Accommodation vs. Confrontation

[The Grand Nudger]

Rgr that, I'm going to fall back on the christian defense "You just don't understand!"

[Fred]

Rgr that, I'm going to fall back on the christian defense "You just don't understand!"

See? Told ya the mythic stuff keeps on going, going, going. It's proven to have, uh, conferred a survival advantage that isn't easily dislodged by facts and figures and such.

[The Grand Nudger]

Tell that to all the people it conferred straight to an early grave Fred. I'm not sure you should even be allowed to use the word facts at this point. You don't allow people to operate machinery they haven't received training on, especially around other people.

[Fred]

Tell that to all the people it conferred straight to an early grave Fred. I'm not sure you should even be allowed to use the word facts at this point. You don't allow people to operate machinery they haven't received training on, especially around other people.

Huh? Are you saying it didn't lead to a survival advantage? That would be an interesting one to hear you walk out a few steps.

[ElDinero]

No, he's saying you wouldn't know a fact if several peer reviewed papers on the matter smacked you in the face.

[Fred]

No, he's saying you wouldn't know a fact if several peer reviewed papers on the matter smacked you in the face.

Heh. Happen to have any around that manage to overturn the idea, given that it seems that the whole point of religion from an evo-psych standpoint is that it developed as a survival advantage.

It's kind of funny. Make an assertion that there is some other purpose behind it and ya get endless posts insisting that, no, the only reason it developed was as a means of survival. Make the assertion that it did exactly that, confer a survival advantage, and then that is denied as well.

Uh, ok, then.

[The Grand Nudger]

Perhaps you're referring to the resistance you so frequently encounter when you when you beat science against the anvil of your inner "rishi" in an attempt to shore up one of your non-points? That a propensity for religion may provide us with a survival advantage in one scenario (debatable) in no way validates it's existence given it's disadvantages in another (rock fucking solid). The glaringly obvious difference between religion, and say a smilodons teeth, is that we have a choice in the matter. Something which you so blissfully ignore, again because it would erode the foundations of your non-points.

Please suggest ways in which religion might confer a survival advantage beyond the advantage of strength in numbers, which is not limited to human beings, or even within human beings limited to the religious. Please show that religion predates our becoming a social species. Again, it isn't our responsibility to prove your inane ramblings incorrect, it is upon you to provide evidence of their accuracy.

[Fred]

That a propensity for religion may provide us with a survival advantage in one scenario (debatable) in no way validates it's existence given it's disadvantages in another (rock fucking solid).

That debatable there certainly is true because I have seen numerous debates of folks squabbling about just that. Maybe you have a different take, but the folks on the atheist side point over and over to the survival thing as an accepted given. Maybe you should take it up with them. I don't agree with them that it's the full story either, but I'm not on their team, so that's to be expected.

I'm not sure what you mean by validating its existence. Uh, it's there, been there and doing that for countless millenia. If it's disadvantages outweighed its advantages from a survival pov, it wouldn't have lasted as long as it did. Or is this a case of Immaculate Natural Selection or something?

The glaringly obvious difference between religion, and say a smilodons teeth, is that we have a choice in the matter. Something which you so blissfully ignore, again because it would erode the foundations of your non-points.

Whether I agree or not is beside the point. However, there are genetic determinist types who absolutely disagree with you about that choice we are supposed to have. That's the theme of the Wolfe article and a lot of the reason Wilson caught so much shit from the PC crowd when Sociobiology came out.

From Wolfe's article:

"Neuroscientists involved in three–dimensional electroencephalography will tell you that there is not even any one place in the brain where consciousness or self–consciousness (Cogito ergo sum) is located. This is merely an illusion created by a medley of neurological systems acting in concert. The young generation takes this yet one step further. Since consciousness and thought are entirely physical products of your brain and nervous system—and since your brain arrived fully imprinted at birth—what makes you think you have free will? Where is it going to come from? What "ghost," what "mind," what "self," what "soul," what anything that will not be immediately grabbed by those scornful quotation marks, is going to bubble up your brain stem to give it to you?

"I have heard neuroscientists theorize that, given computers of sufficient power and sophistication, it would be possible to predict the course of any human being's life moment by moment, including the fact that the poor devil was about to shake his head over the very idea. I doubt that any Calvinist of the sixteenth century ever believed so completely in predestination as these, the hottest and most intensely rational young scientists in the United States at the end of the twentieth."

Please suggest ways in which religion might confer a survival advantage beyond the advantage of strength in numbers, which is not limited to human beings, or even within human beings limited to the religious.

I have no clue as to the answer here. I don't subscribe to the evo-psych theory, remember? That's your team, not mine.

Please show that religion predates our becoming a social species. Again, it isn't our responsibility to prove your inane ramblings incorrect, it is upon you to provide evidence of their accuracy.

Whatever. I wasn't looking for you to prove them incorrect because I wasn't defending the idea. I was just reporting it's part in the bigger picture. You got trouble with what your own team is laying out there, you can take it up with them.

[The Grand Nudger]

More Wolfe, here on this thread? Seriously, stop sourcing your science from journalists. You're not reporting on any "bigger picture", you're painting your own knockoff of a picture because the colors of the original don't suit you. As far as the hows and whys of our current crop of religions longevity, it couldn't possibly be to due with their willingness to absolutely end anyone who disagrees with them, could it? Surely not.