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What if a belief in the supernatural is natural? + Who were the first atheists?

#1
C C Offline
Why humans find it hard to do away with religion
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...y-religion

EXCERPT: An American scientist visiting the home of Niels Bohr [...] was surprised to discover a horseshoe hanging over Bohr’s desk: “Surely you don’t believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, Professor Bohr?” he asked. “After all, as a scientist...”

Bohr laughed. “I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am scarcely likely to believe such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring one good luck whether you believe it or not.”

Dominic Johnson, who tells this story, acknowledges that Bohr might have been joking. But the physicist’s response captured an important truth. Human beings never cease looking for a pattern in events that transcends the workings of cause and effect. No matter how much they may think their view of the world has been shaped by science, they cannot avoid thinking and acting as if their lives are subject to some kind of non-human oversight. As Johnson puts it, “Humans the world over find themselves, consciously or subconsciously, believing that we live in a just world or a moral universe, where people are supposed to get what they deserve. Our brains are wired such that we cannot help but search for meaning in the randomness of life.”

An evolutionary biologist trained at Oxford who also holds a doctorate in political science, Johnson believes that the need to find a more-than-natural meaning in natural events is universal – “a ubiquitous phenomenon of human nature” – and performs a vital role in maintaining order in society. Extending far beyond cultures shaped by monotheism, it “spans cultures across the globe and every historical period, from indigenous tribal societies . . . to modern world religions – and includes atheists, too”.

[...] It’s a conclusion that is anathema to the current generation of atheists – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and others – for whom religion is a poisonous concoction of lies and delusion. These “new atheists” are simple souls. In their view, which derives from rationalist philosophy and not from evolutionary theory, the human mind is a faculty that seeks an accurate representation of the world. This leaves them with something of a problem. Why are most human beings, everywhere and at all times, so wedded to some version of religion? It can only be that their minds have been deformed by malignant priests and devilish power elites. Atheists have always been drawn to demonology of this kind; otherwise, they cannot account for the ­persistence of the beliefs they denounce as poisonously irrational. The inveterate human inclination to religion is, in effect, the atheist problem of evil.

But what if belief in the supernatural is natural for human beings? For anyone who takes the idea of evolution seriously, religions are not intellectual errors, but ­adaptations to the experience of living in an uncertain and hazardous world. What is needed – and still largely lacking – is a perspective in which religion is understood as an inexhaustibly complex variety of beliefs and practices that have evolved to meet enduring human needs....



Who were the first atheists?
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...t-atheists

EXCERPT: Atheists, like believers, can feel pride in the pedigree of their beliefs, as Tim Whitmarsh's new book on atheism in the ancient world shows. [...] To draw on a fittingly Darwinian analogy, ancient atheists and their modern successors resemble one another in the way pterosaurs resemble bats: an example of similar features developing in unrelated species. Whitmarsh may not have intended it to do so, but "Battling the Gods" – learned, sweeping and stimulating as it is – stands as a monument above all to that recurrent phenomenon in history, convergent evolution....
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#2
elte Offline
Quote:-
But what if belief in the supernatural is natural for human beings? For anyone who takes the idea of evolution seriously, religions are not intellectual errors, but ­adaptations to the experience of living in an uncertain and hazardous world. What is needed – and still largely lacking – is a perspective in which religion is understood as an inexhaustibly complex variety of beliefs and practices that have evolved to meet enduring human needs

I'm not surprised at all that evolution would allow mental trickery to promote successful reproduction in the human species.
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#3
Magical Realist Offline
It may be that science fills the role that religion once met for most humans. A kind of saving knowledge and revelatory method passed down thru a select priesthood of academic scholars. A belief in transnatural agencies such as laws and mathematical structures imposing order on nature from the outside. A moralistic insistence on being scientific and objective instead of being superstitious and subjective. The worship of science must be fulfilling some evolved need in humans to interpret their reality in ways that make it seem more controllable and agreeable just as religion does in others. The habit of anthropocentric bias seems to be just as operative here in any case.
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#4
elte Offline
There is an element of science providing tangible effects like getting blood sugar monitored.  The diabetic knows that high blood sugar is bad for the body and can gain peace of mind from watching it.  One can be sure that high blood sugar deteriorates the body yet with the supernatural, one can't tell if not paying attention to superstitions would actually be helpful or harmful.
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#5
Yazata Offline
(Feb 5, 2016 05:54 PM)C C Wrote: An evolutionary biologist trained at Oxford who also holds a doctorate in political science, Johnson believes that the need to find a more-than-natural meaning in natural events is universal – “a ubiquitous phenomenon of human nature” – and performs a vital role in maintaining order in society. Extending far beyond cultures shaped by monotheism, it “spans cultures across the globe and every historical period, from indigenous tribal societies . . . to modern world religions – and includes atheists, too”.

