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"If your conscience is merely something that society has taught you, then logically you have no reason to comply with society's proscribed values other than avoiding retribution for your anti-social actions. This tends to lead toward the moral relativity direction, which I think most people find uncomfortable and counter-intuitive."

If your conscience is merely something that your religion has taught you, then logically you have no reason to comply with your religions's proscribed values other than avoiding retribution and/or obtaining rewards for your actions. This tends to lead toward the moral relativity direction, as a religion could arbitarily declare some actions immoral and some actions moral, which I think many people find uncomfortable and counter-intuitive.

What religious people seem to fail to comprehend is that atheism is not a religious belief, it is the lack of religious belief.

Lewis does address this theory- really, check him out sometime for a sane, non-American fundy view of Christianity. He actually leaves room for genetic and social origins of some morality, but argues that those alone don't totally explain the morality we observe.

It's an argument, but one that seems to go against hard line monotheism. There are relatively few things that most people worldwide feel guilt and remorse for. I've seen devout christians do things that seemed to be perfectly fine with them, but that I find immoral.

Given that not everyone has the same, or even a similar moral compass, it is either not given to all of us by the same god, or it doesn't start from a god at all.

I am not talking about the big bang, I am talking about where all matter came from

Matter came from the Big Bang and subsequent inflation. Well, at least the hydrogen and maybe some of the helium. The rest came from the first few generations of stars.

But this innate sense of morality could be, and very probably is, yet another genetic predisposition, this one with an obvious adaptive benefit.

In short, it provides a "shorthand" for dealing with other humans in your social group. Amoral behavior leads to strife, while fully conscious consideration of the best way to react in a social context is simply too tiring. The basic "moral compass" that most humans share is simply a way of guiding us into behaviors that balance the good of the individual with the good of the tribe, without the need to constantly over-think each and every action.

Of course it's also likely that, like religion itself, the specifics of this moral compass are learned/trained, with just a few basic elements coming directly from the genetic "programming" side.

Even a vacuum is filled with virtual particles, full of energy. Some scientists think the universe may simply be such a reaction that got out of control. In any event, the existence of the universe is contingent, not necessary.

Logic is an odd concept to attach to faith.

The quality of a thought should be judged independently of its originator. We accept discoveries by scientists of faith because they have been found valid, regardless of their personal beliefs--even if these are incompatible with their scientific findings.

Keep in mind that theism is running high in USA these days. Much of the developed world isn't quite as delusional.

I think it may have something to do with poverty and uncertainty...

I see your point regarding 'moral absolutes', but the thing is, even if they transcend culture and societies, the individual societies do not (or did not?) know this. Rather than assuming that certain moral behaviors are the 'good thing to do', i.e., they are natural, these behaviors are identified as being defined by god, scripture etc.

It is this leap from a simplistic solution to a much more complex solution that always bugs me. And I could understand it if this feature was an artifact from hundreds or thousands of years ago. But even now, the bulk of the population will ascribe what they do not understand to god.

Oh he got SERVED!

Given that everything around me came from something, I would hardly call the existence of a deity implausible. Science has yet to offer anything about where this all came from (I am not talking about the big bang, I am talking about where all matter came from) so if my choices are a god or "it was just all always here", the god one strikes me as more logical. If you think it was just always there or something else, then more power to you. Show me proof. I am always open to criticism of my belief, if I closed my mind then I would be admitting I didn't have much faith in the first place. I am not sure why non-religious people always assume that science and religion are mutually exclusive. I mean if you do think they are then you have to throw out a whole lot of science (big bang included) as they were worked on by individuals that believed in a god.

Oh wait, this is Slashdot! DEATH TO THE BACKWARD THINKING GOD-FANATICS :P I kid, I kid.

NOTICE: The following is highly subjective.

Theism exists because people don't want to get real: we are not actually important in this Universe. If the Earth were to blow up tomorrow, we would be the only ones to care. The fact that we exist is about as much an accident as not. We don't have any kind of "mission"...

