Are atheists "Scrooges" by ruining all the fun of religious faith?

[T.G.G. Moogly]

But is it Grinch-like to say "there's no afterlife" to Christians? No, but beating one's speculative opinions over anyone's head while asserting it's "the truth" when you can't demonstrate it's true, is just preaching.

Does behavior associated with non-scientific thinking after a certain age constitute a mental illness? If not a mental illness at least a mental deficiency? We should want to understand the mechanism behind a 55 year old person claiming to believe in an afterife because they want to be with their mother again. We should be able to know how that happens in one person and not another just as easily as we can know how it happens that one person can be 6'10" tall and the next person 5'2" tall. After all, both are simply differences in expressed behaviors. It isn't magic so why do we struggle for answers?

I find this article quite informative when it comes to discussing this aspect of human behavior.

We do know the answer to this question, though, pretty clearly. In evolutionary terms being swayed by one's culture is a feature, not a bug. When people are firm believers in the culture they're raised in, belief happens, children happen. When people are smart enough to know that it's all meaningless and religion is untrue, children tend not to happen.

Wishing this wasn't so doesn't make it not so.

Not sure your point. Pardon my being thick. Families have kids that end up at different ends of the religious spectrum, some are atheist and some are theist. They were raised identically so it isn't culture.

 

[bilby]

But is it Grinch-like to say "there's no afterlife" to Christians? No, but beating one's speculative opinions over anyone's head while asserting it's "the truth" when you can't demonstrate it's true, is just preaching.

Does behavior associated with non-scientific thinking after a certain age constitute a mental illness? If not a mental illness at least a mental deficiency? We should want to understand the mechanism behind a 55 year old person claiming to believe in an afterife because they want to be with their mother again. We should be able to know how that happens in one person and not another just as easily as we can know how it happens that one person can be 6'10" tall and the next person 5'2" tall. After all, both are simply differences in expressed behaviors. It isn't magic so why do we struggle for answers?

I find this article quite informative when it comes to discussing this aspect of human behavior.

We do know the answer to this question, though, pretty clearly. In evolutionary terms being swayed by one's culture is a feature, not a bug. When people are firm believers in the culture they're raised in, belief happens, children happen. When people are smart enough to know that it's all meaningless and religion is untrue, children tend not to happen.

Wishing this wasn't so doesn't make it not so.

That's right.

What makes it not so, is that it isn't so.

Evolution doesn't work in quite such simplistic ways, and it operates on populations, not on individuals.

In evolutionary terms, it's optimal for reproductive success in the very long term for social animals to mostly be compliant with the rest of their circle, with only a few radicals, revolutionaries and mavericks who won't simply follow a leader, but who will instead aspire to leadership themselves.

Leaders don't go extinct, even though the optimum individual strategy is to be a follower. That's because if every individual follows that strategy, the entire community collapses for lack of leadership.

How that broad evolutionary trend over large numbers of generations applies in the specific case of Homo Sapiens, with its vastly complex and highly volatile belief and social structures, is quite simple - it simply doesn't.

Genetic factors that are not conducive to the production of offspring do NOT go extinct, if they are not expressed phenotypically in a significant subset of those who have the geneotype in question, and are beneficial at the population level when expressed.

This is why "Idiocracy" isn't a documentary; It's also why homosexuality hasn't gone extinct, and nor has monasticism. It's why scientific racism is just racism; And why eugenics is stupid and futile, as well as being immoral.

Evolution is a biological phenomenon. Worse, it is a population level biological phenomenon. Which means that Bilby's Law of biological explanations applies in spades: Any description of how a biological system operates can always be improved by the addition of the phrase "...but, of course, the reality is far more complicated than that".

Culture is subject to evolution, just as all of biology is.

But human culture is far too small a subset of human behaviour, and is far too recent, and has far too many non-genetic influences on reproductive success, and is exhibited by a species with very low numbers of offspring per mating, for those evolutionary influences to be detectable.

Come back in another few million years, and tell me about how the cause of widespread religious belief, is that it has been selected by its effect on reproductive success, and I might be persuaded. But with only a few million years of Homo, and only a few hundred thousand years of Sapiens, confidently ascribing modern human behavioural traits, much less specific ways of thinking, to evolution alone, is a serious stretch.

