The brewing storm [Religious Responses Only]

philologos · 05-08-2010 1:00am

I have no doubt that the science is out there, but he seems to be clearly adding his opinion while talking about it, which quite naturally is what happens when you are speaking as an atheist, to an audience of atheists. His take on the science is also present. In the same way as if a Christian was speaking to a group of Christians on how the science is relevant to Christians, there would be a Christian take on the science present.

Zombrex · 05-08-2010 1:10am

Jakkass wrote: »

I have no doubt that the science is out there, but he seems to be clearly adding his opinion while talking about it, which quite naturally is what happens when you are speaking as an atheist, to an audience of atheists. His take on the science is also present.

Like I said fair enough, if you feel happier then simply ignore everything he says.

Again my point of linking to the video was more his prediction of the up coming conflict. I wasn't attempting with the video to prove that this is becoming the current scientific position, I didn't actually think that was necessary. There is tons of this stuff out there.

Soul Winner · 05-08-2010 1:16am

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes actually it does, that is in fact the point. That is what psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology is, why we behave the way we do.

Point taken.

Wicknight wrote: »

I agree entirely that these molecules would not randomly form together, but then no one says they did.

That is the whole point of Darwin's discovery. Evolution isn't blind chance, as we have been explaining to you for the last 6 years on the other monster Creationist thread, where this discussion probably belongs

If not randomly and not by blind chance and definitely not by an intelligence then how? Undirected forces working on chemicals over time can cause stalagmites to form or patterns in sand dunes or snow flakes but they do not write computer like code to bring about complex specific functions in living organisms. The blind watchmaker does not know what the outcome will be nor does he care or have any preference for one outcome over another. He's not only blind but mindless and uncaring. Undirected Natural Selection is an oxymoron. Blind processes with no end result don't select anything because to do so means to reject every other combination of possible outcomes. NS assumes an intelligence with pre-defined outcomes in mind before it acts. It selects what works best and rejects the rest, but to do that it must be pre-programmed for that specific outcome and that implies a programmer.

Wicknight wrote: »

This isn't an agenda. It is a scientific finding.

They are looking for evidence that supports their pre-targetted outcome and rejecting what might pose as a threat to it by ridiculing it. It's just another branch on the tree of Darwinism.

Soul Winner · 05-08-2010 1:17am

Wicknight wrote: »

There is tons of this stuff out there.

We know

Zombrex · 05-08-2010 1:32am

Soul Winner wrote: »

If not randomly and not by blind chance and definitely not by an intelligence then how?

Darwinian evolution.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Undirected forces working on chemicals over time can cause stalagmites to form or patterns in sand dunes or snow flakes but they do not write computer like code to bring about specific functions in living organisms.

Yes actually they do, as has been explained many times on the other thread.

We (humans) have experimentally demonstrated, both in labs and using computer simulations, that self replicating molecules develop primitive forms of what you would call genetic code. It has also been demonstrated that simple sets of molecules can replicate each other again forming information carrying molecules.

The issue is not can this happen. We know it can, we've done it. The issue is what did actually happen on Earth and if so in what form. That we don't know because the evidence to test the models is lacking.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Blind processes with no end result don't select anything because to do so means to reject every other combination of possible outcomes. NS assumes an intelligence with pre-defined outcomes in mind before it acts. It selects what works best and rejects the rest, but to do that it must be pre-programmed for that specific outcome and that implies a programmer.

The environment selects the outcome, and the environment doesn't care a bit about you. If you and a hundred people get poisoned by a plant and only you have the gene to produce the enzyme to to neutralize that poison, they all die and you live. Lucky you you have just been selected. Not because the environment (in this case the plant) has any particular reason to pick you but because you happen to have the mutation that adapts you better to the environment than all the others.

Seriously Soul Winner I can't count how many times natural selection has been explained to you and you still seem to just repeat back Creationist propaganda and falsehoods. And again we will invoke the wrath of the mods if we keep this up. Feel free to go to the other thread if you want further clarification.

Soul Winner wrote: »

They are looking for evidence that supports their pre-targetted outcome and rejecting what might pose a threat to it by ridiculing it. It's just another branch on the tree of Darwinism.

You can believe that if you like but wishing for a scientific theory to be true isn't going to get it passing scientific standards. It either passes the standards or it doesn't. You can't fake that.

kelly1 · 05-08-2010 11:51am

Wicknight wrote: »

But that is really what I wanted to find out from you guys.

