Psychic

Oh man first of all, don't take it seriously! I am not pessed off or something, I am only kidding with you guys.
thanks for your suggetion man, but I only want what is happening now! the original goal for this thread is to see how many evolutionist are aware of the psychological impact of the facts they try to convince people with, and also of course to get some useful ideas from their posts. so your posts are of no annoyance to my plans, I was just shocked and stuff.
answering your question, would have been done by now, but I am specificly talking only about psychological aspects.

exactly a live example of what I am talking about! this guys has just revealed to me a totally new aspect of the problem of the creationist! I know it may sound like common sense that people don't know much about science, but i would argue that few people would admit their lack of knowledge as such without trying to pull all kinds games, not to admit this. pull all kinds games IF it actually reachs his/her cortex "you should read more"

also agreed.

many thanks to you man.

Albion

And a very merry Christmas to you too. Good grief.

Arthwollipot

In my experience, many creationists have an incomplete or flawed understanding about what evolution actually says. They cling to their misunderstanding with the same tenacity that they cling to their belief in the Bible. It is the same application of faith.

It seems to me that this faith is immensely comforting to them. Throwing it out is like throwing out all certainty about the world and their place in it. Ironically, it would take a great leap of faith to do this, and most people just aren't willing to do it.

If it could be shown that they can have the same certainty in a world without God, I think that many of them would start looking at the evidence in a different light.

Fiach

I. Basically, fundamentalism is an inability to accept complexity. People who tend toward fundamentalism have a particularly weak ego that cannot sustain any difference, any challenges to its own identity, since any affront to their established beliefs is capable of destroying their ego. Therefore they must bind themselves together under a strict ideology--insisting that all people in their group must share the same opinion with them on all matters.

On the other hand, those with a strong mind usually drift apart from one another, form their own opinion on most matters in accordance to their own experiences, and change as they see fit. They are willing to pick and choose what is good for them from a variety of ideas, without relying on any universal authority to legitimize their viewpoint. These characteristics are what thinkers and creationists are made of.

II. The defined the principles of Darwinian Natural Selection in Evolution as well as the Creationist (Christian Fundamentalist) positions are quite well known. The study of evolution does not address God in any way. It deals with biological mechanisms to explain the fact that new species have appeared while others have disappeared repeatedly over the last 2 ½ billion years. Acceptance of the fact of evolution in no way prohibits one from also believing in a God or creator. Likewise the acceptance of the spherical Earth, the Solar System, gravity, and plate tectonics does not prohibit God belief or Theism. The Pope, an unchallenged theist, allows Catholics to accept the fact of evolution.

There is a point of conflict between traditional Christianity and the fact of evolution. Evolution shows that humans evolved gradually over some 3 million years. There was no Adam and Eve. Without Adam and Eve there was no Original Sin, no fall of mankind. Without the fall of mankind there was no need for a redeemer. God had no need to father a human offspring to be a blood sacrifice for a sin that never occurred. It follows that there was no crucifixion of Jesus, and no resurrection. There would be no salvation or need for salvation. While I concede that evolution is compatible with theism in a very generic sense (a creator-designer god), it may be incompatible with traditional Christianity. To accept the mass of compelling evidence proving evolution may threaten traditional Christians by making their core belief system illogical and irrelevant. This is perhaps the real reason for their angry opposition to modern biological and geological discoveries, like evolution and continental drift.

III. Here is the most compelling reason for fundies to reject evolution, the DELUSION OF IMMORTALITY. I definitely think that the soul hypothesis belongs here because as I will try to posit, it leads to the invention of god(s) and the delusion of immortality.

Primitive mankind as he/she began to think more and more, and observe the world around them, they had curiosity about how things worked. We still have that curiosity. They wanted to know how springs bubbled up, rivers flowed, volcanoes erupted, rain fell, and the Sun appeared to move across the sky. They wanted to know how we flexed and extended our hands, how we thought and talked.

Since they had no knowledge of chemistry, electricity, electrochemical circuits, they could not rely on a science thousands of years in the future.

They knew that "something" made the spring bubble, and the fingers flex. Something made us think, and when we dreamed, that something could even travel to other places and times. They felt that this something was independent in its action. You could not order it to do this or that. It did what "It wanted." They assumed it was conscious. They called these somethings, spirits (souls).

Spirits moved the springs to gush water. Spirits moved the clouds and made them rain. Obviously a spirit in our body made our arms move, our fingers flex, our legs walk. This spirit's consciousness must also be our consciousness. When we sleep, it can escape our bodies and go elsewhere. This spirit was responsible for all that we do, including thinking. When it permanently leaves our body that is death.

Now we know that all of the above can be explained on purely natural mechanisms. We know the pathways of consciousness in the brain. We know our on-off switch is the Ascending Reticular Activating System, which activates the diencephalon and the septal nuclei to make us alert and aware. Connections to the temporo-limbic lobe convey our emotions/affect, to primary sensory areas (visual, auditory, tactile) for perception, to association areas for identification and processing of those perceptions, to the pre-motor cortex to plan complex movements then to the motor cortex to activate the necessary muscles. Spect MRI has mapped though patterns, speech patterns, and even emotional and mystical experiences in the brain. There is no work left over for the soul.

How is this connected to god? Over time, mankind noted that spirits were in trees, rivers, springs, clouds, animals, and even rocks. But we are also lumpers more than splitters. Mankind began to merge the many spirits into groups of greater spirits or gods. Akenaten of Egypt who merged them all into one God, Aten the Sun God reached the apex of the trend. Moses likely was influenced by Akenaten's heresy. He merged all of the male and female Hebrew Gods into one JHWH (Yahweh, or Joe Hovah). Older Jewish manuscripts document the last stages of polytheism, with the plural Elohim.

So the soul, which has essentially lost all meaning in human behaviour, is essential for two reasons. It is part of the complex reasoning (using the term loosely) in creating God. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly is our delusional hope for immortality. We all want to live forever, but we know the body dies. So we can only be immortal if we have that ethereal something in us that outlasts the "mortal body."

This is why humans cling so tenaciously to the soul concept, immortality. And this leads to God and the Bible being defended so savagely from criticism. It contains all of the excuses for believing in spirits, souls, god, and immortality. Some Atheistic gomeral trying to destroy your immortality is the greatest possible threat.

Magical Creation ->Adam ->Original Sin -> inherited guilt/sin ->need for redeemer -> God's son as human hybrid for sacrifice -> Jesus' death and resurrection -> justification of immortality.

Fiach

mike_decock

Have you read The Origin Of Counsciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes? He has a completely different take on the process of how we came to believe in Gods and souls.

-Mike...

Selsaral

I am not sure it is 'completely different', although it's been a while since I read the book and most of it was over my head at the time anyways. I felt Jayne's inner voice/bicameral mind theory worked in conjuction with the standard anthropological explanation which Fiach essentially presented. Could you please elaborate?

mike_decock

I guess that the fundamental difference Jaynes' theory posed is that the belief in immortality preceded subjective concsiousness, self-awareness and inquisitiveness.

The hallucinated voices in the bicameral mind were the voices of the leaders. Even after those leaders had died, the voices would continue to be hallucinated from beyond the grave, so to speak.

As consciousness evolved and the bicameral mind with it's voices went away, mankind was left with a quest for authority which evolved into the typical God-beliefs.

That's my understanding of the theory, anyway.

-Mike...

Selsaral

Thanks Mike.

Psychic

Fiach, Arthwollipot, your contributions are very appreciated, thank you.

Mike, do you know anywhere on the web where i can find that book, or any informative material on the subject?

Fiach

Fiach