 

[bilby]

Families have kids that end up at different ends of the religious spectrum, some are atheist and some are theist. They were raised identically so it isn't culture.

Indeed. And they have kids some of whom are homosexual. Also not culture. But equally obviously, not simple genetics either.

Who was the recent Republican genius who proposed sterilising homosexuals to stop them from reproducing?

Eugenics is to biology as Libertarianism is to politics. It's attractive only to people who know just enough to be dangerous to themselves and others, without knowing enough to be useful.

 

[rousseau]

But is it Grinch-like to say "there's no afterlife" to Christians? No, but beating one's speculative opinions over anyone's head while asserting it's "the truth" when you can't demonstrate it's true, is just preaching.

Does behavior associated with non-scientific thinking after a certain age constitute a mental illness? If not a mental illness at least a mental deficiency? We should want to understand the mechanism behind a 55 year old person claiming to believe in an afterife because they want to be with their mother again. We should be able to know how that happens in one person and not another just as easily as we can know how it happens that one person can be 6'10" tall and the next person 5'2" tall. After all, both are simply differences in expressed behaviors. It isn't magic so why do we struggle for answers?

I find this article quite informative when it comes to discussing this aspect of human behavior.

We do know the answer to this question, though, pretty clearly. In evolutionary terms being swayed by one's culture is a feature, not a bug. When people are firm believers in the culture they're raised in, belief happens, children happen. When people are smart enough to know that it's all meaningless and religion is untrue, children tend not to happen.

Wishing this wasn't so doesn't make it not so.

Not sure your point. Pardon my being thick. Families have kids that end up at different ends of the religious spectrum, some are atheist and some are theist. They were raised identically so it isn't culture.

So you haven't understood my point then.

Yes, phenotypic variation exists, but statistically the believer has more children than the non-believer, which means that belief isn't a mental illness. If anything, it's the more natural and successful scenario. Intelligence and atheism is unusual.

 

[rousseau]

But is it Grinch-like to say "there's no afterlife" to Christians? No, but beating one's speculative opinions over anyone's head while asserting it's "the truth" when you can't demonstrate it's true, is just preaching.

Does behavior associated with non-scientific thinking after a certain age constitute a mental illness? If not a mental illness at least a mental deficiency? We should want to understand the mechanism behind a 55 year old person claiming to believe in an afterife because they want to be with their mother again. We should be able to know how that happens in one person and not another just as easily as we can know how it happens that one person can be 6'10" tall and the next person 5'2" tall. After all, both are simply differences in expressed behaviors. It isn't magic so why do we struggle for answers?

I find this article quite informative when it comes to discussing this aspect of human behavior.

We do know the answer to this question, though, pretty clearly. In evolutionary terms being swayed by one's culture is a feature, not a bug. When people are firm believers in the culture they're raised in, belief happens, children happen. When people are smart enough to know that it's all meaningless and religion is untrue, children tend not to happen.

Wishing this wasn't so doesn't make it not so.

That's right.

What makes it not so, is that it isn't so.

Evolution doesn't work in quite such simplistic ways, and it operates on populations, not on individuals.

In evolutionary terms, it's optimal for reproductive success in the very long term for social animals to mostly be compliant with the rest of their circle, with only a few radicals, revolutionaries and mavericks who won't simply follow a leader, but who will instead aspire to leadership themselves.

Leaders don't go extinct, even though the optimum individual strategy is to be a follower. That's because if every individual follows that strategy, the entire community collapses for lack of leadership.

How that broad evolutionary trend over large numbers of generations applies in the specific case of Homo Sapiens, with its vastly complex and highly volatile belief and social structures, is quite simple - it simply doesn't.

Genetic factors that are not conducive to the production of offspring do NOT go extinct, if they are not expressed phenotypically in a significant subset of those who have the geneotype in question, and are beneficial at the population level when expressed.

This is why "Idiocracy" isn't a documentary; It's also why homosexuality hasn't gone extinct, and nor has monasticism. It's why scientific racism is just racism; And why eugenics is stupid and futile, as well as being immoral.

Evolution is a biological phenomenon. Worse, it is a population level biological phenomenon. Which means that Bilby's Law of biological explanations applies in spades: Any description of how a biological system operates can always be improved by the addition of the phrase "...but, of course, the reality is far more complicated than that".