There's no "afterlife". Why would we need it if we can already live "heaven" or "hell" right here, right now on Earth? People picture "heaven" as "a place like here, except better ". To me, that sounds like an excuse for not making the best of the only life we'll ever have.

Such is my (non)-belief. I think that's as simple as it gets. No need for the truckloads of various nonsense dogma that have been bashed into everyone for millenia.

PS: ... Would I happen to be off-topic?

We all know it was the Vorlons, anyway.

It seems to me that if the conjecture of a genetic basis is right, then this probably does little to help agnostics like me decide whether or not God exists.

I'm an agnostic too. I think that the existence of a need for religion is not evidence for God.

I think God is totally separate from religion... in short, that all religions have been made up by humans. Now I may be wrong about this - one religion might be correct - but I think it's extremely unlikely that any are because all of them seem to be very similar and all of them are mutually exclusive.

I'd say that we already know from thousands of years of human civilisation that humans (a) need religion and (b) are prepared to invent it. There are some religions that are very obviously human inventions - Mormonism for one, Scientology for another. Older religions are, in my mind, equally suspect: there are plenty of parts of the Old Testament that are incorrect and therefore unlikely to have been inspired by God (Book of Genesis, for example).

Even if God had never communicated with any human, humans would have invented Him. But God might still exist, despite all that. It's just a shame that we have no way to distinguish true statements about God from false ones. I wish He'd given us His telephone number.

Define plausible, given that the concept of God is entirely implausible, while evolution is a fact.

I have always wondered why it is people choose to believe rather than not believe

Check out C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity." It presents a logical argument as to why someone would become a Christian.

The gist of it is this -- we all seem to have some innate sense of morality that transcends culture and societies. (The idea that actions can be right and wrong is pretty much ubiquitous, regardless of whether a particular act is socially acceptable.)

The idea is that this sense of morality must come from somewhere, or else you could ignore it without feeling any guilt or remorse. If you believe that there is some supernatural force instilling this in us, then you have a sound basis for acting according to a certain moral code.

If your conscience is merely something that society has taught you, then logically you have no reason to comply with society's proscribed values other than avoiding retribution for your anti-social actions. This tends to lead toward the moral relativity direction, which I think most people find uncomfortable and counter-intuitive.

So, the reason some people would choose to believe in a god is that they'd prefer to live in a world with a moral absolute. Otherwise their decisions and actions are fairly meaningless beyond their own gratification.

But this leads to one of those basic questions -- is there a moral absolute or not? I guess I'll leave it to the college freshman in dorms late at night to decide that.

If religion starts getting treated as just another hard-coded human irrationality, I have a feeling it will start losing its lustre among a growing group of people.

Let me try and help you out of this quandry. Is there any evidence for the existance of a supernatural being? If you think there is then feel free to worship as you please, also I would be interested in hearing about this evidence. If not then any belief is irrational. We are all born Atheists. And I'd hazard a guess that you are also an Atheist regarding most irrational religious beliefs you have been exposed to.

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. The article (at least from what I read in the summary :) is indicating a genetic predisposition tothe belief in god. I don't think that it tries to answer whether there is a god or not. It's rather describing why so many people have the belief?

I won't try and speak for the article, but from my atheistic viewpoint, from which I see no *need* for a god (a.k.a, Occams Razor) I have always wondered why it is people choose to believe rather than not believe - is it a weakness (but I know many strong people who are religous), is it laziness (again, I have many counter examples)?

It's a strange phenonemon and understanding it might help us to finally let go of the behavior!

Assuming for the sake of argument that God can and does work through evolution and genetics.

The most relevant monograph for this discussion that I know is Swinburne's Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). Swinburne sees no problem with humans naturally recognizing God, though through reason (essentially the cosmological and design arguments) instead of a gene, and argues that Christian notions of the Fall can work with the concept of evolution in positing that the first sentient ape-man to reject an obvious responsibility towards his Creator was the first to sin. Since the argument from design already posits, well, design, I don't think any Christian philosophers of religion hold that evolution is not a viable option.