Science investigates the origins of religon

@Scottydamion,

melonkali;129542 wrote:

I'm not entirely clear. Are you saying that this ideal religion you speak of already exists? What means exactly have been devised and are being implemented? Or are you speaking in broader terms, and I'm just missing the point?

rebecca

Yes, I am saying that it exists. It was started in 1844, so at 166+ years, it is just past its infancy. The means that I refer to include service on levels from local neighborhoods (gatherings to pray for and discuss the paths to peace, classed for children, study circles for adults as well as various individual initiatives as local needs are perceived) to international. (The International Medical Corps, which sets up clinics and teaches medical skills to local people in such places as Kosovo and Haiti, is inspired by followers.) There are followers of this religion in nearly every country on Earth.

ughaibu;129547 wrote:

That might be true, but there may be no relevant "evolutionary standpoint". Revenge wars have persisted among the groups of Papua New Guinea for a long time, yet dont appear to confer any advantages. So, apparently, either such wars are immune to analysis from an evolutionary standpoint or some evolved traits are disadvantageous.

First, note that religion is a phenomenon that is found in some form in nearly every culture on earth. Also, religions are more persistent in cultures than most other institutions. The researchers who published the journal article pointed out that religions "have evolved into a system that is well-designed to solve problems of cooperation," particularly among people who are not closely related. This effect of religion (facilitating cooperation and even affection) can be observed by spending time in a typical religious community.

Scottydamion;129580 wrote:

You should also consider evolutionary baggage. Competition is everywhere, so if aggressiveness has helped us survive as a species, then aggressiveness may be baggage from our evolutionary past, before we had such big brains in other words.

Thank you for bringing this up! Aggression and competition are excellent examples of "evolutionary baggage." Aggression gives power to people whose motives are usually selfish, and, IMHO, the only competition that is now beneficial to humans is what I call "competing to develop virtues." By which I mean, trying to be more patient, more tolerant, more honest, etc. than your friends. In the production of goods or the selling of services this means competing by making those goods or services better than those provided by others. (In the current economy, marketing creates demand for junk, and the honest craftsman who takes real pride in his or her work often cannot "compete" for sufficient "market share.")

2 Replies

@1CellOfMany,

1CellOfMany;129639 wrote:

First, note that religion is a phenomenon that is found in some form in nearly every culture on earth.

So is smoking.

1CellOfMany;129639 wrote:

Also, religions are more persistent in cultures than most other institutions.

So are armies.

1CellOfMany;129639 wrote:

The researchers who published the journal article pointed out that religions "have evolved into a system that is well-designed to solve problems of cooperation," particularly among people who are not closely related.

If you say that's what the researchers wrote, I believe you. None of this has given me any reason to suppose that religion is a phenomenon operating at a level of evolution entailing that it must be or have been beneficial.

1 Reply

@1CellOfMany,

1CellOfMany;129639 wrote:

First, note that religion is a phenomenon that is found in some form in nearly every culture on earth.

Well I am not exactly sure what you are trying to imply by this. That it somehow means religion is right because it is found in every culture? Well if that is the case we should embrace murder as being a logical and reasonable act because every culture in the past had some barbaric handle on murder. Hmm, spinning my dial here on cultures with strong religious backing and we come the Mayans.

"The Maya practiced human sacrifice. In some Maya rituals people were killed by having their arms and legs held while a priest cut the person's chest open and tore out his heart as an offering. This is depicted on ancient objects such as pictorial texts, known as codices. It is believed that children were often offered as sacrificial victims because they were believed to be pure."

I guess religion is a good thing because cultures embrace it so much. Tell that to the people who had their beating hearts cut from their chests or their heads severed from their bodies so it could roll down some steps and given to the people below to be eaten.

1CellOfMany;129639 wrote:

Also, religions are more persistent in cultures than most other institutions.

Probably because if you opposed the religion in the past, you were murdered. If you spoke out against these institutions you were killed. That would make it persistent. Who is going to object if you have to put your life on the line?