Do you see this as a conflict, or do you think that it can be happily married together.
>>> Of course it's a conflict.

Would you be happy with your kids (or other kids) being taught a psychological and neurological explanation for religion in class rooms?
>>> Certainly not.

Would you be unhappy with this but still see it as important that current scientific understanding be taught to kids, while maintaining that you don't accept this as accurate?
>>> I would see it as an attempt to undermine belief in God.

Or would you in fact embrace it yourself, and stop being religious?
>>> Not a chance. The theory is wishful thinking.

Or none of the above.
>>> I'm going with this one.

What scientists seems to dismiss or ignore is Revelation. That God has revealed His nature and will to us first through Jewish prophets and then definitively through Jesus Christ. And we Christians base our faith on the resurrection as an historical event.

What I'm saying is that our belief in God isn't based on a "feeling" that some kind of supreme being must exist. We have very strong evidence for the validity of Christianity.

Zombrex · 05-08-2010 12:10pm

kelly1 wrote: »

What scientists seems to dismiss or ignore is Revelation. That God has revealed His nature and will to us first through Jewish prophets and then definitively through Jesus Christ. And we Christians base our faith on the resurrection as an historical event.

What I'm saying is that our belief in God isn't based on a "feeling" that some kind of supreme being must exist. We have very strong evidence for the validity of Christianity.

Thanks for the responses Kelly.

I don't think scientists are ignoring revelation, simply that any one particular religious story has not been show to actually have happened to any standard they would accept.

You can certainly choose to accept for what ever reason that one story happened as told, but that isn't really the same thing. So Christians accept the New Testament, Muslims accept the Quaran Mormons accept the books of Smith etc. None can show in any scientific sense of that word that any of it actually happened, such acceptance is based on personal assessment and conclusion. So it is not relevant to science.

This research though does go some what into explaining why humans are more likely to accept stories with certain properties as factual over others types of stories, irrespective of whether they are true or not, which is an interesting aspect.

antiskeptic · 05-08-2010 12:19pm

Wicknight wrote: »

I'm just wondering what people think about this idea, teaching as science that religion is a by-produce of evolved traits and responses, fitted into the rest of evolutionary psychology.

I watched about half the video and a number of questions cropped up for me (I did struggle a bit to quell the nagging sense of a scientist looking to stitch together a theory to fit preconceived notions - and, as you might recall, I'm not an evolutionist anyway so the issue doesn't really concern me).

A prime question is this. A Christian like myself and many others here draw a distinction between Religion and Christianity. We would hold that the world is divided into only two categories of people: the lost and the found. All the lost - whatever their worldview - Atheist, Agnostic, Christian, Hindi, Muslim ... are spiritually blind and are cut off from connection with God. Because of this, the unbelieving Religious has a religious belief that is a man-made entity. As such, he would be expected to differ completely from the believer who would have an actual connection with God (assuming for a moment that God does exist)

How would someone go about establishing an evolutionary explanation to deal with this situation (the featured scientist in your video took a rather coarse approach of lumping all religions into a pot labelled Religion). In other words, if there is a God, how do you identify his adherents in order to examine them scientifically. Note that this isn't the only area which would plague scientific investigation - I've often wondered about polls expressing the views of Christians when there is no accurate way of determining who is or isn't a Christian.

___________

A more general query would ask what specifically has been found to indicate religious belief an evolved entity. At around the point I finished, he was showing MRI cross sections of religious brains indicating the locus of aspects of religious belief and was positing the religious use of normal cognitive infrastucture to be a major piece of evidence for his position. But I couldn't fathom why - religious people are thinking people and so at least some of their belief can be expected to occupy cognitive infrastructure. What specifically points to evolved belief - other than weaving some known facts to fit the evolutionary story?

kelly1 · 05-08-2010 12:23pm

Wicknight wrote: »

Thanks for the responses Kelly.

I don't think scientists are ignoring revelation, simply that any one particular religious story has not been show to actually have happened to any standard they would accept.

I think bias is a big problem here. Many atheists want to discredit belief in God.

prinz · 05-08-2010 12:24pm

Wicknight wrote: »

Do you see this as a conflict, or do you think that it can be happily married together.

I may have picked up the concept wrong, but from what I understand no, I don't see a conflict. Is he saying that humans have evolved a trait to basically indulge in the concept of God/gods/religion? That some of us are programmed to seek out something that isn't there? Need to read it again, head cold and sinus issues aren't helping clear thinking.

