Fred

What about religous statues that pre date scripture ?

Dargo

I guess Islam, Scientology, the Bahai Faith, Quakers, Hare Krishnas, and Jehovah's Witnesses must all be true since none of them are "isms."

Tarnaak

bwa hahahaah Go Badfish Go!!!

Conchobar

Part I - Why do people need to believe?

The hypothesis that theism and/or religion were a Darwinian
survival trait or survival advantage has much merit. I am an
Atheist. But I know that worldwide I am only 20% of the
world's population and only 5% over there in America. That must mean something. In centuries past, such as the Middle Ages, Atheism was extremely rare as far as
we know. Religion pervaded society.

I have postulated before, that religion is brain based. It occurs
only in those humans whose brains are hard wired to process
religious concepts unquestioningly. Atheists by contrast have
circuits that reject religious concepts and magical thinking. We
are incapable of believing in gods or invisible pink unicorns
because of our brain structure as well as early programming
perhaps. We now know that our brain structure is 95%
determined by genetic codes in the Human Genome, while about
5% may be experience or programming altered synaptic
connections. Therefore, a nucleotide code ultimately determines
whether you or I will be likely believers or resistant sceptics.

Why would greater than 80% of all humans have such a gene?
As a Neo-Darwinian molecular geneticist and neuroscientist, the
answer seems obvious. The "religion gene" must have given the
ancestors of modern humans a survival advantage. Early humans
who possessed the genes survived while most of those who
didn't possess it perished or failed to pass on the "sceptical
gene". What advantages did the gene confer?

First we must look at religion and religious behaviour. Religion
today provides a worldview, but it is also a restrictive and
exclusive worldview. It sets those with the same view apart from
others. This gives the group an identity, and makes others who
differ, unwelcome if not dangerous. We have seen that religion is
associated with suspicion of others, and quite often homicidal
violence against "wrong believers". Each group creates its gods.
The group members fear and hate those who reject their gods
and vice versa. Religion is associated with hyper sexuality (even
hyper homosexuality) that usually results in higher birthrates.

OK, so we have some early humans who have their own
protective gods. They are militant and aggressive toward
unbeliever tribes. They have strong group identity. The identity is
as much kinship as religious. Even tribe members who are kin
are banished or killed for heresy and unbelief. Religion is almost
always a mind control system as well. That imposes discipline.
Underlings follow orders from the shaman or the god appointed
chieftain.

So, a religious tribe has identity, discipline, aggressiveness,
prolific reproduction, paranoid fear and hatred toward those
who are different in belief, a tendency to violence, and may be
easily propelled toward attacking an unbeliever tribe by a
shaman or a chieftain who also covets the extra land and female
slaves taken in a war.

Suppose the tribe nearby is unreligious or weakly religious.
Those people would be like modern atheists. They would be
argumentative, resistant to orders (i.e. undisciplined),
uninterested in risking their lives for hypothetical gods. They
sadly would be under-prolific with fewer children and eventually
fewer warriors.

So in a war between the two tribes, who would triumph?
Obviously the disciplined, more aggressive, mutually supportive,
paranoid, violence prone, warriors who believe the gods protect
them would win. The result would be that the genes of the
religious tribe would be passed down. The sceptical tribe's
sceptic gene would be exterminated or nearly so.

The gene that programs for religious belief essentially programs a
set of behaviours not just belief in gods. The gene's effect in
programming the limbic lobe of the brain produced all of the
behaviours that we see today in religion: intolerance, hate,
discipline, submission to leaders, willingness to risk life and limb for tribe's god (promising Heaven or Valhalla), gullibility (which makes them pawns of their chief and shaman), and hyper sexuality.

In patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, Marcel Mesulam has
noted traits of hyper sexuality, violence, seeing/hearing god or
gods, and hyper religiosity. The two behaviours are very closely
linked anatomically in the limbic/temporal circuits, perhaps the
same circuits. Observations of religious charismatic experiences
have shown autonomic phenomena similar to sexual orgasm,
(pelvic thrusting movements, penile erections in males,
submissive sexual postures and flushing in women Pentecostal
ecstatic states.)

It is apparent that this gene and its resultant brain hard wiring
produced people with the above behavioural tendencies.
Anyone who has attended a meeting of the British Humanist
Association or a meeting of Evolutionary Psychologists is
immediately impressed by the fact that they are all arguing with
each other, can' t agree on a common statement of policy, and
are as difficult to organise as herding cats. Applying such
behaviour to early humans would show that they are at a great
disadvantage in a conflict with a hyper religious group or tribe.

Therefore, humans with the religion gene passed it on along with
its constellation of behaviours. It was a survival advantage
because it facilitated the development of disciplined groups of
aggressive, violent, paranoid, relatively fearless of death, gullible
followers of leaders, which was a successful formula.

Those with the more recessive sceptical genetic codes have only
prospered in modern times with Enlightenment influenced
constitutions. Yet, even then they remain a minority in all but a
handful of West European and East Asian countries. And
perhaps the smaller minority of sceptical gene carriers have been
allowed to survive in very religious countries like the USA is
because we are useful to the society in providing nearly all of
their scientists, physicians, psychologists, and inventers. In those
professions the sceptical gene provides an adaptive advantage that religious gene carriers lack.

Conchobar (see part II for choice or decide to believe.)

Conchobar

The major factor in religion is fear. It is fear of many things but paramount is the fear of death. When evolving humans first contemplated the fact of death. Death scared them. Suppose it was permanent. Ouch! How dreadful. There must be an alternative.

When loved ones died, they exhaled a "dying breath". Air, and breath were known to be essential for life. Dead people didn't breathe. So the final gasp of air out of the body was felt to be a spirit. Ahh! A spirit. Therefore, there is a spirit that survives death, eh? This led to animism and ancestor worship, and fear of dead spirits (Halloween.)

Believe in an afterlife was more common than not in all ancient religions. It wavered some in Jews. Part of the success of Christianity was the myth of Jesus Christ. It wasn't so important if he were a god or a tomato, but that he lived, died, and resurrected, triumphing over death.

The invention of God was two fold. One was to explain mysteries of the natural world by having a God do it all by magic. The other was an immortal eternal God who would be powerful enough to confer immortality on us pitiful primates sitting around fearing death and annihilation.

This is a major reason for Christians and Muslims hating we non-believers so energetically as to kill us and torture us over the past 1400 to 1700 years. We question their god and their immortality. And that scares the shite out of them. Then we argue and make them think. Thinking is the most dangerous spectre for dogmatic religionists. Thinking and analysis makes them examine the myth and superstition. If one looks too hard at the myth it is mentally chaotic rubbish. The superstition looks like insanity. So the believers fear those of us who would make them think and see the truth. This fear leads to hatred of those who would threaten their cherished immortality however delusional it may be. Hatred leads to 1700 years of persecution.

Conchobar

Treacle Worshipper

I asked them about Islam, and they said "Mohamedanism". Guess anything can be justified if you're desperately enough.
~shrug~

TW

BioBeing

fatherphil - so as not to derail this thread, I have issue with this statement over here in S&S. Would you do me the honor of reading it? Thanks.

Darwin26

Thank you Conchobar, not sure where you are??? but for sure your explanation is now in my SAVED Documents!

i'm sure that it's my REPTILIAN gene that loves MY wonderful Erection...not some gawd-awful sheep/flock mental tab... i wonder if a hardon is different for the religious perhaps Badfish or FatherPhil can erect an explantion...

Conchobar your explanation is a perfect template for the Xian Reich organizing and building up steam in America...sometimes they are called Republicans or Neo Cons... which fits right in with the gene you discribed *controlling, intolerant, grandiose, fearful, propagation oriented, PROPAGANDA ORIENTED, did i mention controlling...

The gene would explain why Sec of Justice was fearful of seeing an exposed breast on a statue....

What you speak of is of Huge Concern ...i don't think we can take lightly the need and desire of Xians to use all their powers to subdue US immoral non Believers; For instance the Patriot Act is purely a legitimizing of how the hardwired sheep and Shamen coherse and subjugate the FREE THINKING BRIGHTS .

The big question is: Can the *HARDWIRED* Trigger happy self-righteous be RE-gened or perhaps removed ... ectomized! Cleansed of their need to Subjugate, Shown the Light of Tolerance, Science and paintings of The Last Orgy... (multiply my little sheep go unto all poor nations and brain wash them...i'm coming back and i will be pissed...)
i feel bad i used the *cleansed* word perhaps i should have said BAPTIZED with an Open Mind.


Would they become just homogenous piles of ecto-plasm ...because it's only this *Hardwired* religiosity that holds them together?

i soooooo agree that their take on death is endemic. And this mindless need for an ETERNAL INSURANCE policy is the basis of their mal-content... And it's all about who has the best Eternal Policy...

Policy and politics of the Xian Reich, (all Fundies) should be rejected by everyone...

Being RATIONAL is not a sin

Tarnaak

Conchobar
Did you make that up or do you have scientificism proof for your statement?

edited for spelling

Bumble Bee Tuna

Badfish has already admitted that he doesn't have any rational reasons for picking Christianity over the other religions. Not sure there's really anything left to badger him about...
...Apparently, he doesn't have any problems with being irrational and illogical. You really can't go any further in a debate than showing the inconsistencies of the other side and having the other side acknowledge them.

-B