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OfflineMadtowntripper
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How Would You Explain Religion?
    #7878128 - 01/14/08 12:32 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

I am an agnostic, 100%. I'm not an atheist. I do not profess to KNOW there isn't a God, but I have not seen any proof of him/her/it/them to make me believe. I would be willing to believe in a God tomorrow if I was shown some proof.

Now, I consider myself a relatively intelligent person. But I also know alot of people who are leaps and bounds ahead of me in intelligence. Many, if not most, of these people believe in some sort of deity or another. How is this explainable? How to explain the fact that almost every single culture in human history, no matter how small or isolated, has had some type of religious experience? Doesn't this seem strange?

This has been a constant source of wonder to me. As I've said, I'm not religious at all, but I'm smart enough to understand that religion is one of the common threads of the human experience. Why? Could this be something physical? Do you believe that we're hard-wired for belief? Is there some area of our brain that makes us reach out for and believe in God? If so, what would be the reason for such an adaptation.

This is just something fundamentally puzzling to me. I would explain my agnosticism as being a matter of logic. I haven't seen any proof, or need, of a God, so why should I believe he exists. But why do people with infinitely more logical capacity than me not come to the same conclusion. Am I missing something, physically? This seems to be the constant refrain from religious folks, is that I must feel some great emptiness w/out religion in my life. But I don't at all! I don't *feel* like there is any void out there I need to fill w/ some irrational belief.

I just wanted to post this here to get the ideas of some of the other posters with a scientific bent. How do you explain the almost universal belief in religion? How do you explain your non-belief, if in fact you do not believe? Do you feel that you are lacking something that those who do believe have?

All responses are appreciated.


--------------------
After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus


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OfflinePhanTomCat
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7878342 - 01/14/08 01:25 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

Religion = Tradition....
Spirituality, you find and define for yourself....

Life is a search for answers....


>^;;^<


--------------------
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"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."

>^;;^<


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: PhanTomCat]
    #7878505 - 01/14/08 02:05 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

> I would be willing to believe in a God tomorrow if I was shown some proof.

Be careful what you ask for.

> How to explain the fact that almost every single culture in human history, no matter how small or isolated, has had some type of religious experience?

I think it is an artifact of self-awareness. Once we become aware of ourselves, we become aware of death. This leads to the question, "what happens when we die". Every culture experiences death and every culture has to answer the same question. Because nobody can know for certain, religion is born to provide an answer.


--------------------
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OfflineCepheus
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Seuss]
    #7878561 - 01/14/08 02:19 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

Good answer :smile:


--------------------
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:sun: "...and I know that I have to keep breathing, as tomorrow the sun will rise, who knows what the tide will bring?" :sun:

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InvisibleAnarleaf
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7878706 - 01/14/08 03:04 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

Mainly as a quick response as to why we are here. If there is no God then the reason as to why we are here, is merely to live and die.

Another reason might be is because most religions believe in a afterlife, not having a eternal paradise or a heaven is frightening to some. But there is several more reasons why people have faith...


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OfflineMadtowntripper
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Cepheus]
    #7878777 - 01/14/08 03:25 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

Quote:

Cepheus said:
Good answer :smile:




Indeed.

Count on Seuss to give a spot-on and intelligent answer.


--------------------
After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus


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Offlinethe man
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7878989 - 01/14/08 04:07 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

1. designed for social conscience. ie hell and why you go
2. a eureka moment a moment of joy ect. why that leads peopel to believe there is a god is very strange. but id have to say its unexplainable or out of teh ordinary adn stands out so gets filed under a religious experience. and religions make it easier for us to file it under such category
3. pure fear of no after life or no definable purpose. again religions make use of this.
4. used to describe any on known thing in teh past.

i think that religion has played a significant part in the evolution of man. thi sbeing said it has also hindered soem areas of science from as early as greek and roman times. one can not deny that for some gathering with people that will talk with you about yoru problems will give us a sense of belonging and can be good for our lives as we are social creature.which is a really good thing for people (ie AA) but i do not believe it needs to be accociated with a god.

i often wonder how the world woudl be if religion wasnt around. what would bring on the majority of wars? would that instantly make us more tolerant? the sad truth is likely not, we seem as humans always to find a way to segregate ourselves into a tribe one way or another. religion and gangs have some interesting commonalities in that respect.


