Why Religion?

[rousseau]

... what is it about some brains that allow the stupidity...?

The OP said religious behavior gives some people "support".

If you got an answer about the brain, how would it matter to the OP's point?

It's like someone mentioning there are people take long drives to see a park, and then someone wants to explain it in terms of fuel combustion.

If the brain's a little or a lot behind ALL behaviors, then how's it explanatory about the good or bad in people's choices? Mixed into the braintalk are comments about how mistaken that theist belief/behavior is and how atheists behave more intelligently... but they don't say why that's true. Instead they quickly turn to "conjecture" about brains instead. It looks to me like moralizers trying to make their moralizing seem "objective".

So I'm wondering how a "god gene" or "brain architecture" can support the belief that theist beliefs are a problem. Let's say a fellow believes in God and looking in his head reveals there's only half a brain there. LOL. I wonder, so what? Does that say ANYTHING AT ALL about the rightness or wrongness, or utility, of his god-belief? Even if he's brain damaged and possibly less capable in some way or other than atheists, it doesn't mean his belief is incorrect.

FWIW I don't think religious beliefs are in any way a problem, or that people are somehow wrong for holding them. To me this line of thinking is far too linear and assumes that behaviour can be objectively bad toward some end. Usually the implication is that reason is good and lack of reason is bad, which is a far, far too simplistic of a look at human nature and history. Reason and lack of religious belief, in addition to the good it can do, can also mean we exploit each other with more precision, and that we're no longer constrained by religious morals. If God doesn't exist then we can do whatever we can get away with.

In practice, our species doesn't have a raison d'etre, progression, or long-term goal besides mating, surviving, and producing children. Religion continues to exist because, cognitively, people like practising it. Any significant change away from a culture that is dominated by religion begins and ends with a materialistic understanding of nature. Some will find that explanation more appealing, others will continue to find God appealing. Either belief isn't right or wrong in an ethical sense, they're just things that happen given human diversity.

 

[Copernicus]

Rousseau, I don't see much value in continuing to repeat the same arguments. My position is that there is no clear reason to believe that some people are more genetically predisposed to believe in gods or spirits or disbelieve in them. AFAICT, such behavior is all attributable to environmental influences after birth, but I am willing to consider concrete evidence of a genetic predisposition. I just haven't seen any. Showing "clear cognitive associations" with certain behaviors in no way proves that those differences arose from a genetic predisposition.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Rousseau, I don't see much value in continuing to repeat the same arguments. My position is that there is no clear reason to believe that some people are more genetically predisposed to believe in gods or spirits or disbelieve in them. AFAICT, such behavior is all attributable to environmental influences after birth, but I am willing to consider concrete evidence of a genetic predisposition. I just haven't seen any. Showing "clear cognitive associations" with certain behaviors in no way proves that those differences arose from a genetic predisposition.

But do you agree that our brains are as different from one another as are the rest of the organism?

 

[steve_bank]

Watched a news segment on gay history this mooring. There was a gay woman who was the first gay pastor at a prominent NYC Baptist church.

Why on Earth would gays want to be Christian? Leviticus prohibits homosexuality and Paul mentions homosexual sex.

What could possibly attract gays to a religion so associated with gay suppression, why religion?

It is like a black person joining the KKK.

 

[Copernicus]

Rousseau, I don't see much value in continuing to repeat the same arguments. My position is that there is no clear reason to believe that some people are more genetically predisposed to believe in gods or spirits or disbelieve in them. AFAICT, such behavior is all attributable to environmental influences after birth, but I am willing to consider concrete evidence of a genetic predisposition. I just haven't seen any. Showing "clear cognitive associations" with certain behaviors in no way proves that those differences arose from a genetic predisposition.

But do you agree that our brains are as different from one another as are the rest of the organism?

I don't quite know what scale of comparison you have in mind for being "as different", but it seems reasonable to say that no two people have exactly the same brains. There are always some differences. The issue under discussion is whether a predisposition to be religious is genetically heritable. So you need to establish the relevance of your question to the issue under discussion.

