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Humans Hardwired to Believe in Supernatural Deity?
dohcrx writes "According to a Sunday New York Times article, 6 in 10 Americans believe in the devil and hell, 7 in 10 believe in angels, heaven and the existence of miracles and life after death, while 92% believe in a personal God. The article explores the possibility that this belief structure may be ingrained into our genetic makeup. 'When a trait is universal, evolutionary biologists look for a genetic explanation and wonder how that gene or genes might enhance survival or reproductive success ... Which is the better biological explanation for a belief in God — evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident? Is there something about the cognitive functioning of humans that makes us receptive to belief in a supernatural deity?'"
What is the sample population for the study? How many people were surveyed? Was it a self-selecting phone survey ("Hi, we'd like to ask you some questions about your religion...")? What questions were asked?
Is a survey of 1000 Christians (especially from fanatical sects) in the USA really going to be representative of the genetic makeup of humanity as a whole?
Is it possible that being exposed to religion during the first 5 years of your life -- and constantly being told, "God made it that way" or "God loves you even if you don't believe in him" -- would influence your belief system to the extent that you'd believe in a "magic box" that would destroy the property of non-believers?
Speculate that deity dependence is ingrained into our genetic makeup all you like, but until you can present a survey from a meaningful sample population it's nothing more than an interesting topic for discussion around the water cooler (or in the modern office, the automatic espresso machine).
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
At least for potestants who take St. Paul seriously, it is Grace that supports or allows belief. That would be a two ways street. But, many theologians do identify something in the soul that also seeks God. C. S. Lewis was interested in this and looked at levels of inclination such as loyalty to country, animal's attraction to their keepers as well as darker attractions. His book That Hideous Strength is a good read. Finding some hardwiring for this would not be too suprising I think. I'd imagine that is would be related to things like filial piety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_piety which actually comes in as a commandment.s -selling-solar.html
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Nobody said religion has to confer a survival advantage to have a genetic origin.
One explanation is that, given the fact that humans are neotenous apes, they retained their propensity for not really questioning or examining the information their parents give them, because in children, that would be disadvantageous (if a parent tells you you can drown in water, it's often a bad idea to go in and experiment just to be sure, since the experiment is likely to kill you).
From there, it's just a matter of a meme developing to take advantage of that.
It's not exactly a new idea, or even a particularly controversial one.
"From the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, Naturalism and Supernaturalism have consciously, or unconsciously, competed and struggled with one another; and the varying fortunes of the contest are written in the records of the course of civilisation, from those of Egypt and Babylonia, six thousand years ago, down to those of our own time and people.
These records inform us that, so far as men have paid attention to Nature, they have been rewarded for their pains. They have developed the Arts which have furnished the conditions of civilised existence; and the Sciences, which have been a progressive revelation of reality and have afforded the best discipline of the mind in the methods of discovering truth. They have accumulated a vast body of universally accepted knowledge; and the conceptions of man and of society, of morals and of law, based upon that knowledge, are every day more and more, either openly or tacitly, acknowledged to be the foundations of right action.
History also tells us that the field of the supernatural has rewarded its cultivators with a harvest, perhaps not less luxuriant, but of a different character. It has produced an almost infinite diversity of Religions. These, if we set aside the ethical concomitants upon which natural knowledge also has a claim, are composed of information about Supernature; they tell us of the attributes of supernatural beings, of their relations with Nature, and of the operations by which their interference with the ordinary course of events can be secured or averted. It does not appear, however, that supernaturalists have attained to any agreement about these matters, or that history indicates a widening of the influence of supernaturalism on practice, with the onward flow of time. On the contrary, the various religions are, to a great extent, mutually exclusive; and their adherents delight in charging each other, not merely with error, but with criminality, deserving and ensuing punishment of infinite severity."
Actually, for every 2 people that becomes an atheist, there's about 1 that finds religion.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm
And you can poke around on the site for more data, I can't find the specific number for religious change but it's on there somewhere.
Point is, most of the people attending those megachurches are not former atheists. They're former "main-line" protestants.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
For an atheistic regime, they sure had an odd motto: Gott Mit Uns
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
The single most disappointing thing is when uninformed posts like the parent get modded up.
theism - from Greek theos; belief in a supreme being.
atheism - a- (without) + theism; a lack of a belief in a supreme being.
antitheism - anti- (against or opposite of) + theism; a belief in the nonexistence of a supreme being.
agnosticism - a- + gnosis (knowledge); the belief that we cannot prove the existence of a supreme being.
ignosticism - (from ignore and agnosticism); the belief that the question of the existence of a supreme being has no verifiable consequence and thus it should be ignored.
Note that agnosticism is compatible with theism, atheism, and antitheism: it is entirely possible to believe that the existence of a god cannot be proven and concurrently hold an opinion on the matter. Conversely, ignosticism is only compatible with atheism; it makes no sense to believe that the existence of a god should be ignored while believing in its existence or nonexistence.
Also note that antitheism is generally considered a subset of atheism. This is why many theists seem to think that atheism is a belief in the nonexistence of a god. Just as we atheists mostly hear the loudest of the theists, the theists hear the loudest of the atheists, who are nearly always antitheistic.
Lastly, proof has nothing to do with any of the above categories (read: belief), with the exception of agnosticism, which only deals with the lack of proof surrounding the existence of a supreme being. Please don't claim that theists or antitheists do anything without proof, because both belief systems are founded on faith. There is no proof to go either way.