scombrid

I want to make sure that you don’t miss this:
Read the Old Testament. The goat herders that wrote the book lived just like your Alpha groups that you say contradict my analogy of wild animal behavior to modern human behavior. Remember all that stuff about killing the men and taking their virgins. I say we’ve managed to become less like animals here lately.

Here are a few sources on kin selection and human behavioral evolution. If I have time later I’ll dig around and see if I can find any of these publicly available.

Kin Selection:

Arnold, K.E., and I.P.F. Owens, 1999. Cooperative breeding in birds: the role of ecology. Behavioral Ecology. 10:465-471.

This one discusses the roll of resource availability and family structure. It’s
been awhile since I read this paper but IIRC they concluded that resource
limitation tends to enhance family cohesion in some song bird. They stick
together when new territories aren’t open to the young. The young are better off helping raise siblings (50% related) since new territories are available to
raise their own kids.

Anderson, M. 1984. The evolution of eusociality. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics 15:165-189.

Dawkins, R. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, New York.

Especially read the chapters on kin selection and evolutionarily stable
strategies.

Emlen, S.T., 1982. The evolution of helping: an ecological constraints model.
American Naturalist 119:29-39.

This is another that discusses the role of resource availability in family
groups sticking together.

Emlen, S.T., 1991. Evolution of cooperative breeding in birds and mammals. 301-
305 in: Krebs, J.R. Davies (eds.). Behavioral Ecology. An Evolutionary Approach. 3rd. Edition. Blackwell, Oxford.

Trivers, R.L. 1971. The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology
46:35-57.

Keller, L. and H.K. Reeve. 1994. Partitioning of reproduction in animal societies.
Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9:98-102.

Sherman, P.W., et. al. 1995. The eusociality continuum. Behavioral Ecology 6:102-108.

Human stuff:

Books:

Diamond, J. 1997. Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies. Norton, New York.

Sulloway, F.J. 1996. Born to rebel: birth order, family dynamics, and creative lives. Vintage books, New York.

Articles:

Sohn, E. 2002. The gene that wouldn’t sit still. US New & World Report, 19 Aug
2002, pp50-51.

Not really a good journal but a cool article hypothesis on why some humans seem to roam and why ADD is more prevalent in the new world. I don’t totally agree but it’s a cool article none the less.

Kluger, J. 1996. Females in charge. The sex lives of apes raise provocative
questions for humans. Time 14, October 1996, p80.

Emlen, S.T. 1995. An evolutionary theory of the family. Proceeding of the National
Academy of Sciences USA 92:8092-8099.

Davis, J.N. and M. Daly. 1997. Evolutionary theory and the human family.
Quarterly Review of Biology 72:407-

Caspi, A. et. al. 2002. role of genotype in the cycle of violence in maltreated
children. Science 297:851-854

Nature v. Nurture again. Apparently there is some of both in determining whether kids are evil.

Seraphim

by avalanche:ix

1. you call my views narrow because they conflict with yours. this is a typical human response when it involves hard held beliefs and presuppositions, but doesn't really invoke the reality of the situation.

My reply : That because you didn't get my whole picture and made your own assumptions which totally missed the point. ASK if you don't understand ... that is a proper "human" response (sarcasm here IF you can find it) involving discussions.

2. a narrow view is not by definition illogical, nor is a person who holds narrow views by definition illogical. logic itself is pretty narrow in fact. accepting certain logical outcomes, means you'll have to discard those that conflict with it, if their logical structure can be shown to be false. this may be perceived by you as narrow or illogical thinking, but in reality it's neither.

My reply : ONLY as narrow as the person who is bothering to think about it ...
I follow the same structural logic of that Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (IF you got problem with fictional characters, just remember ... you're reading books on logics wrote by people whom you most likely never met).

Discard ALL other possiblities and the one which left, no matter how odd it maybe, is the answer.
In order to get the most logical possibilities, you must first analyse each and every possible outcome and eliminate what does fit the end result (in this case it is the behaviour pattern between humans and animals, or in some argument, existence of God). The one possibility which most likely bring to the same conclusion as you have at hand is the true one.

and you're obviously blatantly wrong as displayed for one by the dozens of people on this forum who don't believe in an afterlife, and yet participate in things like charity or a an actual personal offer of help to others in ways that does not benefit them directly.

you can't possibly be naieve enough to believe what you just said, if you do, then it's you with the narrow view and the illogical conclusions.

