[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Unless they are twins, yes there is.
[/QUOTE]
You know what I mean.
[QUOTE=hotflungwok]
If you went around and shot everyone who believed in spirituality, that would be bad.
[/QUOTE]
Historically this approach usually serves to increase spirituality, not decrease it. Look at the early Church as a example. What it serves to do is two fold, first it decreases formal religion, which is usually against true spirituality, and drive it underground, these will normally ‘burn off’ the few that are lukewarm and you have a hard core remaining, which usually is a powerful group for finding new recruits.
Many would say that spirituality came to them, not they were activally seeking it.
[QUOTE=Cervaise]
The author argues that there is, indeed, an evolutionary basis for religion, and while the subject is necessarily too broad to be fully encompassed by a single book (he has to take on biology, neurology, anthropology, and history, in addition to theology), I have to say, so far, he’s making a pretty good argument.
[/QUOTE]
The problem being that group selection is, by and large, hokum. Species selection, kin selection, even interaction selection (whereby individuals or groups, through their interactions, can affect the relative fitnesses of either or both groups) are valid, but ultimately, group selection and Dawkin’s “selfish gene” are both attempts to answer questions regarding how altruistic behavior might arise.
Any benefits that religion might bestow upon an individual or group are almost certainly purely sociological, and not at all biological.
[QUOTE=Darwin’s Finch]
Any benefits that religion might bestow upon an individual or group are almost certainly purely sociological, and not at all biological.
[/QUOTE]
Socilogical constructs can be heritable (in the sense that we instil them in our children), imperfectly copied (in the sense that opur children don’t always listen to us) and selected upon (in the sense that some of the sociological constructs work better in some scenarios than others) - so evolution can still happen, it’s just not happening to the genome in this case.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Many would say that spirituality came to them, not they were activally seeking it.
[/QUOTE]
He didn’t mention actively seeking it. If we educated people to the point that they would recognize how human brains might label non-paranormal functions as “spiritual,” then they would no longer need to resort to stuff like spirituality, that would be good.
[QUOTE=Menocchio]
You know what I mean.
[/QUOTE]
I’m simply pointing out that the Pope and Dawkins are genetically different, so the fact that one is ( supposedly ) religious and one isn’t doesn’t tell you that there is no genetic component. Dawkins could simply have failed to inherit it, or one of the key genes involved.
[QUOTE=CurtC]
He didn’t mention actively seeking it. If we educated people to the point that they would recognize how human brains might label non-paranormal functions as “spiritual,” then they would no longer need to resort to stuff like spirituality, that would be good.
[/QUOTE]
When does explaining away what one perceives to be true become brainwashing and how is that good?
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
When does explaining away what one perceives to be true become brainwashing and how is that good?
[/QUOTE]
Obviously, if it’s “brainwashing” it’s not good, but educating people in facts and critical thinking isn’t brainwashing, and both of those are anathema to religion. If any party in this debate is “brainwashing” anyone, it’s the religious, with their insistance on heavily indoctrinating children and screaming down anyone who dissents.
[QUOTE=scjas]
The vitamin C argument was flawed in many ways…
[/quote]
No. See Darwin’s Finch’s post #34; a much more thorough explanation than what I’ve given.
No. That’s why I explicitly added the following to the end of my post:
My point being that, even though I agree with much of the position you’ve staked out, your arguments are terribly flawed.
I think there are others who are much more passionate about defending (and correcting) evolutionary theory than I (not to mention more well-versed), so I’ll leave it to them (mostly, anyway).
I was under the impression that religion was a meme, not a gene. It survives because it has evolved a lot of properties consistent with the viral propogation of itself, but it hasn’t done any of this evolving as part of anybody’s genetic code.
[QUOTE=begbert2]
I was under the impression that religion was a meme, not a gene. It survives because it has evolved a lot of properties consistent with the viral propogation of itself, but it hasn’t done any of this evolving as part of anybody’s genetic code.
[/QUOTE]
There’s no reason it can’t be both. Like language; humans appear to have built in language instincts, but nobody is born knowing English or Russian or any other specific language. Language ability; genes; the specific language, memes.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Obviously, if it’s “brainwashing” it’s not good, but educating people in facts and critical thinking isn’t brainwashing, and both of those are anathema to religion. If any party in this debate is “brainwashing” anyone, it’s the religious, with their insistance on heavily indoctrinating children and screaming down anyone who dissents.
[/QUOTE]
While I agree with you about religion, I am really talking about spirituality which can be though of as direct contact with supernatural beings. In the case of education you have the person involved having to chose between man teaching the known facts of how the brain makes up the supernatural vs the supernatural being ‘teaching’ that person about spirituality. For many who have supernatural encounters the supernatural beings are as real as other humans. So it’s a uphill battle for education without brainwashing to actually work to stamp out spiritualism. But in many ways I think stamping out a lot of religion, or man’s attempt to right rules for spirituality would be a good thing.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
While I agree with you about religion, I am really talking about spirituality which can be though of as direct contact with supernatural beings.
