Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Is the fact that religion pops up in every form of civilization...

Options
1235»

Comments

  • Options
    #122
    Turtwig
    Registered Users Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    HansHolzel wrote: »
    "Get rid of this idiot!
    HansHolzel wrote: »
    Carry On is the intellectual level I'm up against all right.
    HansHolzel wrote: »
    I have a doctorate by the way but the ignorance of tiresome, would-be intellectual trolls must be exposed.
    HansHolzel wrote: »
    Or else stay in the field, with your sprong.
    HansHolzel wrote: »
    If you were able to understand what I wrote,

    Less of the condescending remarks, please.


  • Options
    #123
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Motopepe wrote: »
    History will not enlighten us on the subject of the inception of religious beliefs and / or practices among humans. Its pre-historic.

    There is some evidence that Neanderthals were burying their dead in an intentional manner (with grave goods), so religious beliefs / practices may not even be unique to homo sapiens, let alone homo sapiens sapiens. This would date to 300,000 years ago and possibly 500,000 years ago. Shamanic religions from the Upper Paleolithic period, as evidenced from cave drawings, date to at least 30,000 years ago and possibly 80,000 years ago. The idea of a spirit world separate from the physical world has been around since the beginning of humanity, it clearly evolved, so the interesting question is why it was retained and became such a significant influence of all modern civilizations. Attempting to explain these phenomena in terms of how modern humans think or believe may not be that relevant to early hunter gatherer nomadic societies.


  • Options
    #124
    Motopepe
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭Motopepe


    Indeed it may not be relevant. However, I tend to question "The idea of a spirit world separate from the physical world" being "around since the beginning of humanity". The idea of a spirit world separate from the physical world is most likely a relatively recent idea. There is the possibility that early humans perceived only one world and made no distinctions between those aspects that they would later attempt to separate out into different worlds.


  • Options
    #125
    GCU Flexible Demeanour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,257 ✭✭✭GCU Flexible Demeanour


    HansHolzel wrote: »
    If you can manage it at all, do as I did and show us you know something about Thomas Kuhn, whose name you dropped.
    Is not the miracle of the Juniper bushes enough?

    I can assure that, if I used Google Scholar, I could actually come up with something approaching an apt quote. But what's the point of that? As far as I'm concerned, the quote you supplied illustrates some of what I mean, when I point out that the practice of science is a social process.


  • Options
    #126
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    The point is that the social impact is complicated.

    That is the point to what?

    We were discussing if science can provide an alternative explanation for religious faith that does not invoke or require the supernatural.
    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    If you ask "how do I get political agreement to continuing investment in Dublin City water services, to ensure an adequate supply to cater for expected population", science can't really help you. I'm really only repeating that post - there's a slate of questions, intimately related to human welfare, that science can't add to.I'll agree that "good or evil" could be misleading. Science can certainly account for religious belief in those terms - you'll notice I've explicitly acknowledge that. My point is more that, if you listen to that account and say "that's plausible, but so what?" science doesn't have much (and probably not anything) to say.

    That is ridiculous. You can say "so what" but you can say that to anything. We have just landed a man on the moon and cured all world hunger ... so what.

    The "so what" is that we have an explanation for religious faith, that explains human wide religious faith, that doesn't require any particular faith to be true, that explains the experiences of individual religious followers better than their own religion.

    Saying "so what" seem to be just burying one's head in the sand.

    Let me put it another way, would would impress you GCU?


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #127
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Motopepe wrote: »
    Indeed it may not be relevant. However, I tend to question "The idea of a spirit world separate from the physical world" being "around since the beginning of humanity". The idea of a spirit world separate from the physical world is most likely a relatively recent idea. There is the possibility that early humans perceived only one world and made no distinctions between those aspects that they would later attempt to separate out into different worlds.

    I agree its highly speculative what early humans believed. Ritual burials with grave goods is perhaps suggestive of belief in a spirit world or afterlife, or perhaps not. Shamanic religions however clearly derive from a two worlds view, and the cave drawings in deep underground caves are the best evidence we have of how belief in Gods and a spirit world evolved. The Bradshaw Foundation is a great source for research on cave drawings from various Paleolithic cultures. The attached article suggests a link between Paleolithic and Neolithic religious artwork.

    http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/04/scholar-cave-paintings-show-religious-sophistication/


  • Options
    #128
    biko
    Registered Users Posts: 81,223 ✭✭✭✭biko


    MickFleetwood wrote: »
    Discuss.
    Arrg why did you go and do that. Now I won't answer the question..