Wicknight wrote: »

Would you be happy with your kids (or other kids) being taught a psychological and neurological explanation for religion in class rooms?

If he's saying what I think he is I don't see why not.

Wicknight wrote: »

Would you be unhappy with this but still see it as important that current scientific understanding be taught to kids, while maintaining that you don't accept this as accurate?

My understanding may be off (quite possibly) but I don't have any major issue with it yet. Perhaps I'm not picking up on something.

Wicknight wrote: »

Or would you in fact embrace it yourself, and stop being religious?

I can't see why it would encourage me to stop being religious at the minute.

Zombrex · 05-08-2010 12:34pm

antiskeptic wrote: »

I watched about half the video and a number of questions cropped up for me (I did struggle a bit to quell the nagging sense of a scientist looking to stitch together a theory to fit preconceived notions - and, as you might recall, I'm not an evolutionist anyway so the issue doesn't really concern me).

Hi antiskeptic, thanks for the response.

Anyone who doesn't accept evolution as a theory won't naturally accept conclusions based on evolutionary psychology, so I appreciate that this research won't mean much to you

How would you feel about this being taught as the standard model of psychology?

antiskeptic wrote: »

A prime question is this. A Christian like myself and many others here draw a distinction between Religion and Christianity. We would hold that the world is divided into only two categories of people: the lost and the found. All the lost - whatever their worldview Atheist, Agnostic, Christian, Hindi, Muslim ... are spiritually blind and are cut off from connection with God. Because of this, the unbelieving Muslim, Protestant, Muslim or 'Christian' has a religious belief that is a man-made entity. As such, he would be expected to differ completely from the believer who would have an actual connection with God (assuming for a moment that God can exist)

How would someone go about establishing an evolutionary explanation for this situation (the featured scientist in your video took a rather coarse approach of lumping all religions into a pot labelled Religion).

Well the problem would be that you can say you hold that the world is divided into two categories of people but you can't show in a scientific sense that this is the case (or at least no one has so far as far as I know). A Christian believer looks pretty much exactly like the believer of any other religion in terms of how they work and in relation to what they believe and why.

So it becomes some what irrelevant from a scientific point of view. The next person could say that the world is divided into three types of people and there is no way to determine to scientific standards if he is likely to be correct or you are likely to be correct.

The point of this research is that, as far as we can tell in any sort of scientific fashion, what is happening in the brain of those with "false belief" is the same thing happening in your brain, and happening for the same evolutionary reasons. And the patterns of what you will belief and accept are the same. How to get someone to the state where they are more accepting of religious belief is the same.

So science hasn't discovered any fundamental difference between Christians and all other religious believers. Every religion thinks they are the true religion but science can't just accept this is the case because they say so. They could just be wrong, as you would seem to accept is the case with all other non-Christian religions.

So it is a bit of a false start trying to show the cause of this division if we can't show it exists in the first place.

Does that answer the question? I'm not sure I fully understood what you were asking but I hope that was close

Zombrex · 05-08-2010 12:43pm

prinz wrote: »

I may have picked up the concept wrong, but from what I understand no, I don't see a conflict. Is he saying that humans have evolved a trait to basically indulge in the concept of God/gods/religion? That some of us are programmed to seek out something that isn't there? Need to read it again, head cold and sinus issues aren't helping clear thinking.

Basically yes. The research is saying that we have evolved the tendency to invent religion (ie to see human like agency in nature, to see this agency as benevolent and authoritative, to accept stories told to us that follow that pattern, to seek this agency in times of stress, to process the world around us in terms of human interactions etc) as a by product of other evolutionary processes and goes into the evolutionary reasons of why we would do this.

Using the example of the optical illusion it is basically the difference between saying you see a white triangle in the picture because it is actually there and saying you see a white triangle in the picture because your brain has evolved the ability to track objects behind other objects in order to track them and a by-product of this is that when you see a pattern like this your brain creates a triangle shape.

prinz wrote: »

I can't see why it would encourage me to stop being religious at the minute.

If it suggested that your religious experiences and your acceptance of religious stories were possibly due to how your brain works rather than reality, would that cause you to question your faith?

antiskeptic · 05-08-2010 12:50pm

Wicknight wrote: »

How would you feel about this being taught as the standard model of psychology?

My wifes a counselling psychologist and her training was through-and-through humanistic. I don't see that anything would be changed by adding more to an already overflowing bucket.

