: »

I'm not following 2. What is the common source of truth between say the Greek/Roman religious stories, the Native American religious stories and the Christian religious stories?

Well you guys tell us all the time that they Christianity is just an amalgamation of other religious views combined overtime so what's to know? Do you think that's true or do you think that they are completely different religions?

Wicknight wrote: »

You agree I assume that people and groups of people can believe and follow complex structured supernatural stories and narratives that are false?

Yes but they may have a germ of truth that has been bent completely out of shape since its inception and traditions do tend to attach themselves to these primitive belief systems and end up warping them beyond original recognition. Take Buddhism for instance, Buddha never claimed divinity but after hundreds of years of practicing his teaching his followers have decided that he couldn't have said what he said unless he was divine. Christianity is not exception, it too has its own barnacles that have attached themselves to Church doctrine over the last 2000 years, that's why it is very important to go back to scripture every now and again in order to reform it and keep it on the right path. But how the two faiths differ is in the claims of their leaders. Buddha is on record as saying that his death means nothing and that he himself means nothing but right from the get go Jesus centers the whole religious experience in Himself. I know that that in itself doesn't prove anything but it shows a very distinct contrast between the mindset of the two. If Jesus wasn't who he claimed to be then give me Buddha anyday because I don't want to worship a lunatic or a liar, but if He was then I want to be on His side no matter what. Anyway that's just a side issue to what we are talking about here.

Wicknight wrote: »

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Are you saying that no one can ever produce evidence or support for a position that they already think is true because that means they must be bias?

No. I believe that people who already hold to a particular view can search out evidence to support their view but just because they get all goosebumpy about the evidence they should at least hear the arguments against it. Why the fear about the rebuttals? Why disparage your opponents because they just don't agree with you about the strength of your evidence? Look at ID proponents. They are totally convinced that RNA and DNA molecules compiling themselves from chaotic sporadic mixtures of chemicals into specified and complex structures which contain the code and blueprints for life cannot happen without the interaction of a guiding intelligence. And materialistic evolutionists don't agree. I think the IDers have a point though because only intelligent agents can produce the kind of effect that we see in the structure of even the simplest of cells. But again this is going off the point.

The research you point to cannot be shown to be conclusive until materialist give a good account of how chemicals can organize themselves (with no outside tweaking) into self replicating molecules with sufficient functionality as to produce a living cell. It has never been observed in nature or in the Lab (obviously), so religious people who don't accept materialistic explanations for everything (like this research) will obviously point to the likes of ID theory to rebut evidence that supposedly shows that the reason they believe what they do is all down to evolution. There are still way too many holes in Darwinism for it to be able to hold enough water to convince people like this of its truth. And the more we find out about how complex even the most basic of cells really are the bigger those holes are going to get. If this complexity cannot be explained in strictly materialistic terms then why should we trust materialistic and naturalistic explanations for anything that came after it, including this research? Darwinism needs to revisit abiogenesis and to come up with a working model for it before it can be as universally accepted as these guys would like it to be.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well you guys tell us all the time that they Christianity is just an amalgamation of other religious views combined overtime so what's to know? Do you think that's true or do you think that they are completely different religions?

I think it is true for Middle Eastern religions closely related to Judaism and Christianity, but not true for the further a field religions.

I think (and this research goes a way to explaining why) the same type ideas appear independently in different religions (such as agency in nature), but it is hard to see if Christianity is true what part of that truth Greeks or Native Americans were simply misunderstanding given how utterly different the actual specifics were.

Personally I think religion as a whole makes a lot more sense viewed in this context. It is hard to explain away the entire mythos of Greek or Chinese religion as simply people misunderstanding the truth of Judaism. That is my view anyway.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yes but they may have a germ of truth that has been bent completely out of shape since its inception and traditions do tend to attach themselves to these primitive belief systems and end up warping them beyond original recognition.

But you are talking about this massive complicated structure of gods and goddesses being developed and believed.

