(February 4, 2016 at 10:10 pm)athrock Wrote: Turns out it's pretty hard to believe in nothing when your psyche is wired for faith.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/postevery...age%2Fcard
After reading the article, my questions are:
Why on God's green earth is the human brain wired for faith when our development is the result of purely evolutionary processes with no supreme being involved at all?
Is it possible that God gave us brains that are pre-wired for receptivity to His existence to make it easier for us to believe in Him?
It isn't that we are wired for faith, that is a mistake I think even atheist biologists make.
If you have not read Dawkins "The God Delusion" he corrects this language and bad argument.
It isn't that we are wired to believe, it is that we evolved with flawed perceptions.
Evolution leads life to pattern seek, but the flaw is even with that, life does not always have time to slow down to assess or perceptions, and as a result life makes quick decisions, which causes gap filling.
It really is no different than an Antelope on the African plane having to make a quick decision between the swaying grass being mere wind, or a lion stalking it.
When we evolved the world was scary because of our ignorance, so when something threatened us, a bigger animal, a storm, or earthquake or volcano, humans would survive or die, but without knowing what was really going on, they projected their own human qualities on that which was affecting their good luck or bad luck, and falsely gap filled it with a human like super power in the form of a spirit or god, being the control or the actual thing being a god itself.
The word for that is "anthropomorphism", projecting human qualities on objects or non existent things.
I cant remember which Ancient Greek said it but, "If horses had gods, the gods would look like horses". No that did not denote a scientific understanding but it was a damned good laypersons lucky guess.
It is a misfire not a wire. It is a flaw in our evolution because we didn't evolve with modern knowledge so gap filling was a way of forming social order which while had the benefit of safety in numbers, it also had the downside of creating success out of completely false claims.
No different than big oil went out of it's way to ignore science, and use corporate science to keep lead in gas. They successfully marketed a dangerous product for a long time until ethical scientists were finally able to convince the corporate world it was dangerous.
In laypersons terms it amounts to "If you want to believe something badly enough, you will". Even a false belief can cause chemical reactions in your brain that can make you feel good even though they are completely false. Just like telling a kid Santa is coming. The kid when young enough will literally believe in Santa because of the thought of getting presents. Conversely, if they have been scolded by the parents prior to Christmas, the thought of not getting the presents also has a real physical affect. But neither the bribe or the threat make Santa a real being.
