My view and reasons for them. Atheist and Christians welcome here. (short)

[ignoramus]

Sorry, late to the party here, Quick, I'm sure someone has brought up unicorns or leprechauns or something like that in the thread right? So is nonbelief in unicorns some kind of belief in-and-of-itself? Or is it simply a lack of belief in unicorns? Is not playing soccer a sport?

I don't think belief or lack of belief in unicorns is the same sort of thing here. I think we are talking about a MAJOR difference in perspective that has affected the humans on the earth for a very long time (Israel going to war against those who don't believe the same thing for instance). When we are talking about a belief or lack of belief in something that has been so influential to humans it's not the same ball game, it's not even the same fucking sport (Pulp Fiction reference, just because I can).

Sorry Quick. I beg to differ. They are exactly the same. Don't be fooled into thinking that just because it's had a huge impact on the world, that the core proponents of the belief must be true. Otherwise you'll need to agree that Allah is true, and all the other deaths and wars fought over different Gods...
That's just the "Argumentum ad populum" fallacy... The Fallacy of Popularity. If something is popular, it must be good/true. Wrong!

80% of the world is religious. But they believe in many Gods. They can't all be real, can they? But they can all be false.

[Quick]

It might be a big deal if theists could agree on what a "god" even is. If that thing is an unfalsifiable being, then it's an utterly irrelevant issue.

The actions some theists take based on their belief is a big deal though.

If something is done because of a specific thing (belief in a God in this case [doesn't matter if/what they disagree on and what the specifics of difference these beliefs are]) and it has a drastic effect on humans, then it's a big deal.

I would say belief in God is probably one of the most influential things that has happened to humans, psychologically speaking.

I think it's not entirely honest to say atheist (who have made a stance on the belief in a god(s)) are completely immune to causing a reaction to/from other people. I think as soon as you make a stance in any form whatsoever that you have entered the arena.

---

I don't think belief or lack of belief in unicorns is the same sort of thing here. I think we are talking about a MAJOR difference in perspective that has affected the humans on the earth for a very long time (Israel going to war against those who don't believe the same thing for instance). When we are talking about a belief or lack of belief in something that has been so influential to humans it's not the same ball game, it's not even the same fucking sport (Pulp Fiction reference, just because I can).

Sorry Quick. I beg to differ. They are exactly the same. Don't be fooled into thinking that just because it's had a huge impact on the world, that the core proponents of the belief must be true. Otherwise you'll need to agree that Allah is true, and all the other deaths and wars fought over different Gods...
That's just the "Argumentum ad populum" fallacy... The Fallacy of Popularity. If something is popular, it must be good/true. Wrong!

80% of the world is religious. But they believe in many Gods. They can't all be real, can they? But they can all be false.

I am not saying that just because it's had a huge impact on the world, that the core proponents of the belief must be true in this case. I am not arguing the validity of the claims that God is real or not here. I am simply stating that because there are very strong opinions about a certain topic and that these opinions on said topic are very far reaching throughout the world that no matter what stance someone makes on said topic that this means it will affect one's worldview.

[ignoramus]

That's predominantly a geopolitical issue.

In Australia, UK, Scandinavia, half of Europe, etc.

Not only does no-one give a shit whether you are religious or not, but no one ever bothers to ask...

In Australia here, it's practically non existent ...so my position is rather a hypothetical position. A philosophical one.

I'm here as a logical exercise. I have no religious chip on my shoulder either way.

[vulcanlogician]

But just because people kill people over something, that doesn't make it a big deal, right? If one king goes to war with another king because the other king rejected his proposal that their children marry, does that make it a big deal that everyone must weigh in on or have an opinion about?

It's a question of scale, not principle.

Elaborate on that. I mean, even in one religion, Christianity, proponents have slaughtered members of their own faith because of differences in denomination. Does that make these differences significant? One war, The Thirty Years War (Catholics vs Protestants), is one of the longest in European history. So if your looking for scale, lots of blood has been shed for what today we regard as an insignificant difference in religious practice.

Also, there are some New Age woo woo folks who think the moon is hollow. Astrophysicists do not agree with their assessment. Science has determined that the moon is pretty much solid rock. Does that make the rest of us "solidarians"? Thinking the moon is hollow is a big deal to some of these woo folks. To me, I'm like: "Meh. There's no evidence for what you think."

