God and gorillas (or evo uncovered as quasi anti science)

Salon.com ^ | Jan. 31, 2007 | Barbara J. King

[RunningWolf]

God; doesn't it explain why religion continues to be so pervasive? But many scientists are coming up with their own, decidedly secular, theories about the origins of faith. In fact, over the last few years, a small cottage industry made up of scientists and philosophers has devoted itself to demystifying the divine.

[RunningWolf]

A glimpse into the mind of 'evo'

And I say no thanks to that. If that is the map, then throw it away and sail on uncharted waters.

[RunningWolf]

Oohhh so now they saw the religious impulse in the ape-man/sarc>
ancient ancestors millions of years ago. And today, King says, we can see the foundations of religious behavior in chimpanzees and gorillas; watching our distant cousins can do much to explain the foundations of our own beliefs /NOT

[HighWheeler]

[RunningWolf]

Sorry my friend (if I may so audacious) actually I don't like it either.

There is a war going on, and the evo ping list people would suggest/insist that it is already over.

What do you think? About this article that is.

And does that actors hairline rally extend down that far??

Wolf

[RunningWolf]

This quote is getting down to the essence of the evo core ideology

a whole group of scholars who insist that religion is a mere byproduct of something in the brain, that our brain has evolved and adapted to selection pressures of our ancient hunting and gathering world. And if we're religious, it's really just a mistake. The most famous example of this is the work of Pascal Boyer. He says our brains are so attuned to predators who might eat us that we developed a God detector in our brains. We're really just going too far in detecting agency

[AndyTheBear]

There is not a soul in the world that believes that atheist tripe...although some bio chemical reactions might cause an organism to mimic such a beleif...

[samtheman]

This is an interesting discussion. Towards the end there's this:

I'm part of the camp of people who thinks it's perfectly possible to see religion and science as compatible areas of thought and inquiry. In my book, I lay out three choices. You can say you've got to choose one. You can believe in science or you can have faith in God -- the Richard Dawkins school of thought. Or you can say there are "non-overlapping magisteria" -- the famous Stephen Jay Gould answer that religion will help us with meaning, and science will tell us about other things. I'm actually in a third place. If you can avoid being a biblical literalist, and if you can avoid being an arrogant scientist who tells everyone else what to think, you can think on multiple levels at once. There's a lot of beauty in seeing that religion and science are really about the same things. They can be perfectly compatible.

[carumba]

IMHO King watched Lance Link as a child and has been damaged psychologically. The socialists should be alarmed.

[Tribune7]

bump

[Raymann]

Not even the guy who wrote it?

Oh, and I am and atheist :) But this is simply wrong. Religion comes from mans desire to explain what he doesn't understand. Once he understands, religions is no longer needed. But some people have a tendancy to hold on.

It's that easy.

[taxesareforever]

Anthropologist Barbara J. King explains what our distant cousins can tell us about religion and why it's OK for scientists to believe in God.

Ah, so God and the Bible doesn't have the answer for them so scientists are turning to the animals to seek their thoughts on the subject. Ok, let's begin. How many bananas am I holding up?

[Teacher317]

Religion comes from mans desire to explain what he doesn't understand. Once he understands, religions is no longer needed.

Nothing to do with a civilizing force in unciviclized times? Nothing about man's need for Hope? Nothing about a code of conduct for sanitary living? It's just spackle for a knowledge gap? Interesting.

(Oh, and that pesky possibility that something actually created the Big Bang (or its predecessor) and our evolutionary cycles might be included in the discussion somewhere.)

(I'm not a church-goer, by the way, but you casually dismiss some really important parts of Faith with your post, so I thought I'd chime in before the flame wars begin.)

[Theo]

So, you "understand."

That's called "arrogance," my friend.

[Raymann]

Well like I said, I am an atheist. You can only get some much out of us on religion.

However to answer your questions, why do you need religion for any of that? Y'all act as if religion is the only means to morality when that is clearly no so.

If anything that my real gripe with this. I post a lot on this forum and naturally most everyone here is religious. I show respect but I have a hard time getting it. There are a few really good, rational discussions that keep me coming back but half the time people think I'm a damn socialist anyway.

(Trust me, I hate them more then anyone and I have more of a reason to do so)

BTW: I'm an objectivist, that's where I'm coming from.

[Teacher317]

However to answer your questions, why do you need religion for any of that? Y'all act as if religion is the only means to morality when that is clearly not so.

1. Why do you use the personal terms "you"? As I stated, I'm not much of a church-goer.
2. Why do you assume that, if there are other paths to satisfy those needs, that our forebears should have followed them? (And doesn't it say something important that virtually every civilization and society followed the same basic path?)

I'm an objectivist

a la Ayn Rand? (I loved Atlas Shrugged). An interesting approach, but full of holes for me to call myself a "believer". ;^) It also still leaves open the question of "Who/what started all this gunk we call a universe?" I call that entity "God". (And of course, you can always counter with, "Who/what created God?", and the we go around once more, LOL.)

[AndyTheBear]

Not even the guy who wrote it?

Not a soul. Are you implying the guy who wrote it has one?

[RunningWolf]

Well certainly I do not.

However some people do believe the atheist tripe. In fact they eat it up with a vigor.

[Raymann]

1. You as in you believe in a god
2. Our forebears followed the best path they knew of, I don't fault them for that.

"And of course, you can always counter with, "Who/what created God?""

Nope, I'd counter with "Why did someone need to create the universe? Even if the ultimate answer is "we don't know" the lack of evidence of something does not give evidence of something else.

[AndyTheBear]

Sometimes I think my humor is to subtle for my own good.

My point was that not a soul believes it. The exception for a biochemical process of an organism mimicking such a believe was meant to imply this context.

So far it seems like I'm 0-2 for leading my audience to the proper inference.

[AndyTheBear]

Even if the ultimate answer is "we don't know"

This is a reasonable answer for a materialist approach to philosophy. The more argumentative atheists seem to have a presumption that "we may not know now, but all the religions must be wrong. And science will someday give us the answer." The latter parts seemingly irrational in my not-as-humble-as-it-probably-should-be view.

A good theological approach seems the most rationale. The idea is that we can't know everything on our own, but we can know what God chooses to reveal to us. The trick here is either to know the voice of God apart from your own, or to find evidence of who might be legitimately prophesying on behalf of God. Of coarse, many religious folks are not particularly good at either one. But on the evidence the atheists are even worse (being convinced that God isn't even real, and usually even maintain the absurd presumption that they themselves don't have a spirit or soul).