Anonymous wrote:
I agree. Talking to the atheists on this board is like talking to an anti-vaxxer. They want to tell me that I don’t understand the science, and meanwhile they don’t know what a p-value is or the difference between IgM and IgG, and they don’t care to learn.
Neither do you, apparently.
I’m open. Give me a great book to read. Teach me something interesting based on your profound theological knowledge.
Stop telling me that you don’t believe the things that only a small child would believe, and that you refuse to learn anything more.
It isn't only children. It's also some adults that were brainwashed as children, particularly when they didn't grow up in an educated household.
So that’s your excuse for not learning about the thing you are rejecting? That some people who believe in it aren’t educated about it?
Are you actually an anti-vaxxer?
What are you talking about? I grew up in the Catholic church.
I was responding to you saying that some adults still believe things only a small child would believe because they were brainwashed as children.
If you don’t believe the things that actual educated adults believe, then fine. But give me a reason based on theology that a college educated adult believes.
Don’t use the fact that some believers aren’t educated as an excuse to walk around ignorant.
Anonymous wrote:
I agree. Talking to the atheists on this board is like talking to an anti-vaxxer. They want to tell me that I don’t understand the science, and meanwhile they don’t know what a p-value is or the difference between IgM and IgG, and they don’t care to learn.
Neither do you, apparently.
I’m open. Give me a great book to read. Teach me something interesting based on your profound theological knowledge.
Stop telling me that you don’t believe the things that only a small child would believe, and that you refuse to learn anything more.
Happy to do so. As soon as you do the same, for any of the many, many things you do not believe,
Gish gallop word salad non-sequitur fake Justin Peterson style intellectualism is not evidence for a god. Fail.
Anonymous wrote:
I agree. Talking to the atheists on this board is like talking to an anti-vaxxer. They want to tell me that I don’t understand the science, and meanwhile they don’t know what a p-value is or the difference between IgM and IgG, and they don’t care to learn.
Neither do you, apparently.
I’m open. Give me a great book to read. Teach me something interesting based on your profound theological knowledge.
Stop telling me that you don’t believe the things that only a small child would believe, and that you refuse to learn anything more.
DP here: I don’t believe in goblins, fairies or god. Do you? If so, why? I discarded goblins and fairies, along with everyone else.
Happy to do so. As soon as you do the same, for any of the many, many things you do not believe,
Gish gallop word salad non-sequitur fake Justin Peterson style intellectualism is not evidence for a god. Fail.
.
I don’t believe in goblins, fairies or god, do you? I stopped believing in goblins and fairies as a child because it seemed silly, but I continued to believe in god until I made a study of religion as an adult.
Anonymous wrote:
I agree. Talking to the atheists on this board is like talking to an anti-vaxxer. They want to tell me that I don’t understand the science, and meanwhile they don’t know what a p-value is or the difference between IgM and IgG, and they don’t care to learn.
Neither do you, apparently.
I’m open. Give me a great book to read. Teach me something interesting based on your profound theological knowledge.
Stop telling me that you don’t believe the things that only a small child would believe, and that you refuse to learn anything more.
DP here: I don’t believe in goblins, fairies or god. Do you? If so, why? I discarded goblins and fairies, along with everyone else.
Happy to do so. As soon as you do the same, for any of the many, many things you do not believe,
Gish gallop word salad non-sequitur fake Justin Peterson style intellectualism is not evidence for a god. Fail.
.
I don’t believe in goblins, fairies or god, do you? I stopped believing in goblins and fairies as a child because it seemed silly, but I continued to believe in god until I made a study of religion as an adult.
Anonymous wrote:Maybe because they like it. It feels good. Most everyone else they know does it.
Do they really believe? I doubt it. I can see why people believed it 2,000 years ago, but how can anyone these days possibly believe that long ago, a guy who was actually God, had a mother who was a virgin. He was later died by hanging on a cross, then came back to life and ultimately went up to the sky (heaven) to live with his father (God) and if you believe that, you’ll get to live forever just like him. If you don’t, then you’ll burn forever, instead.
Here’s how it starts: “It’s becoming more common now. You meet people who followed every rule and custom and they tell you ‘I don’t really believe anymore.’ They’re not angry about it. They just tell you: ‘I just left.’ Many are well read and curious people. People who ask questions. People who listen carefully to the answers.”
I stay religious because I think it’s true. A few points:
1. I do not the modern quasi-consensus that “science” is sufficient to explain the nature of reality. Scientists tend to be really smart, so much so that most of the population is incapable of joining their ranks and understanding the things that they understand. If human intelligence is a continuum (and it is) and if only some people are smart enough to understand the stuff that as a global community currently understand, wouldn’t it follow that there are some truths that lie beyond the aptitude of our best and brightest? Assuming to the contrary is an exercise in faith.
2. Much of religion feels absurd, but that is a side effect. The world it purports to explain is absurd. We wake up here and depart, never to return without any way of testing what (if anything) lies beyond.
3. Humans appear hardwired to seek out a divinity, food, water, sex, and sleep. Four of those things are exist beyond dispute.
4. Most of the world sensibly assumed that, just as most things are made by multiple people, so too were we made by multiple gods. Virtually the only countervailing hypothesis was Abrahamic monotheism. Call it luck if you will, but that other hypothesis branched out from one held by a loose confederation of tribes in the ancient near east into a millennia-enduring global religious force to be reckoned with.
I think Christianity is true, and I actually, really believe it.
Obviously people aren't "hardwired to seek out a divinity." Educated people don't. The vast majority of people who are religious were brainwashed at a young age- they didn't seek it out. And education significantly increases the chance that someone will drop their religion later in life.
Then why are you here? Why do you care so much? What is missing from your life that you have to come.to DCUM and call people uneducated?
The pp claimed that "Humans appear hardwired to seek out a divinity, food, water, sex, and sleep." That's obviously absurd.
I am unsure how it’s even false, much less absurd
Because educated societies and individuals certainly don't "seek out divinity."
Which societies in history existed without a belief in a “divinity”?
Look around at educated, western civilizations today.
Um, they all include a faith tradition.
And churches in those countries are all rapidly losing members as the earlier generations die off. That wouldn't be happening if humans were "hardwired" to "seek out divinity."
People are hardwired to seek explanations for their surroundings. When people weren't educated, that meant turning to religion. Religion was culturally engrained at that point, but without that original driver, people have naturally moved away. And will continue to do so.
I’m the poster who referred to hard wiring. Despite purporting to disagree with me, the bolded is precisely my point. I know you look down on both the uneducated and the religious, but you will (I hope!) concede our humanity.
That isn't the same as "seeking divinity." And modern, educated societies demonstrate that. As education has increased, people have turned to religion less. That's why some of the more fundamentalist sects are hostile to science.
To suggest (as you said) that being “hardwired” to “turn[] to religion” “isn’t the same as ‘seeking divinity’” is so hard to make sense of that I think (no offense) you’re just kind of backed into a corner and saying stuff. It’s the rare religion that doesn’t contemplate a divinity.
In any event, I can tell that you’re someone who takes a certain degree of pride in intellectual sophistication, so I’ll offer this: I’m not sure if you’re familiar with what geneticists call single nucleotide polymorphisms, but, if not, they’re basically places in common genes where a nucleotide—that is, the molecule that builds the DNA of a particular gene (you may remember “T”, “A”, “G”, and “C” from high school biology)— is replaced with a different nucleotide. Scientists have identified a number of SNPs (primarily relating to genes that affect dopamine and serotonin) that anre associated with increases in religious behaviors. (I believe there is also at least one non-SNP polymorphism that is similar, but I don’t have a good enough handle on genetics to know how that works.) Now I’m certainly not saying that these polymorphisms are the *cause* of religion—rather, I’m saying that there are modest though recurring signs of a genetic mechanism underlying religion, sort of like genetic smoke to a fire of an actual cause of religiosity. But when you combine that fact with the fact that religion is just really, really common, it really just beggars belief to say that the practice is nothing more than the backward superstitions of people who aren’t as smart as sururbanite Washingtonians.
As you yourself admit "I don’t have a good enough handle on genetics to know how that works", so please don't try here.
There are entire books dedicated to explaining the complex dynamics of genetics and behavior.
Humans are not hard-wired to seek out divinity. We do see faces in clouds, inanimate objects, or other random patterns and it is called pareidolia. It is a common psychological occurrence and a type of apophenia, which is the tendency to find meaningful connections between unrelated things. Neuroscientists suggest that pareidolia is not a late cognitive reinterpretation, but a relatively early process involving the same part of the brain that we use for recognizing real faces.
That’s a neat fact, and I’m not disputing it, but if it is your position that no scientific research posits a connection between genetic polymorphism and religiosity, you’re simply wrong on the facts. A quick search on PubMed for DRD2 will yield a 2009 study in like 30 seconds. And the relationship between VMAT2 and religiosity is so widely discussed (albeit controversial) that it’s on Wikipedia. While I agree that these studies don’t establish a biological basis for reality, the notion that they can all be casually dismissed as utterly without foundation is just anti-science. You might not like religion, and you might think it’s beneath you, but the better read of the evidence is that it’s not a fluke.
I’m not really in the business of telling atheists how to pick their fights, but a more satisfying response would be to suggest that it’s an evolutionary mechanism for promoting social cohesion. Of course, that would run you headlong into the follow-on conclusion that its pursuit is hard-wired into us like an urge to eat, sleep, and procreate.
All that said, I’m glad you’re wrestling with this stuff. I hope your mind (and heart) are open.
For the “hard-wired” believers, think of it in the alternative. Let’s assume that this universe creating deity did hard-wire humanity to believe, possibly through the genetic code. I would make a few assumptions such as a tendency for all people – regardless of time and location – to have an inherent preference to believe in a moralized, “big god”. However, there is zero evidence for this. Instead, there is a clear sequence of natural development as society became more complex.
First are the small-scale societies like hunter-gatherer groups, where religious beliefs tend to be more animistic, with a focus on local spirits and ancestors. Then, as societies grew larger and became more stratified (from tribe to chiefdom to state), so did the perceived spiritual world. A pantheon of deities emerged, with specialized gods representing different natural forces or aspects of human life. In ancient civilizations like Sumer and Egypt, each city-state often had its own patron deity. Next, as those early societies and states expanded into vast, multi-ethnic empires, a more abstract and universal spiritual system was needed to maintain cooperation among unrelated people who did not know each other personally. In these large societies, the concept of an all-seeing, morally-concerned deity became beneficial for social control and cooperation. This results in the first "big gods,” moralizing deities who punish ethical transgressions, and serve as a cultural adaptation for sustaining cooperation in societies that have exceeded a certain size.
Eventually, the moralized, big gods started to evolve into a belief in a single, supreme entity. The monotheism of ancient Israel did not appear fully formed but evolved gradually. Archaeological evidence shows that polytheistic worship, including veneration of deities like Asherah, existed alongside the worship of Yahweh for a significant period. True, exclusive monotheism emerged later, possibly influenced by political events like the Babylonian Exile. The monotheistic, Abrahamic religions represent a consolidation of spiritual power that mirrors the consolidated political power of the state.
If we were hard-wired to believe in the universal creator, one would think history and the archaeological record would be replete with examples of our modern interpretation of “god” – such as figurines similar to Zues/Jupiter since that is where most early Christian interpretations borrowed their visualization from.
Is there a video or show on youtube or film that describes this transformation? It would be helpful to view it to solidify my views.
What I don't understand are devout people that keep doing the same bad behavior over and over or do it in hiding such as cheating or stealing money. Do they really believe in God? If you really believed in hell or this promise of heaven, wouldn't you quickly change your ways to ensure you were chosen? Religion just doesn't seem to have much of a hold on people, even religious ones.
Anonymous wrote:
I agree. Talking to the atheists on this board is like talking to an anti-vaxxer. They want to tell me that I don’t understand the science, and meanwhile they don’t know what a p-value is or the difference between IgM and IgG, and they don’t care to learn.
Neither do you, apparently.
I’m open. Give me a great book to read. Teach me something interesting based on your profound theological knowledge.
Stop telling me that you don’t believe the things that only a small child would believe, and that you refuse to learn anything more.
Happy to do so. As soon as you do the same, for any of the many, many things you do not believe,
Gish gallop word salad non-sequitur fake Justin Peterson style intellectualism is not evidence for a god. Fail.
Sounds good. Give me a text written by an educated adult about their sincere belief in goblins, and I’m happy to talk about it.
Until I read about it, I abstain from trashing Wicca or whatever.
I am a believer but I don't think I am religious. What I believe in is just between the almighty and me. I believe now that true worship has to happen in your own space and in private.
I may visit a temple but it is very rarely a spiritual experience for me. It is mostly a community and cultural feeling for me (which I enjoy). But the true connection, faith, manifestation, purity, guidance happens for me in my own space and time. I also believe that I can manifest what I truly need from the universe and the universe is listening and is bestowing what is best for me.
Religion is for people with zero confidence or brains.
Churches take donations all the time. 90% of the money or more goes right to the leaders pocket.
Mega Churches or
Cults like Chabad, Hassids, Lubbies, Opus Dei, Evangelicals etc...
All Kool-Aid indoctrination centers run by con men.
Look at Charlie Kirk's furneral for god's sake mega church pyrotechnics, asks for money and an RNC, KKK rally all sponsored by Christian Nationalists. Pay to play.
Anonymous wrote:Religion is for people with zero confidence or brains.
Churches take donations all the time. 90% of the money or more goes right to the leaders pocket.
Mega Churches or
Cults like Chabad, Hassids, Lubbies, Opus Dei, Evangelicals etc...
All Kool-Aid indoctrination centers run by con men.
Look at Charlie Kirk's furneral for god's sake mega church pyrotechnics, asks for money and an RNC, KKK rally all sponsored by Christian Nationalists. Pay to play.
What's Kirk have to do with this? He wasn't starting a religion. Try to stay on topic instead of deflecting because your arguments are weak.
Anonymous wrote:What I don't understand are devout people that keep doing the same bad behavior over and over or do it in hiding such as cheating or stealing money. Do they really believe in God? If you really believed in hell or this promise of heaven, wouldn't you quickly change your ways to ensure you were chosen? Religion just doesn't seem to have much of a hold on people, even religious ones.
Agreed. I am so tuned to the idea of good and bad Karma due to my religious belief that I am too scared to do any bad things. If you are a good muslim, jew, christian etc - won't you be peaceful, decent and respectful to every being that has been created by your God?
Anonymous wrote:Of course the metaphysical dimensions of religion are not true, as we commonly understand truth pertaining to material reality. However the cultural and moral consequences of these belief systems clearly are true. As an atheist I don’t care about the metaphysical, only the material outputs. And if you look at the comparative outcomes of atheism and various religious cultures over time, the results are crystal clear.
I’ll play. Tell me about these comparative results.
Open your eyes. Are you giving up everything to immigrate Syria? Pursuing studies in India or China to build a new life there? Dreaming of the days when you could have lived in the proletariat paradise of the USSR?
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