Is God an Accident?

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"Despite the vast number of religions, nearly everyone in the world believes in the same things: the existence of a soul, an afterlife, miracles, and the divine creation of the universe. Recently psychologists doing research on the minds of infants have discovered two related facts that may account for this phenomenon. One: human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena. And two: this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry. Which leads to the question Is God an Accident?" This is an article in the December issue of "The Atlantic" http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/god-accident

I am not sure but you may have to subscribe to read this on line. I will give a short review because I think it is a very good read.

"Enthusiasm is building among scientists for the view that religion emerged not to serve a purpose?-not as an opiate or a social glue?-but by accident. It is a by-product of biological adaptations gone awry."

"We see the world of objects as separate from the world of minds, allowing us to envision souls and an afterlife; and our system of social understanding infers goals and desires, where none exist, making us animists and creationists."

"Nobody is born with the idea that humanity started in the Garden of Eden, or that martyrs will be rewarded in heaven; these ideas are learned. But the universal themes of religion are not learned. They are part of human nature."

"The theory of natural selection is an empirically supported account of our existence. But almost nobody believes it. We may intellectually grasp it, but it will never feel right. Our gut feeling is that design requires a designer."

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Chuck wrote-

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human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena.

Is there an explanation of how the scientific materialists on the ID/SD thread eradicated this weakness or are they simply posing in order to stand out from the crowd.

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I have always believed that one is born with religion or not and that no amount of persuasion can alter the basic propensity. Darwin for instance had all the information that makes the god notion obsolete, but nevertheless was at the least an agnostic.

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A quote from DARWIN by Desmond and Moore.

"How could faith in 'the Holiness of God' have arisen amid the death,famine,and wars of Semetic tribes?No,Charles (Darwin) insisted, the religious instinct had evolved with society.The primitive Jewish God, whose atrocities had 'lit up hell-fires in Christendom' could be nothing but a barbaric tyrant."

According to the hero of the materialists then faith is an evolved characteristic like hands and feet or noses and faces.Are they choosing to reject one evolved characteristic simply so that they can reject the barbaric tyrant and with that neat trick carry on sinning.How very convenient.Some might say,though not me,that they are playing fast and loose with their eternal life.Barbaric tyrants are notorious for exacting revenge on those who go against their will.

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Quote:

human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena.

I cannot access the article, so could you please give us the references for this statement? I would like to know how they came up with this idea, since many of us are not at all disposed to believe in the paranormal, magic, or supernatural beings.

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spendius wrote:

According to the hero of the materialists then faith is an evolved characteristic like hands and feet or noses and faces.Are they choosing to reject one evolved characteristic simply so that they can reject the barbaric tyrant and with that neat trick carry on sinning.How very convenient.Some might say,though not me,that they are playing fast and loose with their eternal life.Barbaric tyrants are notorious for exacting revenge on those who go against their will.

People do not reject belief in God in order to "sin," anymore than Catholics use confession to carry on sinning since they know they will be absolved. Most of us are quite capable of behaving ethically without the threat of retribution after we are dead (how convenient for believers that God does not punish anyone in this life when it would have a real effect on behavior!). Some people reject these beliefs simply because they are illogical and lack even a shred of proof.

Why would anyone who believes in the barbaric tyrant of a God depicted in the Old Testament, trust it not to renege on its new testament offer of salvation?

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Most of us are quite capable of behaving ethically

Who is defining the ethical behaviour?

Catholics do employ the method you suggest in order to sin.

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Why would anyone who believes in the barbaric tyrant of a God depicted in the Old Testament, trust it not to renege on its new testament offer of salvation?

I don't think I expressed any view on that one way or the other.

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Terry wrote:

Quote:
human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena.

I cannot access the article, so could you please give us the references for this statement? I would like to know how they came up with this idea, since many of us are not at all disposed to believe in the paranormal, magic, or supernatural beings.