My reply : hmph ... this is why I called you "baaka" (refers to your level of intelligence).
Have we met? Have I seen ANY of you before? Have I seen you donate anything? The answer is NO, yet you use example of members of this forum who donates to others.

OFCOURSE they would . there IS NO afterlife, does that bother them? no, because they're indoctrinated and will believe it regardless of how often it's proved false. and furthermore, do you honestly believe their conflict to be one of purely religion? while religion plays a massive role in such conflicts, culture also plays an important rule, and also cause for much hostility, i would think this to be obvious.

My reply : Shows uncertainty. You said Of Course (as if you are sure they will fight even if they knows there is no afterlife) YET you use the word "they would" which means you are indeed not sure.

But there is a certain logic to your answer. You assume that they behave like everyone else. Guess what ... they don't behave like other people. Muslims are more close-minded than Christians and people who are more closed within attend to be more offensive than those who are less. Muslims will blow up this world along with everyone else before an Atheists world will exists which will undermine their "God".

i just do that because i have a neurological defect. these other people here don't.

My reply : O_o ... reason/excuse for premarital sex is neurological defect???
That's a new one ... mind explaining about this defect?

well, you ARE the theist here, aren't you?

i rest my case.

My reply : Yes, I'm theist here ... but I'm not out to change the world ...

You're an atheist ... so why are you behaving like a theists (like you described) and try to make a new world?
Christians out to make a Christian world, Muslims out to make Muslim world and Atheists out to make Atheist world ... frankly speaking, I don't see any difference between the three of you except when comes to acceptance of God.

Don't condemn theists for being narrow-minded ... you are much closer to them than you think.

Seraphim

by scombrid

You missed or ignored the part where I stated that these are not conscious decisions on the part of the animals but are genetically programmed behaviors. I never said that wild dogs had behaviors as complex as ours either. That’s irrelevant.

My reply : I didn't miss anything, I wanted to make sure you got that statement you wrote above correct. Now ponder this :

You said animals don't ponder anything because their genetics like that YET Humans do because humans developed complex thoughts.

Question no.1 - Does that make dogs suitable as a role model (or anything) to based human behavior upon? I don't think so.

Question no.2 - If dogs do not have complex thoughts as humans do, then they are not as intelligent as humans. IF they are not as intelligent as humans, then why should they be used as study case for anything related to humans?

Did you miss me writing this? This may occur [/u]3. when siblings become large enough that they take up too many resources or often comes when they reach reproductive age and will not be able to breed unless they get away from the dominant breeders in the group [/u]. Note that these decisions are not conscious decisions but are behaviors selected over time by bestowing greater reproductive success on their possessors.

My reply : We have two different type of animals - Hervibores and carnivores (there's a third - one where the creatures eat both meat and plant, forgot the name).
Both this types follow closely to each other and their survival depends on each other. Hervibores strive by condition of the land, and carnivores strive by condition of their preys.

Herbivores move when climate changed and returns to the same place years after years, carnivores follow their migration and again returns to the same spot again and again year after year. They do not venture across the globe, destroying flora and fauna and establish new colonies like humans do.

No offence, but I don't see where this "concept" of yours about animals moving out of their parent clans to establish themselves had anything to do with humans. And you may say that humans also migrated according to change in weather, the answer is NO. Only part of a colony moved to another location, another part stay in the same place, established colony and stays for generations. ANIMALS DON'T DO THAT.

Leopards hunt efficiently as solitary animals. Males leave because they can’t reproduce under the dominant male so it doesn’t pay to stick around. It only pays to stick around so long as maximizing benefit to your genes while you stay.

My reply : Correction - males stay to a certain age ONLY. In leapords, its two years period where it learn as much it can learn from others. IT doesn't stay in that group for years till some Alpha kicks it out. You are mistaken a leapord for a human living their parent's house.

Oversimplifying things a bit aren’t you. That doesn’t apply across the board. Look up mere cats.

My reply : Overkill the topics is not my style. What you been trying to apply don't seems to work because there is no link between humans and animals. Humans strived because of their intelligent made them special, animals strive because their survival instincts (called it emotions if you wants).

I did link it with human behavior later on. There are human societies where dominants get first crack and others get screwed regularly. It has been documented in dogs where subordinate males have made a kill without more dominant members present but have called in the rest of the pack when it would have been easy to get it’s fill first. Also, what about adolescent members puking up meals for their younger siblings? This occurs until the younger demand more food than their older siblings can supply. Surely the older siblings should just hog what they get under your ultra-simple system of “survival of the mostest strongest fittest”

My reply : You either don't know much about animal world or you are trying to hard to stick something where it doesn't fit.

The very fact that you agreed that subordinate members had to call the dominant ones to eat first shows my point that subordinates one are just simple members in that society and special privalieges don't exists for them - which includes mating.

And species like dogs and hyenas do not suckle (breastfeed) others of its own offspring. This is documented as well in National Geography. Do you know why? Simple, their milk is consider the most highly nutritional one of all species on the African plains (according to the scientists who actually did all the calculations etc) and for sake of survival, it preserves the milk for only its young. Also since food supply in form of meat get stolen easily, the mothers of raising youngling will eat it first and convert it into milk which no one could still.

Species such as leapords do suck other younglings (without caring whether the younglings are its siblings or not) because their milk is lower quality and the more quantity an offspring get, the higher the chance for its survival especially in early generations.

Some bird species like Penguins swallow their food because they cannot carry each fish back to their youngling one by one and also it is easier to carry inside their body then in the beak. When they return back to the youngling, they puke the already pre-digested food which the younglings could eat easily.

All this is simple tactics for survival in the wild. I don't see how it is related to humans in any way.

HMPH back at you. You didn’t study up on kin selection did you? If you are ill equipped to rear young alone, it pays to stick around and help rear relatives. Each of your brothers and sisters contains fifty percent of your genes. They are just about as valuable as your own children would be. You leave when the burden of siblings outweighs the benefits of raising your own kids. This obviously doesn’t apply to cats that do quite well alone. I’ll also note that your third link supports my position;
. Instead, we demonstrate direct, though long-delayed benefits to beta males, which include rare copulations, ascension to alpha status, and female lek-fidelity. These benefits maintain this unusual form of male-male cooperation.

My reply : Kin selection works to a certain degree and certain species ONLY. It can work with large hervivores and small animals which depends on survival and cooperations which the society, but that is just about it. Refer to my early post about simple tactics to survive.

Hmmm. It seems that the beta males have a vested interest besides simply being afraid of the strongest males. I might also note that in most human societies, “the entire male population” doesn’t breed either. Hmmm, now what about adolescent boys where the dorks are compelled to hang out with the cool kids? They basically lick the cool kid’s boots to remain in the group. You get more girls when you’re in the cool group even if the dominant group members get first crack at the hotties.

My reply : You applying this load of crap to your own society, is it? Maybe in the West, a person have to stick low enough to lick someone else's boots to poke a bitch which a few dozen already poked, but in the East it is different case.

First of all, ladies in the East (especially young ones) are not bitches (but increase of freemixing begin to change that). Their first insight of how a male should behave comes from within their own families. Females will judge other males by standards set upon by their father and their siblings and better or worse is something they judge based on their own opinions later on.

A guy who licks another person's boots to get crack at them as much change of scoring anything with Asian women (who comes from a decent family background) as a snowball's chance in hell.

And more so, Eastern societies still practise "Arrange Marriages" (Yes, even in Japan - most advance country in the East), such marriage still exists where it is the parents who interviews a candidate and their family and after checking all the background etc, introduce the couple where they will decide whether to marry or not. The whole culture has nothing to do about scoring with anyone.