--------------------
And Moses Said "Let my mushrooms grow!"


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Offlinekotik
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: the man]
    #7879019 - 01/14/08 04:12 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

I was an atheist/agnostic until recently, when I really put my mind to thinking about why I didn't believe, in scientific terms.

Then I read the Gita, and got thrown a curveball... If science is all there really is to resort to, how do you answer the question:

"Why is there something, rather than nothing?"

That one pushed me from agnostic to gnostic. lol. Even then, there is no need for religion. It's just another system people use as a crutch to maintain their grasp on their own little reality.


--------------------
No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7879051 - 01/14/08 04:20 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

Many, if not most, of these people believe in some sort of deity or another. How is this explainable?

I speculated on this a couple of years ago:

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/4530752#Post4530752

How to explain the fact that almost every single culture in human history, no matter how small or isolated, has had some type of religious experience?

We all share a common neurology. This explains the commonality of religion and the commonality of art, music, language, and so on.

Shared DNA == shared neuronal structures == shared experiences and behaviors but != God made us religious.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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OfflineMadtowntripper
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Diploid]
    #7879078 - 01/14/08 04:28 PM (16 years, 18 days ago)

And I see you did so more eloquently than me.

For the record, I generally agree with your thesis. It (religion) has got to be something hard-wired into us.


--------------------
After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7881544 - 01/15/08 02:10 AM (16 years, 18 days ago)

If you stimulate the brain in certain ways, people will get profound religious experiences. I can even point you somewhere: the temporal lobe is intimately related with religion. Temporal lobe epileptics tend to be deeply religious people.

Now before you reduce something to neurotransmitters and magnetic fields, ask yourself this one:

Why did evolution put a "religious center" into the human brain? Why is there a thing as the Religious Experience and not tucked away in the brain somewhere but in fact so prominent that 80% of all people consider themselves religious.

Why is there Religious Experience? It obviously is a dominant trait thats at least latent in all of us.

Is it an atavism? Were our pre-human ancestors far more religious than us? Not likely.

Evolution doesn't keep stuff in or creates it in the entire population, if it wasn't to some extent beneficial to the species.

So there you have it: whether its just laws of physics or whether there's a Prime Mover behind all of this - somehow the human brain needs the Religious Experience, enough to devote some brainspace to it. Hardwired RAM memory even, spliced into our DNA.

That you can stimulate it with electromagnetic patterns doesn't dispel the magic of why a sense of God is in there.


--------------------
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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Asante]
    #7881776 - 01/15/08 05:03 AM (16 years, 17 days ago)

I think you read things into the neurological basis of religion that are not necessary to explain it.

Neurological structures associated with religion evolved because they were beneficial to the survival of the species by way of bringing human societies closer together in a a shared belief system.

Fear of God sending us to hell curbs anti-social behavior like murder. That weaves a tighter community which in turn allows us physically feeble humans to cooperate and hunt much larger animals, and plant community crops, and provide for a common defence against predation.

It's simple evolution, not magic. And way down at the bottom, it IS all about electron orbitals and electric fields. No magic is required to explain it.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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InvisibleWhiskeyClone
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7882204 - 01/15/08 08:44 AM (16 years, 17 days ago)

Quote:

Now, I consider myself a relatively intelligent person.  But I also know alot of people who are leaps and bounds ahead of me in intelligence.  Many, if not most, of these people believe in some sort of deity or another.




Really?

Who?



I want to type up a full response to your post but I'll wait until I'm not at work :smile:


--------------------
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

:heartpump:


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OfflineMadtowntripper
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: WhiskeyClone]
    #7882539 - 01/15/08 10:24 AM (16 years, 17 days ago)

Quote:

WhiskeyClone said:
Quote:

Now, I consider myself a relatively intelligent person.  But I also know alot of people who are leaps and bounds ahead of me in intelligence.  Many, if not most, of these people believe in some sort of deity or another.




Really?

Who?



I want to type up a full response to your post but I'll wait until I'm not at work :smile:




I'm a geologist, and work with scientists every day.  Every member of the faculty here (UW) that I've mentioned religion to has professed belief.

And these are not stupid or ignorant people.  These are people quite comfortable talking about evolution, and billion year timescales, and mass extinction wiping out 98% of life.  All of which are opposed to a fundamentalist Christian point of view.