1CellOfMany;129639 wrote:

The researchers who published the journal article pointed out that religions "have evolved into a system that is well-designed to solve problems of cooperation," particularly among people who are not closely related.

Well yeah, it is obey or die. It is a pretty good motivator that use to work, but it doesn't any more. We have transcended our barbaric past and no longer view non-believers as worthy of death.

1CellOfMany;129639 wrote:

This effect of religion (facilitating cooperation and even affection) can be observed by spending time in a typical religious community.

I have. I also notice that there are prejudices, and reduction in universal acceptance in these same people as well. You can't say that it is always positive because realistically they are not always positive. I am not implying that they are all negative either but let's be honest, what you are trying to state here is simply not true.

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu;129644 wrote:

So is smoking.So are armies.If you say that's what the researchers wrote, I believe you. None of this has given me any reason to suppose that religion is a phenomenon operating at a level of evolution entailing that it must be or have been beneficial.

The link to the journal article is in the OP.

1 Reply

@Krumple,

Krumple;129625 wrote:

Catch up on your knowledge base, there is no longer any global warming, they have changed the name to global climate change. Since they no longer consider it a warming trend but instead impact on climate instead. Funny how they want to try to cover both data sets now rather than focus on one set.

What magazines have you been reading? In a sense it is both, but there is a rapid increase in CO2 levels since the industrial age and also a more rapid increase in temperature than has been seen, and I'm not just talking about the last hundred years, there is data for much longer than that, you should "catch up on your knowledge base" by looking up ice core samples.

Quote:

Anyways we have known about these sand storms for a long time, and they have been happening for a LONG time. They have dug up sand in South America that originated in Africa believed to be from storms that happened tens of thousands of years ago. If we have been the cause of these storms, why do we have this kind of evidence? Seems a little silly to be blaming modern humans for stuff that has happened ten thousand years ago. Sure we were burning lots of trees but that can't be the reason these sandstorms happen.

That is the point, you just missed what I was calling it. These sandstorms happen with recorded drastic changes in global temperature in the past. So if we are warming up the globe, which is not very disputed anymore (among scientists that is), and sandstorms are picking up in Africa (which they are), then we may have bigger concerns than we thought. We weren't the cause of the historical storms, natural warming in the climate was, but if we are the cause of artificial warming now, then we may bring on a drastic change in climate.

Quote:

Global climate change is a hoax, in the sense that humans are to blame for the climate change. It is absurd to blame humans for something that has been recorded as happening for millions of years. The Earth does not have a constant state of climate, it changes all the time. Just look at the weather we have on a daily basis. We can't even predict daily weather let alone what changes take effect over hundreds or thousands of years.

Even if this was natural warming, it is still important to know what will likely happen next. If sea levels rise by even 3 feet, millions upon millions of people will be displaced.

Quote:

There are so many factors involved and we have only been recording weather data for a few hundred years, and reliable data for less than a hundred. That is only a tiny smidge of information compared to all the millions of years the earth has undergone climate changes.

How do you know about the earth's millions of years of climate change? After all, we have no data, right? How do we even know about long-term climate cycles if we only have 100 years of data? Hmm? Maybe we have more data than that (ice cores)?

Quote:

What really is happening is an attempt to create a new form of taxiation to make people feel guilty for living. The first stage is to get people to believe that humans are drastically impacting the climate, the next is to fruaduantely get them to pay for that impact. But honestly these law makers have no plan to actually fix the problems, because that would stop the flow of money if the problems were fixed. Instead they want people to continue to polute, and feel guilty about it, so they can endlessly collect the money. Think about it.

Recently they increased the tax on using plastic grocery bags. At first I was like, what? Then it dawned on me, if plastic grocery bags were so bad for the environment, why don't they just place a ban on them? I mean wouldn't that be more in line of what we do with everything we consider bad? Ban it? Instead they place a tax on them. So to me they are actually saying, "We really don't mind that you use plastic grocery bags, if you are willing to pay us money for using them."

