General religion

[DBT]

A trusted person may be sincere but mistaken.

Natural selection doesnt favor "sincerely mistaken" survival instincts or learned behaviours.

Learned behaviour is not in the same category as faith. Faith has gotten a lot of people killed.

 

[Atheos]

A trusted person may be sincere but mistaken.

Natural selection doesnt favor "sincerely mistaken" survival instincts or learned behaviours.

Yes it does. But this is a thread about general religion, not about Science, so I'll just leave it at that and encourage you that if you want to make compelling arguments when these subjects are broached in passing you'd be well served to educate yourself about them from sources that weren't written by adversaries of the subject matter. Otherwise you might as well learn geography from flat-earth advocates.

 

[Amyrich]

I have often grappled with very similar issues. I mean, why does anyone who can reason for themselves even need religion? I mean, what is so very scary about believing that the Universe is too vast, and human beings just exist by chance, and there is so much we don't know, well...once we die, that's it...there most likely is nothing more. But, I guess I also see what can potentially be scary here. I think most people find it difficult to distinguish between religiousness and spirituality. One is extremely personal and the other is about belonging to a group. However, it is fascinating to read up on all the research papers on religion to try and understand why various kinds of people are drawn to religion and how they confuse religion with spirituality. As vain as it is, I hope one of these days, we all figure it out for ourselves.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Religions offer comforting myths, and people like comforting myths, at least so long as they do not possess sufficient knowledge to recognize a myth for what it is. And for some people this means a lifetime of comforting myths. Scientific curiosity very often destroys these myths.

 

[skepticalbip]

I think that the greatest draw that religion has for so many is the promise that they will never cease to be, that they will continue to exist eternally. The mythology is just extra frills to make an 'interesting' story. Humans don't like to think that their consciousness will just end at some point.

The wish for immortality has been part of the human psyche for, at least, recorded history if not since humans first recognized their mortality. Even many non-religious try to find a way around death ending their consciousness. This has spawned the industry of cryogenic freezing of heads or whole bodies for future recovery and the idea of downloading the mind into a computer to be loaded into a mechanical body.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I think that the greatest draw that religion has for so many is the promise that they will never cease to be, that they will continue to exist eternally. The mythology is just extra frills to make an 'interesting' story. Humans don't like to think that their consciousness will just end at some point.

The wish for immortality has been part of the human psyche for, at least, recorded history if not since humans first recognized their mortality. Even many non-religious try to find a way around death ending their consciousness. This has spawned the industry of cryogenic freezing of heads or whole bodies for future recovery and the idea of downloading the mind into a computer to be loaded into a mechanical body.

I agree that that is quite a barrier for a lot of people. Why do you think that is? It might be that a person simply does not live an examined life but instead lives a very selfish life. Again, it's evidence of cognitive inequality. It needn't be, however.

The typical myth of a religious afterlife is quite selfish, pretentious and juvenile. There are no generous thoughts about a human future but instead a vision of self glorification and immortalization where you essentially become a god. Nasty business, very bad for our species.

ETA: I should add that lives come in all sizes, shapes and colors. Some of us are more fortunate than others to have a life full of friends and support. Some of us are just the opposite. So it is understandable that a person, hearing such a story, would latch on. It's attractive, and maybe gives them the hope they need to continue. Probably the best of all worlds, if I think I have an afterlife of glory coming my way, is to do something constructive before that day, something for the common good, earn it. but I guess it comes down to what an individual perceives as the common good and whether they even think about such things.

 

[Treedbear]

I think that the greatest draw that religion has for so many is the promise that they will never cease to be, that they will continue to exist eternally. The mythology is just extra frills to make an 'interesting' story. Humans don't like to think that their consciousness will just end at some point.

The wish for immortality has been part of the human psyche for, at least, recorded history if not since humans first recognized their mortality. Even many non-religious try to find a way around death ending their consciousness. This has spawned the industry of cryogenic freezing of heads or whole bodies for future recovery and the idea of downloading the mind into a computer to be loaded into a mechanical body.

I agree that that is quite a barrier for a lot of people. Why do you think that is? It might be that a person simply does not live an examined life but instead lives a very selfish life. Again, it's evidence of cognitive inequality. It needn't be, however.

The typical myth of a religious afterlife is quite selfish, pretentious and juvenile. There are no generous thoughts about a human future but instead a vision of self glorification and immortalization where you essentially become a god. Nasty business, very bad for our species.