Culture is subject to evolution, just as all of biology is.

But human culture is far too small a subset of human behaviour, and is far too recent, and has far too many non-genetic influences on reproductive success, and is exhibited by a species with very low numbers of offspring per mating, for those evolutionary influences to be detectable.

Come back in another few million years, and tell me about how the cause of widespread religious belief, is that it has been selected by its effect on reproductive success, and I might be persuaded. But with only a few million years of Homo, and only a few hundred thousand years of Sapiens, confidently ascribing modern human behavioural traits, much less specific ways of thinking, to evolution alone, is a serious stretch.

Right. Phenotypic variation is a thing, but statistically we're not moving toward greater intelligence. The features that cause the most babies to be made are what will predominate across a population, which makes the underlying propensity for religious thinking a completely normal aspect of human behavior, not a mental illness as was alluded to.

You're absolutely correct that culture evolves, and it isn't belief per se that underpins this trend, but I don't think the basic cognitive model is going away. Those who take institutional features like marriage and child-reading very seriously tend to have kids, those people also tend to believe, in something. It doesn't have to be religion.

But I would argue against your point that evolution acts at the population level. The genes that are propagated across a population are those that are passed from generation to generation, it wholly depends on who is physically producing babies. Evolution doesn't act on the individual, per se, but it's individual behavior that causes change over time.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Yes, phenotypic variation exists, but statistically the believer has more children than the non-believer, which means that belief isn't a mental illness. If anything, it's the more natural and successful scenario. Intelligence and atheism is unusual.

Would you agree that many European countries are less theistically religious today? If you agree, how does such a phenomenon occur if believers were in the majority, believers have more babies but today there are less believers?

Anecdotally speaking that is the case where I live. Lots of churches closing and less children. The baby boomer believer time is gone. What was the cause of all those believer babies not having more believer babies? If you read the article, even skimming through much of the chemistry lingo, how do you explain the change if not as discussed therein?

And I don't prefer to use the word "illness." I prefer to use the word "condition." I understand the use of "illness" within culture and the medical community but does everyone? In Neolithic times we lived a few decades and died. Are we all therefore "ill" today because we live twice that long on average? Obviously not. And our prefontal cortices don't mature until we are a few decades along. That's interesting, don't you think?

 

[rousseau]

Yes, phenotypic variation exists, but statistically the believer has more children than the non-believer, which means that belief isn't a mental illness. If anything, it's the more natural and successful scenario. Intelligence and atheism is unusual.

Would you agree that many European countries are less theistically religious today? If you agree, how does such a phenomenon occur if believers were in the majority, believers have more babies but today there are less believers?

Anecdotally speaking that is the case where I live. Lots of churches closing and less children. The baby boomer believer time is gone. What was the cause of all those believer babies not having more believer babies? If you read the article, even skimming through much of the chemistry lingo, how do you explain the change if not as discussed therein?

Because the causative factor isn't belief, it's being a follower of, and swayed by culture. If belief is a prevailing part of the culture one's born into, then most people will believe. If belief is removed from the culture, then people won't believe. What predominates across a population is that there is a tendency to feel full commitment to the culture one is born into. Most importantly, this means things like marriage, child-rearing, home-owning, heteronormativity, moral norms. But as a side effect, if belief predominates, it generally won't be questioned.

I'll try to put it another way. People are born into cultures that heavily promote child-rearing. Those who take this aspect very seriously tend to produce more children, which means that the majority of babies being born are those who will be influenced by their culture (not see beyond it). So if belief is a major aspect of one's culture, then these people will believe.

I'm not arguing that cultures don't evolve, or that people must believe in religion. I'm arguing that if religion predominates in a culture, finding that convincing is a totally normal aspect of human behavior. Yes, some cultures can do away with religion in a very best case scenario, but the same psychological propensity for being swayed by culture doesn't go away.

The fallacy here is that evolution expects intelligence, or that intelligence is some kind of human ideal. That's just not how it actually works in practice.

RE: your article, can you explain how it applies to this discussion?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The fallacy here is that evolution expects intelligence, or that intelligence is some kind of human ideal. That's just not how it actually works in practice.

Evolution selects for behavior. Evolution doesn't select for intelligence or for belief or non-belief. The behaviors ostensibly associated with those words are whet get selected for and against. Some "believers" will argue that they are acting "intelligently" when they sing songs to invisible people living in the sky. Don't you agree? So those words need to be defined - or forgotten - and we should focus on the behaviors. It can get complicated.

RE: your article, can you explain how it applies to this discussion?

The article discusses the last thirty years of research concerning the human prefontal cortex (PFC). In my humble opinion it is the functioning of the PFC that is the central figure in the entire debate over belief and non-belief. Central to that discussion is the effects of stress on the PFC and its ability to maintain "control" and how it does so in concert with the organism's environment and the entire brain itself, but primarily the evolved emotional centers.

 

[rousseau]

The fallacy here is that evolution expects intelligence, or that intelligence is some kind of human ideal. That's just not how it actually works in practice.

Evolution selects for behavior. Evolution doesn't select for intelligence or for belief or non-belief. The behaviors ostensibly associated with those words are whet get selected for and against. Some "believers" will argue that they are acting "intelligently" when they sing songs to invisible people living in the sky. Don't you agree? So those words need to be defined - or forgotten - and we should focus on the behaviors. It can get complicated.

If behaviors associated with intelligence or lack-thereof are what get selected for or against, then evolution is absolutely acting on intelligence.

 

[steve_bank]

DEclining birth rates are generally attributed to rising education and affluence.

Parents don't need a lot of kids to ensure they are supported when they get old.

China went from population controls to encouraging more babies, even unmarried women. A declining birth rate means a deviling young work force to support a growing aging population. Same with Japan.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Deviling? I thought we were materialists here.

 

[steve_bank]

The appropriate naturalist dress is 'au naturale'.

Saves on cost for clothes.

 

[bilby]

Phenotypic variation is a thing, but statistically we're not moving toward greater intelligence.

Yet, observably, we are.

So we must conclude that your analysis is flawed (or that something has changed radically, on a timescale FAR too short for evolution to be relevant at all).

Observation ALWAYS trumps theory.

 

[No Robots]

Vocal atheists provide an opportunity for the religious to promote their views through dialectic engagement. Let the atheists propound their views, so that we can then counter them. Let the audience decide who is more convincing.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Good. It sure beats how the Christians did it prior to the 1800s.

 

[steve_bank]

Vocal atheists provide an opportunity for the religious to promote their views through dialectic engagement. Let the atheists propound their views, so that we can then counter them. Let the audience decide who is more convincing.

I think there are atheists and theists who feed on each other.

I identify as atheist here, but my motto is neither an atheist nor theist be. Atheism can be the same trap as theism. IMHO.

 

[No Robots]

^I can't begin to express my gratitude for the internet atheists who have forced me to thoroughly assess my position. I'm even grateful for my atheist father telling the young No Robots that there is no life after death. I feel quite comfortable with my position on this subject. It comes after much study, rather than just from accepting some priestly bromide. A true Christian today must pass through the crucible of atheism, not just try to blot it out.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If behaviors associated with intelligence or lack-thereof are what get selected for or against, then evolution is absolutely acting on intelligence.

I'm assuming you mean scientific intelligence. Seems most people who self identify as believers still seek medical intervention for illness and injury instead of staying home and praying.

Of course that brings up the whole question of whether someone is actually a believer if they spend 99.999% of their time and resources doing things identical to someone who is not a believer. I can say I am a billionaire but that doesn't make me a billionaire.

 

[steve_bank]

Religious faith in part serves to blot out reality ad put on rose colored glasses.

 

[TomC]

Vocal atheists provide an opportunity for the religious to promote their views through dialectic engagement. Let the atheists propound their views, so that we can then counter them. Let the audience decide who is more convincing.

I can't say I know any vocal atheists in real life. To me, they are an internet thing, discussing the concepts involved.

Some internet atheists are annoying as heck, like P Z Meyers. Similar to the vast numbers of annoying theists I interact with online. Who far outnumber the nontheists.

IRL, atheists don't care enough to discuss the ideological bits. They just push back when theists try to force their opinions on us. Like the theists who insist that the government can't recognize my 30 year partnership with another guy because of some stuff in their scripture. Other than theists trying to force their religious beliefs on the rest of us, we don't care enough to discuss it as a general rule.

I have near zero interest in "being convincing to the audience". Just stay out of my business and we'll get along just fine.
Tom