It was recently discovered that the moon has a magma center.

Ah, a fellow Solidarian. Nice to meet you, brother. And thanks for the magma core info... I didn't know.

[Quick]

It's a question of scale, not principle.

Elaborate on that. I mean, even in one religion, Christianity, proponents have slaughtered members of their own faith because of differences in denomination. Does that make these differences significant? One war, The Thirty Years War (Catholics vs Protestants), is one of the longest in European history. So if your looking for scale, lots of blood has been shed for what today we regard as an insignificant difference in religious practice.

Part. 1: Right. It doesn't actually matter who is fighting who or or what the exact beliefs for this war were. What matters is that one group of people had a view on something and another group of people had a completely different view on that same something and because of this a bunch of people got killed. Now, this something that these people disagreed on matters because this was not the first time something like this happened for very similar reasons and it will not be the last time either. My point is that this thing is a very integral part of being a human and as such, because of this thing, people are going to die. Even if you were to try and take a neutral stance (by a people or individual, it doesn't matter) eventually you will have to make a stance on this thing one way or another and based on this it will determine a great many things about you (and possibly how you die as well).

Part 2: Obviously, the principle of something is going to matter in some sense in some way, but there is also a degree of scale/magnitude that this thing may or may not have. So when I say it is a matter of scale and not principle, what I am saying is that the principle of said thing doesn't need to be all that significant just due to the principle in and of itself, but if there is a great scale/magnitude on said principle, regardless of how significant it is, it is something that is going to influence how you see the world. Ex. the algorithms that youtube uses to keep you glued to it. This is an order of magnitude/scale because without a huge portion of the population taking part in youtube, those algorithms don't mean much because of how many people it takes for these algorithms to pick up anything meaningful. Insert belief in God for for the algorithm youtube uses and it's the same thing.

Does that make sense?

Also, there are some New Age woo woo folks who think the moon is hollow. Astrophysicists do not agree with their assessment. Science has determined that the moon is pretty much solid rock. Does that make the rest of us "solidarians"? Thinking the moon is hollow is a big deal to some of these woo folks. To me, I'm like: "Meh. There's no evidence for what you think."

Ah, a fellow Solidarian. Nice to meet you, brother. And thanks for the magma core info... I didn't know.

Yes, i would be happy to consider you a solidarian (I had to look it up), but in truth I basically found out the moon has a liquid core by mere chance considering I subscribe to a science article website that has pop ups whenever they have a new article that I almost never read. I just so happened to look at this one. It was my mood/external factors that made the decision for me, which is not true for everything I end up doing.

[The Grand Nudger]

^ Well, do you think you were born knowing about God?

Or do you think kids learn this stuff from their parents at a young age?

IDK. IDK how far back in our evolution that a belief in God goes so I can't really say whether it's more natural for humans to believe in a God or not. I guess it is a question of if if other animals had an advanced language system whether they would believe in God or not and I really can't answer that. This might sound foolish, but in some regards I can totally see some animals paying homage to a creator. I know I said elsewhere on this forum that animals don't have the capacity to believe in a God, but if their language systems were more robust, based on their psychology, I can't rule out that they would believe in a God.

I can help with that.  We're natural animists, cultural deists, and societal theists.  

Life is about 3.5byo.  Our genus is 1.5-2.5myo.  By 50k years ago we began expressing animistic beliefs through ritual burials and funerary goods.  Somewhere between 13-10k years ago we see evidence of deism in ritual/worship complexes and religious art.  1.7k years ago.....christianity was born.

We learn the cultural and societal specifics - but we're all born with the innate propensity to invest inanimate objects with intent and anthropomorphize them.  Predicting the behavior and internal states of other sentient creatures is an important skill for us, though constantly searching out this information has lead to vast misattribution.  

Misattribution will take us to animism.  Just talking about what we're talking about with the previous misattribution will lead us to cultural deism, and laying out the specifics of some interaction with the gods established in the step prior between members of a group in a larger culture gives us societal theism.

Beyond that point we'd be discussing the religious economy, as competing sects of belief attempt to secure a share of the available space.  If I had to place pantheism in that schema, for example...I;d suggest that it leveraged strategies from the religious economy to provide a modern animism.  Conceptualized as the sacred it's straight animist analog.  Conceptualized as the divine...it;s theism for animists.