[/quote]
Your definition of spirituality is simply a specific religious belief. It’s still religious. And still silly.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
In the case of education you have the person involved having to chose between man teaching the known facts of how the brain makes up the supernatural vs the supernatural being ‘teaching’ that person about spirituality. For many who have supernatural encounters the supernatural beings are as real as other humans.
[/quote]
Then they are insane. Giving them some drug that supresses hallucinations would cure that, and no, that’s not brainwashing. After all, if it’s a real “supernatural being” the drug wouldn’t do anything.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
There’s no reason it can’t be both. Like language; humans appear to have built in language instincts, but nobody is born knowing English or Russian or any other specific language. Language ability; genes; the specific language, memes.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm, you have a point. Certainly there’s no gene for any specific religion, but there could perhaps be a gene for promoting an instinctual blind acceptance of whatever your authority figures tell you, and/or a gene for the tendency to have extremely vivid daydreams or whatever with that ‘religiousity’ feeling. There’s even a fairly obvious plausible evolutionary advantage to a Credulousity gene. (I can’t think of one offhand for the ‘Whoa, Man’ gene, though.)
[QUOTE=kanckbird]
While I agree with you about religion, I am really talking about spirituality which can be though of as direct contact with supernatural beings. In the case of education you have the person involved having to chose between man teaching the known facts of how the brain makes up the supernatural vs the supernatural being ‘teaching’ that person about spirituality. For many who have supernatural encounters the supernatural beings are as real as other humans. So it’s a uphill battle for education without brainwashing to actually work to stamp out spiritualism. But in many ways I think stamping out a lot of religion, or man’s attempt to right rules for spirituality would be a good thing.
[/quote]
I’ve observed religiousism as failing to take in spite of, shall we say, enthusiastic and ongoing religious education programs. However I’ve never even heard of anyone who was subjected to an ‘atheistic brainwashing program’, much less anyone who was actually converted to atheism by such a thing. Do you have any evidence for the existence of atheistic brainwashing programs? (Note that I don’t consider the typical public school to be any such thing.)
Needless to say, if it actaully was an uphill battle for education without atheistic brainwashing to stamp out religiousity, and if there aren’t a lot of atheistic brainwashing programs out there, then there wouldn’t be any atheists. So unless everyone who’s disagreeing with you is a figment of your imagination, there’s probably some flaw with your statement there.
[QUOTE=begbert2]
I’ve observed religiousism as failing to take in spite of, shall we say, enthusiastic and ongoing religious education programs. However I’ve never even heard of anyone who was subjected to an ‘atheistic brainwashing program’, much less anyone who was actually converted to atheism by such a thing.
[/QUOTE]
Look at the communist and former communist countries (USSR, Red China) and their attempt to get rid of religion.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Then they are insane. Giving them some drug that supresses hallucinations would cure that, and no, that’s not brainwashing. After all, if it’s a real “supernatural being” the drug wouldn’t do anything.
[/QUOTE]
If you are seeing blue skies and I give you a drug to blind you, you will no longer see those blue skies, yes that’s a perfect cure.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Look at the communist and former communist countries (USSR, Red China) and their attempt to get rid of religion.
[/QUOTE]
They didn’t have a brainwashing program. They had a suppression program. Which I doubt was at all effective in changing anybody’s beliefs. It may have hindered people’s ability to indoctrinate their children with their dogma, but the hindrance of one brainwashing program is not the installation of another.
Plus, I don’t think that many of your debate opponents here are the byproduct of religion-suppressing communist regimes. So how did we manage to come to exist?
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
If you are seeing blue skies and I give you a drug to blind you, you will no longer see those blue skies, yes that’s a perfect cure.
[/QUOTE]
You won’t be able to see anything at all; not even close to the same thing. Blindness and a cure for hallucinations aren’t the same thing at all.
If you claim to be talking to little purple people from the Dimension of Total Enlightenment, and an anti hallucination drug makes them vanish, then the logical conclusion is that they were hallucinations. Especially if there’s zero evidence beyond your claims that they ever existed.
kanicbird would probably like this book:
[QUOTE=scjas]
That is a chicken and egg argument. I say the egg, represented by a gene or genes that dispose their host to religious thought and belief. The first example with this genetic make up confers both the genes and their beliefs on their offspring and Tammy Faye Baker is the result.
[/QUOTE]
I haven´t the smallest sliver of a clue on how what I said relates to what you are saying here. :dubious: