One for Barry

[geoff332]

There are plenty of us who aren't credulous. So it can't be 'hardwired', can it?

A credulous statement if I've ever heard one.

You - like me - are not credulous in certain arenas. I can guarantee you are in millions of others. For example, when you read the word 'credulous' you impose your particular meaning on what that word means. You then look around for your behaviour that is credulous or not. However, you believe you are not credulous, so you will ignore any examples of you being credulous (such as the way you decide whether your credulous or not) and focus on examples of you being incredulous.

Plus, that statement ignores the whole concept of variability. Once again, the belief that one data point proves a point is a remarkable example of one being credulous.

I'm not going to bother arguing this point with you: go and read up on cognitive psychology and the impact of expectations on the cognitive process right from perception to the most abstract reasoning. (Here's an article talking about the impact of expectations on the way we enjoy wine - it explains some of the concepts quite nicely: in short, our brains are wired to process evidence in ways that support our beliefs). While some of my arguments might have weaknesses, this one is on rock solid ground.

Interestingly, the economist agrees with me on religion. The describe it as "ubiquitous" and, along with language, a serious candidate as a marker of humanity. The Economist is reporting on a multi-national study looking for the basic biological and psychological determinants of religion. The reason the scientists believe there are biological and psychological determinants are because religion is found everywhere. Thus, it must stem from basic human biology.

But, of course, you are strongly committed to the belief that religion causes bad things in people. So you will only seek evidence that confirms that belief and do everything in your power to reject (or reinterpret) any evidence that fails to support your belief. Another wonderful example of you being credulous.

(And, before you ask, yes: I do exactly the same thing).

[Dreadful Scathe]

The reason the scientists believe there are biological and psychological determinants are because religion is found everywhere.

But it isn't , completely irreligious tribes have been found. Religion, like language, moves with civilisations and our children will believe, or speak, whatever they are brought up with. We are no more hard wired for religion than we are any other intellectual belief, like "bananas are yellow" - there is nothing special about religion in that respect.

[geoff332]

But it isn't , completely irreligious tribes have been found. Religion, like language, moves with civilisations and our children will believe, or speak, whatever they are brought up with. We are no more hard wired for religion than we are any other intellectual belief, like "bananas are yellow" - there is nothing special about religion in that respect.

Name one irreligious tribe.

[CheesyRobMan]

But, of course, you are strongly committed to the belief that religion causes bad things in people. So you will only seek evidence that confirms that belief and do everything in your power to reject (or reinterpret) any evidence that fails to support your belief. Another wonderful example of you being credulous.

I thought that this was confirmation bias rather than a sign of over-credulity? Neither of which are specifically linked to religion, although they affect it like everything else.

[geoff332]

I thought that this was confirmation bias rather than a sign of over-credulity? Neither of which are specifically linked to religion, although they affect it like everything else.

It is a confirmatory bias. Trundle along to a church meeting and you will see it going on: people who have faith are interpreting events as confirming the existence of God. The confirmatory bias is built into our brain and it's one of the bases of religion.

There are others - this is just a nice, easy one to spot and use as an example. At a more abstract level, the reasons are obvious: our brains aren't capable of processing every piece of information they receive. So we filter most of it out and take a whole bunch of processing shortcuts. The confirmation bias is one of these shortcuts. In theory, this is supposed to allow us to attend to that which is important. However, the decision about what is important or not is as biased as everything else our minds do...

This sort of thing is why we have things like the scientific method and jurisprudence. Individuals are flawed, so we create (or construct) institutions to compensate for those flaws. But we also create institutions that reinforce our flaws. Most institutions do a bit of both...

[CheesyRobMan]

Trundle along to a church meeting and you will see it going on: people who have faith are interpreting events as confirming the existence of God.

I see it each Sunday. The thing is that you can't actually confirm the existence of God *without* a step of faith - although it takes that same step to say the opposite too. Your common or garden atheist exercises as much faith as a follower of any religion to say that there definitely is or is not a God.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Name one irreligious tribe.

I don't know the names, but that doesn't make it any less true. It certainly makes sense that where tribes of people were not connected with others some managed to refrain from religion as -even in this modern very connected world we have, we still have atheistic religions, polytheistic religions, people with more than one religion and whole countries of atheists : the Czechs seems quite proud of the fact. It almost seems as if peoples brains are hard-wired for belief "of any kind whatsoever" regarding their place in the world/universe. Which males religion unimportant as a specific type of belief. Religions importance to society should not be downplayed of course - as Karl Marx said "religion is the heart of a heartless world".

