"We've evolved to be creationists"

i hate that feeling. it would be much easier to know everything.

i wish "miracles" were real, but i think reality is alot more boring.

When written history began five thousand years ago humans had already developed a great deal of knowledge. Much of that knowledge was of a very practical nature such as how to use animal skins for clothing, how to weave wool, how to hunt and fish etc. A large part of human knowledge was directed toward how to kill and torture fellow humans. I guess things never really change all that much.

In several parts of the world civilizations developed wherein people learned to create laws and to rule vast numbers of people. Some measure of peace and stability developed but there was yet no means for securing the people from their rulers. I guess things never really change all that much

Almost everywhere priests joined rulers in attempts to control the population. Despite these continual wars both of external and internal nature the human population managed to flourish. Egypt was probably one of the first long lasting and stable civilizations to grow up along the large rivers. Egypt survived almost unchanged for three thousand years. This success is attributed to its geographical location that gave it freedom from competition and fertile lands that were constantly replenished by the river overflowing its banks and thus depositing new fertile soil for farming.

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop "rational" accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the "Metaphysics" Aristotle wrote "All men by nature desire to know".

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as "Folk Theories".

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World
The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

The Folk Theory of General Kinds
Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

The Folk Theory of Essences
Every entity has an "essence" or "nature," that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics
Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

The information comes primarily from "Philosophy in the Flesh" and http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/folkmeta.htm

I agree except I don't think it was random. It was selected for, unfortunately.

I'm going to have to emphatically disagree with you.

It's not one of those things that can be determined by genes. Do you really think there's a gene for "spirituality"? Plus, if it was selected for, that means it would help an animal survive. Believing in spiritual things doesn't help an animal get food, doesn't help them kill other animals. It's not like giving them longer claws or something.

So let's get this straight. You think a gene mutation somehow came up with something called spirituality. It just invented it out of nowhere. And all of our searching for God, searching for a soul mate, thinking we're lucky/unlucky, are just because we're mutated.

Kind of like how evolution started: lightning came out of nowhere and hit a big puddle of sludge that just happened to exist, and somehow, by rules of nature that also somehow just happened to exist, the electricity happened to create a living organism. Then that one-celled organism happened to evolve into a two-celled organism (Which scientists have as yet been unable to recreate. Organisms don't just go from unicellular to multicellular.). Then it decided to add more and more cells until it became a human being.

Yeah, thanks, but I think I'll just stick with a more plausible idea than evolution.

(This isn't personal, I just don't see how so many people could believe something that...preposterous and unfounded. Tbh, it takes more belief to believe in evolution than to believe in creationism, if you really look closely at it. I have not found a way to disprove creationism. Evolution...well, I don't understand how anyone could believe in it.)

Re: "We've evolved to be creationists"


That's not a bad idea. Maybe I, along with everyone else, have this predisposition to be fascinated by the idea of the supernatural. Since my intellect has led me to be an atheist and to believe that nothing is supernatural, perhaps I satisfy my interest in the supernatural by discussing the non-existence of the supernatural at great lengths. Religious people, on the other hand, who perhaps allow their gut feelings to trump their intellectual power (out of 'faith'), may satisfy their interest in the supernatural by wrongly believing that there is such a thing.

Or something like that. But I have always wondered why religion is one of my favourite things to talk about despite the fact that I don't believe in any of it. So you could be onto something. Or maybe it's just the furstration of havign been raised (as a Christian) to base my life on a set of false propositions. Maybe discovering that, in fact, God does not love you makes you angry at religion, and maybe debating it is a way of venting that... I dunno. Could be anything.

Re: "We've evolved to be creationists"


It's not a byproduct of cognigive function gone awry. It's a byproduct of logically extrapolating limited experiences and observations to aspects of nature which are beyond our senses ability to interpret.

With only limited information, it would be logically correct to assume the sun goes around the Earth and not the other way around.

With only limited information, it seems reasonable to assume that aspects of our own behavior and thought are reflected in larger aspects of nature.

It is only with discipline of thought that we realize that these extrapolations are only possible, not necessarily probable. And with the addition of more and more information, certain possibilities can be eliminated, leaving possibilities with higher and higher probability of accuracy.