Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion.

[Machinesworking]

MW - I see the nature vs. nurture thing as a blunt tool to divide the world into two parts. Nature - you're born into an empty room and grow into that which is within yourself, and nurture - there's only the influences around you. It's a mix.

By this logic though, a person is born with bloodlust, and only through the influences around them do they not become a brutal killer.
It's why I think it's important to remember what honestly 99% of religious teachings go against, that we are not an inherently evil creature, that nature is 99% the basic desires for community, compassion, and order etc. that nature is not our capacity for intellect and thus a reason for a cast system and why killers exist etc.
So yeah I'm agreeing with you, but honestly nature (in the essence of an inherent personality, not as in out capacity for community etc. )is such a small insignificant part of it to me that I don't see the point. The over emphasizing of nature is what led to eugenics for instance.
I'm a little sketchy on this part, but from the last studies I read, the whole concept that we only used 10% of our brains capacity has been put into question. The miraculous recovery of people who's motor nerve areas were hit has led scientists to think that the brain basically works like a huge RAID system, constantly rearranging information and backing information up etc.
So in this respect, the human capacity for intelligence isn't limited by genetics, and I have no reason to suspect that emotionally and ethically charged things like compassion, predication for violence, bravery etc. are limited by genetics.
To think otherwise is to be limited to a sort of genetic fascism where a persons personality is a product of random chance, or god.
I believe that people are more similar than different, and we tend to forget that.

[pilcrow]

OK, in hopes of pushing this thread closer to the magic 100-page mark, and out of curiosity, I have a question. And I don't know the answer, I'm not spoiling for an argument--I'm just curious:

What do evolutionary biologists claim is the reason that "faith" or belief in God has evolved or come about? i.e., a large number of people since the dawn of time have believed in some form of god and practiced some form of religion.

People like Dawkins posit that an evolutionary equation underlies pretty much everything, right? i.e., is this or that physical or mental characteristic advantageous from an evolutionary perspective or not? If it's advantageous, it'll stick around. If not, it'll go away.

What do the theorists believe is the evolutionary advantage of religious belief?

[Angstrom]

What do the theorists believe is the evolutionary advantage of religious belief?

I think a few pages back someone posted about their father being at war and noticing that all the Christians did better in terms of morale than the heathens, who had a tendency to succumb to misery and die off easier.
The Christians had some sort of unifying justification and context, witness "Gods own country" going to war with a sense of justification versus a load of guys who aren't really that sure they are doing the right thing. The zealots will win the war of morale.

Essentially its not specifically about being religious - it's about being unquestioning about your given ontology. If the dominant creed where you come from is "brown people bad, our side good, any doubts - the big guy is with us, so no worries. Still doubting? you are a traitor to God and must be killed."

It provokes loyalty, fealty to a heirachic tribe, the structure of which has been proven effective in battle VS anarchic.

Also - ever heard the following from a government official - "I'd love to do that, but my boss wont let me" or " I'm sorry I have to do this, but it's just not my decision"

Essentially God is the big boss,

Sorry, I really didn't want to invade you but God said "kill all heathens" so, you know, rules is rules.

Religion seems to be a unifying justification for action which additionally raises morale and increases the chance of successful invasions and also on an individual level increases the chance of survival.

Ergo - gene pool full of gullible order followers.

I'm not sure 'suicide bomber' is a genetic success story though.

[pilcrow]

Interesting post, Angstrom. And your explanation does seem logical to a point. I wonder, though--it seems like going to the trouble of constructing the "illusion" of a god or whatnot is taking the long way around the barn if all you're after is to create a unified fighting force. Plus it doesn't really explain all the non-militaristic activities of religion--charity, protecting the weak, etc.. And you've also got the "love your enemies" bit, which, as poorly as that's been practiced historically, stands as at least a putative pillar of more than one religion. And plenty of religions are just outright pacifists, so they're left out of that explanation as well.

[knotkranky]

I think Angstrom is spot on. As far as human evolution and history. I think it's important to look at what has never changed since the beginning of time. Ancient history is the beginning of who we are today and what many faiths have evolved from.

Take prayer. How did that start? what was the first prayer? I bet it was about food. Sustenance. I'm starving, i'm gonna die, oh please great big antelope thingy come over here and bring your friends so we can bbq. Look at the earliest cave paintings. They all paid respects to the living sustenance gods in their hood.

