hackenslash wrote:

Adco wrote:I was refering to the general concept of belief and not any specific belief. Religion came about as a result of this trait and is the end result of what we now have to put up with. Thanks, that does make sense about listening and believing in a parent or role model etc. Just a pity that this could be seen as a weakness in humans to allow themselves to be lead around by the short and curlies.

It isn't seen as a weakness. It is a weakness. Like many things that are useful in childhood/development, it becomes less than useful as you get older. Trust becomes gullibility, especially when the memes implanted by parents are themselves rooted in gullibility, such as religious beliefs.

Luckily, it isn't the case that every new generation, is therefore, more gullible than the next.

Adco wrote:

katja z wrote:
There's no contradiction - OldSkeptic is spot on. There are certain traits that promote individual survival. You could say that the tendency to believe in gods is a side effect of those traits.

Sure. Would you say there are certain traits in all individuals. If yes, then all individuals make up our species and therefore there are certains in our species that allow/cause us to believe in a higher being. (excluding atheists)

There's no need to suppose religion has an actual survival advantage - only that it hasn't got us extinct. Yet

Lets not call it religion but the belief in something higher. And it might still get us wiped out one day.

Perhaps. Since evolution doesn't plan ahead it is entirely possible that a trait that was at one time advantageous, or at least not detrimental, might kill a population off when the circumstances change.

MattHunX wrote:Luckily, it isn't the case that every new generation, is therefore, more gullible than the next.

Indeed, and we are the evidence of that.

That raises an interesting question, actually. I come from a very large, very devout Irish catholic family. I was always a bit of a wild one as a kid. How much correlation is there between my childhood recalcitrance and my absolute resistance to the god meme?

MattHunX wrote:
Luckily, it isn't the case that every new generation, is therefore, more gullible than the next.

No, they appear to be a bit less gullible. But the process of de-gulliblisation is painfully slow...

Sorry, double post.

hackenslash wrote:

MattHunX wrote:Luckily, it isn't the case that every new generation, is therefore, more gullible than the next.

Indeed, and we are the evidence of that.

That raises an interesting question, actually. I come from a very large, very devout Irish catholic family. I was always a bit of a wild one as a kid. How much correlation is there between my childhood recalcitrance and my absolute resistance to the god meme?

*looking up the word "recalcitrance"* The Hell do you get these words from...

Well, I don't come from a religious family, only my grandpa is religious, but definitely not a zealous type. Interestingly enough, when I first heard about the god story, I wasn't thinking like those theists. I immediately went, after having browsed a few biology books before, and seeing just what the human body is made up of, the details and all that "No freaking way all this was created by someone no matter how smart they were, bullshit!" I was about 10.

But, to give an answer to your question, it is very likely that your lack of belief has something to do with your rebellious childhood.

MattHunX wrote:
But, to give an answer to your question, it is very likely that your lack of belief has something to do with your rebellious childhood.

Is it possible that humans can re-wire their inherited evolutionary traits as easy as that. It looks as though suppressing it is easy but perhaps your kids will then allow it to resurface so it is a long term thing that isn't easy to get rid of.

MattHunX wrote:*looking up the word "recalcitrance"* The Hell do you get these words from...

Books, mostly. Why say in three words what you can say in one? It's the heart of rigorous communication.

hackenslash wrote:Some confusion here, methinks.

Belief is a useful survival trait. <snip>

Our tendency to ascribe agency to just about everything is another such trait. It's certainly useful to treat other animals (humans included) as agents and ascribe intentions to them, because it helps predict their behaviour, and this offers obvious advantages.

But this tendency can easily go too far and you end up attributing intentions to, say, clouds, or thunder, or even completely abstract entities (such as the ultimate parent figure in the sky ...). In fact, if you don't have any other explanation for natural phenomena, the hypothesis involving supernatural agents is not as foolish as it appears to us with hindsight. Of course it's not exactly helpful either.

Katjaz wrote:
There's no contradiction - OldSkeptic is spot on. There are certain traits that promote individual survival. You could say that the tendency to believe in gods is a side effect of those traits.

