what was the first religion?

They were created in the Creation cyr. Ooooow you are a silly.

God wished to see us all arguing you see so He set these puzzles to get us at it. Like we do with sport. If God is made in our image then He will enjoy a good scrap like we do.

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neo
These sound like excuses. Why do you want to lie to yourself?

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Cyracuz wrote:

neo
These sound like excuses. Why do you want to lie to yourself?

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..the length of the creation days isn't specified... and ... the seventh day hasn't been reported as ended... ?

What?

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Setanta,

Thanks for the civil welcome to this thread!

You might try reading:

SPIRITUALITY: The Physiological-Biological Foundation. Buttery,T. and Roberson, P.

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I'm not obliged to welcome anyone anywhere. And when you make an extraordinary claim, you have the burden of proof. Citing a source is more than most people manage in these threads, but it does not constitute evidence for your claim. Got a link to at least a summary of the contention of the gentlemen cited? I am certainly not going to spend any money on a book just to gratify the conceits of a stranger on-line.

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spendius wrote:

What facts are you talking about?

I wasn't being patronising at all. It is odd how often such a charge is brought out in lieu of an answer. Acute sensitivities render adult philosophical discussions pointless and impossible.

It is well known that the atheistic position denies free will, from de Sade right up to modern materialist theory, and that all the views that we have are conditioned into us. This is one of the reasons why atheism is so hopeless. It denies personal responsibilty and thus no criminal can be adjudged guilty of anything except having been exposed to certain conditioning processes such as exist in Al Quieda training camps and against which he has no defences when young or uneducated.

Anyone preaching atheism without such considerations is merely expressing an affectation, a conditioned one, and such things are dangerous when in the hands of superior rhetorical skills.

Theological training, developed over extended periods of time and in varying circumstances, involves the removal of affectations from debate and that allows a cool appraisal of the facts of human organisation beside which other facts concerning inanimate matter are subsiduary although still of importance.

Being an atheist is another subject. It is preaching atheism (conditioning others) with which I am concerned here.

ok so you weren't being patronising. As I am not being rude in commenting on your intellectual flatulence. You assume I'm an atheist, but that's just your assumption. Supposing I were to say I'm humble enough to admit to not knowing, and arrogant enough to say you dont either.

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Sentanta,

Here's another response to your kind welcome to this thread. Intertesting to me, a newcomer, to find ad hominem remarks in a Spirituality & Religion forum.

Another book you might try:

THE GOD GENE: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes. Hamer, Dean. Doubleday, 2004.

Hamer is chief of gene structure at the National Cancer Institute.

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Setanta wrote:

Miklos7 wrote:
The question of when the first religion appeared seems to be an imponderable, because spirituality has a genetic base; we are inherently predisposed towards religious thought.

Not to put too fine a point on it--horseshit.

What evidence do you have that this tripe is valid?

This was my response to your post. An argumentum ad hominem is a fallacy in which one doubts or denies the intelligence or understanding of one's interlocutor rather than attempting a refutation. It may bother you to have your contention described as horseshit, but that does not constitute a personal attack on you, nor does it constitute casting doubt on your intelligence or understanding.

Like so many people on-line, you treat rejection of what you have written as though it were a personal insult, and allege an ad hominem argument where none was employed. That's a common display of childishness on-line, and it is also false. What i wrote was not an insult to you: i don't know you, and frankly do not care if you live or die--it was an insult to the contention you made, and for however much that may be unpleasant to you, it does not constitute an ad hominem argument. If you don't know what a term means, you probably should avoid using it. In this case, you have demonstrated that you don't understand the meaning of argumentum ad hominem.

Now you have mentioned the "God gene." Mr. Hamer's thesis is that the gene in question, which is involved in the breakdown of neurotransmitters, could lead to those experiences which we describe as emotional, and which are interpreted as being "self-transcendent." I have two points to make about that--the first is that the electro-chemical activities of the brain, while interesting, do not yield hard scientific evidence for the existence of anything so nebulous and ill-defined as spirituality. The second point is that such claims are highly interpretive, and constitute speculation, and do not constitute proof of anything.

Now, had you displayed the wit necessary to simply point out that people might be genetically disposed to self-delusion, i'd have been more than happy to concur that that were highly probable.

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I was highly amused to read this:

Carl Zimmer claimed that, given the low explanatory power of VMAT2 [i.e., Hamer's "god gene"], it would have been more accurate for Hamer to call his book A Gene That Accounts for Less Than One Percent of the Variance Found in Scores on Psychological Questionnaires Designed to Measure a Factor Called Self-Transcendence, Which Can Signify Everything from Belonging to the Green Party to Believing in ESP, According to One Unpublished, Unreplicated Study.

Here is a link to Mr. Zimmer's article in the Scientific American.

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Steve wrote-

Quote:

ok so you weren't being patronising. As I am not being rude in commenting on your intellectual flatulence. You assume I'm an atheist, but that's just your assumption. Supposing I were to say I'm humble enough to admit to not knowing, and arrogant enough to say you dont either.

It's hardly arrogant Steve. Stating the obvious is not arrogance. How the hell would I know? Or anybody for that matter.

The problem is that if one doesn't know then a chance of a future world cannot be discounted and in view of the insignificance of three score and ten in relation to the infinite and the total irrelevance of what you do either way if there is no future world. It's a bet to nothing.

And it can be made by theology to help develop various social systems which it might be difficult to do otherwise. If the social system is a good one, as ours obviously is when compared to others we know about, then the bet to nothing has other benefits.

The consequences of the theology are the only things that matter and how they are brought about and raising the credibility of a future world by ceremonials helps to do that.

The atheist not only doesn't believe he doesn't care either. And he cannot describe the social consequences of his theology because he can't envisage them.

The agnostic is standing on nothing.

Like somebody said--you've either got faith or unbelief- there ain't no neutral ground.

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Setanta,

Mr. Zimmer is definitely amusing as well as illuminating. I thank you for the link.

I agree with you that people are LIKELY prone to self-delusion.