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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?'"
ReligiousTolerance.org is almost universally ridiculed for its lack of rigour. One should use that site as support for anything.
Dawkins is not a philosopher of religion and both theist and atheist scholars see him as something of a crank, with a few thought-provoking comments two decades ago now having gone downhill into diatribe that doesn't respect rules of academic debate. An atheist looking for something to recommend from his side of the argument would do much better with something by Mackie or by Flew before his move to theism.
Philosophy of religion and "science" are two quite different fields.
What a crock. This is an example of the religious folks of the world trying to exude some pressure to 'convince' folks that if you don't believe in a god too .. then your not normal.
.. *ABANDONED* and not cared for - sudden find a craving for Religion to make their lives complete.
.. if religion was REALLY part of our genetic makeup, then there couldn't exist a culture where religion was simply non-existant. Certainly not a town, or an entire COUNTRY where religion was basically abandoned for several decades. Right Soviet Russia ?
I postulate that, if a kid is raised by strictly religious parents, and indoctrinated into religious belief as a child, then its certainly not a surprise that they might become religious as an adult.
Conversely, very few of those raised, non-religiously - the key phrase here is *RAISED* not
Kids do what their parents do. If you don't believe this, go to any hospital in the USA, on any given day, and ask new parents if they had their son's circumcised. Then ask them why.
Not that I have a care on either side of the fence on circumcision, just that its another thing people tend to 'follow their family trend' on.
[Oddly enough, almost parallel.]
But to say that people are hard wired for religion is crap, its safer to say we are hard wired to kill each other, than to suggest that religion is part of our DNA. Of course, the religious right doesn't want you to know about DNA in the first place. I mean
meh
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Nonsense of course.
Why is it, that academic elitists and government cronies are always trying to convince the population through out history that it would be best to only believe in this that or the other "state" endorsed view of reality?
Anything as long as there is no "deity" that knows more than they do or usurps their power?
"God" obviously does that so lets just kill God!
Sometimes I do not know who is worse. In my time we have "fundamentialists" killing people who do not believe in a "G O D" or scientists claiming that no God exists because the only way to gain knowledge is through "Hypothesis, Experimentation, Conclusion."
Did I happen to mention the fact that you cannot prove God exists in the first place using "HEC"? When I point that out they tell me "If it cannot be measured or put through gas spectrograph, it doesn't exist."
Lets just throw out love and compassion in the world too because well, it doesn't exist....its all in the brain and doesn't exist!
I personally, do not have a spectroscopic profile of Love or Compassion either to prove otherwise. So shoot me!
Besides, if no God exists, you get to make the rules, which is much more practical.....for those in power anyway that want to tell you how and what to think about.
So now we are hardwired to believe in God. Whats next I wonder?
We are hardwired to kill, maim, destroy, be selfish...
???
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.