The debates rage on…should gays be allowed to marry?, should the word ‘God’ be in or out of the pledge of allegiance?, should we punish those who burn the flag?, can I place the ten commandments on the court house steps?, etc… I hear all of this and more, passionately discussed around me - and I think “why do people care so much about what others do? What are we so afraid of? Why does one care if one burns the flag or if a gay couple decides to marry – let them, so what?”
Now the point of this post is not to try and answer those questions above, but rather, what I am asking is: **Are we in our infancy as a species? ** Will we always be obsessed with what other consenting adults are doing? **Will we eventually evolve away from these ridiculous conversations ** and see them for what they really are; knee jerk reactions driven by fear?
I might add, so that you know where I am coming from, I think religion is just another symptom of our childhood ignorance as a species. So… will the “human race” grow up, evolve beyond this, or is this us being our best as grown ups right now (I just cannot imagine we are the best, most mature, we can be)? Also… I imagine that the religious amongst us will claim that they are the grown up ones and I am, in fact, the one that needs to evolve. Are they right? I really feel that I am the enlightened more mature one and that most around me need to evolve. How do other see this?
So… the debate is… “Will religious people ever stop being neanderthals?” Yeah, that’s gonna go over well.
I don’t think we can point to a belief system as an indicator of human evolutionary progress per se. I mean anthropologically speaking, we’ve had a number of societies that have been more tolerant of homosexuals and a number that have been less tolerant. Were the Spartans more evolved than we? Are we devolving? Who is to say that any belief system is an indicator of progress? Are you engaging in a debate of ethics here or what? I am kind of lost.
You are right Nameless, I did not serve myself well asking the question the way I asked it. I could have done better. But I have to disagree with you on one thing: Belief is an indicator of ‘progress’ - for example: When you hear a young child say that there are monsters under his bed, do you feel an equal with that child or some how more ‘advanced’/‘evolved’ in your understanding of the universe?
You are the exact same species as your “less enlightened” neighbors, so if you’re looking for biological evolution, I think you’re on the wrong track. Perhaps what you you are really looking for is cultural evolution. Lots of evidence that that has happened, although it might be hard to predict what the futurew will hold.
But I don’t see evidence that there is any evolutionary pressure from our enviroment to evolve biologically such that we change human nature in any fundamental way. And the aspects of society that you are upset about are derrived from human nature. Take prejudice, for example. We can set up societal or governmental institutions to minimize the impact of prejudice, but that doesn’t change that part of human nature that creates prejudice in the first place.
Well, now we have a bit of a quandary. Now we have to qualify belief systems as being more or less superior or right. Now we can rank cultures in terms of evolutionary superiority. Now we can justify imposing our own culture on other cultures. Do you see why this makes me uncomfortable? It’s this kind of attitude that gets the Native Americans or Jews wiped out.
For starters, the examples you put forth do not lend themselves to the “consenting adult” argument. The only consistent theme I can see in them is that they are all related to the ongoing “culture wars”.
Are you advocating that we should not concern ourselves with these types of issues and rather focus on the bread and butter debates like jobs, war, the economy, etc.? If that’s the case then you might start by asking yourself if it would matter whether people are free to burn flags or whether they should go to jail for it. Does it matter to you whether our goverment advances a particular religion?
I totally understand you nameless, but you know as well as I do that there are no monsters under the bed and that those that know that there are no monsters under the bed are, in fact, “more right” than those that believe monsters exist.
And regarding my use of the word ‘evolution’; I never specified if I was speaking cultural or biological but think of this: what if in fact, by not buying into religious stories etc, I am in fact slightly more biologically evolved than those that do. I know that this last comment will inflame/scare some people, and I certainly don’t mean to sound like I have a big ego - but consider that we are all biology in the end - and maybe there is something about my chemical make up where people that think like me have left these kind of false beliefs behind - have actually evolved beyond them. My apologies in advance for those that may be angered by this way of thinking - but could I be right?
There is no such thing as “more biologically evolved”. Nor is it possible for one member of a species to be “differently evolved” from the other members of that species. Evolution pertains to the species as a whole, not to any individual - it is about changes in populations, not individuals.
Besides which, the only real way a belief could influence evolution is if it imparted a heritable advantage to individuals with respect to resource procurment - specifically when it comes to mating. And there is little, if any, evidence that any belief system has thus far proven to be terribly effective at preventing an individual from procreating.
