My own take is that there is some degree of evidence for any number of things that may be unlikely. But the question in each case is, Is it strong evidence or poor evidence? Not all evidence is automatically strong. At the same time, even if evidence is poor, it can still be counted as evidence. Just evidence for ... what? If certain evidence is duly weighed by peers and found to be lacking in buttressing one particular argument -- argument A -- that only means that that evidence is poor in sufficiently buttressing argument A. It is still useful in buttressing argument B, particularly if argument B convincingly disposes of argument A. It is simply that it is evidence that has been misinterpreted to mean one thing when it more likely meant another. So it is poor evidence in what it may be used to argue for. But it is still evidence, since it is evidence for something else that is being overlooked. That's why it still constitutes evidence. If it's not strong evidence for one thing, it makes sense to determine what it is indeed strong evidence for. One simply interprets it differently than at first. After all, evidence, whether poor or strong, doesn't simply go away. Does it make sense to just dismiss evidence out of hand without proper scrutiny? Of course not. It is still useful evidence down the road for arguing B, even if trying to argue A with it has not panned out.

My take is that there is some degree of evidence for deity, but the huge question is, How strong is that evidence? After all, even the evidence for deity that we may or may not have is still a "some-degree-of" proposition only. It is not proof. Furthermore, I see no clear evidence at all for deity being specifically Allah, or Yahweh, or Jehovah, or Brahma, or Ningirsu, or Baal, or Jove, or Jupiter, or Zeus, or Tian -- or what/who/ever. Whatever evidence for deity there is -- and again, such evidence is distinct from proof -- is only rooted in huge historic cycles showing cultural transformations within the homo sapiens species among various communities and societies throughout the ages, not connected with any one take on deity within any one region or any one era. Instead, it's what "goes down" in era after era and region after region -- all taken together -- that is ultimately useful to this question.

Why do so many different regions and eras bear witness to this startling notion of a deity? Sure, one could well maintain that a primitive hankering after any old explanation for everything is ultimately at the back of the deity notion in one case or two or three or four .... or five ............. But dozens? That's what history gives us. And if there isn't something more concrete and relevant at the back of this deity notion, as would appear by its staggering level of recurrence in culture after culture, could there be something basic in our brains instead that is invariably present and induces this deity notion across the eons?

Small minds may have trouble dealing with this huge question simply because their outlook may be too parochial. One really has to view this question globally and historically to get a proper grasp of its huge dimensions.

Recent scientific research suggests some symbiotic connection between gluing community together and the notion of the metaphysical and/or the divine. Trafficking in delusion? If so, how come?

I invite us, first off, to look at these two pages on the Web. What do they suggest to you? --

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/902.aspx

http://www.slate.com/id/2165026/

There is also a curious dual pattern that I've encountered that I believe needs more scrutiny -- preferably from a whole panel of thoroughly up-to-date scientists, brain specialists, and cultural historians -- researchers who will also be numerous enough to reflect all attitudes ranging from atheist to Hindu to agnostic to Christian to Jewish to Buddhist to Platonic to Confucian to .......... every philosophical slant you can name in order to neutralize any possible individual bias.

In brief, this dual pattern involves the concrete literary record of the beginnings of various cultural doctrines throughout time and what these earliest documents from each paradigm-shifting doctrine can tell us. To assess all this properly at the outset needs 8 concrete steps involving certain premises, a few hypotheses to be tested rigorously, and alternate interpretations of curious pieces of literary data:

1. Premise 1 -- any species dependent on socialization, such as humanity, needs an ethic of mutual caring in order just to survive;

2. Hypothesis 1 -- human history reveals all autonomous altruistic doctrines, advanced to reform occasional human indifference, as a positive for the species;

3. Datum 1 -- in their primary texts, autonomous altruistic doctrines seem to show a symbiotic relationship to autonomous formulations for the divine (twelve such figures hardly cover all of this, and they are not each personally altruistic at every stage, but they are illustratively useful -- Mesalim | Urukagina | Moses | Wen Wang | Hesiod | Lao-tzu | Siddhartha Gautama Buddha | Confucius [Kung-fut-ze] | Socrates | Jesus Christ | John Locke | Thomas Jefferson);

4. Hypothesis 2 -- the reason for that symbiotic relationship may be a link of some kind between pioneering altruism and some kind of deity, although indicating nothing re theists in general.

5. Premise 2 -- humanity sows the seeds of its own destruction if too critical a mass of its members look out only for themselves;

6. Hypothesis 3 -- all autonomous self-centered doctrines are a negative for the species;

7. Datum 2 -- in their primary texts, autonomous self-centered doctrines seem to show a symbiotic relationship to autonomous formulations for atheism (Brhaspati | Critias | Jean Meslier); and

8. Hypothesis 4 -- the reason for that symbiotic relationship may be a link of some kind between autonomous "self-ism" and autonomous atheism, although indicating nothing re atheists in general.

Now, in its bald form, does this dual pattern tell us that human society needs some self-propelled insight into some divine construct in order not to devolve into a self-destructive orgy of greed and selfishness? Is that really how hopeless humanity is? Can human community, then, evolve into a functional society that is prosperous, free and considerate of each other only when such a construct of the divine is concurrently promulgated? Again, if so, how come?

Must this construct be related to something really divine that really exists, or can it really be related to a delusion that is hard-wired in our brains? If it is a delusion, can we come up with any other normal evolving process that has also helped fashion human communities effectively through the eons and yet has always been symbiotically tied to a generally conceded delusion? If no other clear parallel to this exists, then could this more general construct of the divine contain a kernel of truth? If so, it might only make sense (of a sort) if one restricts the construct to minimal elements that are common to all faiths (which would mean that one would have to jettison any notions of deity as, among other things, creator or controller of events, since these constructs are not present in all faiths).