So it's a, "Pay money to alieviate your guilt for living tax" And people are buying into it just like they always do thinking the government does no wrong and always has their best interest in mind.

I don't care what the government has been saying, I look up the data. Even if they were using this to create taxes that doesn't mean it's not happening.

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@1CellOfMany,

1CellOfMany;129749 wrote:

The link to the journal article is in the OP.

I know, and I already knew before your latest post. This fact is not a reason for me to accept your claims about religion.

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@Krumple,

Krumple;129625 wrote:

So it's a, "Pay money to alieviate your guilt for living tax" And people are buying into it just like they always do thinking the government does no wrong and always has their best interest in mind.

Krumple,
I agree with your skepticism regarding global climate change. I'm not saying that it's happening or it's not happening, but that I agree with a measured skepticism on the matter.

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@1CellOfMany,

Interesting. I am skeptical about evolutionary claims for the origin of religion though. Or maths, architecture, classical music, and many other cultural activities and human attributes. I don't doubt that H Sapiens evolved more or less as described, but I am not convinced that adaptive necessity is the sole determinant of our attributes. This is just part of the dogma of current science. Apart from anything else, it means the people in the biology department believe that their theory is somehow senior to those of all the other faculties. But I don't buy it.

I have discovered an interesting essay by philosopher Thomas Nagel on what he calls 'the cosmic authority problem':

Quote:

I believe that this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life.

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper-namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world

Thomas Nagel, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, The Last Word, p127

That said, I agree that religion seems to be a ubiquitous phenomena - as are murder, theft, carbuncles, and smoking, as others have pointed out. At least religion, when it works, offers some means of reconciliation with the Great Unknown which seems to be annoyingly persistent, notwithstanding the sterling efforts of Dawkins et al to explain it away.

So it is probably more useful to try and understand why people seem to seek religious answers, as they seem to persist in doing, even in places like Communist China, despite constant propaganda and persecution, and to focus on those aspects which unite rather than divide.

But it would be a hard row to hoe, I would think.

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu;129611 wrote:

But I'm disputing the suggestion that, for no better reason than that something has been around for a long time, that thing can be analysed in evolutionary terms and that it must have a benefit for the group. Is there a reason that I should accept this?

Well, I think obviously you shouldn't accept that, but the thing is that scientists are looking for something that is right and beneficial to know, not something that is wrong or has a neutral evolutionary change, so there is a reason to want everything to have a benefit because finding benefits gets grants.

I'm not trying to defend it, but I think there are practical reasons scientists tend to talk in such terms. As long as they don't forget peer-review, healthy skepticism, and good methodology, they can believe whatever they want on a personal level.

---------- Post added 02-19-2010 at 02:52 AM ----------

When it comes to religion I think it is beneficial in the competitive sense. If everyone got along there would be no need to find a common ground to make a group of people out of, but not everyone gets along.

So in a perfect world I would see no benefit, but if you study Game Theory some you may see how there is a level of benefit, even if on a higher level or a more global consideration it isn't beneficial.

I would also agree that there could be absolutely no benefit and we are just putting benefit onto religion in purely non-evolutionary terms, but I also think that would be a hard thing to prove.

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@1CellOfMany,

"My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world"

I am skeptical that he is even an atheist. First of all his word usage is not consistent with a majority of atheists. Just the fact that he uses cosmic authority points out something in him that most atheists would never even mention. If you don't believe in a god, there is no such thing as a cosmic authority. Why would you even mention any authority outside the humanistic laws? If you think about it, these are the only laws besides the natural physical laws that humans even care about. But you can't honestly tell me that the natural laws are what you are referring to when you talk about a cosmic authority. If you are trying to imply that the authority are the natural laws then it is just plain silly. The natural laws can not be broken so by definition it is not an authority. It would be more like a dictatorship. But no one even goes that far with it because it is irrational.