That held on for a very long time. Forward from there and a few thousand years ago it was still animal gods then Egyptian and Greek human animal hybrids. THEN came monotheism with a heavy patriarchal rule, with the power to move crowds and inspire war.

I've over simplified, but the the new single god became the image of a man and suddenly it became way too easy to relate to god and cheat oneself (and others) when it should be the hardest thing to do.

[sqook]

What do evolutionary biologists claim is the reason that "faith" or belief in God has evolved or come about? i.e., a large number of people since the dawn of time have believed in some form of god and practiced some form of religion.

I heard about a very interesting study not long ago that addressed this question. To be precise, the question at hand was "what properties do all world religions share in common?". Researchers analyzed everything from the "big 3" monotheistic religions to so-called tribal beliefs in this study.

An interesting finding of the study was that belief in god(s), afterlife, and the creation of the universe are not universal to all religions. On the contrary, many religions lack dogma in some of these areas, and others differ wildly in their interpretation of them. Some religions even have no belief system concerning the existence of god (like certain sects of buddhism, for example). Rather, the two properties that the study found were common to practically every religion are:

1. Belief in supernatural forces which exist in our environment (spirits, ghosts, the concept of a "soul", etc.)
2. Rituals and ceremonial practices

If you want to take a strictly scientific (for lack of a better word) approach to each of the above, a logical explanation can easily be derived. Religion is just the complex manifestation of humans attempting to explain the forces around us which we can't completely understand, such as weather, death, the creation of the universe, and so on. Ritual/ceremony habits go hand-in-hand with our socialization instincts as a species. Both the desire to understand the world around us and our tendencies as social animals are obviously aspects of our instincts as humans which have given us an evolutionary edge over time. Religion could thusly be explained as the evolution of these instincts over time as the human psyche and culture also grew more complex.

Note that the above is not a comment on whether or not the belief content of religions are true or not; it is simply a hypothesis as to why religion exists in the forms that it does.

[Angstrom]

Interesting post, Angstrom. And your explanation does seem logical to a point. I wonder, though--it seems like going to the trouble of constructing the "illusion" of a god or whatnot is taking the long way around the barn if all you're after is to create a unified fighting force. Plus it doesn't really explain all the non-militaristic activities of religion--charity, protecting the weak, etc.. And you've also got the "love your enemies" bit, which, as poorly as that's been practiced historically, stands as at least a putative pillar of more than one religion. And plenty of religions are just outright pacifists, so they're left out of that explanation as well.

Why invent God rather than a teamwork weekend
essentially the question "why whould people invent God if they just wanted a useful fighting force" is not what I am saying. The process is not 'designed' it is 'evolved'. No one ever said "we need a better army, lets invent Theology". That's kind of the crucial point in evolution really. A simplistic example:

Lets say we have a two opposing forces of 50 men each (for convenience - zealots and Heathens) 10 men on Heathens side believe in 'some kind of God' . On the Zealots side there are also only 10 who believe in a God, but in addition - one of those 10 is a their commander.

The Heathen Commander says "Men, we must protect our homeland against these bastards, we are in the right, your government says so". Meanwhile the Zealot Commander says "Zardoz is on our side, how can we loose, Zardoz will protect us in righteous battle, trust Him" . There follows a skirmish battle, where both sides have equal casualties. Ten men die, but on both sides a man is wounded, but rescued by his comrades.

The Heathen commander says to his troops "well done, I told you we are the best, team, hooray for us, and our homeland, well done for rescuing private Ryan".
The Zealot commander says to his troops "Didn't I say Zardoz was watching us, see how he guarded private Ryan? Truly we are the righteous chosen ones of Zardoz, praise him".

now, on the Heathens side we have a battered and decimated army who have to believe in their commanders military judgement as the supreme reason for being. On Zealots side the 'authority; which they server seems much less vulnerable to human errors of judgement representing "the uber-father figure". The remaining men who were not into Zardoz before are now drawn to this reassuring idea that they are invulnerable. 15 men now worship Zardoz.

Zealots +1 morale


-----------


RE: why do religious people do good things?

This pre-supposes that religious people are the custodians of 'good things', while athiests are not. In fact I personally know many rabid bible thumping Christians who are very very intollerant and 'unjust' people, to the point of ignoring me, despite being related to me. Pretending that I dont exist, not ever mentioning my name, making sure their children never see me!

Why ?
hese particular people consider themselves 'good christians' , while I am 'a heathen'

Q: who decides what the good and Christian things are?
A: Christians do


In my experience Christians good behaviours are usually ritualised and societalised EG : contribute to 'Christian Aid Program' , 'become a missionary' because these activities increase the tokenhood of belonging to a caste of righteous believers.

If you doubt that - would a Christian contribute to an Islamic or a noted 'Atheist' charity ? No, probably not. Because the act of 'Christian Giving' is one of making a public statement of belonging. In the Christian community plaudits are given for these acts, societal status is increased.

Is an average Christian more or less likely than the average athiest to 'help an old lady across the road' ?

Personally I have caried out quite a few selfless heroic and wonderful acts, but founded on personal philosophical (rather than religious) grounds. Unfortunately, as I noted in my Heathens vs Zealots segment, my actions are not sanctified so count for less when weighed by Christians.

therefore with Christians keeping the 'goodness' score

Christian does a bad deed = unfortunate mistake
Heathen does a bad deed = proof of moral turpitude!
Christian does a good deed = proof of moral rightness
Heathen does a good deed = unusual and probably incorrect

[pilcrow]

Take prayer. How did that start? what was the first prayer? I bet it was about food. Sustenance. I'm starving, i'm gonna die, oh please great big antelope thingy come over here and bring your friends so we can bbq.

Not bad. But two things:

a) Why would it occur to the hungry caveman to pray for the antelope to git over here rather than to just go hunt it down?

b) Where is the question of evolutionary advantage revealed in this scenario? If prayer doesn't actually accomplish anything, how/why did it survive, in evolutionary terms?

[pilcrow]

Interesting post, Angstrom. And your explanation does seem logical to a point. I wonder, though--it seems like going to the trouble of constructing the "illusion" of a god or whatnot is taking the long way around the barn if all you're after is to create a unified fighting force. Plus it doesn't really explain all the non-militaristic activities of religion--charity, protecting the weak, etc.. And you've also got the "love your enemies" bit, which, as poorly as that's been practiced historically, stands as at least a putative pillar of more than one religion. And plenty of religions are just outright pacifists, so they're left out of that explanation as well.

Why invent God rather than a teamwork weekend
essentially the question "why whould people invent God if they just wanted a useful fighting force" is not what I am saying. The process is not 'designed' it is 'evolved'. No one ever said "we need a better army, lets invent Theology". That's kind of the crucial point in evolution really. A simplistic example:

Lets say we have a two opposing forces of 50 men each (for convenience - zealots and Heathens) 10 men on Heathens side believe in 'some kind of God' . On the Zealots side there are also only 10 who believe in a God, but in addition - one of those 10 is a their commander.

The Heathen Commander says "Men, we must protect our homeland against these bastards, we are in the right, your government says so". Meanwhile the Zealot Commander says "Zardoz is on our side, how can we loose, Zardoz will protect us in righteous battle, trust Him" . There follows a skirmish battle, where both sides have equal casualties. Ten men die, but on both sides a man is wounded, but rescued by his comrades.

The Heathen commander says to his troops "well done, I told you we are the best, team, hooray for us, and our homeland, well done for rescuing private Ryan".
The Zealot commander says to his troops "Didn't I say Zardoz was watching us, see how he guarded private Ryan? Truly we are the righteous chosen ones of Zardoz, praise him".

now, on the Heathens side we have a battered and decimated army who have to believe in their commanders military judgement as the supreme reason for being. On Zealots side the 'authority; which they server seems much less vulnerable to human errors of judgement representing "the uber-father figure". The remaining men who were not into Zardoz before are now drawn to this reassuring idea that they are invulnerable. 15 men now worship Zardoz.

Zealots +1 morale


-----------


RE: why do religious people do good things?

This pre-supposes that religious people are the custodians of 'good things', while athiests are not. In fact I personally know many rabid bible thumping Christians who are very very intollerant and 'unjust' people, to the point of ignoring me, despite being related to me. Pretending that I dont exist, not ever mentioning my name, making sure their children never see me!

Why ?
hese particular people consider themselves 'good christians' , while I am 'a heathen'

Q: who decides what the good and Christian things are?
A: Christians do


In my experience Christians good behaviours are usually ritualised and societalised EG : contribute to 'Christian Aid Program' , 'become a missionary' because these activities increase the tokenhood of belonging to a caste of righteous believers.

If you doubt that - would a Christian contribute to an Islamic or a noted 'Atheist' charity ? No, probably not. Because the act of 'Christian Giving' is one of making a public statement of belonging. In the Christian community plaudits are given for these acts, societal status is increased.

Is an average Christian more or less likely than the average athiest to 'help an old lady across the road' ?

Personally I have caried out quite a few selfless heroic and wonderful acts, but founded on personal philosophical (rather than religious) grounds. Unfortunately, as I noted in my Heathens vs Zealots segment, my actions are not sanctified so count for less when weighed by Christians.

therefore with Christians keeping the 'goodness' score

Christian does a bad deed = unfortunate mistake
Heathen does a bad deed = proof of moral turpitude!
Christian does a good deed = proof of moral rightness
Heathen does a good deed = unusual and probably incorrect

I guess I'm just not tuned in to the whole militaristic basis of religion that you're developing here. I mean, I see what you mean, and it makes sense as far as it goes. But it's just a too-limited view, from my POV. First, I think religion probably began first as a response to the natural world--praying for rain, crops, food, etc.--well before it was a component in wars, etc. (And if it DID start that way, what's the evolutionary advantage of it continuing, in the face of the fact that praying for crops doesn't really help?) I could be wrong; I'm no anthropologist. Second, I didn't ask "why do religious people do good things," I asked "if the basis of religion is militaristic, then why do religions spend so much of time and energy pushing golden-rule, love-thy-enemy type of advice?" Nobody's saying atheists don't do good things; that's not related to my question at all. And nobody's saying religious people are any more reliable, in terms of ethical behavior, than anyone else. I'm just saying that the ethical norms preached by religions seem at odds with your militaristic explanation.

[Angstrom]

...your militaristic explanation.

hey, I'm not saying that's the only strand - but shit ... did you see the length of my other post?
you want me to expound my entire philosophy on this at any further length? I think not.

I bore myself!

I only did it for the page count kids

[pilcrow]

It was a good effort
But crap, we didn't even kick it over to 84!

[knotkranky]

Take prayer. How did that start? what was the first prayer? I bet it was about food. Sustenance. I'm starving, i'm gonna die, oh please great big antelope thingy come over here and bring your friends so we can bbq.

Not bad. But two things:

a) Why would it occur to the hungry caveman to pray for the antelope to git over here rather than to just go hunt it down?

b) Where is the question of evolutionary advantage revealed in this scenario? If prayer doesn't actually accomplish anything, how/why did it survive, in evolutionary terms?

a) Why would it occur to the hungry caveman to pray for the antelope to git over here rather than to just go hunt it down?

Hunting is hard with a spear and antelope move all over and far from home. Some seasons are better than others. Some seasons are catastrophic and cavemen starve to death. So they get a brilliant idea. Put on the animal skins and dance around, perform rituals. Be like the animal, get in their animal heads and pray for a better season. Paint effigies on the walls and focus on abundance. Neanderthals didn't move very far from there homes and rarely lived in clans of more than 10 individuals. Modern man was very good at moving long distances and depleting an area to only move on to another. Early man simply looked at other animals that had rituals themselves with strange sounds, colors and repetitive dance movements. That's right, animals do have rituals. Mating and fighting etc.

b) Where is the question of evolutionary advantage revealed in this scenario? If prayer doesn't actually accomplish anything, how/why did it survive, in evolutionary terms?

Well, i'm of the belief that prayer does do something. It's analogous to wishing, blessing, meditation, positive thinking, visualization. Grossly simplified, it is to focus on something with intent. Focus on something and it will be so. As humans, more than anything else, we are made out of thoughts and ideas. Take those away and everything ceases to exist. So, it is best to keep constructive positive affirmations in the mind. Thoughts turn into things. They define us and we have control over them.

[telekom]

Just dropped in to help with the page count... I haven't read any of this since about page 3 ages ago... but I just wanted to point out that in today's Guardian there is news of another important dispute about religion involving Richard Dawkins. He has had a poke at none other than... Peter Kay... for finding the idea of some kind of god-figure "comforting".

"Garlic bread - it's the future. I've tasted it."

[pilcrow]

If any of you slackers lets this topic slip off the front page of the forum again, I'm going to send my God to smite you. Verily.

[Tone Deft]

"Garlic bread - it's the future. I've tasted it."

Ah the sacred sacrament of Pastafarianism... my god smiles upon you with promises of beer volcanoes and stripper factories.

If any of you slackers lets this topic slip off the front page of the forum again, I'm going to send my God to smite you. Verily.

Does your god also wear leather and crotchless panties? The christian god is REALLY into virgins but I doubt he'd even give a brother a reach around.