Belief?

[Edwardo Piet]

Did religion grow up because of a desire to believe or was it the other way around and, does anyone here have any beliefs for which there is no evidence and may never be?

I think the desire to believe almost certainly predates religion because I think religion is a by-product of faith and then religion futher supports that faith. I myself don't have any claims based on faith (that I know of). I believe that just as evidence can't support faith; you can't have faith in evidence because evidence is self evident, it doesn't need faith.

I thought after first reading TGD about asking Dawkins "You say you have no faith, but since you believe evidence is the path to follow because it supports science, do you have faith in evidence?".

I don't think I'd bother asking that now because I think he would sort of explain that he has belief in evidence not faith in evidence, and that evidence is self evident, he has trust or belief in it, not faith. Probably something like I mentioned above. That's atleast how I see it now anyway.

[dagda]

'It would illogical to assume we will not wake up every time we go to bed.

Even further, I think you could say that <99.99% percent of the time, when people go to bed, they wake up in the morning.'

Not so. Bob is 90 hence more than a decade beond the life expectancy. The most likly time for a person to die of natural causes (old age and ill health) is between 2-4 in the morning (the time we are asleep). Most people who do die do so in there sleep and, especialy in Bob's case, just because he has woken up every other morning is little garintee that he'll do it tomorrow.

[Jason Jarred]

I think the point is, if you are going to die after you go to bed - it's better to accept that fact than to pretend you're going to wake up. It will change how you spend the last few minutes before bedtime, perhaps you will call your parents, friends, loved ones, have a special moment with your partner.
If you delude yourself into believing you're going to wake up (when in fact you won't), then you might go to bed still grumpy with your partner, pretending that all can be dealt with tomorrow.

[dagda]

Exactly, and yet people still cling on to the umprovable belife that they will wake up which proves my point that the vast majority of humanity belives in something without proof because it makes life a little nicer. We are an illogical race, no one should delude themselves that we are not.

[chatpilot]

In my opinion religion in general serves the purpose of a placebo for mankind.It is nothing more than a security blanket for many and is derived primarily from societal influences and family ties.There is nothing logical about religious beliefs or it's ritualistic pracitices.

[Edwardo Piet]

In my opinion religion in general serves the purpose of a placebo for mankind.It is nothing more than a security blanket for many and is derived primarily from societal influences and family ties.There is nothing logical about religious beliefs or it's ritualistic pracitices.

Yeah...I don't think religion particularly serves any purpose...I do however think it is a by-product of something that evolved that DID have evolutionary merit.

Considering religion has no merit... it must be a by-product of something that does (or atleast did) have merit. For evolutionary reasons.

I guess the only real merit for religion is it CAN give hope, and it CAN be an effective delusionary placebo.

However it can't have evolved for evolutionary reasons - other than a by-product for something that did - because it does more harm than it does good....religion produces despair....and fear of God...the Devil....and hell...puts serious demands on behavior that you can't possibly control to 'God's satisfaction' and it causes a lot of war and violence because of blind faith and love of only the 'in group' and hatred of the 'out group'. Etc etc etc.

[Alan]

It's really easy to explain:

Faith is credulity. Credulity is an important trait in children because they need to believe their elders when they tell them of dangers in life (i.e. pass their experience on to them).

Theism is anthropomorphism of causality. It is important to expect events to have intelligent causes (i.e. be caused by someone rather than something) because that kind of paranoia can save your life or your meal.

It's easy to see why those properties are helpful, evolutionarily speaking, though easy to go wrong (leading to religious beliefs as a waste of resources).

Remember that nothing in evolution has to be "good", it just has to be good enough or not too harmful. Religion has been self-sustaining enough not to go extinct, but that doesn't mean it DOES anything useful.

I would assume that religious faith has some benefits socially, but I fail to see how that can balance the huge costs. It provides an incentive for social (read: pseudo-altruistic) behaviour, but that's about it.

[Edwardo Piet]

It's really easy to explain:

Faith is credulity. Credulity is an important trait in children because they need to believe their elders when they tell them of dangers in life (i.e. pass their experience on to them).

Theism is anthropomorphism of causality. It is important to expect events to have intelligent causes (i.e. be caused by someone rather than something) because that kind of paranoia can save your life or your meal.

It's easy to see why those properties are helpful, evolutionarily speaking, though easy to go wrong (leading to religious beliefs as a waste of resources).

Remember that nothing in evolution has to be "good", it just has to be good enough or not too harmful. Religion has been self-sustaining enough not to go extinct, but that doesn't mean it DOES anything useful.

I would assume that religious faith has some benefits socially, but I fail to see how that can balance the huge costs. It provides an incentive for social (read: pseudo-altruistic) behaviour, but that's about it.

If I've understood you correctly, I couldn't agree more...I'm better at thinking than I am at explaining.

The key word I used was 'evolutionary'; by evolutionary merit....I didn't mean GOOD or USEFUL I just meant good for evolutionary reasons...like a trait that helps a species to survive or reproduce.

[Alan]

Exactly. It's just that the trait doesn't have to be useful. It just has to be not harmful enough to skew the balance.

If the net balance between use and harm of whatever constellation of traits causes religious behaviour is good enough, it'll stick, even if the religious behaviour it causes CAN cause problems.

If evolution lacks one thing, that's foresight. Religious behaviour may have even been of some kind of use at the point it came to be, but that doesn't mean it still is. Going by memetics even, it just needs to survive in a host long enough to infect another to ensure its survival.

[Edwardo Piet]

Exactly. It's just that the trait doesn't have to be useful. It just has to be not harmful enough to skew the balance.

If the net balance between use and harm of whatever constellation of traits causes religious behaviour is good enough, it'll stick, even if the religious behaviour it causes CAN cause problems.

If evolution lacks one thing, that's foresight. Religious behaviour may have even been of some kind of use at the point it came to be, but that doesn't mean it still is. Going by memetics even, it just needs to survive in a host long enough to infect another to ensure its survival.

I guess it's hard to use less words to describe it other than 'Evolutional Merit' or 'Evolutionary Useful' but I just mean a quality that won't die out as opposed to a quality that will die out....I guess a quality that survives is more 'useful' to the survival of the genes and/or memes than a quality that doesn't survive....

What I mean is Religion doesn't need to be 'useful' (notice the quote marks) but the cause of Religon - faith - does have to be 'useful' in the sense it has to survive by its own merit.