Well the problem would be that you can say you hold that the world is divided into two categories of people but you can't show in a scientific sense that this is the case (or at least no one has so far as far as I know).

Accepted. But my point aimed to illustrate why this finding could easily roll off the back of an evolution believing Christian - it wasn't aimed at proving the Christian position

A Christian believer looks pretty much exactly like the believer of any other religion in terms of how they work and in relation to what they believe and why.

The focus of my point was to query how any scientist could say this is the case. How would he know he has a Christian in his test tube in order to comment this way or that?

So it becomes some what irrelevant from a scientific point of view. The next person could say that the world is divided into three types of people and there is no way to determine to scientific standards if he is likely to be correct or you are likely to be correct.

The point of this research is that, as far as we can tell in any sort of scientific fashion, what is happening in the brain of those with "false belief" is the same thing happening in your brain, and happening for the same evolutionary reasons. And the patterns of what you will belief and accept are the same. How to get someone to the state where they are more accepting of religious belief is the same.

So science hasn't discovered any fundamental difference between Christians and all other religious believers. Every religion thinks they are the true religion but science can't just accept this is the case because they say so. They could just be wrong, as you would seem to accept is the case with all other non-Christian religions.

So it is a bit of a false start trying to show the cause of this division if we can't show it exists in the first place.

Does that answer the question? I'm not sure I fully understood what you were asking but I hope that was close

Has what I said clarified anything? How does the scientist establish I am a Christian in order to conclude that my thinking is the same as the Muslim next door. IN other words: if there was a true religion (whatever that may be) how would the scientist know that his scattergun approach is incorporating that true religion in amongst the myriad of false ones.

Soul Winner · 05-08-2010 12:52pm

Wicknight wrote: »

Darwinian evolution.

That's the thing though, Darwinian Evolution doesn't kick in until after the first self replication system or molecule appears. Natural Selection (as Darwinism defines it) is a process whereby in living organisms certain traits are kept and others are discarded, but before life can come about NS doesn't exist. And before life can come about you need to have a very very sophisticate sequences of nucleotide bases in place before self replication can occur. So what can cause these systems to form in the first place? There are 2 possibilities. 1.) Blind Chance, or 2.) Intelligence. We have no problem inferring from our everyday experience that chance cannot bring about sophisticated system like this but we do observe minds doing it all the time. writing books, posting on Internet forums, writing computer codes, or blueprint designs and so forth. So what is the most logical cause (as far as our everyday experience can ascertain) for the sophisticated sequence of bases in RNA and DNA compiling to bring about the first life? Even you have explained this many many times before that the theory of evolution does not deal with Abiogenesis, that NS only starts after the first self replicating system has come about. So you're either not explaining it properly or you're changing the goal posts to fit the theory.

Wicknight wrote: »

We (humans) have experimentally demonstrated, both in labs and using computer simulations, that self replicating molecules develop primitive forms of what you would call genetic code. It has also been demonstrated that simple sets of molecules can replicate each other again forming information carrying molecules.

What you fail to observe in these experiments is the interaction of the investigators in the process. Something that was serisouly lacking in a prebiotic earth. These experimenters tweak the results for the favorable outcome and as such fail in reproducing the real conditions present on the earth when it all apparently happened without any input from an intelligent agent.

Wicknight wrote: »

The issue is not can this happen. We know it can, we've done it. The issue is what did actually happen on Earth and if so in what form. That we don't know because the evidence to test the models is lacking.

Thank you. So with that in mind why is it so irrational to infer that an intelligence might have been involved? It at least should have a place on the shelf with other competing explanations. You don't need to identify the intelligence in order to infer that intelligence was involved. That can still be an open question and theories can still abound as to the identity of that intelligence. We can still keep open the possibility of the other competing theories and test them and re-test them until we can put them away as valid explanations. There is no other naturalistic theory that explains how this complex sequence came about and as such we need to look at other possibilities. Barring intelligence as a possible explanation because it ruffles the feathers of some materialist is not science.

Wicknight wrote: »

The environment selects the outcome, and the environment doesn't care a bit about you. If you and a hundred people get poisoned by a plant and only you have the gene to produce the enzyme to to neutralize that poison, they all die and you live. Lucky you you have just been selected. Not because the environment (in this case the plant) has any particular reason to pick you but because you happen to have the mutation that adapts you better to the environment than all the others.

I understand all that but your describing the process that supposedly takes place after the first living cell appears - namely Natrual Selection. I'm talking out before that. How did information rich molecules assemble themselves into the specific complex sequence that enables self replication to occur in the first place? NS does not deal with this question nor can it.

Wicknight wrote: »

Seriously Soul Winner I can't count how many times natural selection has been explained to you and you still seem to just repeat back Creationist propaganda and falsehoods. And again we will invoke the wrath of the mods if we keep this up. Feel free to go to the other thread if you want further clarification.

You're talking about NS and I'm talking about before NS kicks in. No wonder there is confusion.

Wicknight wrote: »

You can believe that if you like but wishing for a scientific theory to be true isn't going to get it passing scientific standards. It either passes the standards or it doesn't. You can't fake that.

All I want to know is what is the more logical cause for complex sequence specific nucleotide bases in DNA and RNA to form before NS kicks in? I say that the best explanation is that it came from an intelligent mind like the way every other code known to mankind comes from, be that Morse code, languages, and computer languages. Or it just self assemble itself, a process that we never see happening in nature or even in the lab without outside tweaking of the artificial environment by the experimenters.

Morbert · 05-08-2010 12:53pm

This research may persuade some fence-sitters to become atheists, but there's nothing in the research that is inconsistent with Christianity.

The area of neurophysiology that will really challenge religious ideas in the fututre (not to mention lawmakers) is that of 'will'. There is a serious trend towards acknowledging differences in brain structure that result in a greater or lesser capacity to restrain ourselves from impulsive 'bad' choices.

prinz · 05-08-2010 12:55pm

Wicknight wrote: »

Basically yes. The research is saying that we have evolved the tendency to invent religion (ie to see human like agency in nature, to see this agency as benevolent and authoritative, to accept stories told to us that follow that pattern, to seek this agency in times of stress, to process the world around us in terms of human interactions etc) as a by product of other evolutionary processes and goes into the evolutionary reasons of why we would do this.

We have evolved the tendency to search for God in other words. It has no bearing on whether or not a God exists, and as it stands it could be interpreted as a confirmation of religious beliefs, that we evolved in that way because God wanted to be found by us. Similarly we evolved other ways because God wanted us to be decent survivalists etc.

Wicknight wrote: »

If it suggested that your religious experiences and your acceptance of religious stories were possibly due to how your brain works rather than reality, would that cause you to question your faith?

Not really. It would raise questions as to why my brain works that way, and to what end.

Slav · 05-08-2010 1:10pm

Morbert wrote: »

The area of neurophysiology that will really challenge religious ideas in the fututre (not to mention lawmakers) is that of 'will'. There is a serious trend towards acknowledging differences in brain structure that result in a greater or lesser capacity to restrain ourselves from impulsive 'bad' choices.

Still not something that Christianity would object I guess.

yutta · 05-08-2010 1:19pm

Stupid troll thread. Take it over to the atheist & agnostic forum boys.

There's nothing here that rocks the Vatican.

Don't let that stop you from gazing down microscopes looking to fill all the holes in Dawkinism though.

Zombrex · 05-08-2010 1:20pm

antiskeptic wrote: »

Accepted. But my point aimed to illustrate why this finding could easily roll off the back of an evolution believing Christian - it wasn't aimed at proving the Christian position

Ah right, yes I understand. Well that is the case with anything in science I guess, you don't have to accept a scientific theory and with the realm of the supernatural you can always suppose an alternative supernatural explanations. If I said there were fairies in my computer that that is what caused it to work, not electricity, you would have a hard time proving me wrong

antiskeptic wrote: »

The focus of my point was to query how any scientist could say this is the case. How would he know he has a Christian in his test tube in order to comment this way or that?

Again science doesn't make the distinction you are making, so it is not really relevant.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Has what I said clarified anything? How does the scientist establish I am a Christian in order to conclude that my thinking is the same as the Muslim next door.

It has.

My point is that science does not concern itself with your definition of a Christian because your definition of a Christian requires a supernatural element to begin with (ie someone who has been given the grace of God, or what ever supernatural theological belief you think makes someone a Christian)

Science looks a humans, humans who proclaim different religious beliefs. And so far they have found nothing out of the ordinary with any particular religious group.

If you believe there is a different sub-set contained within one of these sets the onus is on you, as the person making the claim, to bring that forward and demonstrate it.