The last few words that he uses are in line with creationist terminology. Something that very few atheists ever talk about outside debating with creationists. No atheist uses the term designed when referring to natural systems. This is a word that creationists try to use as often as they can because it promotes psychologically their idea that everything was made by some invisible intelligent thing with intent. But no actual atheist ever talks about it in those terms.

If he only used the words like design and cosmic authority, you might claim I am nitpicking however he also uses other key words that no atheist uses. Like purpose and meaning. These are things that a majority of atheist say we give to our own selves according to our own learned abilities and interests. No atheist ever claims that we acquire this purpose from some mystical force or authority. Instead these are telling words of a person trying to claim atheist but is pushing a creationist agenda to appear to have a legitimate argument. But there is no argument here because it is not withstanding.

The last word I want to mention is "scientism" despite the fact that it is not even a word, no atheist ever uses it in this way. It implies that science is somehow an ism which it's not. Creationist like to try to claim that atheism is a religion. They just can't fathom that something that holds a lack of belief could be a natural stance or rational position. So they attempt to make it an anti stance as if it opposes the theist view point. It doesn't oppose it, it just is not theism. He mistakenly uses a creationist term to attempt to discredit science to make it a belief system instead of an investigative system. Science is not a belief system.

"One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind."

Ludicrous? Seriously? This sentence probably is the most telling about his position. He is almost trying to discredit the current biological findings, but no biologist would EVER tell you that we know everything there is to know about the human evolution process or the underline biology behind evolution, because we don't. Yet his sentence implies that science is making this claim, but science would never make such a claim. This proves that he is lying about his atheist background. He is a theist pushing creationist agenda lying about being a researcher and atheist.

1 Reply

@Krumple,

1CellOfMany;129749 wrote:

The last word I want to mention is "scientism" despite the fact that it is not even a word, no atheist ever uses it in this way. It implies that science is somehow an ism which it's not.

Scientism is a loose term for a position characterised by committed adherence to various explanatory paradigms, reductionism, physicalism, determinism, computational theory of mind, etc. I can state, with certainty, from experience, that there is a class of atheists who adopt a position of scientism for religious reasons. They reject a position for no better reason than that it intersects some notion that is sometimes appealed to in support of some religious contention. It seems to me that Nagel is talking about this kind of scientism arising from a morbid obsession with religion.

1 Reply

@1CellOfMany,

Thomas Nagel (born July 4, 1937 in Belgrade, in present-day Serbia) is an American philosopher, currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy and ethics. He is well-known for his critique of reductionist accounts of the mind in his essay "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his contributions to deontological and liberal moral and political theory in The Possibility of Altruism (1970) and subsequent writings.

From Wikipedia.

---------- Post added 02-19-2010 at 10:23 PM ----------

ughaibu;129936 wrote:

It seems to me that Nagel is talking about this kind of scientism arising from a morbid obsession with religion.

That is how I understand it also.

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu;129936 wrote:

Scientism is a loose term for a position characterised by committed adherence to various explanatory paradigms, reductionism, physicalism, determinism, computational theory of mind, etc. I can state, with certainty, from experience, that there is a class of atheists who adopt a position of scientism for religious reasons. They reject a position for no better reason than that it intersects some notion that is sometimes appealed to in support of some religious contention. It seems to me that Nagel is talking about this kind of scientism arising from a morbid obsession with religion.

Then couldn't we also assume that scientism can be dogmatic or even stubborn towards true findings? Like people unwilling to acknowledge new scientific findings because they are attached to the current data? A type of religious failing? If this is what he was referring to, then I would have to agree that there are cases like this, but I don't think it is universal and it is not scientific in the least. If someone is unwilling to accept knew data then that is a gross neglect of the scientific method.

