IS THERE A GOD GENE? (VANITY)

Me | 11/02/02 | Van E. T. Fair

[Old Professer]

I've been here for so long I have begun to feel like this site is a substitute for the real world.

I read everything and anything until I wear out my eyesight and my wife's patience and I lately have noticed that there are but two types of people posting here:

Those who will believe in spite of evidence and those who believe that belief itself is suspect.

Biologists are coming up everyday with the notion that virtually all behavior and all disease is somehow related to a gene inherent in the human body; sometimes it is treated as a proclivity and other times it is treated as a proscript.

Is all of Science no more than the search for the essential?

If there is no God then there is nothing beyond waking, breathing, doing, sleeping and dying; the doing ranges from the works of genius inventions to the tedium of service to the sluggishness of the congenitally impaired.

All the while, the search for reason leads back to first things.

Does unrequited passion drive us all? The genius looks forward to the future and what could be; the sluggard looks not at all; that leaves the rest.

Do we search because we want to or because we have no choice?

[dyed_in_the_wool]

You can't deconstruct me into a series of first causes.

Ahh, Nietzsche, anyone?

[Blue Screen of Death]

Hell boy, we'all down here in Texas been wearing genes for years and ain't nobody never called us'all God.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

These are very good questions and you shouldn't give up until you find the answer you know is correct. Objective truth is hard to find in these days. Based on how you posed your questions, I would recommend that you start here, A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews With an Absolutist by Peter Kreeft. You have just started a very long journey, please let us know where it takes you.

[dwills]

belief in god is biological (including genetic predisposition) as is the phenomenon of conscience

schizophrenia, in which the afflicted is actually commanded by a voice in his mind that he does not control, is just a step beyond religiosity

faith in one's truth is often at cross purposes with conscience as one may disengage it with respect to non-believers or twist the golden rule: "have others do as would you"

[William Terrell]

No, but I've seen Janet Reno. And I've seen a baboon and a cockroach. God works in mysterious ways.

[txhurl]

Does unrequited passion drive us all?

I think the passion to reproduce drives us all.

I think the ability to construct the Ten Commandments shows our capacity to suppress our native killing, lying, adultering, stealing, etc. instincts in order to create social groups more worth reproducing for.

The 'God' gene may be a sublime refinement of the 'selfish' gene. It's probably present in all people but only activated/utilized by enviromental (social) stimuli.

[boris]

All things have Buddha Nature. Just varying amounts.

Cockroaches. The AIDS virus. Janet Reno. Al Sharpton.

Blows thy mind, sorta.

--Boris

[William Terrell]

Cockroaches. The AIDS virus. Janet Reno. Al Sharpton.

Cockroaches are too benign to be in that list.

[Dallas]

If you'd care to research this from the religious realm.

I'd suggest the debate between Calvinism, and Arminianism in regards to pre-destination, and the 5 points of Calvinism.

It might help you decide to what degree man is, or is not a moral free agent...

[cmsgop]

Isn't that the Coolest Microphone you have ever seen...

[Savage Beast]

Here's a quote I like, Pro:

“Some people are born knowing, and some people will die searching.”

--Antonio Banderas

Inside the Actors’ Studio. Bravo Television Network, Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc., Cablevision Systems Corporation, August 2001.

[hole_n_one]

To this day, Dick Clark can still be seen with the bulky model that's hung around the neck.

[Old Professer]

EXACTLY!!!

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I read everything and anything until I wear out my eyesight and my wife's patience and I lately have noticed that there are but two types of people posting here: Those who will believe in spite of evidence and those who believe that belief itself is suspect.

What about those of us who believe the evidence??

The Garden Tomb
November 3, A.D.2002 and STILL EMPTY....

I mean, you mentioned those who believe in spite of the evidence, and those who question the validity of Belief itself...

But what about those of us who simply believe the evidentiary facts of History? Not a Faith in an unprovable Easter Bunny, not a Faith in "having faith"... just a Faith that the evidentiary Facts of History are true??

Why aren't we included?? Don't our views count?

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Re: #16 -- Hah!! Good answer.

I always enjoy your posts, Terrell.

[Old Professer]

Perhaps I should have asked if God is within us or without us.

[tangerine]

Mostly God is where we are not.

[Judith Anne]

I don't know about the God gene, but I do know that there is in me no desire that does not have a possible real fulfillment, no hunger that does not have a possible real food to satisfy it, no thirst that does not have a possible real drink....

Do you miss goodness, when in the presence of evil? Do you yearn for justice? Have you ever felt you were in the presence of holiness?

When I hungered and thirsted for righteousness--simple goodness, honest justice, vibrant peace--there was an answer for me and it was the presence of God. I was starving and He is suddenly There. I honestly hope this doesn't sound goofy to you, but God is as real to me as this keyboard and screen -- more so.

And I learned that my hunger and thirst for Him was His way of calling me...you too, maybe...