Atheism

I thought gambling induced some sort of endorphin rush in some people.

...yes, it can become compulsive but it is not necessarily so...gambling as being open to take risks in moderate amount may be quite useful...I am just recalling the gamble first human had to get into Australia as an example...(not saying they intended to get there specifically)
Pushing forward on the face of insurmountable obstacles requires a bit more then reason to get on going...

Hmmm. I tend to think the drive to move into new territory is a environmental push factor rather than a psychogenetic pull factor. Poor hunting, population pressure, etc.

I think risk taking falls more under our ability to reason, to weigh outcomes with inputs. So I don't see the drive to take risks as controlled directly by genes, but certainly your ability to judge the value of risk taking probably is (certainly before environmental factors - like parents - kick in).

I am not pointing to a direct specific risk gene (it may it may not) but to a cloud of genes that may generate the willingness for it under certain triggers... in fact the same argument can be done regarding the willingness to believe things we are not sure off...it may signify the difference between getting eaten by a Lion or rush up a tree while you are under the impression of some grass movement on the back of your neck...in the case you gamble on believing to prevent gambling in something worse...odd as it sounds believing before rationalizing may sometimes be the most rational instinct we have...not the product of mind but the product of selection at work.

That would be a good investigation for an evolutionary epistemologist. In one sense, everything we do can be traced to our genes simply because our genes help determine the organism. But the environment conditions the particular expression of the underlying urges. Risk-taking in general may be an evolved trait, but it would be a fallacy of...****, I forgot...composition, maybe? I'll have to look that up after my next six-pack...

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I think you boys are making too much of this. Sure, gambling is a form or risk taking--but your life was not at stake in the world of our ancestors tens of thousands of years ago (it wasn't like trying to welsh on a debt to a mob-owned casino). Their real risk-taking was going out to face a mammoth or an aurochs with a stone-tipped wooden spear in hand. Just being alive was a risk with some of the predators of the periglacial steppes--if a cave lion comes to snatch a baby, how many women are going to be able to fight them off?

So a little gambling for trivial items among friends and family has some of the thrill of the necessary risk-taking of survival, without the potentially fatal consequences.

Sometime, a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes gambling is just a game.

As a former hunter of dangerous animals (bear and boar), minimizing risk was a main concern. I think that's one thing that spurred on advances in weapon technology. Why take a risk if it's not necessary?

I'd go more along the lines of enjoying the rush of adrenalin and endorphins, not only during the risk-taking adventure, but also when you're telling the story to all the grunts back at the campfire/bar. Assuming you survive.

Anyway, I think religious thinking stimulates the release of feel-good hormones, and if true, that's sufficient to explain how/why people enjoy the behavior so much. Not so different from bungee jumping, skydiving or burying your face in an ample bosom.

Here is a very interesting evolutionary game theory lecture illustrating the relations between risk and pay-off regarding robust strategies that prevail against invasion of competing aggressive or cooperative phenotypes over time depending on social starting context...in fact taking risks hardly would seam the best surviving strategy unless the pay-off value factor largely surpasses the committed risk investment, which sometimes may be the case...overall the prevailing pattern tends to reflect that relation.

I'm afraid I haven't the time to watch your video Fil. I feel sure it is very good.

But your preamble was interesting. I can see the theologians of old considering things in that manner. Their conclusions suggest it.

Stockbreeders too. Who theologians used as a "starting context".

It's all so obvious really. Get some electronic gizmos, use plenty of big words, practice rhetoric in the bathroom mirror, tailor your exterior to look professorial and away you go. Gigs galore catering to an intensity to prove the theologians wrong in terms of "risk and pay-0ff" for reasons it is too tiresome to have to repeat.

There is no bias here...the underlying ideas didn't come from Biology but from other fields like Politics and Economics, I am just re calling John Nash equilibrium as an example...no one at the time was particularly thinking about natural selection...your loss missing a great lecture in the video...

I suspect that may very well be the case Fil but 45 minutes I haven't time for and there are so many other things to see.

I'm studying the game theory in the Convention of 1787.

How the feminine small states gave up some of their sovereignty in exchange for the protection of the masculine large states in preference to going it alone presumably hoping, I suppose, that they could pursue their interests by various wiles, stunts and subterfuges and associated strategies.

But, but, but...

I though Australia was on Mars...

That's not the only thing; mars may prove more informative than many religious people would want to find out, like the basic source of life.

There's as much chance of that as 747 changing a nappy.

Quite a lot more, I think, since faith-based systems shun (inconvenient) evidence, such as the Curiosity can provide.

How much more do you estimate the chance?

On the one hand, the chances of finding the ultimate source of life on such a planet as Mars is pretty slim, but since that's not the objective of the mission, it's no biggie.

On the other hand, even the slimmest chance of gleaning some empirical data that might aid the search for the origins of life is a chance of many magnitudes greater than that offered by reading a book of ancient Bronze Age myths and superstitions. Some people pray on their knees for guidance and wisdom, others get up, open their eyes and learn from experience. I've no problem with the former, as long as they aren't malignant in either violence or knocking on my door, but I choose the latter approach these days, as it has so far produced an overwhelmingly larger number of results. But I'll hand it to the theists, they do know how to make themselves feel better about the certainty of death. Atheists have to face that fact head-on, without any ameliorating fictional condolences.