Animals will migrate to a new area and settle if the habitat will support them. Coyotes have expanded their range all the way to the east coast as the US expanded and their competitor the wolf was eliminated and land clearing created more favorable open habitat. Some birds have successfully expanded their ranges as human activities have altered habitat. Ospreys have re-expanded their range as their population rebounds in the post DDT era and day markers provide excellent nest sites. Bears keep showing up in cities adjacent to the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge as the population reaches saturation and young break out looking for new habitat. This type of range expansion predates modern man’s meddling. The fossil record tracks the movement of the big cats from old world to new over time.
For man, resources on a local scale were likely limiting as well. That’s why there were hunter/gatherer nomadic groups. You can only kill so many animals or pick so many berries in one spot. Plentiful resources were in the form of room to roam. How is this different from animals following the season? There is no reason that conflicts over local resources didn’t drive human clans to splinter periodically.

My reply : Your statements about animals species maybe correct (considering that you are more talking about it and less about showing any links or evidence) but your assumptions on humans are very off the track.

IF humans behaved like animals which follow the nomadic hunter-gatherer ways, humanity could have stopped in a certain place and make habitats, establish farming community and thus civilisation. It could have be easier for them to roam the world because [I qoute your statement here ] "You can only kill so many animals or pick so many berries in one spot. "

You said an animal will migrate and settle in an area IF the habitat could support them. Guess what ... this alone shows that humans weren't animals. Mass extinction of flora and fauna is reported WHEREVER humans settled down showing that humans didn't rely on the habitat for their survival but shape it according to their needs.
In Discovery channel's "Eve : Journey of Man", it is said that the Megabeast of Australia had went extincted in just 10,000 years after arrival of Man to the lsland after living for milions of years.

NO ANIMAL have such track record ... or if you think I'm mistaken, please enlighten me.

Leopards aren’t really that social of an animal and do well enough alone once they’re old enough to do so. Inbreeding depression probably selected against any groups the never lose members to other groups or receive unrelated members.

My reply : I never heard about Inbreed depression or anything like that in the animal world before, may I ask for some links or something before accepting your statement?

Read the Old Testament. The goat herders that wrote the book lived just like your Alpha groups that you say contradict my analogy of wild animal behavior to modern human behavior. Remember all that stuff about killing the men and taking their virgins.

My reply : Old Testament? Mind telling me why I should behave like an animal when I can find better role models in Asian's literatures? And mind telling me as well that if someone behaved like an animal and wrote a book about it, it is logical to assume it is a proper book to follow and follow it? That is not logic, that is stupidity in your part.

That advanced intelligence is missing from the picture is why animal behavior is nice to study. It is base and instinctual. Cultural evolution has muddled basic inherited behavior but patterns are still there. I’ll post a list of resources for this area of study.

My reply : I don't even see where the basic part of the animal trend here. As I stated before, humans' behavior was a bit odd to begin with. Animals follow changes in the environment, live with the nature and strive not to change anything, the very migration of humans alone shows that humans didn't follow the animal's trends.

This is crap. The days when Americans behaved more like animals were in the days of slavery and segregation and the days predating women’s suffrage. We’ve actually improved. Ignorance is a huge problem these days though.

My reply : Same ignorance existed then, same now. In those days, ignorance and arogance appeared because of religion (Christianity), now it appears because of Science and Technology. Americans (hell ... the whole freaking Western society) assumed that if you educate a person with science, it is enough for him or her to live a proper life.

Your society which is indeed advance in science is full with premarital sexual activities to the extend it is not a wrong thing anymore but something of natural (MY FOOT!), porns which corrupts young people's minds, lack of values such as family value etc and even your own government is embodiment of fear and paranoid where it is too busy been scared of its own shadows (after Pearl Harbour and 911).

No. It’s nice to help understand why people do what they do sometimes.

My reply : Fine, acceptable.

You never have answered why the irreligious in the West exhibit the lowest crime rates.

My reply : Cause I didn't understand the question. Are you asking why crime rate in the west is low? If that is the question, you could provide me with some statics which I can base my reply on.

I’ll finish this post by saying that without theism things won’t change much. Tribalism would just find another source of dogma to fight over.

My reply : I finish my post by agreeing with you. Nothing will change whether you are a Theist or an Atheist, because bottomline is you're a human (NOT an animal) and humans comes with various weaknesses (greed, lust, anger etc) which is the cause of most of its problems. Religions is only an excuse for humans to use to fight one another.

Fiach

Not paint, but I did perhaps eat too much haggis and as kid we gathered in a cave in the Cairngorm to puff a little happy weed.

