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Post by Athans on Nov 19, 2014 6:57:38 GMT -6
A member, atheismiswinning, posted an interesting bit in another thread and I think it brings up a topic that should have its own thread. There a a lot of interesting facts, observations, and unknowns when it comes to how the brain works and what science tells us about it. It also tells us about what we think about science and religion. I really do not know the direction this thread will go or even where to begin but I at least wanted to make a clear introduction for the thread. Now that I have done that I will get started with a reply and comments about the link that inspired this thread... Here is the original post... My reply will follow this post.
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Post by Athans on Nov 19, 2014 10:40:04 GMT -6
I think I understood everything you said. It is an interesting hypothesis. I call it a hypothesis because I am not sure if you have studies backing that or if that is an idea you came up with because I have thought of things similar to that. You brought up some good point and also provoked some questions. I am kind of scatter-brained on where to start here, but here it goes. I guess I will start with the major question in Religious Studies…What is religion? There are many definitions, but the purpose of me asking this is not to answer that question, but ask another…is “religion” even a fair thing to look at when it comes to psychology or neuroscience? What are we looking at exactly? There is no gene for religion and many people consider themselves “non-religious” show characteristics of religion. One thing I have always thought (not really backed by any actual science) is that people have different methods of reasoning, or at least a preferred one. I loosely call them the religious mindset and the scientific mindset. I do not claim that one is superior to the other, simply that they are different. I do have my preferred method though…This is how I define them… Religious Mindset (RM)-This way of reasoning is based on faith and abductive reasoning combined with deductive reasoning and do not have a hard time accepting that. The preferred method of obtaining knowledge would be Existentialism. There is also the difference in how they see evidence or what constitutes as evidence. Scientific mindset (SM)-This way of reasoning is based on logic, inductive reasoning, and the scientific method. The preferred method obtaining knowledge would be Epistemology. This mindset has a hard time grasping faith claims and is reliant on observable, testable facts. They simply do not believe things without scientific evidence. Contrary to the name I would classify many atheists in this area because they have a pseudoscientific mindset. It appears scientific, and they may believe it is, but their reasoning is the same as I described about even thought they use terms such as “science,” “logic,” and “facts.” I say this to ask the question, are we really looking at religion when it comes to the brain and the mind or are we looking at something completely different. Michael Shermer has a different theory. In his book Why People Believe Weird Things he explains that the reason people, smart people, can believe weird things is because of a flaw that occurred in the evolution of our reasoning ability. Let me quickly summarize his argument. Humans evolved to be skilled pattern-seeking creatures. The trouble is determining which patterns are meaningful. If the brain does discovers meaningless pattern, it is usually harmless or in some cases, beneficial. He goes on to suggest that there are two types of thinking errors… Type One Error: Believing a falsehood Type Two Error: Rejecting a myth Since these errors do not generally get the person killed, they persist (This is the Theory of Evolution.) In addition to the errors, we also commit what he calls a hit. Type One Hit: Not believing a falsehood Type Two Hit: Believing a truth These hits are the premise of Natural Selection. Those that get more hits have an advantage and pass on most offspring. In addition to this, we have false negatives and false positives. False Negative: Gets you killed (snakes with rattles are okay.) False Positive: Nothing more than a waste of time (a rain dance will end a drought.) Because false positives do not kill people, it persists in humanity. His argument is that people believe weird things because they made one of these errors and these errors are not unnatural, rather a result of evolution. As you might have guessed, he considers religion a “weird thing.” Again this illustrates the problem of looking at “religion” when studying the brain and mind. Does a person simply believe a religion because of one of these errors, nothing more? Kind of on that note, I am glad to hear you talk about the good aspects of religion. Besides some of the reasons you mentioned, religion does a lot of good for a lot of people. There is also biology that supports this. Many scientists believe religion played an important role in the evolution of humanity and is believed to be one the things that led people to forming communities. Sam Harris even states in his book Letter to a Christian Nation and admits a biological component. That is quite odd considering Harris’ hate for religion. He literally admits he hates something that is a biological trait. Anyways, the fact that religion is still around shows that, at the very least, it is not typically harmful or deadly. Michael Shermer makes that point. In evolution, traits that get creatures killed disappear. The fact that religion is still around says something about it. I would argue it also contradicts the notion that religion is a disease or mental illness, an idea promoted by atheists such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. I talk about that idea and debunk it at length in one of my blogs Is Religion a Mental Illness?By looking at what we have written above, as well as reading my blog, it is clear just how wrong the claim is about religion being a disease or mental illness. Diseases, by definition, are harmful and abnormal. A mental illness is also defined as being abnormal and typically does not allow people to live a normal life. Judging by the number of religious people in the world, to include the religious atheists, being religious is the definition of normal. Those who are not religious are actually abnormal. And obviously religion is not a disease as it is not inherently harmful, rather the opposite. This topic brings up so much to think about, I hope it continues!
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Post by Athans on Nov 19, 2014 13:40:46 GMT -6
I also wanted to comment on psychologists and psychology since you brought them up. Before I comment I suppose I should give my background with it. It is not deep, but certainly more than the average person. In the scholar study of religion we look at religion though a number of different disciplines, psychology being one of them. As far as the psychology of religion goes, I have read a number of psychologists including Freud, Emile Durkheim, William James, and Carl Jung to name a few. In a number of classes about the history and philosophy of science and scientific reasoning we have looked at psychology and methods in psychology, specifically evolutionary psychology. I am familiar with both the psychology of religion, as well as the scientific aspect of it. I have also read studies done by psychologists and read books by Sam Harris (a neuroscientist.) Both psychologists and psychology have some major issues. I will start with psychology as a whole… Plainly put, I do not agree with their general definitions of religion. I do not agree with the ones that study religion and I do not agree with the regular psychologists. If one cannot properly define the thing they are studying, how exactly can one study it? Some atheists pointed me to a study, done by some psychologists, which argued atheists are smarter than religious people. Their definition of religion was literally “having a belief in something.” Does anyone see how this is wrong on so many levels? I believe evolution is true, therefore I would be considered religious. Also, many atheists can be considered religious based on the definitions used by most of the top religious scholars. Their definition makes their entire study seriously flawed. There are also problems with fields like Evolutionary Psychology. This field was brought up in a number of classes because it is fringe science at best, or arguably even pseudoscience. The major problem with many of the claims EP makes is that is not falsifiable, which is THE key trait of science. Science needs to be falsifiable because it is the criterion of demarcation, determining what is and what is not science. To make it simple I will simply use Wikipedia to point out the issues with EP… “Controversies concerning EP involve questions of testability, cognitive and evolutionary assumptions (such as modular functioning of the brain, and large uncertainty about the ancestral environment), importance of non-genetic and non-adaptive explanations, as well as political and ethical issues due to interpretations of research results.” “Evolutionary psychology has been entangled in the larger philosophical and social science controversies related to the debate on nature and nurture. Evolutionary psychologists typically contrast evolutionary psychology with what they call the standard social science model (SSSM). They characterize the SSSM as the "blank slate", social constructionist, or "cultural determinist" perspective that they say dominated the social sciences throughout the 20th century and assumed that the mind was shaped almost entirely by culture.” “Some critics view evolutionary psychology as a form of genetic reductionism and genetic determinism,[144][145] a common critique being that evolutionary psychology does not address the complexity of individual development and experience and fails to explain the influence of genes on behavior in individual cases.[146] Evolutionary psychologists respond that EP works within a nature-nurture interactionist framework that acknowledges that many psychological adaptations are facultative (sensitive to environmental variations during individual development). EP is generally not focused on proximate analyses of behavior but rather its focus is on the study of distal/ultimate causality (the evolution of psychological adaptations). The field of behavioral genetics is focused on the study of the proximate influence of genes on behavior.” “A frequent critique of the discipline is that the hypotheses of evolutionary psychology are frequently arbitrary and difficult or impossible to adequately test, thus questioning its status as an actual scientific discipline, for example because many current traits probably evolved to serve different functions than they do now.[3][148] While evolutionary psychology hypotheses are difficult to test, evolutionary psychologists assert that it is not impossible.[149] Part of the critique of the scientific base of evolutionary psychology includes a critique of the concept of the Environments of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA). Some critics have argued that researchers know so little about the environment in which Homo sapiens evolved that explaining specific traits as an adaption to that environment becomes highly speculative.[150] Evolutionary psychologists respond that they do know many things about this environment, including the facts that only women became pregnant, present day humans' ancestors were hunter-gatherers that generally lived in small tribes, etc.” If we get down to what constitutes as science, one could make the argument that Intelligent Design is as scientific as EP. On psychologists… My general observation is that many of them think they are way smarter than they are, or rather they think they know more than they do. Sam Harris is an excellent example of this, as well as any psychology undergrad. They think “I know how the brain works so I am going to psychoanalyze everything.” They believe they can use psychoanalysis, which is not science, to make claims, such as what religious people are thinking/feeling and why. Instead of doing actual research, like spending time with a tribe of people, they sit back in the philosophical armchair and make assumptions based on their knowledge of how the brain works. I know there are some amazing science in the psychology field and some amazing scientists. But personally, as far as scientists go, a psychologist would be the last expert I would consult, especially if the topic is religion or “what people are thinking.” That is just my two sense on it all.