In that sense, it can satisfy the "natural" component of the development of our belief in the sacred or divine.  Neither culture nor society are heritable traits. Understanding this helps us to answer the question of whether or not people are born with god beliefs. We aren;t. We're barely cognizant of anything when we're born. We do, however, possess the fundamental building blocks of belief before we learn to speak, and most of us are casual conceptual animists even if we don;t actually believe in animism. Every time we cuss out a wrench or fear that some object means us harm..we're expressing our ability to project.

So, I suppose it would be fun to summarize these stages of belief we find in the human mind and in the archaeological and historical record in light of the above. It begins when we say "that rail is trying to kill me!"

-The rail has a spirit. (animism)
-It;s spirit is the god of the rails. (deism)
-The god of the rails will prevent you from falling if you have faith, pray, and hold the rail. (theism)

[Quick]

IDK. IDK how far back in our evolution that a belief in God goes so I can't really say whether it's more natural for humans to believe in a God or not. I guess it is a question of if if other animals had an advanced language system whether they would believe in God or not and I really can't answer that. This might sound foolish, but in some regards I can totally see some animals paying homage to a creator. I know I said elsewhere on this forum that animals don't have the capacity to believe in a God, but if their language systems were more robust, based on their psychology, I can't rule out that they would believe in a God.

I can help with that.  We're natural animists, cultural deists, and societal theists.  

Life is about 3.5byo.  Our genus is 1.5-2.5myo.  By 50k years ago we began expressing animistic beliefs through ritual burials and funerary goods.  Somewhere between 13-10k years ago we see evidence of deism in ritual/worship complexes and religious art.  1.7k years ago.....christianity was born.

We learn the cultural and societal specifics - but we're all born with the innate propensity to invest inanimate objects with intent and anthropomorphize them.  Predicting the behavior and internal states of other sentient creatures is an important skill for us, though constantly searching out this information has lead to vast misattribution.  

Misattribution will take us to animism.  Just talking about what we're talking about with the previous misattribution will lead us to cultural deism, and laying out the specifics of some interaction with the gods established in the step prior between members of a group in a larger culture gives us societal theism.

Beyond that point we'd be discussing the religious economy, as competing sects of belief attempt to secure a share of the available space.  If I had to place pantheism in that schema, for example...I;d suggest that it leveraged strategies from the religious economy to provide a modern animism.  Conceptualized as the sacred it's straight animist analog.  Conceptualized as the divine...it;s theism for animists.

In that sense, it can satisfy the "natural" component of the development of our belief in the sacred or divine.  Neither culture nor society are heritable traits The answer to the question of whether or not people are born with god beliefs is no. We're barely cognizant of anything when we're born.

Thanks for explaining that.

I have to ask how you know that in a vacuum that humans defer to not believing in God when left to their own devices. (I am not sure this is what you are saying, however.) I say this because you state culture/society function isn't hardwired into us. I don't know how/why you make this claim.

[The Grand Nudger]

Thanks for explaining that.

NP, I enjoy putting religious and evolutionary development in complimentary contexts.  

I have to ask how you know that in a vacuum that humans defer to not believing in God when left to their own devices. (I am not sure this is what you are saying, however.) 

It's not really an issue of "not doing something"  or even deferring.  There;s simply no cognate to act on, do anything to, or not do anything to.  It's not that we couldn't build those cognates by ourselves..(there had to be a first deist in every village, after all).....it;s just that whatever connections we might build ourselves (in a vacuum) would take time, and are interfered with by our prevailing cultural and societal narratives.  The main factor in a persons religious beliefs are the beliefs of their parents - their first and most trusted influencers.  Second after that is their immediate peer group - with a strong bias for mates.

I say this because you state culture/society function isn't hardwired into us. I don't know how/why you make this claim.

There is no american christian™ gene.  Neither culture nor society are heritable.  That's how. My wife is a believer. I;m not. We didn't birth theist/atheist f1 hybrids. There's no such thing.

Again, though, all of this is just elaboration on what ought to be a completely uncontroversial point. Are babys born believing in gods?? No, ofc not, were not cognizant of much at all at our birth.

