What do chimp ‘temples’ tell us about the evolution of religion?

[Potoooooooo]

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ples-tell-us-about-the-evolution-of-religion/

All hail the sacred tree. I’ve often wondered aloud in the newsroom about the possibility of finding evidence of a chimp shrine, the discovery of a place where chimps pray to their deity.

This week, my half-whimsical dream almost came true. Biologists working in the Republic of Guinea found evidence for what seemed to be a “sacred tree” used by chimps, perhaps for some sort of ritual.

Laura Kehoe of the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, set up camera traps by trees marked with unusual scratches. What she found gave her goosebumps: chimps were placing stones in the hollow of trees, and bashing trees with rocks.

Sign or symbol
The behaviour could be a means of communication, since rocks make a loud bang when they hit hollow trees. Or it could be more symbolic.


“Maybe we found the first evidence of chimpanzees creating a kind of shrine that could indicate sacred trees,” Kehoe wrote on her blog.

 

[Lion IRC]

Animals displaying religion?
I thought we were all born atheist. Who taught the monkeys there's a God?

 

[Juma]

Animals displaying religion?
I thought we were all born atheist. Who taught the monkeys there's a God?

Why do you leap to the conclusion that the monkeys thinks that there is a god?

 

[Lion IRC]

Religion without God???
Even apes aren't that stupid.

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WAIT - they haven't made atheism a religion yet have they?

 

[Juma]

Religion without God???
Even apes aren't that stupid.

ever heard of buddism?

 

[credoconsolans]

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ples-tell-us-about-the-evolution-of-religion/

All hail the sacred tree. I’ve often wondered aloud in the newsroom about the possibility of finding evidence of a chimp shrine, the discovery of a place where chimps pray to their deity.

This week, my half-whimsical dream almost came true. Biologists working in the Republic of Guinea found evidence for what seemed to be a “sacred tree” used by chimps, perhaps for some sort of ritual.

Laura Kehoe of the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, set up camera traps by trees marked with unusual scratches. What she found gave her goosebumps: chimps were placing stones in the hollow of trees, and bashing trees with rocks.

Sign or symbol
The behaviour could be a means of communication, since rocks make a loud bang when they hit hollow trees. Or it could be more symbolic.


“Maybe we found the first evidence of chimpanzees creating a kind of shrine that could indicate sacred trees,” Kehoe wrote on her blog.

Give only these two options, I'm going to go with 'the actions makes a deep sound the apes like/use to communicate'.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Give only these two options, I'm going to go with 'the actions makes a deep sound the apes like/use to communicate'.

Keep an eye on things. They could be stocking up for a good stoning. Apostate apes and all.

Do penguins return to the same rookery because the ground is "sacred?"

Do salmon return to the place of their birth to reproduce and then die because the waters are "sacred?"

Do humans huddle together under bridges and overpasses because the ground is "sacred?"

Why is it that when humans observe a behavior to be odd it is something with very deep meaning and "religious" significance? Isn't that really what religion is to the non religious, an observation of human behavior that defies rational explanation?

 

[Angry Floof]

Animals displaying religion?
I thought we were all born atheist. Who taught the monkeys there's a God?

It's superstition, which doesn't need a deity. What is needed to develop a superstitious beief is a significant event, ignorance of how that event occurred, emotion (fear, amazement, gratitude), and the ability to assume agency or intention in things external to the self.

If other primates' brains work as ours do in terms of assuming agency and intention in the actions of others, then it would be no surprise at all to find that those primates also apply those same kinds of assumptions to events that appear to be actions of trees (or weather or inanimate objects, doesn't matter really).

I have no idea if the research described here is any good, much less the suggested conclusion, but if they are on the right track in explaining the primates' behavior, it is evidence of natural, not supernatural, events in ordinary primate brains.

So, not only NOT evidence of God, but more evidence that minds create Gods.