Only a rigorous and long-term scientific project geared toward a large-scale, multi-attitude, multi-perspective, multicultural study of this cultural evolution pattern for cultural/social doctrines throughout time could even begin to answer such questions satisfactorily.

Thoughts?

Stein

Shuggy wrote:Is this really different from an argument ad populum? "There must be [deity] because so many people think there is. But s/he/it can't be any of the mainstream ones because so many people don't believe in any particular one. Therefore s/he/it can only be a lowest common denominator of them all."

Why should there not be only one particular delusion of this (all-encompassing) nature? Not sure of the current state of archao-anthropology, but isn't it still generally agreed that as soon as primitive people started thinking about such things, they began with many-gods to explain all the seemingly purposeful things they saw about them, and gradually whittled them down to one? With no other such need, they formulated no other such delusion. There are plenty of close parallels in things like spirit possession, ghosts, etc.

There certainly are links between some flavours of selfishness and atheism, notably Ayn Rand's misnamed "Objectivism", but equally ultra-libertarianism goes well with the Christian Right in the US, and think of "Prosperity theology" or whatever they call "God wants you to be rich" today. Conversely, a lot of hippie collectivism had no basis in religion.

I'm not sure this addresses how come, in cases where a trendsetting atheism or theism or a trendsetting selfism or altruism as philosophical doctrine are concerned, the introduction of a new atheism should always trigger a new selfism along with it and vice versa, and the introduction of a new theism should always trigger a new altruism and vice versa. It's the originating points for these doctrines that I'm looking at. After all, later adoptions of various doctrines already "in the air" reflect the same mix of both altruist and self-ist tendencies among both theists and atheists. It's the originating points where these curious differences seem to emerge.

There is a cultural paper trail for how the exclusively pioneering introductions of altruism and/or self-ism doctrines have been infused into umpteen cultures of the past and present, from time to time: These patterns reveal an odd symbiotic link between groundbreaking (for their time/place) doctrines of increased altruism/self-ism and groundbreaking (for their time/place) takes on deity/nonbelief, and vice versa. Is the recurring link between groundbreaking (for their time/place) takes on deity/nonbelief that always flout a prevailing view of the time and groundbreaking (for their time/place) increases in altruism/self-ism that always flout a prevailing view of the time indicative of

A) some odd quirk in our brains that invariably makes that link no matter what the era or place, or is it indicative of

B) some kind of external connection between the two phenomena?

Please, can you come up with a persuasive argument maintaining either conclusion?

Thank you,

Stein

THWOTH wrote:Addressed here: http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... ml#p353129

Responded to here:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... ml#p405564

Stein

“The ‘selfish gene’ hypothesis is inadequate,” he says.

Yet another who didn't read the book.

John

THWOTH wrote:That was a stroll down memory lane. I don't think I would have made such and effort to respond in such detail these days. I've sill got half a response to Steins in drat but frankly I lost interest is drawing up an ever-lengthening list of objections, challenges and contradictions which I knew would simply be dodged.

One distinct avenue of research that could pose serious questions to my conclusions is being discussed here --

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/chris ... 28907.html

You have an opportunity here to contribute some original research, if you're interested.

Sincerely,

Stein

ADParker wrote:

THWOTH wrote:Addressed here: http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... ml#p353129

And also posted here:
InterFaith.org April 2010 by a member called Operacast (Stein or plagiarism?)
And here:
Rationalia.com May 2010
making this here:
RationalSkepticism.org July 2010
at least the third time Stein has posted the exact same argument.

I don't know if there are rules on this board about trying to smoke out a poster's identity. I know that on some boards it's a violation of the rules and that an ADParker would be landing himself in a heap of trouble if he tried what ADParker is attempting here.

No, ADParker, it's not plagiarism here for the simple reason that Operacast & Stein are one and the same poster: me. I don't have to tell you that, but faced with crypto-blackmail, it's always best to let the would-be blackmailer know that one is not afraid and not ashamed. I am neither. If the rules on this board forbid me to post material read here on as many as two or three other fora, then I'll take my lumps, but I've always understood that a general rule of thumb is that if a posting does not exceed six duplicates, then it does not rise to the level of spam. I've never once reached that number.

Stein

ADParker wrote:

Stein wrote:
I don't know if there are rules on this board about trying to smoke out a poster's identity. I know that on some boards it's a violation of the rules and that an ADParker would be landing himself in a heap of trouble if he tried what ADParker is attempting here.

I wasn't trying to "smoke out" anything. It is just sometimes useful to check, as sometimes it can be of interest. In this case people could look through those threads to see what has already been discussed with you on the subject, and also gage if it is worth their time to engage you here.

Stein wrote:No, ADParker, it's not plagiarism here for the simple reason that Operacast & Stein are one and the same poster: me.

Cool. Not that I really care.

Stein wrote: I don't have to tell you that, but faced with crypto-blackmail, it's always best to let the would-be blackmailer know that one is not afraid and not ashamed. I am neither.

Cryto-what-now?!

Stein wrote: If the rules on this board forbid me to post material read here on as many as two or three other fora, then I'll take my lumps, but I've always understood that a general rule of thumb is that if a posting does not exceed six duplicates, then it does not rise to the level of spam. I've never once reached that number.

Duplicating posts on new threads is generally frowned upon here (on this forum, other forums doesn't count), don't recall if there is any set limit, though.

-- And the fullest statement of my views on all this has been placed by the moderators here --

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... 28933.html

-- which is why I have no desire to post it again. That link says about as much as I can say (plenty!) on all this. It's in its own thread, and since it's the completest statement I could possibly assemble, I'm happy to let it speak for itself there and be subject to scrutiny by those patient enough to read it, finally, in its entirety.

Cheers,

Stein