 

[southernhybrid]

Watched a news segment on gay history this mooring. There was a gay woman who was the first gay pastor at a prominent NYC Baptist church.

Why on Earth would gays want to be Christian? Leviticus prohibits homosexuality and Paul mentions homosexual sex.

What could possibly attract gays to a religion so associated with gay suppression, why religion?

It is like a black person joining the KKK.

It's not just the KKK. Why do so many Black folks cling to a religion that was once used to justify slavery of their ancestors? Religion doesn't make sense, so I assume that gay people and Black people find some form of community in religion that they don't find in secular organizations. The Black church has often been used to organize for civil rights, so that might explain part of the attraction to Christianity by Black folks. There was once a liberal Baptist pastor who was a member here. He said that at least half of his church in Atlanta was made up of members of the gay community. Most Christians, regardless if they are liberals or conservatives, cherry pick parts of Christianity that appeals to them. I guess that explains why so many people are fond of Christianity, despite some of the traditional views on slavery, homosexuality as well as denying women full equality with men.

I guess both community and a longing for a superpower of some kind gives comfort to a lot of people. There is also cultural reasons for wanting to belong to something that is popular. In parts of the South, it's hard to make friends if you're not a member of a church. While Christianity isn't as popular in the US as it was in the past, it is still the predominant religion. And, if you live in a place like I do, you would never realize that Christians are decreasing in numbers. In a county of about 70K, we have at least 80 or more churches. These churches are a type of social club. Some offer opportunities to do charity, while others like condemning those outside of the group. There are probably countless reasons as to why people are attracted to religion. As a strong atheist, it's hard to understand the appeal of a god belief, but I get the appeal of having a strong social support group that shares similar values. I'm one who is far more interested in character than in what one believes. So, if you're a decent person who needs a god belief, so be it. We can still be friends without allowing our different beliefs to interfere with our love of each other.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Rousseau, I don't see much value in continuing to repeat the same arguments. My position is that there is no clear reason to believe that some people are more genetically predisposed to believe in gods or spirits or disbelieve in them. AFAICT, such behavior is all attributable to environmental influences after birth, but I am willing to consider concrete evidence of a genetic predisposition. I just haven't seen any. Showing "clear cognitive associations" with certain behaviors in no way proves that those differences arose from a genetic predisposition.

But do you agree that our brains are as different from one another as are the rest of the organism?

I don't quite know what scale of comparison you have in mind for being "as different", but it seems reasonable to say that no two people have exactly the same brains. There are always some differences. The issue under discussion is whether a predisposition to be religious is genetically heritable. So you need to establish the relevance of your question to the issue under discussion.

Ask yourself if a predisposition to anything is heritable. The obvious answer is yes. Therefore people can be and are predisposed to religious behavior.

Do you have any predispositions? Have the choices your ancestors made and their experiences left you with any predispositions? That has had no effect on your DNA?

 

[Copernicus]

Rousseau, I don't see much value in continuing to repeat the same arguments. My position is that there is no clear reason to believe that some people are more genetically predisposed to believe in gods or spirits or disbelieve in them. AFAICT, such behavior is all attributable to environmental influences after birth, but I am willing to consider concrete evidence of a genetic predisposition. I just haven't seen any. Showing "clear cognitive associations" with certain behaviors in no way proves that those differences arose from a genetic predisposition.

But do you agree that our brains are as different from one another as are the rest of the organism?

I don't quite know what scale of comparison you have in mind for being "as different", but it seems reasonable to say that no two people have exactly the same brains. There are always some differences. The issue under discussion is whether a predisposition to be religious is genetically heritable. So you need to establish the relevance of your question to the issue under discussion.

Ask yourself if a predisposition to anything is heritable. The obvious answer is yes. Therefore people can be and are predisposed to religious behavior.

That is nonsense. Just because it is logically possible for someone to be predisposed to a behavior, that does not mean that they are predisposed to it. Just because something might be genetically heritable, that does not mean that it is heritable. Possibility does not mean the same thing as necessity. If you can't tell the difference, then I understand why you have been rejecting my argument.