I mean, there was a time when we KNEW that black people were biologically inferior. There was a time when we KNEW that Natice Americans were heathens with an inferior culture and had to be indoctrinated into ours. Now are you claiming we KNOW that religion is a fallacy and should be stamped out, that we should ask those people to move on?
Whoa. Okay, disclaimer: I am an atheist reductionist when it comes to problems of this variety, but that’s one hell of a claim. Lets assume, for the sake of argument, that we are solely biochemical beings. Now, you claim that your biochemical makeup is superior to, say, a fundamentalist Christian’s because you don’t believe in God? You would have to prove that our Christian friend was less viable evolutionarily as a result of his belief system. Can you?
Darwin’s Finch comes up with my argument several seconds ahead of me and also has the distinction of having an extremely appropriate alias with regard to this discussion.
No worries. Your ego was well esablished in the OP.
Let’s rephrase the hypothetical and say that you have a slightly different genetic makeup that influences your non-belief. Do you expect to have more or fewer children than the highly religious couple (lets say they’re Mormons or Catholics) down the street. Your non-believing genes might find themselves in short supply in the next generation!
You seem to be implying that you are better than someone who doesn’t believe, and therefore “should” have an evolutionary advantage. But it’s all about having children, not about winning a debate on the SDMB.
Furthermore, there’s a lot more people that are religious than there are atheists. Perhaps all the God-lovin’ chicks would find you less attractive (since you lack spirituality) and your odds of procreation would be reduced. Maybe we atheists are the ones who are doomed to extinction.
I somewhat regret my use of the word ‘evolution’ - although that is what I meant I feel that these replies, so far mostly related to evolution, are not actually answering the question I was after answering. So I will try it another a different way:
Is there anyone amongst you that thinks (hopes maybe) that in a 1,000 years from now we will have somehow moved beyond arguing about the ten commandments, or same sex marriage – that there will be some sort of shift away from this type of debate to some “higher” level of concern? Call it a social maturing maybe – but I have to think that something will change, that the things we argue about now will be seen as childish upon reflection.
With respects to the things we debate and concern ourselves with as a society where do you see us humans going? Same old, same old – or something new (and, dare I say, better)?
Yet you keep implying some sort of biological superiority.
I think I addressed your issue in my first post to this thread. I don’t think religion is going to disappear from the human landscape, as there seems to be something in human nature that favors it. The deck (our biology) is stacked against its demise.
Would anyone in their right mind argue that we won’t look back on the past and find it silly and inane? Look at all the stupid crap we used to believe in!
Since beliefs are all about selection criteria, I guess the better point would be whether the belief had any genetically selectable criteria. I can think of at least one culture that found certain recessive traits preferable. You suggest a reproductive advantage, but a belief can provide just that by selecting which women and men are preferable. If the belief persists, and if the traits they have are genetic, then the belief is surely the ultimate cause of the shift. I say this only because I am not sure exactly what you meant by “heritable advantage… when it comes to mating.” In my mind I had the notion of more viable sperm or easily penetrated eggs, or something directly sexual. If not, then my apologies.
Yes, but as you note, it isn’t about particular individuals. These can be overrun by the swarm of everyone else.
I think that we will “evolve” away from religion in general and adopt philosophies that don’t rely on the absolute existance of a deity with human qualities.
Indeed it can, which is why I qualfied my statement with “heritable”. Biological evolution is primarily driven by natural selection. And natural selection requires that whatever traits prove beneficial to an individual be heritable by that individual’s offspring to persist and begin to shape the population.
And there’s where my qualifier comes in again: I doubt very much that any given belief is genetic in its origins. Religion is not “in the genes”, as it were; I have seen no evidence that such is that case, anyway. Belief systems can certainly persist through indoctrination, but then the mechanism becomes separated from biology; we are then talking about cultural evolution, not biological evolution. We will not become a new species just by changing ideas.
My point was also that so-called “primitive” beliefs do not apparently serve as a hinderance to mating, so there is no reason to expect them to be “weeded out” of the general population, from a biological standpoint. You can pretty much believe any damn thing, and still probably be able to procreate.
True, but the evolution of the population is driven by the action of natural selelction, which is predicated upon the differential reproduction of individuals competing with one another. And, as I noted, I see little evidence that one’s beliefs alone operate as a filter for reproductive success.
