Quote:
Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude
I took exception to your usage of the word "hardwired", as if to suggest that humans are predisposed to believing in a god,
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I appreciate your response. So let me clarify. By "hardwired", i meant that there are numerous mechanisms at work in your brain that LEND themselves quite well to a belief in God. Just as with countless other, and often disturbing preferences, we possess the framework for religious beliefs, already when we are born. What happens with that framework depends entirely on ones life experiences and environment and even brain development as well (ones interpretation of events/mental disorders or disturbances etc).
A newborn infant already possess a basic framework for morality and moral beliefs. A sense of right and wrong, a sense of fair and unfair. An understanding of basic physical laws and how objects should behave. A newborn infant already possesses preferences for their own language over another, for their own mother over another, for their own mothers voice over another, for their own mothers face, over another, for their own race over another race, with an innate sense of disgust at many things such as tainted or spoiled food, incest and so on and so on and so on (the list is quite long and its a subject which is very fascinating to study). Those facts do not mean there still cannot be an infinite number of possible outcomes shaped by environment, genetics and experience. We are born with a basic intuitive sense (not learned) feeling that "up" on a vertical axis is "good" or "sacred" and down is "profane" or "bad". The list is quite long. What i would suggest is that a lot of pieces are there, present in the brain and brain function that easily come together.
I have argued that MONOTHEISTIC religion which is largely all we see today, is little more than moral law - It is an adaptive response to a shift from small, nomadic hunter gatherer groups, to a sedentary lifestyle where increasingly large numbers of people need to live together and effectively get along. Religion throughout the last 10,000 years, has proven to be much more effective than law and punishment at keeping the group together and uniting and binding people. Both appeared and took hold at the same time. Both grew together. The 10 Commandments are not insane ideas.. they are basic ideas we all agree with and that social psychologists will argue, principles which are innate within us. It's the pageantry and parables and fables that seem insane and its that sillyness people use to attempt to discredit what are really, at their core, very sensible ideas that have proven beneficial, hence their existence.
Though I understand it and think its both an important and necessary response, I am constantly bemused by people wanting to talk about how dumb the other side is and how righ they are without wanting to listen to or consider anything outside of what they are already determined to believe. A wise people would be thinking "hmm.. that's interesting, tell me more". Though I am a dick on this forum, I am very interested in knowledge and learning. I am not quick to discount others views and I don't think i am right, without exception. I argue that way, but that really is just a means to get to the truth, or best argument, or idea.
At the end of the day, you cannot prove there is no God. That is one of many reasons why there is a persistent, widespread belief in God. Thats not a belief or opinion. That is a simple scientific fact we all must live with.
And I would also say that it requires a great deal of arrogance in my view, to truly believe and argue that "most people on the planet are wrong and I am right... end of story!". People who paint themselves as "progressive" and "liberal" seem to be every bit as intolerant as those that rail against non-stop. Both are simply the other side of the same coin.