Do you have any predispositions? Have the choices your ancestors made and their experiences left you with any predispositions? That has had no effect on your DNA?

The answer to all three questions is "yes". For example, my mother decided to raise me as a devout believer in God, and my father decided not to oppose her decision. I spent my childhood as a devout believer. She also encouraged me to do well in school and read books. Besides being predisposed at that point to believe in God, I was also predisposed now to read books about religion. Those predispositions ultimately led me to read books like Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not a Christian and Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth. After considerable soul searching, I lost my predisposition to believe in God, but I retained my predisposition to read books. I don't think that any of that was genetically inherited. My siblings remained devout believers, but they like to read things, too. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Rousseau, I don't see much value in continuing to repeat the same arguments. My position is that there is no clear reason to believe that some people are more genetically predisposed to believe in gods or spirits or disbelieve in them. AFAICT, such behavior is all attributable to environmental influences after birth, but I am willing to consider concrete evidence of a genetic predisposition. I just haven't seen any. Showing "clear cognitive associations" with certain behaviors in no way proves that those differences arose from a genetic predisposition.

But do you agree that our brains are as different from one another as are the rest of the organism?

I don't quite know what scale of comparison you have in mind for being "as different", but it seems reasonable to say that no two people have exactly the same brains. There are always some differences. The issue under discussion is whether a predisposition to be religious is genetically heritable. So you need to establish the relevance of your question to the issue under discussion.

Ask yourself if a predisposition to anything is heritable. The obvious answer is yes. Therefore people can be and are predisposed to religious behavior.

That is nonsense. Just because it is logically possible for someone to be predisposed to a behavior, that does not mean that they are predisposed to it. Just because something might be genetically heritable, that does not mean that it is heritable. Possibility does not mean the same thing as necessity. If you can't tell the difference, then I understand why you have been rejecting my argument.

Do you have any predispositions? Have the choices your ancestors made and their experiences left you with any predispositions? That has had no effect on your DNA?

The answer to all three questions is "yes". For example, my mother decided to raise me as a devout believer in God, and my father decided not to oppose her decision. I spent my childhood as a devout believer. She also encouraged me to do well in school and read books. Besides being predisposed at that point to believe in God, I was also predisposed now to read books about religion. Those predispositions ultimately led me to read books like Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not a Christian and Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth. After considerable soul searching, I lost my predisposition to believe in God, but I retained my predisposition to read books. I don't think that any of that was genetically inherited. My siblings remained devout believers, but they like to read things, too. Different strokes for different folks.

It is quite obvious that humans are all different with different inherited behaviors, tendencies, abilities, talents, etc. Call these personality differences whatever you wish. If your argument was accurate my interests and abilities wrt religious behavior would all be identical to my siblings but they could not be more different. That's the proof. Why are you making so much noise about the word "possible?" It sounds like you're trying to distract from the weakness of your argument that people are not born with brains that make them different in their interests and abilities, to include religious inclinations. Religious behavior is nothing special. Why are you putting it into a special category?

 

[steve_bank]

Blacks adopted Christianity and created there own version. It was a focal point for community and eventually activism. Black Christianity was conservative., as conservative sexually as white Christians.

As I see the gospels the Jesus message was suffer your troubles, the reward is an eternal glorious afterlife. It gave blacks who were truly suffering hope.

With gays scripture expressly forbids homosexuality.

 

[Copernicus]

...
It is quite obvious that humans are all different with different inherited behaviors, tendencies, abilities, talents, etc. Call these personality differences whatever you wish. If your argument was accurate my interests and abilities wrt religious behavior would all be identical to my siblings but they could not be more different. That's the proof...

Proof that interests and abilities wrt religious behavior are caused solely by genetic differences???? I think not. Different interests, abilities, and desires are a product of both genetic and experiential development. Your genes are not identical to your siblings, since you aren't identical twins, but your experiences are not identical either. The question has always been how much of a person's development was shaped by nature and how much by nurture. You can't simply jump to the conclusion that it is all genetics without some kind of evidence to back up that conclusion.

