Are humans genetically 'hard-wired' to believe in god?

I do not see correlation between an issue of determinism / pragmatism of the existence of something that may or may not be true in the grandest scale in the universe to that being potentially genetic.

I think this issue transcends into more quantum mechanic types in cognitive science, like Roger Penrose. Specifically their ideas that the yet unexplained aspects of humans (i.e. consciousness --->'belief in god') might be explained on a quantum level instead of the biochemical one we've been focusing on.

See: Social cognition.

Unless of course gullibility is shown to be based on genes :wink:

Well, for those still interested after the Craven-rufio wars, here are a couple of relevant links to wenchilana's quite on-topic post:

http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/soccog/soccog.html
http://www.friesian.com/penrose.htm

If wenchy has time and inclination, further links would be appreciated.

Just as an aside I think the notion that any belief is genetic is farfetched. Perhaps predisposition for certain kinds of beliefs but not the beliefs themselves.

I would agree there Craven.

We certainly agree on this one!

I agree with that on principle, but in pragmatic terms, i would not even go that far. Rather, i would say that there might be a very vague, general genetic link established to gullibility . . .

Well, the gullible folks in the clan played follow the leader. The skeptical ones saw through the lies, tried to convince other folks about the fallibility of their leader, failed, got disgusted, struck out on their own, and died. The gullible, meanwhile, thrived, and continue to thrive today.

Yes, life is a crap shoot but the dice are loaded to some extent.

Sha-boom, sha-boom
Life could be a dream, sweetheart, sweetheart . . .

Well I see that I have come into this thread a little too late. However, I have something to say and I since posting this reply late is my only recourse I will do so now.

I believe the theory offered in the first and original post is a step in the right direction, but still isn't quite there. It is my opinion that human being have a genetic predisposition towards understanding and not necessarily God. I believe people wish to understand how nature and the Universe on a whole function and the rules that govern it. Because we don't have all the answers and feel compelled to come up with an answer, no matter how illogical it may be, we inevitably come to the conclusion that a deity must have made it so.

We don't necessarily have a "God section of the brain," but rather is inclining towards understanding which happens to manifest itself in the belief of the supernatural or a God. That's my take on the situation at least.

You're making a lot of sense to me, Yottos. Welcome to Able2know -- I'm looking forward to hearing more from you!

I don't have time to read all 200 replies so I'm sorry if I repeat anything.
I do not believe that we are genetically predisposed to believe that there is a god, only to believe that there is some guiding force in life. My guiding force is myself....maybe I'm god.

not very sheepish of you.

Amazingly enough, I think this thread has taken a good turn. Nice to see people actually 'getting' the thesis.

No, I can't buy that, because I am human, my parents raised me to be catholic and I have never believed a word of it. The thesis is also chuck full of holes. Ask a man who's slaughtered pigs if they are aware of their final moments of life. Not all creatures flee from fire.
Hard-wired in humans is an instinct to survive. Since we can find no way on earth, we may have a pre-disposition to believe in anything that means our survival. It is certainly a comforting belief and I envy those who have it.

I should just pipe in here that the dude spent 4 hours on the radio defending his thesis, and still wasn't convincing. However, I do find the idea of a gene that hard-wires us for 'belief', not 'god' an interesting postulation.

"A gene for X" is a much misused figure of speech that doesn't have a solid basis in molecular biology most of the times it surfaces in public debate. We have a lot more hereditary properties than genes, the bulk of those properties is influenced by more than one gene, and the influence is statistical, not deterministic. There are cases where there is literally "a gene for X", but they are very rare compared to our number of genes and our number of characteristics. Therefore, when biologists talk about "a gene for X", this is their jargon for saying "the probability of a person featuring X is correlated with the person carrying this and this variant of gene Y".

This jargon is helpful because it simplifies the biologists' every-day language, and because every biologist knows it is spoken with poetic license. Journalists, by contrast, have an annoying habit of taking scientists' words literally and going of peddling juicy soundbites of jargon rather than the carefully hedged exact statements. That way, the jargon enters the debate with no qualification, and the public debate usually ends up being nonsense.

I suspect this guy on the radio is good example of it. If the findings in the Minnesota twin studies are for real, they show that the probability of a person being religious depends in part on hereditary factors. This is interesting, and worth paying attention to. But the conclusion that there's "a god gene" is a gross exaggeration, and almost complete nonsense. Frequently quoted nonsense, no doubt.

Well said Thomas. I wonder if journalists are hard-wired for hyperbole? Perhaps I can get a handsome grant for that study.

Just wondering out of the box. I wonder if some future generation will influence humanity by changing our gene and our culture from what they are today. Will humanity ever transform into one culture?

Well, on the way to dying out, presumably there will be a time when there is only one human being alive on the earth. At that time, all of humanity will have one culture. So the answer is an unqualified and completely meaningless yes.