History shows that atheism is as natural to humans as religion

[lpetrich]

Well I think it is quite reasonable (and intelligent) to think that some form of divinity is true - where ever in the world you live.

What kind of "divinity"? Details differ enormously. Many religions feature polytheism and some feature pantheism, and these are all different from the Abrahamic God. Even within the Abrahamic religions, there are important differences in opinion. Judaism and Islam both reject the Trinity as polytheist, and they consider Jesus Christ 100% human.

 

[barbos]

I'm just pointing out the curious situation wherein both atheism and theism have been live menu options for roughly the same length of time in the history of human thought and yet atheists have never had much luck persuading their fellow primates, sitting around the campfire, that the God conclusion should be renamed the God delusion.

But they have. Not in most of the world, where powerful men made belief in gods compulsory, and persuading your fellow primates would get you put to death. But there's a quarter of the world by population where for thousands of years the ruling ideology has been secular -- focused on man's duties not to supernatural beings but to his fellow man -- and the officials who were empowered to put men to death for speaking unapproved ideas typically cared not a whit whether their subjects believed in gods. Today we can see the result.

It's a weird statistics when US is less religious than Russia.
In reality half of the people who self-identify as russian orthodox have never been in church and certainly have never read the bible.

 

[fromderinside]

It's a weird statistics when US is less religious than Russia.
In reality half of the people who self-identify as russian orthodox have never been in church and certainly have never read the bible.

I was going to say Wha? Then I realized Russia was Soviet Union until twenty five years ago. Still, I think outside major centers most Soviets were still RO even under Stalin.

 

[Malintent]

I did.
Until Syed used it...

It's about as well supported a position as claiming that the U.S. Constitution was based on the Buybull.

Well, in fact, we ARE wired for superstition, if you want to call that a prelude to religion. But saying then that religion is therefore justified is a naturalistic fallacy

We are also 'wired' for gravity. Space travel is 'unnatural', yet we do it.
We are 'wired' to only help our own tribe and mistrust others, yet we exist in a very densely packed environment with strangers all around us at all times.
We are 'wired' to see familiar shapes in the clouds, more shades of the color green than any other color, and countless other novel adaptations and side effects of evolving on this particular planet.