...Why are you making so much noise about the word "possible?" It sounds like you're trying to distract from the weakness of your argument that people are not born with brains that make them different in their interests and abilities, to include religious inclinations. Religious behavior is nothing special. Why are you putting it into a special category?

You are so invested in this genetic predisposition conjecture, that you do not seem to understand the difference between a possible truth and a necessary truth. Just because it is logically possible that there is some kind of genetic predisposition to believe in gods it is not necessary that there be such a genetic predisposition. You understand that possibility and necessity are not the same thing, right? You keep pointing out that people related to you are believers, whereas you are an atheist. Then you jump to the conclusion that the reason must necessarily be the result of genetic differences alone. Just because you had the same parents, you conclude that there must necessarily be a genetic difference causing your siblings to have different thoughts, abilities, and inclinations than you do. That is just begging the question. The alternative possibility is that you had some experiences that led you to turn away from religion, and they lacked similar experiences. You can't simply rule out that possibility.

 

[fromderinside]

Watched a news segment on gay history this mooring. There was a gay woman who was the first gay pastor at a prominent NYC Baptist church.

Why on Earth would gays want to be Christian? Leviticus prohibits homosexuality and Paul mentions homosexual sex.

What could possibly attract gays to a religion so associated with gay suppression, why religion?

It is like a black person joining the KKK.

Leviticus is part of the Jewish bible, not the Christian bible. Why the Hell would any right minded Christian believe that Leviticus applies to Christians?

Oh right. Protestant Hell and Damnation and Roman Catholic teachings , not Christian teachings mind you, of purgatory and the underworld.

Limit Christianity to the Gospels, They were written before Constantine brought 'Christianity' to the Roman Empire.

 

[fromderinside]

We could have an endless debate on intelligence. One of te best scifi movies was Forbidden Planet.

An alien race develops wireless technology that allows anyone on the planet to bring anything into physical reality by thought. Unwittingly it unleashed d the collective negative aspects of the subconscious on each other leading to destruction.

Philosophically I'd say wisdom and intelligence are two different things. Intelligence is a capacity, wisdom is how to apply capacity.

It is unwise to consume resources like water to total consumption, like the Colorado River. It takes intelligence to figure out how to make things that consume water. Like creating Las Vegas in a desert.

In the USA conservatives have a religious faith that the free market economy left alone will solve all problems. Unwise in the face of reality.

IMO we have failed the Darwin Test.

That you are here to make that claim is proof that it is false.

If you are around to wonder how you are doing on the Darwin test, then you are passing it.

Are we all forgetting, somehow, here, that trees have done about as bad to the environment WRT lignin?

Species do stupid shit all the time. It's a craps shoot every time whether the error is fatal or not.

What the fuck?...over. Trees? Sounds like Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity.

Serendipity is part of evolution and the inverse. You may be the best adapted fish in the lake, but if the lake dries up you are history.

The difference is we are aggressively draining the lake we live in knowing the consequences.

Hey. There's money in it.

Need more be said?

 

[steve_bank]

Watched a news segment on gay history this mooring. There was a gay woman who was the first gay pastor at a prominent NYC Baptist church.

Why on Earth would gays want to be Christian? Leviticus prohibits homosexuality and Paul mentions homosexual sex.

What could possibly attract gays to a religion so associated with gay suppression, why religion?

It is like a black person joining the KKK.

Leviticus is part of the Jewish bible, not the Christian bible. Why the Hell would any right minded Christian believe that Leviticus applies to Christians?

Oh right. Protestant Hell and Damnation and Roman Catholic teachings , not Christian teachings mind you, of purgatory and the underworld.

Limit Christianity to the Gospels, They were written before Constantine brought 'Christianity' to the Roman Empire.

Christians quote the OT ad nauseum. including Leviticus on homosexuality. And there is Paul.

 

[steve_bank]

Blacks adopted Christianity and created there own version. It was a focal point for community and eventually activism. Black Christianity was conservative., as conservative sexually as white Christians.

As I see the gospels the Jesus message was suffer your troubles, the reward is an eternal glorious afterlife. It gave blacks who were truly suffering hope.

With gays scripture expressly forbids homosexuality.