Infants are the only True Non-Cognitivists™

[Quick]

Thanks for explaining that.

NP, I enjoy putting religious and evolutionary development in complimentary contexts.  

I have to ask how you know that in a vacuum that humans defer to not believing in God when left to their own devices. (I am not sure this is what you are saying, however.) 

It's not really an issue of "not doing something"  or even deferring.  There;s simply no cognate to act on, do anything to, or not do anything to.  It's not that we couldn't build those cognates by ourselves..(there had to be a first deist in every village, after all).....it;s just that whatever connections we might build ourselves (in a vacuum) would take time, and are interfered with by our prevailing cultural and societal narratives.  The main factor in a persons religious beliefs are the beliefs of their parents - their first and most trusted influencers.  Second after that is their immediate peer group - with a strong bias for mates.

I don't think I really have any problems with the above two statement, but it def has me thinking.

I say this because you state culture/society function isn't hardwired into us. I don't know how/why you make this claim.

There is no american christian™ gene.  Neither culture nor society are heritable.  That's how.  My wife is a believer.  I;m not.  We didn't birth theist/atheist f1 hybrids.  There's no such thing.

Again, though, all of this is just elaboration on what ought to be a completely uncontroversial point.  Are babys born believing in gods??  No, ofc not, were not cognizant of much at all at our birth.  

Infants are the only True Non-Cognitivists™

I'm not trying to argue that simply being born gives one a predisposition to believing in the christian faith. Not at all. I guess the closest argument I would make a stance on to that is that I think believing in a God or gods is inherent to our development as a species. As such there is a cognitive bias towards believing in a higher power even in isolation of culture/society. I would then have to say that the rejection in the belief God or gods as the arguments are put forth at this point in time are either also an evolutionary process for our species OR it is completely influenced by culture/society because of negative connotations of the belief in God or gods - a reaction, if you will, for the ever growing need to expand our toolset. I guess that is more or less where I sit with atheism at this time. AND this change of view wouldn't be possible without robvalue, Simon Moon, or surreptitious57, so I want to make sure to thank you three for shedding some light on things. And now recently, you have given me something to chew on as well.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not trying to argue that simply being born gives one a predisposition to believing in the christian faith. Not at all. I guess the closest argument I would make a stance on to that is that I think believing in a God or gods is inherent to our development as a species.

If we use the phrase "inherent to our development as a species" very....very loosely..then yeah, sure. More accurately, though, the driving compulsion behind animism is inherent to our development as a species and the manufacture of gods is a cultural and societal development.

As such there is a cognitive bias towards believing in a higher power even in isolation of culture/society.

One might wonder why it took 3.5 billion years to get to a genus that would, in another 2million years or so....come up with animism, and then another 40k years passes until we come up with deism, and another 8k passes until we come up with theism.....if that were the case.  Though..it;s not difficult to "believe" in a "higher power" surrounded by nature. That;s a far cry from god beliefs...developmentally and historically. Hell, I believe in a "higher power". They;re called game wardens. Don;t get caught poaching, those fuckers are monstrous. The earliest fully modern humans also appeared to believe in higher powers..even though we don;t find anything that suggests god beliefs until tens of thousands of years later.

I that regard, not believing in gods is continuity, not a new development......... which leads into this-

I would then have to say that the rejection in the belief God or gods as the arguments are put forth at this point in time are either also an evolutionary process for our species OR it is completely influenced by culture/society because of negative connotations of the belief in God or gods - a reaction, if you will, for the ever growing need to expand our toolset.

There;s still that nagging bit about there not being a theist gene.  It makes no sense to discuss something as evolutionary when it's not heritable.  We also have the problem of all the atheist who lived and died before there was ever a god to have a negative connotation about. That's another amusing thing about god belief...it;s approached as though it were positively ancient...but the gods people are thinking of are younger than a heavy plow. They've only existed for about 4% of our time since full modernity. Even that much larger span of time is still just a percentage of the time that anatomically modern human beings have existed (aprrox 25%).

I guess that is more or less where I sit with atheism at this time. AND this change of view wouldn't be possible without robvalue, Simon Moon, or surreptitious57, so I want to make sure to thank you three for shedding some light on things. And now recently, you have given me something to chew on as well.

Progress, of a sort...I guess.