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Post by atheismiswinning on Nov 22, 2014 19:18:46 GMT -6
"A cage went in search of a bird."
-Kafka
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Post by reasoningatheist on Dec 18, 2015 16:34:40 GMT -6
Regarding the statement above: "religion is not a disease as it is not inherently harmful, rather the opposite".
Whilst it has been suggested, more than once, that religion can be compared to a virus of the mind - in my view, a malevolent one - I do not have enough information to comment further on whether religion is a disease or not. However, I disagree most vociferously with the latter part of the statement that religion is not inherently harmful. It most certainly is. Religion has been, and still is the root cause of many wars, most terrorism, slavery, bigotry, racism, poverty, misogyny, child brides, genital mutilation, death sentences for apostasy, and much more besides. The ignorance of much of the worlds population, due to lack of an education, other than religious doctrine, is due in most part to religion. Lack of an adequate and modern education, stops people, especially girls, from improving themselves, from developing their full potential, and indeed in a lot of cases, from being able to feed themselves. Religion, perhaps inadvertently, also promotes the spread of disease, e.g. Ebola, through unhygienic funerary practices; HIV & other STD's, through the denial of condoms. Religions refusal to allow birth control leads inexorably to overpopulation, and the inevitable inability of the population to feed itself. This is especially true in poorer regions; Africa, Asia, Central and South America, etc... It is estimated by the UN that more than 29 million people live in slavery today. Mostly in countries that are theocratic or highly religious. No, religion most definitely is harmful, and the sooner all religions are gone, the better the world will be.
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Post by Athans on Dec 18, 2015 18:59:24 GMT -6
Regarding the statement above: "religion is not a disease as it is not inherently harmful, rather the opposite". Whilst it has been suggested, more than once, that religion can be compared to a virus of the mind - in my view, a malevolent one - I do not have enough information to comment further on whether religion is a disease or not. However, I disagree most vociferously with the latter part of the statement that religion is not inherently harmful. It most certainly is. Religion has been, and still is the root cause of many wars, most terrorism, slavery, bigotry, racism, poverty, misogyny, child brides, genital mutilation, death sentences for apostasy, and much more besides. The ignorance of much of the worlds population, due to lack of an education, other than religious doctrine, is due in most part to religion. Lack of an adequate and modern education, stops people, especially girls, from improving themselves, from developing their full potential, and indeed in a lot of cases, from being able to feed themselves. Religion, perhaps inadvertently, also promotes the spread of disease, e.g. Ebola, through unhygienic funerary practices; HIV & other STD's, through the denial of condoms. Religions refusal to allow birth control leads inexorably to overpopulation, and the inevitable inability of the population to feed itself. This is especially true in poorer regions; Africa, Asia, Central and South America, etc... It is estimated by the UN that more than 29 million people live in slavery today. Mostly in countries that are theocratic or highly religious. No, religion most definitely is harmful, and the sooner all religions are gone, the better the world will be. I certainly respect your view, but respectfully disagree. This is a common belief among atheist, particularly, anti-theists, which you are, so I understand that. I don't need to change you view, but at least consider what I have to say... Though you bring up some points, and some of the problems with religion, I find this view rather shallow. I do not mean this as an insult, rather ignorance. There is nothing wrong with ignorance, as we are all ignorant in certain areas. This, however, was my main area of education. I would like to offer a few things to think about: 1. Is religion the ROOT? I find this a functional reductionist argument, which has many flaws and fails to take other things into account. First, let's use the Bible as an example. What would most atheists agree the Bible (or any other religious text) is? A man-made document that was created sometime after that particular peoples came about, correct? It was not something written down by Moses after the Exodus, rather something compiled from multiple sources. That would suggests that these "laws" and beliefs came about BEFORE the religion. CULTURE is the basis of religion. This leads to point 2... 