Also Christianity developed in Africa before Europe. Augustine was North African.

 

[southernhybrid]

Blacks adopted Christianity and created there own version. It was a focal point for community and eventually activism. Black Christianity was conservative., as conservative sexually as white Christians.

As I see the gospels the Jesus message was suffer your troubles, the reward is an eternal glorious afterlife. It gave blacks who were truly suffering hope.

With gays scripture expressly forbids homosexuality.

Also Christianity developed in Africa before Europe. Augustine was North African.

I realize all of that, but the women who lead the Black nonbelievers of Atlanta feel a lot differently about Christianity. And, I was referring to the early Black Christians who were still enslaved but bought into the nonsense of Christianity, the same religion used to justify keeping them enslaved.

The Bible says even worse things when it comes to females. For example, we are commanded to obey our husbands and the concept of original sin is blamed on a woman. No thank you.

But, as I mentioned, all religious people pick and choose what they are most attracted to, when it comes right down to it. And, homosexuality is only mentioned a couple of times in the Bible. I imagine it's easy to over look that or say that it was written during a period of time when people didn't realize that a percentage of people are naturally attracted to the same sex.

 

[steve_bank]

Like all groups, blacks are not politically, socially, and religiously homogeneous. Blacks range from liberal to centrist to conservative like white Christians and Jews for that matter.

My point was Christianity was established in Africa by the time of large scale slavery. I'd have to look up if black slaves brought it with them or adapted it in the colonies.

Augustine lived around 400CE and was a major figure in the RCC. He is thought to have been Berber.

 

[southernhybrid]

I tried to find out when Christianity was established in Africa but different sites claim very different dates.
I don't know how accurate this one is, but it might give us a little bit of information as to how and why so many enslaved people became Christians.

https://www.bartleby.com/essay/The-Religion-Of-African-Slaves-F39ZYC2L29BWQ

 

[southernhybrid]

I"m having trouble with the link and I'm also still having trouble with the new IIDB site. Anyway, the link basically says that many enslaved Africans practiced a religion that was very similar to Christianity. I'm beginning to think that nobody really knows what was going on in Africa around the time that many natives of Africa were taken to the US to be forced into slavery. Anyway, there are already too many different conversations going on in this thread so I'll leave it at that.

Maybe our resident gay Christian can explain why so many gay Americans are attracted to Christianity despite its condemnation of homosexuality. As we both know, cherry picking is always part of religious beliefs. I don't have a problem with that, as long as they pick the nicer cherries in their mythologies.

I've never understood why my own mother was suckered into evangelical Christianity, when she was an adult. I know she liked some of the nicer parts of the gospels but I never could understand how she could accept the concept of a loving god sending those who simply didn't believe that Jesus died for them and that he was the actual son of god, would be sent to suffer for eternity. What an absurd cruel belief for a decent person to hold! I guess I don't understand how the brains of religious people enable them to believe the nonsense that they do, regardless of which mythology it comes from.

 

[abaddon]

...cherry picking is always part of religious beliefs...

I think that's the reason why - cherry picking. IMV it's the reasonable thing to do, so long as the Christian doesn't also hold that every bit of the Bible is straight from God.

The appeal is likely the big promise that, after a life with misfortune and injustice in it, everything will be made right in the end and you get to live forever ... not the merger one's self into a cosmic totality like in some other religions, but you get to live forever as your individual self along with your loved ones. If your life's painful then this is a promise with a lot of appeal. That there's nastiness in some verses in a book doesn't much damage that appeal, especially not for folk who aren't zeroing-in on logical contradictions or who've rationalized them.

.... the concept of a loving god sending those who simply didn't believe that Jesus died for them and that he was the actual son of god, would be sent to suffer for eternity. What an absurd cruel belief for a decent person to hold!...

For many folk with a conservative cast of mind, when people other than oneself getting punished by God, it will seem like justice served. They don't sympathize so much as want to see things balanced out according to a principle - you gotta pay the price of entry and it's 'too bad' for those who don't. That everyone should get to go to heaven would seem like injustice to such a mind.