 

[credoconsolans]

Why is it that when humans observe a behavior to be odd it is something with very deep meaning and "religious" significance? Isn't that really what religion is to the non religious, an observation of human behavior that defies rational explanation?

Archaeologists do the same thing when they find a structure or item they can't explain.

 

[Valjean]

Animals displaying religion?
I thought we were all born atheist. Who taught the monkeys there's a God?

Why do you leap to the conclusion that the monkeys thinks that there is a god?

And when did chimps become monkeys?

 

[Bomb#20]

Why do you leap to the conclusion that the monkeys thinks that there is a god?

And when did chimps become monkeys?

It's the other way around. The question is, when did monkeys become chimps?[/biologist]

No, the question is, if monkeys became chimps, why are there still monkeys?[/chimp]

And this is how we conclude the monkey thinks there's a god. Any more questions?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

If chimps evolved, why are there monkeys?
If Monkeys evolved, why are there tree shrews?

 

[Underseer]

Religion without God???
Even apes aren't that stupid.

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WAIT - they haven't made atheism a religion yet have they?

How is atheism a religion?

Atheism is a single answer to a single question. By definition, you need more than one belief to have something that constitutes a belief system.

 

[Angry Floof]

Religion without God???
Even apes aren't that stupid.

- - - Updated - - -

WAIT - they haven't made atheism a religion yet have they?

Once again.

It's superstition, which doesn't need a deity. What is needed to develop a superstitious belief is a significant event, ignorance of how that event occurred, emotion (fear, amazement, gratitude), and the ability to assume agency or intention in things external to the self.

If other primates' brains work as ours do in terms of assuming agency and intention in the actions of others, then it would be no surprise at all to find that those primates also apply those same kinds of assumptions to events that appear to be actions of trees (or weather or inanimate objects, doesn't matter really).

I have no idea if the research described here is any good, much less the suggested conclusion, but if they are on the right track in explaining the primates' behavior, it is evidence of natural, not supernatural, events in ordinary primate brains.

So, not only NOT evidence of God, but more evidence that minds create Gods.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Religion without God???
Even apes aren't that stupid.

This would be exactly why the word 'ignorant' was invented. There are some things you don't know that are quite relevant to your statement.

And, probably, part of why so many people seem to think that 'ignorant' is a synonym for 'stupid.'

 

[whichphilosophy]

Religion without God???
Even apes aren't that stupid.

- - - Updated - - -

WAIT - they haven't made atheism a religion yet have they?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheistic_religions

Buddhism, some in Hinduism, Jainism

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21319945

What happens at an Atheist church

Not many sermons include the message that we are all going to die and there is no afterlife.
But the Sunday Assembly is no ordinary church service.
Launched last month, as a gathering for non-believers, it is, in the words of master of ceremonies Sanderson Jones, "part foot-stom

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-now-pulls-in-crowds-from-Berlin-to-Ohio.html

There is also an Atheist Church in the USA which is legally tax exempt but currently I can't find the details on google.com, and dogpile.com

 

[Lion IRC]

Religion without God???
Even apes aren't that stupid.

- - - Updated - - -

WAIT - they haven't made atheism a religion yet have they?

How is atheism a religion?

Fellowshipping
Beliefs about the existence of divinity
Proselytizing
Use of politics to advance their cause in competition with other religions
Occupies the same shelf-space at the library as other books on religion

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Fellowshipping

Examples?

Beliefs about the existence of divinity

Lack of belief is not belief.

Proselytizing

Again- examples? Is there some atheist creed which requires proselytizing? No? Alright then.

Use of politics to advance their cause in competition with other religions

On what issues specifically? Intelligent design not being science? Because it isn't.

Occupies the same shelf-space at the library as other books on religion

:laughing-smiley-014

 

[Lion IRC]

Religion without God???
Even apes aren't that stupid.

ever heard of buddism?

Yep.
Do you know what a Brahma Deva is?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Occupies the same shelf-space at the library as other books on religion

Argument from Dewey Decimal?
This is a thing?