2. Culture, Society, Politics, Wealth, Greed, Selfishness, Power. The problem with reducing things to religion is that we ignore other factors or assume that religion is the most powerful factor. Let me give a few examples to think about... One that is an issue close to my wife and I, genital mutilation (both male and female.) I want to focus on female genital mutilation. Let me ask you this...do Christians practice this? I have never seen anything in the Bible that promotes FGM, yet Christians in Africa also practice FGM. The reason for this, which Reza Aslan argues, is that it is a CULTURAL issue. There is no Christian justification for it, yet they do it the same as Muslims do (and I don't think there is even a Muslim justification for it.) Sunni-Shia rift. Most people believe this is a religious argument. I, and many scholars, believe it is a CULTURAL issue. It is the difference between Arab culture and Persian (Zoroastrian) culture. Here is a map... What is another term for "Persian?" That would be Iranian. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_peopleIt is not coincidence that the Shia are the same as the Persians, who were culturally (and linguistically) different than the Arabs. The reason for their conflict is cultural at the root, not religious. The CrusadesI think this is the war(s) most people attribute to religion. Christians vs. Muslims, right? If that is the case, why did Christians massacre cities of Jews and Christians? The Fourth Crusade was a Christian army sacking Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, which was Christian. The FIGHTERS may have been fighting on the basis of religion, but the LEADERS were certainly fighting for political and economic gain. The same can be said about Hitler (alleged Christian) and Stalin (atheist.) Regardless of their religion, their goals were socio-political goals of personal gain. Religion, or lack there of, played little role. Religious DenominationsWhy are there different ones? Because people didn't agree...Why didn't they agree? Who cares, the disagreement was based on people. TerrorismMost attacks done by "terrorists" are Muslim's attacking other Muslims...Once again, it is politics. The PopeBoth liberal and conservative Christians disagree with half of the stuff the Pope says. He supports gays and climate change and conservative Catholics are like "who is this guy to say?" He supports no contraception and liberals are like "this guy needs to evolve." The Pope is God's representative on Earth...that's who this guy is and who are you to say he needs to "evolve?" The fact of the matter is one's political views trumps their religious views. The United States was built on secularism but still believe in slavery, racism, misogyny, and many other things. Most people still practice genital mutilation (circumcision) even though they are not doing it for religious purposes. Science has been used to justify racism, it was called racial science... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racismHitler used Eugenics, also scientific... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EugenicsWe know NOW those are not scientific, but they were the leading science of the time, they had nothing to do with religion. Martin Luther King Jr. led the civil rights movement in America and he was a devout Christian. Christians and religious people fight against the very things you mentioned. I would agree that religion is used to justify horrible things, or to keep them the norm, but I see religion as more of a tool to promote one's beliefs. Religion is not the root of most things, it is an excuse.
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Post by reasoningatheist on Dec 19, 2015 4:12:10 GMT -6
Two things you didn't mention, birth control and education, being the two most important things needed to improve the quality of life for a large portion of the population. It is religion that denies both to those most in need. I find this completely unacceptable. Slavery of course is also condoned by Christianity and Islam. Whilst I cannot say that slavery would not exist without religion, it is doing little to nothing to eradicate something that both the Bible and Quran condone. Whilst I think of it, I have a related question about both so called holy books. When talking to both Christians and Muslims about passages in their books that they disagree with, they say are no longer relevant, or passages they ignore, e.g. those passages condoning slavery, murder, rape. I ask them, why then do you not remove them from your books. Delete those horrible parts. I have yet to receive an answer. And whilst they are doing that, perhaps they should remove the contradictions, illogicalities, and absurdities from them also. I realize that it would mean removing the majority of the writing, but then they would have something we anti-theists wouldn't get our knickers in a twist over. Also less for them to memorize.
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Post by reasoningatheist on Dec 19, 2015 4:36:53 GMT -6
Regarding the Sunni-Shia rift, whilst it has become a cultural issue, I believe it started as a religious one over the succession to Muhammad after his death, and the authenticity (Sahih) of the Hadith.
