“We’ve evolved to be creationists”

“We’ve evolved to be creationists” is a quote from the “The Atlantic Monthly” article “Is God an Accident?”—December 2005 issue.

Paul Bloom, author of the article, informs us that “human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena…this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry”.

Paul Bloom informs us that nearly everyone on earth believes in miracles, afterlife, and the creation of the earth by some supernatural power. While doing research into infant behavior, psychologists have recently discovered that humans are born with a predisposition to believe in some supernatural actuality. These scientists conclude that this predisposition is a random happenstance of cognitive functioning gone awry. These conclusions led to the question “Is God an Accident?”--the title of the article.

I have just found the answer to a question that has baffled me for years. Why do non-believers love to talk religion? Perhaps talking about religion is much like ‘whistling past the cemetery’.

Everyone loves to talk religion because we are all born with the “gut feeling” that there is a body/mind duality. Because we “feel” that mind is a “spiritual” entity we easily accommodate heaven, soul, god etc.

Science says that this gut feeling is a result of “cognitive functioning gone awry” and religion tells us that this is a matter of faith. What do you think?

Blimey that's a huge question

Given my lack of understanding of anything remotely scientific I'd be the last person to proffer and even half-arsed opinion. But I have never let that stop me in the past....

I wonder if our own sense of wonder about ourselves is the true marker in the shift from animal to human. I've read the debate in the carnivore thread and truthfully some of it has informed me but I'm not scientifically educated and hard-nosed about scientific facts and I just speculate idly a lot but as far as I know, no animal other than homo sapiens has produced a philosopher (the first person to mention the Lion King gets it, okay?). And we've produced a few beauties So, here I go with my own echoing question - is spirituality (want to keep it broad) a by-product of our cerebral cortex?

Is this what this Paul Bloom bloke is getting at? Was Voltaire right about us inventing God? Is it a mass delusion caused by some sort of brain function? Are atheists the clear-thinkers? Are religionists delusional due to a normal brain?

Huh and you thought coberst asked too many questions

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"There were no D-Day Heroes in 1973" - Cold Chisel Khe Sanh

Diuretic


When written history began five thousand years ago humans had already developed a great deal of knowledge. Much of that knowledge was of a very practical nature such as how to use animal skins for clothing, how to weave wool, how to hunt and fish etc. A large part of human knowledge was directed toward how to kill and torture fellow humans. I guess things never really change all that much.

In several parts of the world civilizations developed wherein people learned to create laws and to rule vast numbers of people. Some measure of peace and stability developed but there was yet no means for securing the people from their rulers. I guess things never really change all that much

Almost everywhere priests joined rulers in attempts to control the population. Despite these continual wars both of external and internal nature the human population managed to flourish. Egypt was probably one of the first long lasting and stable civilizations to grow up along the large rivers. Egypt survived almost unchanged for three thousand years. This success is attributed to its geographical location that gave it freedom from competition and fertile lands that were constantly replenished by the river overflowing its banks and thus depositing new fertile soil for farming.

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the “Metaphysics” Aristotle wrote “All men by nature desire to know”.

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as “Folk Theories”.

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World
The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

The Folk Theory of General Kinds
Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

The Folk Theory of Essences
Every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics
Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

The information comes primarily from “Philosophy in the Flesh” and Folk Theories and Metaphors in Early Greek Philosophy

I think our friend Marx put it quite well when he described religion as "the opium of the people." Humans were born with a sense of wonder, which, for the most part, separates us from almost all other animals. Since man is a thinker, he tries to find explanations for things he wonders about. One day a rather smart man realized that a universal explanation existed for everything he wondered about. What explanation more easy and simple than a supernatural, all-powerful being who controls everything in the universe? Once man came up with this concept, the unknown could be answered simply with " smaller every day. As the human race moves forward, God is beginning to step out of the picture and let "science" answer what was formerly unknown. God."

God is what we cannot explain, and God grows smaller every single second of every single day, and has been doing so since his birth. As we discover more about how the universe in general works, it is easier to explain things and easier to refute things that our ancestors hypothesized. God and science cannot coexist forever. "God" can be seen taking 3 approaches to dealing with science. He can completely write off science, he can attempt to keep up with science, and he can try to embrace science. All of these methods in the end will fail. God, in my opinion, is temporary. As we advance and understand more about the existance we are part of, we will no longer need God to provide our answers to the unknown. One day, I hope, we will have a complete understanding of our universe and it will all... just make sense. The way I see it, "God" does not fit into the equation. Many obviously feel differently.

Maybe man has evolved to be a "creationist", but he is currently in the process of evolving into an atheist.

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As I've posted elsewhere, we're collectively intelligent, but not intelligent enough, to do w/o the need for a creation myth.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson