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

On top of which, I still have yet to see anyone give me sources for things I asked for.

yawn.........

Glad to see we have ignorant people who would rather sit around watching other people think like some sort of spectator sport. What would one of these forums be without them?

rufio, I'm a bit all over the place here, but if you repost what info you are looking for, specifically related to this thread at least, I'll check it out for you.

On the other hand, if we are all going to be assholes and we like it, you may want to consider leaving the forum just to annoy us.

Hey, this was an interesting question that has been bogged down in self pity and I'm bored.
Ignorant, give me a break!
The thread has been Hijaked and what's left of the thread leaves us no choice but to be spectators.

Well ! well !

Here we go again...Thomas, a relative newcomer spots rufio's celebrated shortcomings within a couple of exchanges and rufio typically replies with accusations of abuse.

I'm afraid that what we have here is a classic case of "attention seeking" (with "negative attention" preferable on her part to "no attention") and most of us are pussyfooting around in the interests of courtesy and decorum. If my diagnosis is correct the solution is obvious.

rufio,

You mistake carping of your arguments as insults. Nobody here called you an "asshole" and you engage in such insults.

The distinction Setanta made is very relevant, attacking your ideas is not the same as attacking you.

When your ideas are attacked you respond by complaining that you are being attacked and by lashing out yourself.

Now now children, back off. Let's regroup. Accepting that we know genetics are responsible for our looks, our dispositions, our similarities to relatives, why is it so hard to accept that quite possibly, there is a gene that inspires us to belief, not in god necessarily, but to beliefs in general? On the same theoretical stage, what about genes that determine sexual orientation? Is there more support there than for the theoretical 'god-gene' and why? Here is some info on the Human Genome Project, still incomplete:

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/about.shtml

Also, if what fresco said is the case, stop being enablers and move on. 'Nuf said.

Thanks Cav, for the link. I haven't the time to read it now, so i will leave that for later.

I would posit, working from Twyvel's post to which i earlier referred, that good points of discussion would be the extent to which a genetic basis for "belief" could reasonably be defended as having an evolutionary benefit.

I think that would be a good idea for discussion as well, Setanta.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Same to ya Bub ! ! !

And that goes for yer family double ! ! !


(Guess i showed him!)

I for one, as a Canajun, wish everyone a happy tryptophan sleep tonight.

I don't know about this thread, cav, but craven has been consistantly refusing to give me any information at all, expecially on the language thread. In the IQ thread he only gave introductory information and nothing further that I asked. Whatever Setanta says, I tried to get back into the discussion, and immediately I get more insults. I never reply in like when simply challenging ideas, and I think it was uncalledfor.

There is evidence about this from studies with identical twins. You can get a measure of how inheritable sexual orientation is by looking at a homosexual subject to the study, asking how likely his/her twin is to be homosexual too, and compare this to a control group of non-identical twins, or adopted siblings, or something like this. I remember reading an article in Scientific American on twin studies. Sexual orientation was one of the properties exanined. I remember that identical twins of homosexuals were several times more likely than the control group to be homosexual too. From (vague) memory, I think the figures were about 50% for the twins, about 10% for the non-twins. This is evidence that sexual orientation is influenced by your genes. It is also evidence that genes are not the whole story.


I know of no comparable evidence concerning the correlation between your genes and your likelyhood of being an atheist. But if somebody posts such evidence, I'll be open to it.

Were they separated twins or twins raised together, Thomas? I had heard actually that someone had found some sort of "gay gene" in actuality, but I never read up on very much - did it have anything about that?

I don't know, but it doesn't matter much with regard to the conclusion so long as you compare identical twins raised together with non-identical twins raised together, or identical twins seperated after birth with non-identical twins seperated after birth.


Neither have I. But I'm willing to bet serious money that it's nonsense.

"Thomas Bouchard, a professor at the University of Minnesota at
Minneapolis, conducted a study of twins reared apart and concluded that
there was "a modest degree of genetic influence" in two measures of
religiousness."

The findings were that separated twins were about 50% more likely to share similar beliefs regarding faith, notwithstanding different religions and upbringings. That would indeed correlate with the studies on sexual orientation, at least regarding twins.

rufio, in the most polite way I can muster, it is not up to me how others respond to you. If you want information, ask questions, rather than post half-baked conclusions. We are here to help, in all honesty. There is no shame in just asking questions. I am certain nobody here would object to that. Don't feel that you need to somehow 'prove' yourself here. Just ask what you need to know, and when you have an opinion, just try to back it up, even with the flimsiest of evidence. Also, let me reiterate, take your time. Do the research. We will all learn a lot more from each other that way, and avoid diversions from the topics at hand.