It would be simply wishful thinking to assume your religion has to be difference just because you think it should be. The onus is on your to demonstrate it is.

yutta · 05-08-2010 1:28pm

Wicknight wrote: »

Ah right, yes I understand. Well that is the case with anything in science I guess, you don't have to accept a scientific theory and with the realm of the supernatural you can always suppose an alternative supernatural explanations. If I said there were fairies in my computer that that is what caused it to work, not electricity, you would have a hard time proving me wrong

Again science doesn't make the distinction you are making, so it is not really relevant.

It has.

My point is that science does not concern itself with your definition of a Christian because your definition of a Christian requires a supernatural element to begin with (ie someone who has been given the grace of God, or what ever supernatural theological belief you think makes someone a Christian)

Science looks a humans, humans who proclaim different religious beliefs. And so far they have found nothing out of the ordinary with any particular religious group.

If you believe there is a different sub-set contained within one of these sets the onus is on you, as the person making the claim, to bring that forward and demonstrate it.

It would be simply wishful thinking to assume your religion has to be difference just because you think it should be. The onus is on your to demonstrate it is.

You do realise you're on the Christianity forum, right?

You should head down to the pub or the bookies and convert the gullible. You might even enjoy yourself while you're at it.

antiskeptic · 05-08-2010 1:30pm

yutta wrote: »

You do realise you're on the Christianity forum, right?

You should head down to the pub or the bookies and convert the gullible. You might even enjoy yourself while you're at it.

You clearly haven't noticed Wicknights post count..

yutta · 05-08-2010 1:34pm

antiskeptic wrote: »

You clearly haven't noticed Wicknights post count..

Fair play to him. On a personal mission, is he? Has he a calling? (I assume he is a man, probably single too).

Zombrex · 05-08-2010 1:38pm

prinz wrote: »

We have evolved the tendency to search for God in other words.

Not exactly. It is not just God, it is far more general than that. We have evolved the tendency to see human like agents acting in nature in a benevolent fashion because it is easier for our brains to process nature in such terms, in the same way it is easier to understand animals in terms of human emotional structures.

The Judeo-Christian concept of God is just one of many different ways these instincts manifest themselves in humans. Humans were doing this long before anyone had even heard of the Abrahamic deity, and they continue to do this even if they have no exposure to the religion or have rejected the idea (atheists do this as well as Dawkins demonstrated when he caught himself doing it in an interview)

This explains all religion and a range of supernatural ideas as well, not just Christianity.

prinz wrote: »

It has no bearing on whether or not a God exists

Not directly. It has bearing on whether we invent the concept, ie whether humans would belief and follow a religion irrespective of whether it is true or not.

Using an example from earlier in the thread, if you hear voices in your head that you attribute to demons and then a doctor diagnoses you with schizophrenia that doesn't prove you don't have demons in your head. But it puts forward a theory as to why you would think you have demons in your head even if there weren't. For most people that is good enough.

This basically does the same for religion. It puts forward how and why humans would believe in the various religions and supernatural superstitions on Earth without requiring that any of them actually be true.

So you are left with the situation where you can explain all this without the need to suppose the existence of God, or Allah, or Ganesha or Zeus or ghosts or spirits or fairies or any other agents in nature.

Which leads to the question of what then is the point if supposing their existence in the first place.

prinz wrote: »

Not really. It would raise questions as to why my brain works that way, and to what end.

It answers that question through evolutionary biology, which is the point. It is not simply what happens when you believe but why this exists in the brain in the first place.

Now having said that you can always inject extra unsupported reasons. Ice cream tastes good because it has lots of sugar and we have evolved the instinct to find sugar appealing because for most of human existence sugars were rare and those who evolved this instinct were more likely to consume sugar and thus have greater energy.

That is the evolutionary why.

You can of course inject anything you like after that, such as "And also because Xenu liked ice cream and wanted us to share in this".

But that is mere supposition, and can take any form you like based on any religious deity or supernatural being. Interestingly though this research goes some what to explaining why we actually do that in the first place, why we try and bring all explanations of natural events back to a human like agent doing something in terms of human experience. So this research explains why people are prone to saying things like God created the universe because he loves us.

antiskeptic · 05-08-2010 1:41pm

Wicknight wrote: »

Ah right, yes I understand. Well that is the case with anything in science I guess, you don't have to accept a scientific theory and with the realm of the supernatural you can always suppose an alternative supernatural explanations. If I said there were fairies in my computer that that is what caused it to work, not electricity, you would have a hard time proving me wrong

Pull out the plug?