There's no need to suppose religion has an actual survival advantage - only that it hasn't got us extinct. Yet

Exactly. Thanks Katjaz.

There is another human trait that fits here also: Pattern seeking behavior. Not just pattern recognition, but actually searching for patterns in just about everything.

And then there is assignment of purpose with anthropomorphic undertones.

Combine willingness to unquestionably believe authority figures in children, assigning agency or consciousness to even inanimate objects, pattern seeking behavior, and assignment of purpose and you have a pretty good tool kit for creating imaginary gods, and perpetuating the belief. All very good traits for surviving on African savannahs, but they apparently can combine to create some pretty silly beliefs in modern humans.

Adco wrote:
Is it possible that humans can re-wire their inherited evolutionary traits as easy as that. It looks as though suppressing it is easy but perhaps your kids will then allow it to resurface so it is a long term thing that isn't easy to get rid of.

They cannot be rewired if they are genetically hardwired, but innate genetic traits can be overridden by education and having a better understand of how the world works.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Adco wrote:
Is it possible that humans can re-wire their inherited evolutionary traits as easy as that. It looks as though suppressing it is easy but perhaps your kids will then allow it to resurface so it is a long term thing that isn't easy to get rid of.

They cannot be rewired if they are genetically hardwired, but innate genetic traits can be overridden by education and having a better understand of how the world works.

So these particular innate traits are there to allow humans, in general, to follow the strongest leaders and therefore have a better chance of survival but are weak enough to allow certain people, e.g. atheists/rational thinkers, etc, to override the traits without any detremental outcome.

Just repeating it to make sure I understand the concept.

Adco wrote:
So these particular innate traits are there to allow humans, in general, to follow the strongest leaders and therefore have a better chance of survival but are weak enough to allow certain people, e.g. atheists/rational thinkers, etc, to override the traits without any detremental outcome.

Just repeating it to make sure I understand the concept.

Not exactly. We have innate traits that "make us" trust and believe our parents (good idea for an inexperienced child), recognize patterns and predict others' behaviour, which are all useful abilities and can make a difference in how good you are at surviving and breeding (and at how your offspring is good at surviving - see the first trait).

These traits are also what makes us vulnerable to religious beliefs, as OldSkeptic neatly summarized above. But we have other traits too that can make us more resistant to religious belief - one of them is the ability to think logically.

In the end, it's probably down to the interaction of those traits and our environment - the kind of conditioning we're exposed to as children, the information available and so on.

katja z wrote:

Adco wrote:
So these particular innate traits are there to allow humans, in general, to follow the strongest leaders and therefore have a better chance of survival but are weak enough to allow certain people, e.g. atheists/rational thinkers, etc, to override the traits without any detremental outcome.

Just repeating it to make sure I understand the concept.

Not exactly. We have innate traits that "make us" trust and believe our parents (good idea for an inexperienced child), recognize patterns and predict others' behaviour, which are all useful abilities and can make a difference in how good you are at surviving and breeding (and at how your offspring is good at surviving - see the first trait).

These traits are also what makes us vulnerable to religious beliefs, as OldSkeptic neatly summarized above. But we have other traits too that can make us more resistant to religious belief - one of them is the ability to think logically.

In the end, it's probably down to the interaction of those traits and our environment - the kind of conditioning we're exposed to as children, the information available and so on.

What about modern society and access to information which allows us to express ourselves freely and trash the rubbish of religion without fear of persecution? It would be interesting to see stats on how many pre-moderm people thought like present atheists do but were afraid to speak out for fear of reprisal.

Are humans eventually going to break the inherent shackles of needing to believe so that one day the world will be totally free of crap?

Adco wrote:
What about modern society and access to information which allows us to express ourselves freely and trash the rubbish of religion without fear of persecution? It would be interesting to see stats on how many pre-moderm people thought like present atheists do but were afraid to speak out for fear of reprisal.

Are humans eventually going to break the inherent shackles of needing to believe so that one day the world will be totally free of crap?