2 Replies

@1CellOfMany,

"Scientism, the view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical, is a superstition, one of the dominant superstitions of our day; and it is not an insult to science to say so." Leon Wieseltier, Review of 'Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel Dennett; NY Times Feb 19 2006

I see scientism as a cultural mindset. It says: there are many kinds of phenomena that can't be true, because they imply things about the nature of reality which we know must be fictitious. Therefore there is really no use investigating any such phenomena, and if there any accounts of such phenomena, then they are probably false.

It is nearly always linked to what is called 'metaphysical naturalism' which is the idea that reality itself is basically an aggregate of material bodies arrayed in spacetime and subject to energies which are explicable in terms of mathematical physics. In its extreme form, it insists that all questions of importance must be reducible to, and explicable in terms of, physical laws such as the laws of motion, or other laws which are regarded as scientifically proven and sufficient, for example, the law of evolution by natural selection.

That is my view of scientism.

1 Reply

@Krumple,

Krumple;129941 wrote:

Then couldn't we also assume that scientism can be dogmatic or even stubborn towards true findings? Like people unwilling to acknowledge new scientific findings because they are attached to the current data? A type of religious failing? If this is what he was referring to, then I would have to agree that there are cases like this, but I don't think it is universal and it is not scientific in the least. If someone is unwilling to accept knew data then that is a gross neglect of the scientific method.

He is saying it can be used both ways (or at least I think he would say that, even if he was talking specifically about one or the other), to discredit new findings or to hold on to false ones. Even though we have gotten better at spotting bad data fast, it still slips in and sometimes for a while if no one else is doing similar research. Now, as a whole I think science is pretty sturdy, but the problem is figuring out specifically where it isn't sturdy, and that is used as a basis for doubts, whether justified or not.

---------- Post added 02-19-2010 at 05:38 AM ----------

jeeprs;129943 wrote:

"Scientism, the view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical, is a superstition, one of the dominant superstitions of our day; and it is not an insult to science to say so." Leon Wieseltier, Review of 'Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel Dennett; NY Times Feb 19 2006

I would be interested to know if Dennett said "science could do such a thing " instead of "possibly could explain overarching themes of human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical".

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;129943 wrote:

"Scientism, the view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical, is a superstition, one of the dominant superstitions of our day; and it is not an insult to science to say so." Leon Wieseltier, Review of 'Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel Dennett; NY Times Feb 19 2006

I see scientism as a cultural mindset. It says: there are many kinds of phenomena that can't be true, because they imply things about the nature of reality which we know must be fictitious. Therefore there is really no use investigating any such phenomena, and if there any accounts of such phenomena, then they are probably false.

It is nearly always linked to what is called 'metaphysical naturalism' which is the idea that reality itself is basically an aggregate of material bodies arrayed in spacetime and subject to energies which are explicable in terms of mathematical physics. In its extreme form, it insists that all questions of importance must be reducible to, and explicable in terms of, physical laws such as the laws of motion, or other laws which are regarded as scientifically proven and sufficient, for example, the law of evolution by natural selection.

That is my view of scientism.

You are a quantum Buddhist?

I disagree, and I think we have had discussions on the fields of mental or psychology. I think science will be able to understand the workings of pretty much all humanistic systems, both physical and non-physical. The non-physical properties are a little harder to research and experiment with because we don't have the best tools yet to provide the type of data we need on a long term basis. Sure you can shove someone into a CT scan and get some brain activity while showing them some pictures, but what I mean is long term study over years of brain activity with normal every day behaviors and not through the process of wiring someone up for a quick test. These long term studies will probably debunk some of the short term data sets because the brain probably (theory again) fluctuates quite a bit in terms of emotional, physiological and environmental impacts. These things you don't always get in a lab setting with a scan.

I think out of all the sciences behavioral sciences are the most intriguing to me and probably one of the most difficult to study. There are so many different aspects that I think one aspect gets too much attention neglecting other aspects that play a role universally. So a focus in one area might miss something crucial in the over all understanding of brain chemistry and psychology. Not to mention that the pharmaceutical companies have a huge strangle hold on mental research because they just want to develop drugs to alter the chemistry for marketing rather than trying to understand natural methods for these same kind of changes.