Your common or garden atheist exercises as much faith as a follower of any religion to say that there definitely is or is not a God.

Not really. Even if you deny, rather then simply disbelieve in, all gods, you are logically only denying based on what you currently know - and if what you know is lots of conflicting information about certain aspects of what make "god" or "gods", and lets face it, conflicting religious information is easy to find - its not "faith" you make a denial based on, its "logic".* Put simply for Jehovah for one example - if the Koran and the Bible are talking about the same God - they can't both be correct, and it may seem more logical that both are wrong to some people. Even within the same religion - what seems more likely - Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses, the catholic church and the church of England are all correct about the true word of the same God of the same religion? or are they groups of humans with no more of a path to God than anyone else from any other religion ? The police would claim "unreliable witnesses" as no 2 accounts match

Personally, I remain open minded



* the very same logic used by religious people when denying the existence of all the other gods except for the one they worship.

[geoff332]

I don't know the names, but that doesn't make it any less true.

If it were true, there would be some evidence. Given the lack of evidence, I'll continue to believe that your statement is untrue. If I'm wrong: give me some evidence. All the evidence I'm aware of tells me every society forms some form of religion that explains things like weather, death and love/sex. This doesn't necessarily mean that every society forms a systemic theology. But that every society forms some sort of belief system that is described what can only be called the spiritual world.

It almost seems as if peoples brains are hard-wired for belief "of any kind whatsoever" regarding their place in the world/universe.

That's not quite true. Some sorts of beliefs are far more prevalent than others. For example, we're not hard-wired for deistic, monotheistic or polytheistic beliefs. But we are hard-wired to create beliefs about death and dying - tied in to the spiritual world. Healing is another common theme. As is altruism.

Which males religion unimportant as a specific type of belief.

To some extent. If religion weren't so ubiquitous, then it would be unimportant. But it is everywhere - which makes it very important. And when "religion" is blamed for causing faults in societies and individuals - as Barry did - then its absolutely critical.

My point in posting to this thread was to point out to Barry that his overt hatred of religion was, in fact, hating basic human nature. The reason I said that was that religion is a manifestation of fundamental human nature - our genetics make us want to believe and our societies always construct religions. Even the so-called atheist societies have all traversed through a stage of being a religious society - and are generally reacting against a specific religious institution rather than the more basic notion of beliefs. And, as I have said earlier, societies can and have replaced religious credulity with non-religious credulity. Which all suggests that things like credulity and abrogation of individual responsibility are fundamental human flaws, not flaws of religion per say.

Religions importance to society should not be downplayed of course - as Karl Marx said "religion is the heart of a heartless world".

Marx was smart enough to understand that religion - and he was really referring religion institutions - were a natural product of human society. He also recognised that it was used by people in power to manipulate and control people: specifically, the role of Christianity in reinforcing the capitalist worldview (Weber made the same point with the protestant work ethic). While they rightly identified religion as a powerful institution, neither spent much time analysing the origins of religious belief. My suspicion - and it was borne out in the Soviet Union and is still true of China - is that if we don't have (state) religion, we have to substitute it with some other institution that performs exactly the same function. And the replacement is generally at least as bad as religious institutions.

This is even more true when one makes - as Barry has - sweeping condemnation of religion in the general sense rather than targeting any specific religion. Any sweeping condemnation - without distinction - can only be made on the basis of common features. And if these common features exist across all religions (and, by extention all societies and cultures that generated those religions), then they can only come from some sort of God or from the people that constructed them. If they are truly universal, and one dismisses "god", then they must stem from basic human nature, rather than from the culturally specific manifestation of any given religion.

The Economist made religion as analogous to language. Every society forms a language and we have a bunch of basic genetic predetermination for language processing which is wired into our brains. Of course, every society has different languages and there are a lot of variations. But the underlying mechanisms for language are built into us. If there's not a God (or whatever), then there's no plausible explanation for the ubiquitousness of religion than it is built into our brains.

[Barry Shnikov]

I thought that this was confirmation bias rather than a sign of over-credulity? Neither of which are specifically linked to religion, although they affect it like everything else.

I'm not sure that Geoff defines 'credulous' in the same way I do.

[Barry Shnikov]

I see it each Sunday. The thing is that you can't actually confirm the existence of God *without* a step of faith - although it takes that same step to say the opposite too. Your common or garden atheist exercises as much faith as a follower of any religion to say that there definitely is or is not a God.

We've had this out before.