On the subject of premodern people: I came across an interesting idea once when reading up on oral vs. written traditions. There are always dissenters, people who think differently. But as long as there are only isolated cases, they can't make much of an impact. This is especially true of oral societies (and remember that most of the humanity lived in oral societies for most of the history, and even in Europe that applies for most people up to the 19th century - writing was restricted to a tiny minority). Oral traditions can be transmitted with surprising efficiency or reinterpreted to keep up with social change, but the point is, what gets transmitted is the consensus, the orthodoxy. So if the dissenter doesn't "infect" anyone else with her new ideas in her lifetime, these ideas die with her. Now consider a written tradition. A new idea pops up, goes ignored, but a generation later (or far away) somebody can read it and be influenced by it. This makes it far more likely that a non-orthodox way of thinking develops and gains momentum.

Adco wrote:
So these particular innate traits are there to allow humans, in general, to follow the strongest leaders and therefore have a better chance of survival but are weak enough to allow certain people, e.g. atheists/rational thinkers, etc, to override the traits without any detremental outcome.

Just repeating it to make sure I understand the concept.

I did not say anything about following the strongest leaders as an innate trait. Nor did I say anything about atheists or rational thinkers. I mentioned a tendency for children to unquestionably believe authority figures, and this goes for don’t go in the river because there are crocodiles that will eat you as well as there is a god or are spirits.

And you don’t have to be an atheist or rational thinker to override genetically determined behavior, or the by products of them. Religious people of all types do it also, unless they are Pat Robertson or those like him. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, thunder storms, and volcanic eruptions in societies with some scientific understanding of these types of events are not automatically assigned to spirits or gods with a purpose. This an example of education helping to override the innate trait of assigning purpose where there is none.

Unquestioning belief in authority figures such as their parents by children can be overridden by all of the other means children have now to gain information. The most fundamental Christians know this, that is why so many of them home school their children, and only let them watch Christian television networks. This trait of belief in authority only works when the message is not challenged.

I’ll be riding off at a bit of a tangent now: The ID movement has failed in it’s attempts to get ID taught in publicly funded science classrooms, but they have achieved a great success in making the topic of evolution by natural selection such a controversial issue that neither is really taught, even in high school biology classes. This is the result of a few parents and outsiders with religious beliefs that do not want their authority overridden by proper science.

Pattern seeking cannot be overridden because it is truly innate, all of us do it all the time and it probably is one of the most important innate traits, but pattern recognition where it does not agree with reality can be overridden. Education and an understanding of how the world works helps here.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Adco wrote:
So these particular innate traits are there to allow humans, in general, to follow the strongest leaders and therefore have a better chance of survival but are weak enough to allow certain people, e.g. atheists/rational thinkers, etc, to override the traits without any detremental outcome.

Just repeating it to make sure I understand the concept.

I did not say anything about following the strongest leaders as an innate trait. Nor did I say anything about atheists or rational thinkers.

Wasn't trying to say you did. That's my own conclusion.

I mentioned a tendency for children to unquestionably believe authority figures, and this goes for don’t go in the river because there are crocodiles that will eat you as well as there is a god or are spirits.

And you don’t have to be an atheist or rational thinker to override genetically determined behavior, or the by products of them. Religious people of all types do it also, unless they are Pat Robertson or those like him. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, thunder storms, and volcanic eruptions in societies with some scientific understanding of these types of events are not automatically assigned to spirits or gods with a purpose. This an example of education helping to override the innate trait of assigning purpose where there is none.

Unquestioning belief in authority figures such as their parents by children can be overridden by all of the other means children have now to gain information. The most fundamental Christians know this, that is why so many of them home school their children, and only let them watch Christian television networks. This trait of belief in authority only works when the message is not challenged.

I’ll be riding off at a bit of a tangent now: The ID movement has failed in it’s attempts to get ID taught in publicly funded science classrooms, but they have achieved a great success in making the topic of evolution by natural selection such a controversial issue that neither is really taught, even in high school biology classes. This is the result of a few parents and outsiders with religious beliefs that do not want their authority overridden by proper science.

Pattern seeking cannot be overridden because it is truly innate, all of us do it all the time and it probably is one of the most important innate traits, but pattern recognition where it does not agree with reality can be overridden. Education and an understanding of how the world works helps here.

Makes sense.