Remember that this scientists theory is attempting to demonstrate a naturalistic source of religious belief. He can't start out assuming that which he is attempting to demonstrate - he must be led there by the facts. Now the fact that there is a sticky problem to address, namely that:

a) all religions cannot be true

b) one religion might be true

c) if one religion is true then lumping all into one pot would be bad science

.. is his problem to address. It's not something that can be handwaved away like this.

Again science doesn't make the distinction you are making, so it is not really relevant.

Do you see a massive assumption in the science then?

My point is that science does not concern itself with your definition of a Christian because your definition of a Christian requires a supernatural element to begin with (ie someone who has been given the grace of God, or what ever supernatural theological belief you think makes someone a Christian)

Science looks a humans, humans who proclaim different religious beliefs. And so far they have found nothing out of the ordinary with any particular religious group.

If you believe there is a different sub-set contained within one of these sets the onus is on you, as the person making the claim, to bring that forward and demonstrate it.

I'm quite happy to agree with the finding of science regarding what it classifies as Religion - my own theology agrees with it finding much similiarity between them. My point was to illustrate why it need say nothing to any believer of any hue - if they don't classify themselves under sciences definition of Religion.

It's simply the logical response that can be justly made - not an attempt to prove something to you.

Fanny Cradock · 05-08-2010 1:41pm

I think Dr Thompson is rallying the faithful - preparing them for a secular jihad, if you will. "Bring it on!", he says. The conflict thesis is clearly an idea that is very, very close to his heart (43:30 mins onwards). He desperately wants a new Scopes Trial and this desire pervades his talk.

antiskeptic · 05-08-2010 1:43pm

yutta wrote: »

Fair play to him. On a personal mission, is he? Has he a calling?

Good question. I can understand me evangelising him (like who'd want Hell to happen to even their worst enemy). I can't understand him evangelising me though.

Given the relative import between our respective evangelical goals (his and mine), and the input input, I must be a right lazy git.

Fanny Cradock · 05-08-2010 1:44pm

yutta wrote: »

Fair play to him. On a personal mission, is he? Has he a calling? (I assume he is a man, probably single too).

Behave. Read the charter and stop your messing.

Zombrex · 05-08-2010 1:57pm

antiskeptic wrote: »

Pull out the plug?

What would that do? I can simply claim my invisible fairies require the plug to be in to work for reasons unknown to me.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Remember that the scientists theory is attempting to demonstrate that naturalistic source of religious belief. He can't start out assuming that which he is attempting to demonstrate - he must be led there by the fact. The fact that there is a sticky problem to address (namely that a) all religions cannot be true b) one religion might be true c) if one religion is true then lumping all into one pot would be bad science) is his problem to address. It's not something that can be handwaved away like this.

Not really, it is actually you starting with the assumption that one religion must be true. That seems unsupported at the moment.

If the scientists come across a person who, unbeknown to them is a member of the true religion, and when examined they discover a vastly different set of biological functions going on, then the theory will be updated.

But at the moment scientists have carried out these experiments on a large range of people from different backgrounds and claiming different religious persuasions and they haven't found this theoretical person yet.

It is always possible this person might come along, given that in science nothing is ever proven and new data can always invalidate current understanding. But as it stands it is only your faith that supposed this person exists in the first place. So again it is not of any concern to science, it is the case with any and all scientific theories. Any new data that has not yet been discovered can lead to a change in theory. But science doesn't start guessing as to what that new data might be, it deals with it when it encounters it.

Can you explain to me how you think a scientist would be able to prove that there is in fact no true religion? Even if they examined everyone on the planet plenty of religions could simply claim that no one at the moment of examination was a member, or any other supernatural explanation such as supposing that God removed his grace during the examination in order so that it would not be detected. The possibilities are infinite, as broad as the human imagination.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Do you see a massive assumption in the science then?

No, since as you have not established there is a true religion there is no reason, from a scientific position, to assume there is over any other assumption. That would be in fact unscientific.

Science can only deal with what it can examine, not what people can imagine or suppose might exist or be true. You can imagine there is one true religion and the members of said religion have difference brain interactions, but you can't present that to science and say Here examine this. It simply becomes one of the infinite number of other things that could or might be true.

There is an infinite number of things we can imagine, but until we can present something tangible to science there is nothing for science to examine.

antiskeptic wrote: »

I'm quite happy to agree with the finding of science regarding what it classifys as Religion. My point was to illustrate why it need say nothing to any believer of any hue - if they don't classify themselves under sciences definition of Religion.