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Post by Athans on Dec 19, 2015 5:43:55 GMT -6
Regarding the Sunni-Shia rift, whilst it has become a cultural issue, I believe it started as a religious one over the succession to Muhammad after his death, and the authenticity (Sahih) of the Hadith. I believe it was cultural from the start.
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Post by Athans on Dec 19, 2015 6:04:37 GMT -6
Two things you didn't mention, birth control and education, being the two most important things needed to improve the quality of life for a large portion of the population. It is religion that denies both to those most in need. I find this completely unacceptable. Slavery of course is also condoned by Christianity and Islam. Whilst I cannot say that slavery would not exist without religion, it is doing little to nothing to eradicate something that both the Bible and Quran condone. Whilst I think of it, I have a related question about both so called holy books. When talking to both Christians and Muslims about passages in their books that they disagree with, they say are no longer relevant, or passages they ignore, e.g. those passages condoning slavery, murder, rape. I ask them, why then do you not remove them from your books. Delete those horrible parts. I have yet to receive an answer. And whilst they are doing that, perhaps they should remove the contradictions, illogicalities, and absurdities from them also. I realize that it would mean removing the majority of the writing, but then they would have something we anti-theists wouldn't get our knickers in a twist over. Also less for them to memorize. I will break this up into 2 points. First, they can certainly do more, everyone can. We cannot deny the negative things that religion allows, or even promotes. I am with with you on birth control. I cannot say religion is taking an active role, but birth control is widely used by religious people. It is more one of those details that most religious people tend to ignore. I do not believe your education point is as good. This comes down more to conservatism. If we talk secular education in this country, Catholics and Mormons are at the top. On the same note Evangelical Christians are at the bottom. The Pope has weighed in on climate change and evolution. What most people do not realize is there was a time when Muslims were the leading intellectuals in the world. We actually owe most of Western knowledge to the Islamic Empire and Islamic philosophers and scientists. What happened? Conservatives and fundamentalists gained control and literally sent them back centuries. This is more of an issue of conservatism and fundamentalism, a literal reading of religious texts, than it is religion in general. Second, religious texts... To start, we find contradictions in things like the Bible because it was complied by a number of different texts with CONFLICTING views. This is what religious people and atheists a like do not realize. If they actually understood what these books were we would EXPECT contradictions. The reason they persist is the same reason they stay in the books...they are seen as something divine, or special, something that should not be edited. I am thankful they choose to ignore parts that are no longer relevant. I think it is also important to leave the bad things in there. What if we removed slavery and the genocide of the American Indians from US History text books? It is a valuable part of their history and past that can be learned from. The biggest issue for religious people and atheists alike is to understand the CONTEXT and HISTORY of the holy books, understanding what we would EXPECT to see, and understanding what they really are. The issue is many religious people take them literally or pick and choose parts. That is simple ignorance and personal opinions.
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Post by reasoningatheist on Dec 19, 2015 8:48:01 GMT -6
As a mathematician I am fully aware of the period of rationalism and scientific inquiry of the Islamic Empire. Although I would have to add that it wasn't only Islamic philosophers and scientists that contributed during this time. Many were not Muslims, although they lived within the Islamic Empire. The British Humanist Association has a great video on this subject, presented by their then president, Jim Al-Khalili "Lessons from the past: science and rationalism in medieval Islam" If you've not already seen it, it's well worth watching.
And yes, I'm fully aware of the context and history of the bible, and how it came to be compiled into it's current form; as are most atheists and anti-theists, but not most Christians, unfortunately. And yes, I agree we should, and do expect contradictions, illogicalities, and absurdities. It is why they are rejected by atheists.
Because both the Bible and Quran are both open to personal interpretation and cherry-picking by ill educated adherents of the 'faith', we continue to have problems today. And again, yes I agree that many of the problems and issues are cultural, but they are aided and abetted by religious fanaticism.
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Post by Athans on Dec 19, 2015 11:01:32 GMT -6
I will watch the video shortly, but I reject the notion that most atheists and anti-theists understand the context of the Bible. This is due to personal experience. Most atheists do not realize there is a difference between Religious Studies and theology. They just know religion is stupid and are quick to point out contradictions in the Bible. This is shallow and shows an ability to read something in English. This may not represent you, but this is my experience.
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