ETA: I should add that lives come in all sizes, shapes and colors. Some of us are more fortunate than others to have a life full of friends and support. Some of us are just the opposite. So it is understandable that a person, hearing such a story, would latch on. It's attractive, and maybe gives them the hope they need to continue. Probably the best of all worlds, if I think I have an afterlife of glory coming my way, is to do something constructive before that day, something for the common good, earn it. but I guess it comes down to what an individual perceives as the common good and whether they even think about such things.

I've been thinking lately that it's not so much to do with a fear of death or an end to one's existence. Many people come by their religion because they have family and neighbors who belong and they take up the ritual practices as a matter of course. In other words strength can be found in unity. But I think the main reason that religions become popular is that they provide the hope you speak of when times are extremely tough. Human beings naturally look to patterns of behavior in order to try to anticipate what the future holds. When the future is exceptionally uncertain they grasp at any wisp of an idea as to cause and effect. And human history is replete with the populations suffering under oppression, poverty, and the ignorance that science has now largely dispelled. Witness the typical superstitions around the purchase of lottery tickets. People I know (who are generally the less financially well off and more easily fall victim to state lotteries) have irrational beliefs about when and where to buy tickets and do so with "religious" regularity. They especially have a "devotion" shall I say to the idea that they need to maintain their routines, because if they fail to they will be somehow punished by missing out on their faith eventually being redeemed.

That is to say that while it might be nice to have some intellectual, metaphysical basis for finding meaning and purpose in life the reality is that these issues are amazingly easy to brush aside. I know when I finally realized that life was not necessarily dependent on a concocted notion of an all-powerful God of creation it was not a problem for me to accept that death offers nothing of value. Non-existence need not be scary. For many it might even be a very real relief, and not just from physical or material destitution but from the burden of guilt that some religions ordain. But humans are by nature problem solvers and cannot be fully human unless they continue to exercise that ability to interpret reality. When rational reasons can't be found we will invent them.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

A trusted person may be sincere but mistaken.

Natural selection doesnt favor "sincerely mistaken" survival instincts or learned behaviours.

Since natural selection is a blind process... yes I'm pretty sure it can.

 

[Jarhyn]

A trusted person may be sincere but mistaken.

Natural selection doesnt favor "sincerely mistaken" survival instincts or learned behaviours.

Since natural selection is a blind process... yes I'm pretty sure it can.

In fact, if the sincerely mistaken view is wrong but still semifunctional it will be strongly selected for right up to the moment something better comes along.

I mean the sincerely mistaken belief that God finds pigs an abomination, for example. It is in fact more functional than the belief that eating pork is like eating anything else. It is still wrong but will be (has been) strongly selected for, especially in the middle east. And the behavior of being sincere but mistaken, so long as the mistakes are better than pure and unthinking ignorance, will similarly be selected for. Same for any learned behavior. And the ability to learn behaviors from others and communicate the behaviors opens an entirely new path of evolution!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Since natural selection is a blind process... yes I'm pretty sure it can.

In fact, if the sincerely mistaken view is wrong but still semifunctional it will be strongly selected for right up to the moment something better comes along.

I mean the sincerely mistaken belief that God finds pigs an abomination, for example. It is in fact more functional than the belief that eating pork is like eating anything else. It is still wrong but will be (has been) strongly selected for, especially in the middle east. And the behavior of being sincere but mistaken, so long as the mistakes are better than pure and unthinking ignorance, will similarly be selected for. Same for any learned behavior. And the ability to learn behaviors from others and communicate the behaviors opens an entirely new path of evolution!

This is true. All manner of goofy beliefs can be selected for, this is because the behavior they elicit in the organism may be beneficial to its survival. The belief really doesn't matter, all that matters is what the organism actually does relative to the environment. The belief that elicits the behavior is therefore indirectly selected for.

 

[Jarhyn]

Since natural selection is a blind process... yes I'm pretty sure it can.

In fact, if the sincerely mistaken view is wrong but still semifunctional it will be strongly selected for right up to the moment something better comes along.

I mean the sincerely mistaken belief that God finds pigs an abomination, for example. It is in fact more functional than the belief that eating pork is like eating anything else. It is still wrong but will be (has been) strongly selected for, especially in the middle east. And the behavior of being sincere but mistaken, so long as the mistakes are better than pure and unthinking ignorance, will similarly be selected for. Same for any learned behavior. And the ability to learn behaviors from others and communicate the behaviors opens an entirely new path of evolution!

This is true. All manner of goofy beliefs can be selected for, this is because the behavior they elicit in the organism may be beneficial to its survival. The belief really doesn't matter, all that matters is what the organism actually does relative to the environment. The belief that elicits the behavior is therefore indirectly selected for.

Yeah, see, just because correct beliefs would be more strongly selected for* does not make occasionally correct views less selected for their occasional correctness, in the absence of anything better; then, the momentum and conservation of the broken clock for its twice-a-day correctness has its own reason for being conserved as a "traditional value/belief", usually until such a time as the idea of a functioning clock has been thoroughly attacked and still remained despite the best conservative attempts to prove otherwise.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If I and my tribe ritually bathe our hands to remove evil spirits we will likely be healthier. Of course it has nothing to do with ritual bathing or evil spirits. Washing of hands was noticed to give marked benefits in terms of mortality before germ theory was ever proposed.

When I see people seemingly obsessively compelled to enter a lucky, magic building every seventh day I think about the real reason such behaviors manifest.

 

[skepticalbip]

When I see people seemingly obsessively compelled to enter a lucky, magic building every seventh day I think about the real reason such behaviors manifest.

It makes for more cohesive and cooperative tribe members. Group cooperation increases the survivability of the tribe.

 

[rousseau]

Since natural selection is a blind process... yes I'm pretty sure it can.

In fact, if the sincerely mistaken view is wrong but still semifunctional it will be strongly selected for right up to the moment something better comes along.

I mean the sincerely mistaken belief that God finds pigs an abomination, for example. It is in fact more functional than the belief that eating pork is like eating anything else. It is still wrong but will be (has been) strongly selected for, especially in the middle east. And the behavior of being sincere but mistaken, so long as the mistakes are better than pure and unthinking ignorance, will similarly be selected for. Same for any learned behavior. And the ability to learn behaviors from others and communicate the behaviors opens an entirely new path of evolution!

This is true. All manner of goofy beliefs can be selected for, this is because the behavior they elicit in the organism may be beneficial to its survival. The belief really doesn't matter, all that matters is what the organism actually does relative to the environment. The belief that elicits the behavior is therefore indirectly selected for.

My argument would be that not all goofy beliefs are selected for, but are often arbitrary by-products of more essential functionality. For example - religious beliefs vary widely around the world, but most people have them. The specific beliefs are less important to the individual, than the core functionality that creates that belief as an emergent property.

e.g. we see agency in everything which has immense survival value, but as a side-effect religions come to exist. We don't need religion for any measurable reason, it's just something for us to look at while the more important parts of our physiology are quietly doing their job.

I think what this suggests is that the core elements of our sub-conscious mind play the biggest part in our survival, where parts of our culture just kind of exist on the periphery as a distraction. I wouldn't put too much credence in the argument that religion, in itself, has any survival value. It's just something we do and continue to do because we like it.

 

[Lion IRC]

A trusted person may be sincere but mistaken.

Natural selection doesnt favor "sincerely mistaken" survival instincts or learned behaviours.

Yes it does...

No. It doesn't.

Nor does it care whether behaviour which confers a survival advantage is motivated by theism.

By the way, the Israelite hygiene laws in Leviticus were NOT sincerely mistaken beliefs which just so happened to result in better health/longevity outcomes.

 

[Jarhyn]

If I and my tribe ritually bathe our hands to remove evil spirits we will likely be healthier. Of course it has nothing to do with ritual bathing or evil spirits. Washing of hands was noticed to give marked benefits in terms of mortality before germ theory was ever proposed.

When I see people seemingly obsessively compelled to enter a lucky, magic building every seventh day I think about the real reason such behaviors manifest.

Possibly something to do with community exposure, group discussion, and a knowledge of shared values.

I would hazard that everyone has some regular, nearly weekly, pattern of engaging with a community of peers and friends and talking about life, and how to live it best

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes it does...

No. It doesn't.

Nor does it care whether behaviour which confers a survival advantage is motivated by theism.

By the way, the Israelite hygiene laws in Leviticus were NOT sincerely mistaken beliefs which just so happened to result in better health/longevity outcomes.

You seriously think that there is no survival differential filtering on +/- (learned behavior capable)?

Partially but accidentally functional behaviors are still partially, even if accidentally, functional.

And yes, levitical law was merely based on belief. The belief was based on observation; but it was still just a belief, especially in the absence of any kind of empirical research.

They were, in fact, merely "sincerely mistaken beliefs" that did have beneficial results for following them, because the phenomenon of the sickness was not as described in said belief.