It's a typical faith-head mistake to assert that atheism is 'a belief' or 'a belief system'. It isn't. It's a lack of belief - or in the more stronger version a rejection of belief - in supernatural divinities. I don't require any 'faith' at all in adopting this viewpoint. What I do is apply my intellect and reason to the circumstances in which I find myself and can see no need whatsoever to postulate the existence of magical beings.

[CheesyRobMan]

I don't require any 'faith' at all in adopting this viewpoint. What I do is apply my intellect and reason to the circumstances in which I find myself and can see no need whatsoever to postulate the existence of magical beings.

But given a lack of direct evidence against the existence of a God, making the step from "there is no evidence for God existing" to "God does not exist" requires something that by definition cannot be based on evidence. Anything beyond this involves making assumptions instead of observing facts - whichever conclusion one comes to, faith with a small 'f' (i.e. choosing to believe in the absence of evidence) must be involved - the only position not to make any sort of unsupported claim is agnosticism where one simply shrugs and says "dunno".

[geoff332]

I'm not sure that Geoff defines 'credulous' in the same way I do.

You've never defined it. I've not defined it either, but I use a standard definition, so saw little need: credulous as having a tendancy to believe based on little evidence. Whenever I've used the term, that's what I've meant. Most dictionaries use some variant on that definition. You may define it as something different.

The confirmation bias exacerbates credulousness: the confirmation bias explains that way we seek to support our beliefs by actively avoiding conflicting evidence (to put that another way: we don't want more evidence once we've made up our minds...). This is not the only cognitive bias that produces credulousness: but, as I said, it's one is easily captured in the wild.

But given a lack of direct evidence against the existence of a God, making the step from "there is no evidence for God existing" to "God does not exist" requires something that by definition cannot be based on evidence. Anything beyond this involves making assumptions instead of observing facts - whichever conclusion one comes to, faith with a small 'f' (i.e. choosing to believe in the absence of evidence) must be involved - the only position not to make any sort of unsupported claim is agnosticism where one simply shrugs and says "dunno".

Someone's been reading Hume...

[Barry Shnikov]

But given a lack of direct evidence against the existence of a God, making the step from "there is no evidence for God existing" to "God does not exist" requires something that by definition cannot be based on evidence. Anything beyond this involves making assumptions instead of observing facts - whichever conclusion one comes to, faith with a small 'f' (i.e. choosing to believe in the absence of evidence) must be involved - the only position not to make any sort of unsupported claim is agnosticism where one simply shrugs and says "dunno".

Again, you're missing the point. There doesn't need to be any evidence against the existence of god. The choice with which each of us is faced is whether to believe in god in the teeth of that absence of evidence - which is an act of faith - or whether to consider that absence of evidence and conclude that god is an unlikely and unnecessary condition.

Hence the chocolate teapot argument. Bertrand Russell (quite some time ago now) made the argument that, if he were to assert the existence of a teapot made of chocolate orbiting the sun further along in the earth's orbital path, no-one could disprove the assertion. His point was that just because the existence of the chocolate teapot couldn't be disproved didn't mean that its existence must be accepted. By extension, I argue that while belief in the existence of the teapot requires faith, stating that the chocolate teapot doesn't exist does not require faith, since it is merely a reasonable conclusion based on reasonable premises.

[Barry Shnikov]

You've never defined it. I've not defined it either, but I use a standard definition, so saw little need: credulous as having a tendancy to believe based on little evidence. Whenever I've used the term, that's what I've meant. Most dictionaries use some variant on that definition. You may define it as something different.

The confirmation bias exacerbates credulousness: the confirmation bias explains that way we seek to support our beliefs by actively avoiding conflicting evidence (to put that another way: we don't want more evidence once we've made up our minds...). This is not the only cognitive bias that produces credulousness: but, as I said, it's one is easily captured in the wild.

I have defined it. I haven't specified the definition within this thread, which may be what you meant.
In any event, I reject your assertion that the definition you give is the 'standard' one.
Because I can't get at my OED, I used dictionary.com, which defined credulous as:

1. tending to believe too readily; easily convinced
2. resulting from or indicating credulity

and gave the following synonyms:

gullible, unsuspicious, simple, unsophisticated; naive, trusting

This is the sense in which I used the word in my original post: religion encourages people to be credulous; believers are told that they must not question the tenets of the faith; that they must do what they are told ("don't use condoms"); that the more difficult it is to believe something the greater the achievement when you are able to do it (the wafer and the wine literally turn into the body and blood of jesus, no matter how yukky that sounds and no matter that throughout the journey from lips to stomach they always retain the exact and identical flavour and texture of - um - wine and wafer), that other people's interpretation of the bible is to be accepted notwithstanding ("the good book says, give and ye shall receive, so you have to give me $1,000 and the lord will give you back a hundredfold - the good book doesn't lie!") and so forth.