Good to interact with you again. You are dodgy and cantankerous and often intolerably nasty. But I like you anyway, you barmy wanker.

Fiach

avalanche:ix

*you* don't get the big picture, that's why you're the theist. don't accuse others of your faults/



figures, an irrational theist who compares himself to holmes. rather ironic.




the problem is you haven't.



why do you think i'm an atheist? you think i just arbitrarily picked it out of thin air? think.



i do not care for your primitive linguistic insults. keep them to yourself.


let's see, you're arguing that because you haven't seen it happen, it therefore doesn't, and yet you believe in god and an afterlife. don't tell me you saw one of those.



what the fuck? no it doesn't! semantics.



i think it's the other way around.


then we'll just have to blow them up first.




not for premarital sex you dolt, nobody needs an excuse for that, that's just human nature.




you are a theist, therefore you alter the world in your perception to twist the facts to conform to your beliefs.


that's not exclusively theist behaviour, that's called *human* behaviour. you might want to think about it.



the difference is we don't massacre millions in the name of some imaginary deity. that and we accept the fucking facts of reality.




spoken like a true tin-foil hatter. if you can't figure out why i said that, don't bother asking.

scombrid

Did I say that dogs are a "role model". I’m not basing human behavior on dogs or any animal for that matter. Maybe it’s the language barrier but it’s absurd for you to state that I’ve said or even implied such. I drew analogies between simpler animals and humans because simple animals have behavior pattern uncorrupted by culture so it’s easier to see where natural selection would develop a set of behaviors.

Culture hasn’t muddled their base behaviors. It’s instructive as similar behaviors are evident in humans once you peel away the cultural noise.

I have extensive education in ecology. I don’t need you to attempt to educate me on the difference between herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores.

Beavers have spread throughout the North American continent after being hunted to very low numbers. By your model, they should just pile up in their original pond until it will no longer hold any more. Big cats migrated from the old world to the new along the same path as pre-historic humans. Animals do alter their environment they just haven’t developed the capacity to do so the extent that we have. Unless they stumble upon some means of passing accumulated knowledge down from one generation to the next they won’t develop our ability to alter the world. That’s irrelevant to the point.

That some behaviors are common across trophic status and intellect is instructive that the behaviors are genetically based and offer some survival advantage.

Yes they do. Many generations of beavers will remain in the original pond leaving a genetic lineage traceable for hundreds of years. Why then would they have managed to colonize so many new locations as the population grows? Some split of on their own while others stay. Humans do the same. Why do adolescent humans frequently rebel against parents? Might it be a common drive to split from the family unit? We often rebel against our genes by ignoring impulses. That’s where culture has muddled human animal behavior.

Coyotes have expanded their range all the way to the east coast as the US expanded and their competitor the wolf was eliminated and land clearing created more favorable open habitat. Some birds have successfully expanded their ranges as human activities have altered habitat. Ospreys have re-expanded their range as their population rebounds in the post DDT era and day markers provide excellent nest sites. Bears keep showing up in cities adjacent to the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge as the population reaches saturation and young break out looking for new habitat. This type of range expansion predates modern man’s meddling. The fossil record tracks the movement of the big cats from old world to new over time. In all of these cases, the original population remains in place while splinter groups colonize new land.


Two years is adolescence for leopards. That would be roughly the time when kids desire to get away from their parents. I’ll also add that leopard populations are so small that leopards have no genetic diversity and make poor study organisms. Given a large population occupying a larger range of habitats and exhibiting greater genetic diversity I wager that you’d see some variation on the age at which leopard split. Besides, leopards are mostly SOLITARY and not a valid organism for studying social habits that’s why I didn’t bring them up and I guess that’s why you did.

Human intelligence is just another trait, like having wings. It conveys a survival advantage but doesn’t remove the underlying behavior patterns.


Their society has rules enforced by other members of the group and not some deity just like humans. You know that there are animals where parents manipulate their offsprings’ reproductive choices and opportunities unless the offspring leave?

Huh? Slow down and write in a manner that people can understand. Humans don’t breast-feed others’ children either. Natural selection punished those who wasted milk on unrelated children. relevance?

Siblings are brothers and sisters not children. It is impossible for a child to suckle siblings. Again Relevance?

Pre-reproductive dogs regurgitate partially digested meat to young pack members that don’t hunt or feed on a kill but are too old to nurse. They even feed young that are only distantly related. This is an example of sharing within the group that isn’t dominance driven. Human behaviors are survival tactics as well.


Yeah, it generally only manifests in social species which range from hymenopterans to elephants. It applies to a much wider range of creatures than large herbivores and small animals. Short list: mere cats: small omnivores, African wild dogs: voracious carnivores, leaf cutter ants: fungivore.



It’s simply an analogy between observed animal behavior (seals with harems) and observed human behavior. Some humans are cognizant of their urges and resist such animalistic behavior but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s there.

I might also draw analogies between polygynous human societies and species in which one male controls many females. It’s a case of one dominant male trying to monopolize reproductive opportunities.

Sexual selection, so what? You have to judge the quality of prospective mates based on something.

So lower class or subordinate society members don’t have the same opportunity to breed with quality mates as dominant or alpha members.

The whole culture has nothing to do with “scoring” but everything to do with mating opportunities and selection of quality mates. Humans aren’t the only animal in which reproductive adults control the reproductive opportunities of their offspring.




Human biogeography and animal biogeography operate on the same premises. They spread into any place in which they’re capable of living. One groups lives in a spot until some form of competition (this competition may be a food shortage or may be competition for mates) drives out certain members. Those members either die when they fail to find a suitable place to live or they expand the range of the species as they colonize new habitats and probably displace existing residents. This is true for agrarian humans, hunter-gatherers, bears, horses, hawks, etc… The advent of agriculture just allows any given spot to hold a greater density of people. Modern colonialism was still driven by resource competition just as was likely for the spread of humans in pre-history. The original population remains in place. I shouldn’t have had to spell this out as you obviously selected the bit of my statement that fit your premise but ignored reality of human biogeography.

Beavers can live in rivers or existing lakes without building dams. However, they increase available habitat for themselves by building their own ponds. How about ants especially those neat leaf cutters that harvest fungus? Lots of animals alter habitats to suit their needs. Humans are just better at it.



Inbreeding depression presumably would reduce the fitness of animals that mate with close relatives. This selects for animals that have an aversion to mating with parents or siblings so we expect to see relatives avoid breeding with one another. Adolescents should vacate the family unit before breeding.

Modelling the Evolution of Female Choice Strategies under Inbreeding Conditions
AU: Reinhold, K
SO: Genetica [Genetica]. Vol. 116, no. 2-3, pp. 189-195. Nov 2002.

Inbreeding effects in wild populations
AU: Keller, LF; Waller, DM
SO: Trends in Ecology & Evolution [Trends Ecol. Evol.]. Vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 230-241. May 2002.




It’s stupidity on your part to think I was advocating the behavior in the OT or suggesting that man should follow the animal example. The OT presumably reflects the way of life in early modern man. I was drawing a parallel between the dogma held as sacred by a huge chunk of the human population and its resemblance to animal behavior.


Animals strive for nothing but a full belly and successful breeding. They do not “strive not to change anything” but fail to change anything as competition with other animals and abiotic conditions holds them in check. They alter there environments when need be as much as their abilities allow. Ever seen what happens to a marsh when the nutria population grows a little too fast? As before, human population and range expansion works just like animals. Humans just have a superior tool for moving into places that would be unsuitable. I don’t see the difference between my building a house and a muskrat building a den. With my greater intelligence I have a greater range of choices for shelter but the fact remains that we both have to build shelter to rear young as our local environment didn’t provide.


Those educated in science and logic do lead good lives as evidenced by their conspicuous absence from prisons. You see what you do over here because our population is largely ignorant in many areas. They benefit from science but don’t understand it. Most still believe in absurd superstition. Ask most kids over here to point out Malaysia on a map.


Sex is natural. We’re strongly driven to reproduce like all animals. We must suppress that drive until it’s culturally acceptable. Sex carries risks and I think those risks should be the basis for cultural norms that we see. People are largely ignorant of the risks and think that the risks are myths propagated by fundies. The fixation with sex in the west is likely a backlash against the unreasoned fundamentalism supported by the Christians. Our government uses fear and paranoia to promote its agenda among ignorant people, unfortunately one of those agendas is faith. Amercans are ridiculously credulous.