The author of this article goes through several examples of things children believe. They deduce that children at this early age are expressing a universal 'sense' a universal 'gut feeling' that certain things are true. They give examples of children reaction to gravity not happening and the children are surprised. They do several of these to show that there are certain things that are innate to young children and a sense of a dualism of body and soul is one. Experiments with children indicate that "they appear to think of it {the brain] as a cognitive prosthesis"--Pinker calls it a "a pocket PC for the soul.

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I think we need a more detailed explanation as to how psychologists studying infants have derived the 'facts' that humans (a) have a predisposition to believe in the supernatural and that (b) this predisposition is the accidental by-product of cognitive function.

If an inclination to believe in the supernatural did tend to exist in people, it could easily and more logically be explained as learned from childhood experience--early childhood is marked by dependency on vastly more powerful beings of which one has little clear understanding. Put another way, to the infant and toddler, adults are gods. No innate cognitive reason necessary--the extreme ignorance and physical powerlessness of young children make them subject to and dependent on mentally and physically mature adults.

As for 'accidental', if such a predisposition did exist, why should it be assumed that it serves or served no evolutionary function?

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Mills

The article is very good. I suspect that if you read it you may be inclined to agree.

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Born with, I wonder how that conclusion was reached. God and the belief in God is a learned response. We are bombarded by the belief that a supreme being exists from infancy.

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coberst wrote:

Mills

The article is very good. I suspect that if you read it you may be inclined to agree.

But I'm not going to purchase a subscription just to read an article.

Psst--when no one's looking, c & p it so we can have a free peek. :wink:

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Mills

I am sorry but that could get me kicked off this forum. Besides those people who write these essays and make living doing so would be cheated. Another less expensive way is go to the library and read the copy of Atlantic there. Or go to the newsstand and buy a copy.

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"Is God an accident?"..........If you are talking about the Christian God, then no, he definitely wasn't an accident.

He was intelligently designed by the original authors of the Bible, presumably to give the masses some life instruction and to keep them in line by introducing the fear factor.

They did a great job, by the way.....as it still works quite well in the old brainwashing department, many thousands of years later.

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coberst wrote:

Mills

I am sorry but that could get me kicked off this forum. Besides those people who write these essays and make living doing so would be cheated. Another less expensive way is go to the library and read the copy of Atlantic there. Or go to the newsstand and buy a copy.

Or, not waste one's time on a matter of marginal significance . . .

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Lord Ellpus
Why is it that you and it would seem most others refer to a Christian God when in reality the God you refer to is the God of the Hebrews.

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coberst wrote:

Mills

I am sorry but that could get me kicked off this forum. Besides those people who write these essays and make living doing so would be cheated. Another less expensive way is go to the library and read the copy of Atlantic there. Or go to the newsstand and buy a copy.

A. I was joking.

B. The writer most likely gets paid a per word rate from the magazine, thus he or she has already been paid and we would only be cheating the magazine. I don't have a huge moral problem with that; in fact, one might consider it justified expropriation considering the myriad tax breaks corporations and their wealthy owners get at the expense of the common people. So I say stick it to the man! Cool

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au1929 wrote:

Lord Ellpus
Why is it that you and it would seem most others refer to a Christian God when in reality the God you refer to is the God of the Hebrews.

Having only been to church in order to have my hair washed, and only receiving the very basic Christian brainwashing at school, I was under the impression that Jesus was supposed to be the son of the god that is referred to in the old testament of the Bible.

Is the old testament referring to another God, then? One who is not the father of Jesus?

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Lord Ellpus
The God of the old testament and the one who supposedly fathered Jesus are one and the same. In fact the Allah the Muslims refer to is also the God of the old testament. Therefore the three religions worship the same God. The one described in the old testament. The Hebrew bible.

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au1929 wrote:

Lord Ellpus
The God of the old testament and the one who supposedly fathered Jesus are one and the same. In fact the Allah the Muslims refer to is also the God of the old testament. Therefore the three religions worship the same God. The one described in the old testament. The Hebrew bible.

So....your point was?

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Is God an Accident?

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