1 Reply

@Krumple,

Krumple;129950 wrote:

You are a quantum Buddhist?

I never heard that term before, but I rather like it, and I guess it is pretty accurate.

That Dennett review I quoted is at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/books/review/19wieseltier.html?_r=1

---------- Post added 02-20-2010 at 08:02 AM ----------

And besides, science isn't the source human values. It can't tell you what should be pursued and what best to leave alone. It can't tell you how to relate to other humans and where you fit in the great scheme of things. I am really not impressed by schemes of 'scientific morality' any more than I am by religious schemes. And it has to be something that ordinary people can relate to.

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@1CellOfMany,

From that Dennett review:

Quote:

Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.) Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.

This is a very important observation. It is why, in my view, the Darwinian account of the human condition is basically non-rational. I won't say irrational. But I think it falls short of rationality, as it was understood and described in the Western tradition, commencing with Pythagorean mysticism, from whence the idea of 'ratio' arose in the first place.

Anyway I will stop hijacking this thread now. Apologies to the original poster. There are plenty of other places where this argument is underway.

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;130181 wrote:

From that Dennett review:

This is a very important observation. It is why, in my view, the Darwinian account of the human condition is basically non-rational. I won't say irrational. But I think it falls short of rationality, as it was understood and described in the Western tradition, commencing with Pythagorean mysticism, from whence the idea of 'ratio' arose in the first place.

Anyway I will stop hijacking this thread now. Apologies to the original poster. There are plenty of other places where this argument is underway.

Interesting, but what I'd really like to see is what he read from Dennett to make him say that. I am not well read on Dennett, but some of his responses to philosophical claims about evolution I think he has proven he has an understanding of both, even if he does fall into the scientism camp.

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@Krumple,

Krumple;129941 wrote:

Then couldn't we also assume that scientism can be dogmatic or even stubborn towards true findings? Like people unwilling to acknowledge new scientific findings because they are attached to the current data? A type of religious failing? If this is what he was referring to, then I would have to agree that there are cases like this, but I don't think it is universal and it is not scientific in the least. If someone is unwilling to accept knew data then that is a gross neglect of the scientific method.

disprove the belief that there is a Divine Plan at work. Also, I am certain that none of it will conflict with that prescription for living and for the advancement of civilization that is to be found in the Baha'i Revelation.

There is obviously a vast gap between how Christ taught us to live and treat others and how people in general actually live and treat others. But can anyone really believe that people today would be acting better if Christ had not taught? If anything, the belief that there is a Higher Power that will help you overcome your faults; the desire to please (and to not displease) that Higher Power; the commitment to living a moral and just life; and the prescription for right living that all come from participation in Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism, Islam and Baha'i, all tend to make people better citizens of the earth who are more, rather than less likely to get along with their fellow beings.

It is the influence of forces such as our inherited ape-like drives, including greed, lust, anger, and desire for power, along with intellectually created influences like materialism and marketing, that lead us to be careless of one another and to do harm. Those are the forces that the core teachings of religion are meant to overcome. Those are the forces that corrupt religions in practice to the point where followers are told that God approves of promoting superstitious interpretations of scripture, or of becoming a "martyr" by strapping on a bomb and killing yourself along with innocent bystanders, or of performing human sacrifice. If we weren't so creative and capable of diverging from the norm, we would be no more in need of ethics or morals than are monkeys, but we have that measure of what we call "free will" that allows us to invent new behaviors for good or ill. Those religions that claim to originate from the One God are founded on principles that are for the good.

If you can come up with well substantiated, scientific evidence to disprove this hypothesis of mine, please do. Your contrary opinions are valid as representative of who you are and what you think, but they have no more bearing on the nature of reality than that.

1 Reply

Science investigates the origins of religon

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