But I know many of them are christians, which leads me to believe that a belief in religion does not equate to a breakdown of logical thinking, even though in my case it would.

Its early, and this is a jumbled post.  But I don't care enough to revise it.

you get the picture.


--------------------
After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus


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InvisibleWhiskeyClone
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7882653 - 01/15/08 10:45 AM (16 years, 17 days ago)

Quote:

Madtowntripper said:

But I know many of them are christians, which leads me to believe that a belief in religion does not equate to a breakdown of logical thinking, even though in my case it would.





It seems to me that the divine nature of the "God" concept allows people to retain provisions in their logic to accomodate God.

If a person grew up with religion, every single thing they learned in school would be applied to their growing mental model of the universe, which has always included God. God came first, all of their scientific knowledge came after. I'm not sure what kind of scientific fact one would have to come across that would cause them to finally conclude there is no God after all. It would take a direct contradiction. Creationist beliefs probably couldn't survive serious scientific study, but the idea of God merely existing... why not?

Did you ever believe in God? Did these peers you speak of ever not believe in God, to your knowledge?

If they have always held the idea of God as a part of the universe, everything else they have learned would be fit into what they already "know".


--------------------
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

:heartpump:


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OfflineMadtowntripper
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: WhiskeyClone]
    #7882710 - 01/15/08 10:58 AM (16 years, 17 days ago)

I was raised in a religious household, yes.

My mother and father are both nominally Lutheran, although I don't think either one of them attends church very often, except for holidays. But our Lutheranism was always very relaxed. I remember our pastor giving sermons in a Chicago Bears jersey on occasion. Not at all like the rabid fundamentalism that I am deeply afraid of.

But I don't know that I ever really believed. I stopped going when I was 13 or 14, because it was obvious to me at that point that it was nonsense. But even before that, I can't find a time in my memory when I believed in god, no.

I am, however, very deeply interested in religious practices of all kinds. I think its the contrast that interests me. That for so many billions of people their religious practice is THE central theme in their life. This is very odd to me, and I want to know everything I can about it.


--------------------
After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus


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InvisibleWhiskeyClone
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7882886 - 01/15/08 11:23 AM (16 years, 17 days ago)

Quote:

Madtowntripper said:
I remember our pastor giving sermons in a Chicago Bears jersey on occasion. 






Aha... the dogma stuck after all.;)


--------------------
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

:heartpump:


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Diploid]
    #7887046 - 01/16/08 01:53 AM (16 years, 17 days ago)

Quote:

Neurological structures associated with religion evolved because they were beneficial to the survival of the species by way of bringing human societies closer together in a a shared belief system.





You state this as fact, but of course one cannot be sure. That this would be a logical conclusion I subscribe to, but even within science it was never proven that this necessarily is the case.

Nature always uses a template. What template was used for installing a series of universal spiritual experiences? The experiences facilitated by the Temporal Lobe can't be complete nonsense, because nothing in the human body is based on complete nonsense.

Quote:

Fear of God sending us to hell curbs anti-social behavior like murder.




Thats religious dogma, that is not the type of spiritual experience facilitated by genuine Spiritual Experience. Its ways religion used to control the masses. Its not whats in your brain, it's what's being put there: fire, brimstone and demons with pitchforks.

Quote:

It's simple evolution, not magic.




You are locking out your feelings with rationalism. That a universe of protons, electrons and neutrons gives rise to human beings who live, love and dream most certainly is magical. Sure, it can all be explained and deduced, but you are selling yourself short if you let rationalism rob you of the experience of wonder and awe that comes natural with realizations like this. That is the "magic" I speak of, not the magic of sorcerers and elves.


--------------------
Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here


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OfflineYthanA
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7887564 - 01/16/08 08:43 AM (16 years, 16 days ago)

Not 100% on-topic, but related and an interesting read IMHO:

http://www.cracked.com/article_15759_10-things-christians-atheists-can-must-agree-on.html

(Maybe this should go in S&P, I dunno.)


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InvisibleWhiskeyClone
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Re: How Would You Explain Religion? [Re: Ythan]
    #7887626 - 01/16/08 09:19 AM (16 years, 16 days ago)

Great article!

Here's the second half... there is no obvious link to it I could find:

http://www.cracked.com/article_15759_p3.html


--------------------
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

:heartpump:


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