Somebody else already provided stats on the rate of imprisonment of irreligious in the US. I haven't much idea how the US as a whole compares to the rest of the world. We’ve got more crime in the US than the less religious Western European countries.

Finally. People behave like animals because they are animals. Where humans deviate from animals is in intelligence, communication, and the ability to understand the consequenses of behavior. Through understanding the results of our behavior we can resist our genes and modify our behavior to maximize our quality of life. It's plainly obvious that my body wants to breed but I haven't sired children yet. My male aggression is plainly obvious when I get angry as somebody flirts with my girlfriend.

LogicMage

Well first the number of hate-crimes and discrimination in the world would decrease sharply without the religious justification.

Second. Scientific achievments will grow by leaps and bounds without well-funded religious groups mounting campaigns to silence progress

Third. Students in school will recieve a better education, considering how much ahteists value education and intelligence.

victimless crimes will cease to exist

Fiach

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Primal
"The world is not 90 percent theist. China is an atheist state, Communist nations are as well(and they contain a sizeable portion of the world's population), Buddhists are atheists, as are some Taosists etc. Having the majority of China alone makes it impossible that theists compose 90 percent of the world's population. "

I doubt that the world is 90% theist, but more like 80%. The figures are skewed by several factors. You are right that China in Confusionism, Buddhism and old cultural religions could often be non-theists. Communism really didn't change much of that. China has 1.2 billion people and 1 billion are probably atheistic. There are millions of atheists in India who are culturally Hindus.

Europe the core area of Historical Christianity is now about 50% theistic at the most. That adds about 150 million to the Atheist ranks. Russia, not communist but educated by the Communists to rid the country of superstition, is only about 20% theist according to an article I read.

USA the most Christian nation in the world, has severe anti-atheist bigotry in the citizens. One poll indicated that 49% of Americans would not vote for an Atheist for public office based on the bigotry that atheists are not moral. America has 8% admitted Atheists but those are academics, some rich corporate types, doctors in large specialty groups. But most physicians claim membership in a church while a secret ballot indicates that as many as 90% are "closet" Atheists. Small businessmen, many lawyers also must "fake theism" to survive economically. About half of Americans would refuse to be treated by a known Atheistic physician. Yet most physicians are atheist in secret. So a majority of them and small businessmen pretend religion to avoid Christian boycotts like Nazis used against the Jews. They hate it but are obligated to follow their careers and feed their families. Many on retirement, come out, as Atheists. I suspect the real number of Atheists in the USA is closer to 30%.

Who knows how many atheists are hiding for their lives in very bigoted theist nations like the Taliban Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Egypt, Algeria where being discovered as an Atheist can lead to execution for blasphemy. I am certain that the brighter, more intelligent, rational people of Muslim countries are atheists as in the rest of the world but death is a strong incentive to fake it. Much of theism's real strength is its intolerance. This is manifested by threats to deprive the unbeliever of his/her career, business, profession, and perhaps his/her life.

Religion is not only a severe threat to mass violence but also to the deprivation of personal freedom. Democracy began in Netherlands and America by enlightenment thinkers who opposed traditional European theocracy. I suspect that many Christians regret not having crushed democracy in its infancy. Perhaps that is why the Muslims have learned that lesson. They ruthlessly crush disbelief/unbelief by crushiing democracy that gives them life.

Fiach

Mick911

Creationists vs. Athiests? I don't subscribe to either one. Who made who?
I will express an opinion- I think without some kind of moral benchmark, people would degenerate into animalistic behavior. Or they would create some kind of new morality........

Giorgia

I'm going to post a reply to the original question later on. Have to reply to you first, though:

Crime is NOT held in check NOW by people's fear of being caught! Statistics on the ineffectiveness of the death penalty bear this out. Crimes of passion always occur without thought of the consequences. As a matter of fact, I think a lot of criminals don't "find god" until they're in prison and "being saved" is a good way to work towards getting parole!

And, as a lot of crime is committed by poor drug addicts, once a country stopped spending huge amounts of money on the military and put some of that into drug-rehabilitation, street crime would definitely go down.