Debate: Are we naturally religious?

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hustler

hustler

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need help with some pointers, I'm against it but I have no luck with any research.
Was wondering if any of you guys can help.
 
I'd say we naturally look for the reason why we are here, and religion fuels that fire.
 
You might browse through our religion and politics forum. A post I wrote about the movie "Contact" touches on this.

Basically, religion and science compete to answer a few philosophical questions. Like: Why are we here? How was the universe created? How does everything work?

For the longest time, religion had the only answers. Science now has most of the answers, IMO, but there are still questions that religion or God are just as good an answer as any.
 
I think religion is an construct created by man to provide answers that explain our existence, moral guidance, and comfort for a creature with elevated awareness to deal with the idea that "they" will not exist forever.
 
The internet will spur many non-believers.

I have one thing to say to those non-believers... "DON'T EVER UNDERESTIMATE A HEART OF A CHAMPION"
 
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IMO. Religion is just what we used to settle with when we couldn't Explain anything. When man Discovered Fore they probably thought it was another Being A.K.A God. same with everything, but that said i don't disrespect any particular Religion and I do respect their beliefs.
 
I agree in that religion is the early Theory of Everything and as our knowledge of the universe and its mechanisms grows, our need for superstition and ritual is diminished (supposing there was a need for it originally).

I don't think religion is natural or innate, though. Superstition is an easy answer to appease our simple chimp minds.
 
I recommend reading some essays on religion by the philosopher bertrand russell, including "Why I am Not a Christian."

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.
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Religion for me, is mostly based on "right in my face" life experiences.

I respect atheists, etc., of course though.
 
igotask8board said:
I agree with huevon.

Time only exists on earth.
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Well time is a way of measuring where we are in relation to our position around the sun, as well as the rotation of our planet. So I'm going to disagree based on the fact that other planetary bodies are in motion as well (with the measure of time being different as it is a relative measurement).
 
Religion's just an easy, lazy way to explain shit we don't know. It gives false hope, and a false sense of security. It makes crackpots seen as great, amazing, possibly even "God-like".
 
I find that truly random events that have some small (but positive) statistical probability are often described as "God's Will." There's an obscure branch of mathematics that examines the probability of coincidences, such as the probability of running into an old friend 30 years after you last saw him, in the very same store. It happens more often than you think, but it is often described as "God's Will."

But that's different from the question of whether we're naturally religious. I think religion and civilization go hand in hand. People need order, they need rules, they need a set of moral and ethical standards to follow (including establishing a health code, like what to eat and when to bathe)--and, for many people, they need to be threatened with some Ultimate Punishment to follow those rules and standards. I thus agree with Russell that religion has a lot to do with fear, but unlike him I also believe that many people NEED fear in order to give structure and meaning to their lives. I see religion as a tool for people to achieve the proper mindset to interact in a civilized society and to give them the impetus and drive to actively achieve things in their lives. However, not everyone needs such external motivation, and it is disingenous for religious individuals to believe that everyone needs religion in their lives, and to mistrust those that do not follow thier particular religious code. Also, the base purpose of religious groups gradually became corrupted, as some religions branched out and began regulating other parts of people's lives (like sex).
 
GMJ said:
Well time is a way of measuring where we are in relation to our position around the sun, as well as the rotation of our planet. So I'm going to disagree based on the fact that other planetary bodies are in motion as well (with the measure of time being different as it is a relative measurement).
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Did you know that the Air Force has to constantly update the clocks on the GPS satellites because time runs slower in space than it does on earth? If they didn't, the GPS info would drift by 15 miles a day.
 
Denny Crane said:
Did you know that the Air Force has to constantly update the clocks on the GPS satellites because time runs slower in space than it does on earth? If they didn't, the GPS info would drift by 15 miles a day.
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That seems like a pain, you'd think they'd be able to calculate some proportionality constant if they were in orbit at a set altitude. Of course I'm sure this would have been thought of, so I guess they're not constant.
 
also, i've talked before about the Myers-Briggs personality test (which I strongly believe in), and how it categorizes people into 16 discrete groups base on how they process information, make decisions, and interact with others. I think there have been studies done on whether some brain types are more inclined to be religious than others. I don't know the answer, but you could do a quick internet search and try to find out.
 
Dumpy said:
I find that truly random events that have some small (but positive) statistical probability are often described as "God's Will." There's an obscure branch of mathematics that examines the probability of coincidences, such as the probability of running into an old friend 30 years after you last saw him, in the very same store. It happens more often than you think, but it is often described as "God's Will."

But that's different from the question of whether we're naturally religious. I think religion and civilization go hand in hand. People need order, they need rules, they need a set of moral and ethical standards to follow (including establishing a health code, like what to eat and when to bathe)--and, for many people, they need to be threatened with some Ultimate Punishment to follow those rules and standards. I thus agree with Russell that religion has a lot to do with fear, but unlike him I also believe that many people NEED fear in order to give structure and meaning to their lives. I see religion as a tool for people to achieve the proper mindset to interact in a civilized society and to give them the impetus and drive to actively achieve things in their lives. However, not everyone needs such external motivation, and it is disingenous for religious individuals to believe that everyone needs religion in their lives, and to mistrust those that do not follow thier particular religious code. Also, the base purpose of religious groups gradually became corrupted, as some religions branched out and began regulating other parts of people's lives (like sex).
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People already fear death, pain, suffering, loneliness, abandonment, embarrassment, etc., etc.. There is (absolutely) no need for anyone to fear eternal damnation or negative reincarnation. A life guided by fear of divine personal punishment is a selfish one--in this mindset, no matter how worthwhile a charitable or honorable act is, it is still self-serving. No act can truly be selfless.

