(December 26, 2015 at 7:06 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:(December 26, 2015 at 5:56 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Creating fantasitic claims and believing those fantastic claims and calling them gods is simply an adult form of fantasy. Falsely DOES happen for a reason, and that reason is ignorance. I don't mean stupid, I mean they didn't know any better. No different than a kid if they believe you when you sell them Santa. It is gap filling.
It isn't mere adult fantasy. There are effects on the brain which differentiate it from fantasy. You're simplifying what can't be simplified, solely for the sake of scoring a rhetorical point against theism. The brain is everything we are. If the mental soup is different because of the practice of faith, then the reality of it is different. And until you acknowledge the very real effects of religious practices on the brain, all your attempts to reason with a theist will be in vain.
No I am not over simplifying it. I agree it has an affect on the brain. Where did I say it didn't ? A child's fantasy of Santa also has an affect on their brain IN A VERY REAL SENSE. All I said is that Santa is not real despite them wanting him to be real. Same with god belief. YES it does have a very real affect on their brains, but that does not make the fantastic claims or gods they believe in real. God is no different than Yoda or Thor or the Egyptian god Horus. Now when you talk of modern theism, the god/s still believed today are no different than those of the ancient Egyptians whose brains were literally affected by their false perception that the sun was controlled by a god.
And again, if you think Star Wars or Star Trek wont become religions because people now are not treating them as such, remember that L Ron Hubbard a si fi writer started a Scientology, a religion which clearly is nothing but made up fantasy. YES the desire to believe and the chemicals that we induce and the neurons we fire when we think of things we want to be true can be very powerful, but also very false.
I gave you the SCIENTIFIC reason false beliefs happen. It is because of our species evolutionary gap filling based on false perceptions. Dawkins lays that out quite well in "The God Delusion" as "the moth mistaking the light bulb for moonlight".
Religion is the butterfly in the inkblot. It is a literal misfire in the brain. I is also why we walk around looking for our keys while carrying them in our hands. Religion is that false perception on steroids. Religion is simply an organized mass delusion.