    :P


  • Options
    #129
    GCU Flexible Demeanour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,257 ✭✭✭GCU Flexible Demeanour


    Zombrex wrote: »
    That is the point to what?

    We were discussing if science can provide an alternative explanation for religious faith that does not invoke or require the supernatural.
    This might be the crossed wire. I'd take it that's true, so far as it goes. I just wouldn't see any immediate value in the information.
    Zombrex wrote: »
    That is ridiculous. You can say "so what" but you can say that to anything. We have just landed a man on the moon and cured all world hunger ... so what.
    In fairness, 'we' (in the broadest sense - I can't claim much of the credit myself) might have put men on the moon. But, having done so, the reaction pretty much was "so what". It's not like 'we' rushed back, as it just didn't seem to justify the expense. And we haven't cured all world hunger. If we did, in some kind of sustainable way, I would be impressed.


  • Options
    #130
    Motopepe
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭Motopepe


    nagirrac wrote: »
    I agree its highly speculative what early humans believed. Ritual burials with grave goods is perhaps suggestive of belief in a spirit world or afterlife, or perhaps not. Shamanic religions however clearly derive from a two worlds view, and the cave drawings in deep underground caves are the best evidence we have of how belief in Gods and a spirit world evolved. The Bradshaw Foundation is a great source for research on cave drawings from various Paleolithic cultures. The attached article suggests a link between Paleolithic and Neolithic religious artwork.

    http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/04/scholar-cave-paintings-show-religious-sophistication/

    The final quotation in that article is important “It is difficult to pinpoint the moment where deities appeared,....But their appearance could not be a revolution — a brutal and fast process. Rather, there was more likely a natural, slow evolution of gods."
    Indeed, the same must apply to the evolution of the idea of 'a spirit world'. It is likely that there was a time when humans responded to phenomena that they encountered more than trying to understand it. Responses could come thick and fast but understandings need to evolve. A person or group may notice that certain experiences in a cave produce certain effects and they respond to such things in various ways. Imbuing these experiences with fixed meanings is a drawn out process.


  • Options
    #131
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    This might be the crossed wire. I'd take it that's true, so far as it goes. I just wouldn't see any immediate value in the information.

    The value is understanding of how the world appears to work. The same with all science.
    GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »
    In fairness, 'we' (in the broadest sense - I can't claim much of the credit myself) might have put men on the moon. But, having done so, the reaction pretty much was "so what". It's not like 'we' rushed back, as it just didn't seem to justify the expense. And we haven't cured all world hunger. If we did, in some kind of sustainable way, I would be impressed.

    Well ok, maybe it just takes a lot to impress you GCU :p

    (as an aside the moon landings get a bad wrap, mostly due to poor PR from NASA. NASA like to go on about how the moon landings inspired the world, which some people would be justified in saying "so what" to. But in reality, and we are only recently started to fully understanding this, the lead up to the moon landings produced a huge number of scientific and technological advances, the benefit of which is probably immeasurable)


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #132
    GCU Flexible Demeanour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,257 ✭✭✭GCU Flexible Demeanour


    Zombrex wrote: »
    The value is understanding of how the world appears to work. The same with all science.
    Oh, indeed, that can be helpful. I just don't see how it helps us, particularly, to know that religious belief can be accounted for with an explanation that doesn't involve a god.

    From left field, I've a daughter suffering her way through Leaving Cert Project Maths at the moment. She a load of questions to do that involved the equation of a circle. I was doing the whole parental "this Project Maths stuff is just so good for you", to trying to raise her interest above apathy.

    "Fine," she says, "So what practical use will I ever have for this."

    "Loads", I said confidently, Googling "practical uses equation of a circle". To find absolutely none. Lots of nerds, with lots of pages about the equation of a circle. Not one coming out with any practical situation where it would actually make your life easier or better.

    And, tbh, that's what the ultimate test has to be. OK, some stuff can be interesting to some of us just because it's interesting. Batting the breeze about religious stuff can be interesting. But it's not knowledge that makes anyone's life better. Its not as if the conclusion is "These guys believe in something that could be false, we must stop them."
    Zombrex wrote: »
    <....> the lead up to the moon landings produced a huge number of scientific and technological advances, the benefit of which is probably immeasurable
    Immeasurable. Hmm. So, presumably, if it can't be measured, science can't tell us if it was worthwhile.


Advertisement