Saying it is all based on a fundamental misunderstanding (Zeus was a misrepresentation of God say) is all very well but it doesn't go anyway to explain how all the mythos developed and more importantly came to be believed.

If people are capable of creating and believing such different, complicated structures it almost seems redundant to say there must be a grain of truth in there some where? Why? They don't require any of the rest of it to be true.

Soul Winner wrote: »

No. I believe that people who already hold to a particular view can search out evidence to support their view but just because they get all goosebumpy about the evidence they should at least hear the arguments against it. Why the fear about the rebuttals?

Who said there was fear about rebuttals? You seem to have gone quite far down this rabbit hole of dismissing all this as the ramblings of bias godhating atheists, but so far have presented little evidence to back this up.

Soul Winner wrote: »

I think the IDers have a point though because only intelligent agents can produce the kind of effect that we see in the structure of even the simplest of cells. But again this is going off the point.

How could you possibly know that? You seem as dogmatic in your refusal to consider evolution (not just accept it is true but simply consider it openly) as those you complain about.

Soul Winner wrote: »

The research you point to cannot be shown to be conclusive until materialist give a good account of how chemicals can organize themselves (with no outside tweaking) into self replicating molecules with sufficient functionality as to produce a living cell.

Why exactly?

Evolution doesn't require abiogenesis. Even if aliens made our first cells using a chemistry set that is largely irrelevant to how humans evolved.

SleepDoc

Soul Winner wrote: »

There are still way too many holes in Darwinism for it to be able to hold enough water to convince people like this of its truth. And the more we find out about how complex even the most basic of cells really are the bigger those holes are going to get. If this complexity cannot be explained in strictly materialistic terms then why should we trust materialistic and naturalistic explanations for anything that came after it, including this research? Darwinism needs to revisit abiogenesis and to come up with a working model for it before it can be as universally accepted as these guys would like it to be.

Darwinism does not need to "revisit" abiogenesis. As a scientific theory it is virtually irrefutable and there is an enormous volume of evidence to support it. There is no evidence to support any other theory. No serious scientist will say otherwise.

Darwinism and science may not explain everything, but as Darragh O' Brien so elegantly points out,

"Science knows it does'nt know everything...otherwise it would stop"

Morbert

Soulwinner wrote:

There are still way too many holes in Darwinism for it to be able to hold enough water to convince people like this of its truth. And the more we find out about how complex even the most basic of cells really are the bigger those holes are going to get. If this complexity cannot be explained in strictly materialistic terms then why should we trust materialistic and naturalistic explanations for anything that came after it, including this research?

Every time you say something like this, you get taken to town by the scientific evidence. It is beginning to look ridiculous.

Soul Winner

Morbert wrote: »

Every time you say something like this, you get taken to town by the scientific evidence. It is beginning to look ridiculous.

OK then show me a current working model that shows how abiogenesis happens as an unguided process? Even theoretically will suffice.

SleepDoc

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK then show me a current working model that shows how abiogenesis happens as an unguided process? Even theoretically will suffice.

This disproves Darwinism how?

There are many theories on abiogenesis. A supernatural skyfairy being just one.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK then show me a current working model that shows how abiogenesis happens as an unguided process? Even theoretically will suffice.

Would you like that in ten easy steps as well :pac:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17987-how-life-evolved-10-steps-to-the-first-cells.html

This is all quite off topic by the way.

Even if abiogenesis didn't happen naturally that does nothing for the theory of evolution and as thus nothing for the conclusions of evolutionary psychology. You are making an unfounded jump from supposing that abiogenesis requires intelligence to the existence of a god that manipulated the evolutionary process billions of years after the creation of the first cells. One really has nothing to do with the other.

For example, we could easy create replicating cells today (already done in fact) and that would have little bearing on what they would have evolved into in 4 billion years.

Fanny Cradock

I shouldn't need to tell the regulars to take this to the creationism thread.

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I shouldn't need to tell the regulars to take this to the creationism thread.

Sometimes it is just nice to have a discussion about this without JC :P


Sorry JC if you are reading this, you know we love you! :pac: