Is Belief in God ingrained in our 'human nature'?

Dawn · Fri May 13, 2011 12:58 pm

Check out this new study from Oxford. Interesting.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-beli ... y-says-so/


	Quote: An exciting, new Oxford University study has found that faith and religion come to human beings naturally — possibly instinctively. The initiative, entitled the “Cognition, Religion and Theology Project,” took three years to complete and involved more than 40 different studies in 20 countries around the globe. According to CNN, the study has some intriguing findings:....

DWill · Fri May 13, 2011 5:27 pm

Dawn wrote:

Check out this new study from Oxford. Interesting.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-beli ... y-says-so/


	Quote: An exciting, new Oxford University study has found that faith and religion come to human beings naturally — possibly instinctively. The initiative, entitled the “Cognition, Religion and Theology Project,” took three years to complete and involved more than 40 different studies in 20 countries around the globe. According to CNN, the study has some intriguing findings:....

Thanks for this link. However, when I saw that "The Blaze" is a Glenn Beck production, I had to check out some better sources. I didn't find any detailed summary of the study. Apparently no other information will be available until it is published in book form. But I did find this source gave a bit more on what the study found: http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2011/110513.html

Interbane · Fri May 13, 2011 6:14 pm

Daniel Dennet has some excellent books regarding this very topic. Unweaving the Rainbow, for example. Religion is a human phenomenon. It's an excellent insight into how religion is a human creation, requiring nothing objective for people to believe in it. Glitches in our evolution.

The largest component concept if I remember had something to do with agency detection. Where we have an unconscious agency detection capability, and continuously ping false positives. Personification of nature follows neatly behind.

Dexter · Fri May 13, 2011 6:18 pm


	Quote: CNN points out the notion that both atheists and the religious can use the study to validate their beliefs. Trigg explains that the faithful can look at the data and say, ‘If there is a God, then … he would have given us inclinations to look for him.” On the flip side, atheists would potentially accept the notion that faith appeals to the human heart and mind, but that humanity must evolve and move beyond simple myths. Arguably, the former argument seems more compelling, especially considering the fact that religious beliefs remained consistent, despite major cultural differences. Clearly, a common thread connects the human search for a higher being.

Nice try there, but religious beliefs are not at all consistent, especially as hardly any believer is willing to accept some kind of neutral deist position, but insist on their particular doctrines.

Stuart Mason · Sat May 14, 2011 2:31 pm

I don't know about it being engrained in our nature in the sense of being genetic or anything, but I think that from a pure observational standpoint when you see plants, then you see insects, then you see dogs, then you see apes, then you see humans, etc. you notice a pattern of higher and higher lifeforms as you go along. From there it only stands to reason that there is some kind of being as far above you as you are an insect, and an even higher being above that and so on and so forth until you reach the highest being. And since an insect can't fathom what you are, odds are the highest being is likewise beyond your comprehension. At some point in their life one also eventually notices that complex, organized structures tend not form by themselves but require a creator. So, when those two observations are taken together I think humans naturally conclude that there is a God of some kind at the top of this pattern. Whether this conclusion is right or wrong, I don't think the belief in a God is genetic so much as deductive.

lady of shallot · Sat May 14, 2011 3:22 pm

It doesn't appear belief in a God is ingrained in our human nature but it seems that a belief in some sort of supernaturalism is a part of the myths and belief systems of all cultures and societies across time. What does seem ingrained is a need to explain our world, and what is happening in it, to ourselves.

What Stuart says about "higher" and "higher" life forms is interesting if one considers himself superior to other animals. But then wouldn't we have to also consider things like hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis etc. that certainly are more powerful than we puny humans are. I never contemplate the nearby Atlantic without a very conscious awareness that a misstep on my part could spell my doom.

Interbane · Sat May 14, 2011 3:52 pm

I think ingrained is the wrong word. It's more like, due to anomalies in evolution, and by nature of how we interact with our environment, belief in some sort of supreme intelligence is nearly inevitable. Every twig that snaps in the forest we immediately suspect an agent(an organism). When lightning strikes and kills a loved one, it is hard to come to any other conclusion than that an agent is responsible. What agent can control lightning, the weather, avalanches, and floods? It would have to be a supreme agent. Perhaps at first agency would be ascribed to each individual phenomenon, as the phenomenon can be seen as behaviorisms of that "god". So multiple gods would be a natural starting point for our ancient ancestors. One to control flooding(or water), one to control the sun, one to control lightning, etc. But of course, if there is such a being with that amount of power, there would only need to be one of them. So monotheism would replace polytheism.

That is story-building. That is how men created god in their image, by prescribing intelligence to each and every event that seems intelligently directed. We've come far enough to realize that such things are not intelligently directed, yet people all across the world still cling to their god(s) for some reason. God is homeless now, no explanation needs him. Our universe can and does function without his intervention. If the evidence needed to support such a belief were added up, you'd need an analogous metric ton. But all that has surfaced is the equivalent of a few ounces. There is no justification for being anything other than agnostic towards god. That challenge has stood for centuries, and no theologian has ever come close to meeting it. The ontological argument is of the dichotomous type. Either it's true or it's false. Alterations do not equate to improvements. It is still false.

johnson1010 · Sat May 14, 2011 4:15 pm


	Quote: Interbane: God is homeless now, no explanation needs him.

That's an instant classic!

I see our dependance on god the same way Interbane does.

Robert Tulip · Sat May 14, 2011 4:36 pm

Belief in an embedded rationality of nature is ingrained in human intelligence. Considering Stuart Mason's comments, we can see that the laws of physics have a grandeur and regularity that in premodern times gave rise to the supposition of an intentional cosmic entity as a high intelligence called God. We now know that this apparent universal intelligence is not conscious, but is simply the rational operation of causality. And yet, it still makes sense that for humans to align to our own long term best interests by understanding natural causality and living in ways that are rational, and not merely instinctive, leads to many of the same conclusions reached by prophets in the Bible. They sought to make this universal reason comprehensible for a mass audience by anthropomorphising it as a deliberate agency called God. It remains possible to look at how their intuition was correct by seeing the allegorical language of enlightened religious thought as containing genuine insight.

On life after death, there is a natural desire for immortality. It is easy to transpose the sense of real continuity that arises from helping create the future by having children and leaving a constructive legacy into a wish that we will personally continue to participate as ego. There is also the sense that the human soul is so complex that it is hard to imagine it simply disintegrating at death. But without the spark of life there is nothing to hold the soul together.

DWill · Sat May 14, 2011 8:51 pm

Darwin's illustration of evolution as a well-branched tree gives a different look at this matter of higher and lower creatures. Life wasn't a ladder as Darwin saw it, and this is still the way biologists see evolution today. Without the image of ascending species that Stuart Mason used, it doesn't seem inevitable that we must see the step above us as God.

Robert Tulip · Sat May 14, 2011 10:02 pm

The only reason scientists say evolution is not a ladder is because they are prejudiced against teleology, due to their desire to distance themselves from the incorrect teleology of Christianity. Of course evolution is all about progress. Humans are more advanced than individual bacteria or viruses. There is a ladder of progress from simple to complex. Selective pressure causes constant evolutionary progress. Without the image of ascending species, we are lost in a morass of nihilism, the value-free domain of scientific facts alone.

Interbane · Sat May 14, 2011 11:15 pm


	Quote: Belief in an embedded rationality of nature is ingrained in human intelligence.

I see that embedded rationality to be the same as free-floating rationale. Many examples in game theory, for example, show that some behaviors can be expressed mathematically. It is an extension of the mathematical nature of the laws of physics that manifests on a macro level, made apparent by the fact that math can apply to it with great accuracy.

I believe the difference between those algorithmic behaviors which are able to be expressed mathematically and those which are too complex to be merely a matter of degree. As complexity grows exponentially in some situations, tracing cause and effect is like tracing the individual fibers of a mile-high cotton ball. We aren't capable of that with our current technology.

All other phenomena besides the human mind are much more easily able to be explained mathematically, with the easiest being the least complex of all. The notion of "intention" is no longer applicable, as there is no intention in a system which is able to be described mathematically. It's possible there was intention by some other agent at the start of the universe, and he wove his intention into the laws of physics(essentially setting off a chain of dominoes that are set up to travel certain paths). Such a deity, now asleep, would require a hypothesis before you could even collect evidence. The problem with a convinced pursuit is that you'll be blind to your biases no matter how hard you fight against them. Motive can morph fiction into what appears to be elegant truth.

Stuart Mason · Sun May 15, 2011 1:01 am


	DWill wrote: Darwin's illustration of evolution as a well-branched tree gives a different look at this matter of higher and lower creatures. Life wasn't a ladder as Darwin saw it, and this is still the way biologists see evolution today. Without the image of ascending species that Stuart Mason used, it doesn't seem inevitable that we must see the step above us as God.

I wasn't referring to an evolutionary theory but rather to the observation that a vast span of different levels of life form exists. There are single-celled organisms, there are organisms composed of trillions of cells and there are many organisms in-between. Whether the map of the occurrence of these creatures forms a ladder or a tree doesn't particularly matter, just that they do occur and occur in seemingly endless degrees.

DWill · Sun May 15, 2011 7:39 am


	Robert Tulip wrote: The only reason scientists say evolution is not a ladder is because they are prejudiced against teleology, due to their desire to distance themselves from the incorrect teleology of Christianity. Of course evolution is all about progress. Humans are more advanced than individual bacteria or viruses. There is a ladder of progress from simple to complex. Selective pressure causes constant evolutionary progress. Without the image of ascending species, we are lost in a morass of nihilism, the value-free domain of scientific facts alone.

Why, Robert, is a view you don't agree with a prejudice?

In a way, I'm surprised to hear you say all this, because I know of your concerns for the planet, and a more bio-centric view is about the only thing I can see that might make humans take the necessary pause in our determined march to use up all the resources on the planet, or to alter it irrevocably through global warming. Any solutions to energy, either singly or in combination, that assume we can continue to use more energy per person, are delusive. But we seem addicted to chasing down the free lunch.

Whether evolution equals progress in any sense that we humans can take satisfaction from, probably doesn't matter much, except that it could if we hubristically see our own project as worth pursuing at the expense of other life, because of our idea that we are the most advanced creatures. I should say if we continue that hubristic pursuit. I don't see anything at all nihilistic in thinking more reasonably about ourselves as among the animals of the world rather than on top of them all.

My preference is to replace your "progress" with "change," or maybe "growth."

Robert Tulip · Sun May 15, 2011 3:31 pm


	DWill wrote: Why, Robert, is a view you don't agree with a prejudice? In a way, I'm surprised to hear you say all this, because I know of your concerns for the planet, and a more bio-centric view is about the only thing I can see that might make humans take the necessary pause in our determined march to use up all the resources on the planet, or to alter it irrevocably through global warming. Any solutions to energy, either singly or in combination, that assume we can continue to use more energy per person, are delusive. But we seem addicted to chasing down the free lunch. Whether evolution equals progress in any sense that we humans can take satisfaction from, probably doesn't matter much, except that it could if we hubristically see our own project as worth pursuing at the expense of other life, because of our idea that we are the most advanced creatures. I should say if we continue that hubristic pursuit. I don't see anything at all nihilistic in thinking more reasonably about ourselves as among the animals of the world rather than on top of them all. My preference is to replace your "progress" with "change," or maybe "growth."

The fact I disagree with it is irrelevant to whether it is prejudiced. Scientific hostility to the idea of progress is based on the observation that there are unscientific concepts of progress, such as the idea you raise about technological 'progress' as a source of heedless destruction, and the extension of that observation to an a priori (ie prejudiced) assumption that nature cannot contain any intrinsic purpose or direction. I prefer to define progress as adaptivity, that evolution causes species to become more adaptive to their environment over time. The later forms of a species are better at doing what they do, and so represent progress over the earlier forms. We then see that the emergence of new species leads to a system of higher complexity, a situation that should be understood as progress from what occurred before it.

When scientists say it is just a change and is not better or worse, they introduce their prejudice about making value statements. The nihilism does not consist in seeing humanity as above nature, but in the scientific rejection of the idea that evolution provides a basis for an ethical theory of value, an ability to discriminate about which things are better and worse.

It is fine to see humans as among animals, except that our power of language makes humans different in kind rather than in degree. We have started a new phase of evolution where we are able to intelligently influence our environment. The hubris arises from the Genesis idea of dominion, that progress enables us to control nature. Nature is so big and inertial that all we can hope for is to ride the tiger. At the moment, our dominant concept of progress is rather like pretending the tiger is a pet cat.

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