This is opposed to a rational approach to the universe, which says: I'm prepared to accept the consensus view, that the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics properly describes the behaviour of the smallest components of the universe, but I will be properly sceptical of anyone trying to sell me something who says that quantum uncertainty means they can imbue distilled water with magical healing powers.

My feeling is that your statements about tendency to believe in the absence of sufficient evidence are supporting a rather shallow analysis.

The human brain, amongst other things, is the most powerful pattern-seeking device known to humankind. One demonstration of this is visual illusions: the brain seeks to impose a pattern even when careful analysis shows the pattern is not actually there. Black and white squares have been painted on floors in such a way as to simulate the perspective of two matching levels divided by a much lower level (by changing the size of the squares). Animals placed on the floor will not voluntarily walk across what appears to be a chasm, a possibly fatal fall. Their brains have been confused by the apparent perspective of the pattern.

One can speculate on how patterns which we now take for granted - seasons producing growth and death of crops, flooding of river plains, and similar; low pressures producing high winds, warm wet air rising over cool dry air producing thunderstorms and lightning; infection producing fever and swelling, earth orbiting the sun and the moon orbiting the earth producing a waxing and waning moon and occasionally eclipses - must have been mysterious and often frightening for our long-ago ancestors.

That mystery and that fear must very often have been unbearable, intolerable. How to drag yourself out to the fields the day after the crop was destroyed by locusts, and wonder how you are going to feed yourself and your family this winter? Small wonder, then, that many would have grasped like drowning people at explanations, no matter how tentative, how tenuously supported, how fantastical - so long as they gave some hope of being able to influence the outcome. Pray to the gods, that the Nile may flood again this year; pray to the gods, that hailstorms will not destroy the crops; pray to the gods that the sun will come out again from behind the moon: anything is better than accepting that there is no rhyme nor reason, or that if there is we cannot discover what it might be. And if this year, we pray hard but there are still hailstorms, next year, we must propitiate the gods with concrete evidence of our respect and worship. And if all that fails, we must accept that some god of this land, or this river, is angry with us and that we must move elsewhere if we are to thrive and prosper.

The tendency to religion is at least as much an attempt to cope with the unknown as it is anything else, and probably more than that. I've seen pictures of an aboriginal australian, his arm slashed, holding the back of a boy's head so the blood would run down his back, mimicking water running out of the heavens and on to the ground - a 20th century ceremony to invoke rain. This isn't a question of a "tendency to believe based on little evidence", it's a desperate rear-guard action against an impenetrable and indifferent universe.

My criticism isn't that religion (defined here as a belief in magical or supernatural divinities) can never have produced any benefit for humans; my criticism is that it no longer provides whatever benefits may have provoked its creation and adoption. I say it encourages credulity and you have not shown that it does not, merely claimed that credulousness is "hard-wired" (whatever that means) into our brains. It could be (I do not say that it is) argued that promiscuous behaviour is 'hard wired' into human males. That wouldn't prevent anyone from criticising a (hypothetical) organisation set up encourage men to be wildly promiscuous.

Your argument that religion is a function of humankind is - irrelevant. Anti-semitism is a function of humankind, but I feel perfectly happy in detesting and scorning anti-semitism and slagging off anyone who espouses it. (Note to careless readers: the comparison with anti-semitism is a reductio ad absurdum, so don't explode thinking that I'm making a one-to-one comparison between religion and anti-semitism.) Amnesty International is a function of humankind and yet I think it is an excellent institution and would encourage people to support it.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Anything beyond this involves making assumptions instead of observing facts - whichever conclusion one comes to, faith with a small 'f' (i.e. choosing to believe in the absence of evidence) must be involved - the only position not to make any sort of unsupported claim is agnosticism where one simply shrugs and says "dunno".

There is no "assumption" involved when there is no evidence you know of to support the existence of something. It is not "choosing to believe in the absence of evidence" it is not believing at all, which is hardly a "choice", so faith doesn't enter into it. It is up to the individual what amounts to enough evidence and thats assuming the evidence is straight forward - if someone receives what they feel is contradictory evidence then the most sensible solution is outright denial. No faith involved.

If it were true, there would be some evidence. Given the lack of evidence, I'll continue to believe that your statement is untrue. If I'm wrong: give me some evidence. All the evidence I'm aware of tells me every society forms some form of religion that explains things like weather, death and love/sex. This doesn't necessarily mean that every society forms a systemic theology.