True, but again that is the case with anything. The theory of electromagnetism will say nothing to me if I believe my computer is run by magic fairies. No matter how detailed that theory is or becomes if I choose to believe my own magic fairies theory there is nothing you or any scientist can do about it.

But equally science isn't going to stop and say Umm, he claims his computer is run by magic fairies, we probably should update our theories to take account of this

antiskeptic · 05-08-2010 2:18pm

Wicknight wrote: »

Not really, it is actually you starting with the assumption that one religion must be true.

Not must be. Can be. If the scientist excludes this possibility from the outset then he has already assumed what he is attempting to demonstrate.

If the scientists come across a person who, unbeknown to them is a member of the true religion, and when examined they discover a vastly different set of biological functions going on, then the theory will be updated.

But at the moment scientists have carried out these experiments on a large range of people from different backgrounds and claiming different religious persuasions and they haven't found this theoretical person yet.

Have they been looking? It seems to me that the scientists are interested in the commonality across religions - not the exceptions. Isn't this commonality the very thing that demonstrates what is being sought?

It is always possible this person might come along, given that in science nothing is ever proven and new data can always invalidate current understanding. But as it stands it is only your faith that supposed this person exists in the first place. So again it is not of any concern to science.

My very point. This science isn't attempting to deal with Religion as I understand it and so isn't presenting a useful result.

Assuming for the sake of argument there is a true religion. And assuming the relative numbers in said religion are few (such as Christianity purports to be if you exclude Christendom), is there a chance that his study didn't pick up on one of them? And even if it did and there was one true believer in 100 sampled, don't you think the findings would tend to conclude the same as now?

True, but again that is the case with anything. The theory of electromagnetism will say nothing to me if I believe my computer is run by magic fairies. No matter how detailed that theory is or becomes if I choose to believe my own magic fairies theory there is nothing you or any scientist can do about it.

But equally science isn't going to stop and say Umm, he claims his computer is run by magic fairies, we probably should update our theories to take account of this

Such are the limits of science. It can only measure what it can measure. Which was the point at outset - why it is that evolutionary believing believers could have cause to wonder.

Zombrex · 05-08-2010 2:47pm

antiskeptic wrote: »

Not must be. Can be. If the scientist excludes this possibility from the outset then he has already assumed what he is attempting to demonstrate.

Scientists don't exclude any possibility. Not just the ones you come up with. Like I said the things that are possible are infinite.

Science doesn't treat any possible unknown to any higher degree than any other possible unknown just because it happens to be the one your religion came up with.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Have they been looking? It seems to me that the scientists are interested in the commonality across religions - not the exceptions.

Well yes they have been looking, but you dismissed them going to particular religious groups based on what the person claims is their religion because you don't trust the person's claim since you subscribe to a supernatural cause for whether they are or are not true Christians.

Can you think of a better way?

If they go to a bunch of Christians but can't trust they are actually Christians then by what criteria should they be using to find "true" Christians and where should they be looking for them?

antiskeptic wrote: »

My very point. This science isn't attempting to deal with Religion as I understand it and so isn't presenting a useful result.

But there is nothing science can do about that since how you understand religion is through a supernatural claim that you yourself can't even verify using science, so how can the rest of science deal with your claims?

If I believe that invisible fairies run my computer there is nothing science can do to convince me otherwise. But equally no one but me cares. Dell don't care, Intel don't care. They use the current scientific models of electricity and that works out pretty well for them.

There is nothing science can do about people who reject science and who prefer to believe their own personal interpretation, so they are out of the scope of this discussion given that they are already rejecting the premises that the research is based upon.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Assuming for the sake of argument there is a true religion. And assuming the relative numbers in said religion are few (such as Christianity purports to be if you exclude Christendom), is there a chance that his study didn't pick up on one of them?

Yes.

But then replace what you just assumed with anything else you can imagine and there is a change that this study didn't pick up on that. There are an infinite number of assumptions or imaginary things that any particular scientific theory might not have discovered yet.

Science can only deal with what it has picked up upon, not the infinite things it might have missed.

If you choose to pick one of these infinite possible things that it might have missed and choose to believe that this is true based on non-scientific reasoning you are basically on your own since that is no different to picking another one of the infinite possible things that it might have missed.

If science can't tell the difference between the random one you picked and all the others in terms of how accurate they are at modeling reality then they are of no practical use.

The brewing storm [Religious Responses Only]

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