Also, I would contend that religion is subversive and dangerous and frequently counterproductive to a civilized society and to personal motivation.
 
I'm not religious myself. I do see it as a mixed bag.

Religion was essentially the government for hundreds of years. Whatever good society did for people was done by the Church.

A lot of our science did indeed come about from the Church. Mendel was a monk, for example, and he is the guy who figured out genetics.

The Church was the publishing system for centuries. They hand copied manuscripts of all the great works, and of course the Bible.

The structure of the Church is upside down from government, and is probably the better model for caring for society as a whole. They collect money in the neighborhoods and feed the poor in those same neighborhoods, yet find a way to funnel large sums back to the Vatican (for example).

I look at the 10 commandments outside the context of religion and figure if everyone lived by them, the world would be a pretty good place. In other words, it does provide some good moral values (what's right vs. what's wrong).

There's the negative aspects, too. Superstition, the burning of heretics at the stake, holy wars, etc.
 
Dumpy said:
I find that truly random events that have some small (but positive) statistical probability are often described as "God's Will." There's an obscure branch of mathematics that examines the probability of coincidences, such as the probability of running into an old friend 30 years after you last saw him, in the very same store. It happens more often than you think, but it is often described as "God's Will."

But that's different from the question of whether we're naturally religious. I think religion and civilization go hand in hand. People need order, they need rules, they need a set of moral and ethical standards to follow (including establishing a health code, like what to eat and when to bathe)--and, for many people, they need to be threatened with some Ultimate Punishment to follow those rules and standards. I thus agree with Russell that religion has a lot to do with fear, but unlike him I also believe that many people NEED fear in order to give structure and meaning to their lives. I see religion as a tool for people to achieve the proper mindset to interact in a civilized society and to give them the impetus and drive to actively achieve things in their lives. However, not everyone needs such external motivation, and it is disingenous for religious individuals to believe that everyone needs religion in their lives, and to mistrust those that do not follow thier particular religious code. Also, the base purpose of religious groups gradually became corrupted, as some religions branched out and began regulating other parts of people's lives (like sex).
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I must have hit the jackpot with these improbable but positive events then. :]
 
IMO the positives and the negatives weigh each other out when dealing with religion. Whether you have one or not.
 
pegs said:
Religion's just an easy, lazy way to explain shit we don't know. It gives false hope, and a false sense of security. It makes crackpots seen as great, amazing, possibly even "God-like".
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Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner.
 
This is the analogy that I use to counter how only a supreme being could create something as detailed and "perfect" (ha!) as the human being.

Say I've got a playlist on my ipod 4 songs long, and it's on random (for argument's sake it's on repeat for those keeping score).

What are the odds that it would still play in sequential order? Well shoot that'd be pretty neat, but rare.

What are the odds that it'd play the same song 4 times in a row? Well damn that'd be even more impressive right? However, it'd be the same probability.

What if I'm really hoping that the next song on the playlist is a single song I want to listen to. The odds of it happening are so slim, 1/4, compared to it not happening (75%), however the odds of any other song playing are still the same, 1/4.

Apply the same logic to how we arrived at our genome, our form, biology, etc. The odds of anything else happening would be 99.99999999% (too lazy to do the math based on "n" number of acid chains), but the odds of any other single "human" genome is the same.

Now, yes it's not that cut and dry. Natural selection, more specifically external forces have had a direct influence and so it's not really chance. Still, I can't help but think that the idea that our form is so perfect that some God must have created it is RIDICULOUSLY and (what's worst) so obviously biased that I don't know how serious people can take that idea, well, seriously.
 
There is evidence of no natural selection for billions of years after the first life was formed. How do you explain that?
 
Denny Crane said:
There is evidence of no natural selection for billions of years after the first life was formed. How do you explain that?
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uh, what proof is that? It's been in every textbook I've had. It was just featured on my midterm today. Or, are you drawing a line between natural selection (the why) and evolution (the how)?
 
GMJ said:
uh, what proof is that? It's been in every textbook I've had. It was just featured on my midterm today. Or, are you drawing a line between natural selection (the why) and evolution (the how)?
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Who cares about your text book? Natural selection is hugely flawed.

Life formed as single celled organisms about 1B years after the earth formed. For about another 2B years, it didn't evolve at all. Those same single celled organisms are found throughout the fossil record for that period, and there's no other differentiated life forms. So there was zero natural selection going on. The earth certainly evolved geologically over that time, giving life a reason to evolve/adapt.

Evolution and natural selection do not at all explain the cambrian explosion. Here you had a huge variety of life forms appear in the fossil record all at once. There's not enough time in that equation for generations and eons of natural selection to do what it's advertised to do.

Finally (for this post), the dinosaurs didn't disappear because they evolved into something of a higher order. There was a catastrophic event that wiped them out. That wasn't the only cataclysmic event in the geologic and fossil records. The theory of Evolution doesn't account for these events.
 
evolution occurs through random mutations. it doesn't happen at a constant rate.
 
Who cares about my text book, is that serious?

Gee, Denny I wonder why no one has picked up your ideas to teach in every science classroom (save the midwest, but that's another thread) through the graduate level. :sigh:

"Hey, don't listen to everybody else, let me tell you how it really happened!" -random guy on the internet.
 
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