Is God an Accident?

“Despite the vast number of religions, nearly everyone in the world believes in the same things: the existence of a soul, an afterlife, miracles, and the divine creation of the universe. Recently psychologists doing research on the minds of infants have discovered two related facts that may account for this phenomenon. One: human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena. And two: this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry. Which leads to the question Is God an Accident?” This is an article in the December issue of “The Atlantic” theatlantic.com/doc/200512/god-accident

I am not sure but you may have to subscribe to read this on line. I will give a short review because I think it is a very good read.

“Enthusiasm is building among scientists for the view that religion emerged not to serve a purpose—not as an opiate or a social glue—but by accident. It is a by-product of biological adaptations gone awry.”

“We see the world of objects as separate from the world of minds, allowing us to envision souls and an afterlife; and our system of social understanding infers goals and desires, where none exist, making us animists and creationists.”

“Nobody is born with the idea that humanity started in the Garden of Eden, or that martyrs will be rewarded in heaven; these ideas are learned. But the universal themes of religion are not learned. They are part of human nature.”

“The theory of natural selection is an empirically supported account of our existence. But almost nobody believes it. We may intellectually grasp it, but it will never feel right. Our gut feeling is that design requires a designer.”

Edit: double post

Everyone does not believe the same thing. Why do the Chinese have no idea of a personal soul, an afterlife, or miracles? Why because they actually questioned their basic assumptions, and realized that those ideas are fantasies, and attempts of one to cling on to their own existence.

I think Religion is a byproduct of two things, 1. Man not being able to explain the existence of the universe and 2. Man being aware of the passage of time, knowing he’s going to die.

There is another reason why it could be said that we create religion and it is because we feel disconnected with reality. This is said to be caused by consciousness of consciousness, or verbal thinking, or possibly thinking altogether. This is why the buddhists, hindus and the taoists practice meditation. It’s an art of silencing your mind. And in that silence, free from conceptual distinction, you realize your inseperable relationship with the whole natural universe. /shrug

This is a sweeping statement. Please clarify what you mean by Chinese?

A

Taoist, Mahayanna, and Zen philosophies, or non-philosophies.

In that case, you are not talking about the Chinese, but rather certain schools of thought.

Carry on.

A

Right, I love people who like to correct other peoples generalizations. Just kidding

Coberst

The question than becomes the nature and validity of emotional knowledge. This is where the literal minded scientist goes wrong. Even much of modern psychology doesn’t understand the difference between qualities of emotion or the difference as I understand it between emotions and feelings. Yet it is precisely this knowledge that allows as person to experience themselves as dual natured with an origin both from above and below.

Forgive me torrentfields. I know that it must seem as though I’m following you around correcting you. I must admit, I feel a certain affinity with you, but clarity is important don’t you think? Certainly expressing oneself so that the listener understands is as important as understanding?

A

Dont over, or under-estimate your ability to dream!

We can imagine, so we dont have to experiance everything but we can be tought. Religious tendancy is obviously an extention of human nature and the psyci. The path to truth is the understanding of facts. I cant say for sure weather concepts of God were an accident or not, but i do no that people who are super-stitious have a tendancy to sentientize non-sentent concept or phinominon; Also i do know that super-natural things exist… So complex, hence i stay cautiously theist and try to avoid all ocultism or superstition or spiritism even in entertainment.

Insanity about some things is natural without proper understanding.
Id sugest that we stay focused on takeing in factual information instead of forming opinions about things we do NOT know, so i stay basicly nutral about God speculations.

…still, its vary interesting that they had found that tendancy in humans.
id like to research that myself!