Then we get down to the question of "what is religion" - explanations of weather or anything else, are not , to me anyway, "religions" Its not a big stretch to say that humans are hard-wired to look for explanations - surely thats what sentience is all about ?

But it is everywhere - which makes it very important. And when "religion" is blamed for causing faults in societies and individuals - as Barry did - then its absolutely critical.

Any aspect of society that allows people to "pass the blame" onto something/one else (religion, law, simple peer pressure etc... ), allows for faults, flaws, "eeevil" and dodgy goings on. Arrogant religions who take the moral and spiritual high ground are often blamed for societies "faults" - which seems fair enough, as without those religions there would have to be something else in its place to cause the problems - it's "begging the question" to suggest the result would be the same.

Never have I seen anyone mention societies faults lie with Buddhism. So its not all religions

My point in posting to this thread was to point out to Barry that his overt hatred of religion was, in fact, hating basic human nature.

That seems a stretch, to say the least. Human nature is not manifested in such a material way as any major religion is - surely thats "opinion" you are talking about? Also, even if Barry does hate religions - it doesn't appear to be all of them and I doubt there would be quite so many complaints if Barrys criticisms were leveled at the ancient Greek Gods; most people would be just as critical of that religion as Barry.

My suspicion - and it was borne out in the Soviet Union and is still true of China - is that if we don't have (state) religion, we have to substitute it with some other institution that performs exactly the same function. And the replacement is generally at least as bad as religious institutions.

Here I agree with you, but i don't see this as evidence of "hard-wiring", we are simply not civilised enough as a species. Reminds me of Ghandi's quote -when asked what he thought of British Civilisation, he replied "I think it would be a good idea". Please bear in mind that 100 years ago, we were an extremely bigoted, racist, arrogant, selfish, hierarchical society and not that much has changed...

Its interesting to note that we do not have what you could call a state religion anymore, most European countries have a secular structure.

The Economist made religion as analogous to language. Every society forms a language and we have a bunch of basic genetic predetermination for language processing which is wired into our brains. Of course, every society has different languages and there are a lot of variations. But the underlying mechanisms for language are built into us. If there's not a God (or whatever), then there's no plausible explanation for the ubiquitousness of religion than it is built into our brains.

We have a predisposition for creativity and imagination - it comes with "thought"; there is a simple biological explanation for making stuff up or copying the beliefs of others - its easy, and it gives us time to live. If two-bit airline-carry-on-mag journos from the Economist are telling people its an Elephant with a hat on - fair play to them, they have to get us thinking so we'll at least try and steal the next copy from the Dr's waiting room

[Isis]

I feel sorry for, but am also rather impatient with, people who have such a relentlessly unreal and negative view of the human character.

we are simply not civilised enough as a species....Please bear in mind that 100 years ago, we were an extremely bigoted, racist, arrogant, selfish, hierarchical society and not that much has changed...

Oh dear!


From the 'something to think about' thread

I'd completely disagree that we (in the UK?) have narrower viewpoints. For example, Compare our attitudes now to those we had 50+ years ago, with regard to gender, race, and sexuality.

That's just a change in fashion, not necessarily a widening of viewpoints.

Nice to know women having the vote, gay rights and all that other liberal nonsense is simply "fashion". But at least you never called it a "fad".

So, out of interest DS, do you think our society has improved over the past 50-100 years or not?

[Dreadful Scathe]

of course - but as one step in a journey toward civilisation, its a small step in a far bigger picture.

[stewart38]

As we look deeper and deeper into how the universe came about ,will we get closer to god ?

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research

If we find particles that fit a 'theory' we are still left with how did the big bang come about ?

Some will say God others will try and dig deeper

Try and not think of 'God' as man with white beared

Im still on the fence

[Dreadful Scathe]

Try and not think of 'God' as man with white beared

Do people actually do that? I thought that was something only painters did to symbolise a father figure. I visualise the popular concept of god as an all-encompassing white nothingness - what do others "see" when they think of "god" ?

[Barry Shnikov]

Do people actually do that? I thought that was something only painters did to symbolise a father figure. I visualise the popular concept of god as an all-encompassing white nothingness - what do others "see" when they think of "god" ?

Um - the quickening of Adam from the Sistine chapel. Old man, check. Beard, check. (Er...also, he looks a bit like Blake's painting of Methusaleh. Don't ask me why.) But since I see god as non-existent, does it matter what shape he takes in my imagination?