It sounds plausible and it's certainly possible.

As for me, I'm inclined to speculate that religious-style thinking comes about as an 'unintended consequence' of the evolutionary selection of other cognitive and affective capacities that do contribute more directly to evolutionary fitness.

For example, we seem very optimized to use and understand language. We can acquire natural language almost effortlessly as children, despite natural language being so complex that philosophers and linguists still don't totally understand it.

So it seems to me that human beings might be kind of predisposed to interpret events as if they were meaningful, as if they were examples of language, as if events communicate a message or possess a hidden meaning that might be discerned by those who have developed the ability.

People also seem to be hard-wired by evolution to interpret the intentional behavior of other human beings. So it's possible that many people unconsciously interpret natural events like storms in terms of the same innate 'philosophy of mind' that they use on each other, perceiving inanimate events as if they were purposive acts by unseen intelligent agents.

Quote:It’s a conclusion that is anathema to the current generation of atheists – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and others - for whom religion is a poisonous concoction of lies and delusion.

And human beings have a tendency to assign moral values to the behavior of others and to make moral judgements. That probably does have direct evolutionary value in making social bands more cohesive. The 'new atheists' strike me as no different, as being old-style 'hellfire and damnation' moralists in drag, condemning and denouncing everyone around them for the sin of religiosity. The difference is that now these new puritans are judging and condemning in the name of scientistic fundamentalism.

Quote:These “new atheists” are simple souls.

I have great respect for Daniel Dennett as a philosopher, and I'm warming to Sam Harris who seems to be mellowing as he grows more mature. He's actually trying to learn about religion and not just blindly denouncing it these days. His most recent books Waking Up and Islam and the Future of Tolerance are worth reading. (Which isn't always the case with the 'new atheists'.)

Quote:In their view, which derives from rationalist philosophy and not from evolutionary theory

That's ironic, since a couple of the most outspoken 'new atheists', Dawkins and Jerry Coyne are evolutionary biologists by profession (and neither seems to have any education at all in the history of ideas, philosophy or religion).

Quote:the human mind is a faculty that seeks an accurate representation of the world.

I agree with them that accurate knowledge of reality is one of the most important functions of cognition.

Quote:This leaves them with something of a problem. Why are most human beings, everywhere and at all times, so wedded to some version of religion? It can only be that their minds have been deformed by malignant priests and devilish power elites. Atheists have always been drawn to demonology of this kind; otherwise, they cannot account for the ­persistence of the beliefs they denounce as poisonously irrational. The inveterate human inclination to religion is, in effect, the atheist problem of evil.

Yes, I agree with that.

If religion is simply the product of Marxist/Foucauldian-style class/power relationships, then the atheist dream of scrubbing religion out of humanity would seem to be relatively simple. Push through the 'revolution' and transform the relationships. Scrub away the ideologies foisted on humanity by the ruling power-elites. Excepting the Scientists from the utopian purge of course, since the scientific elite's ideology is defined by atheists as the Truth.

But what if religious thinking arises far deeper in the human psyche? What if it isn't the product of political oppression and power-relationships at all? In that case, social change programs and political 'revolutions' aren't going to have very much effect on humanity's tendency to be religious.

Quote:But what if belief in the supernatural is natural for human beings?

I think that it almost certainly is.
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#6
C C Offline
(Feb 9, 2016 05:55 PM)Yazata Wrote: . . . I'm warming to Sam Harris who seems to be mellowing as he grows more mature. He's actually trying to learn about religion and not just blindly denouncing it these days. His most recent books Waking Up and Islam and the Future of Tolerance are worth reading. (Which isn't always the case with the 'new atheists'.)


About time he started distinguishing himself from the pack. Given his interest in certain Hindu and Buddhist literature's input about consciousness and an Aldous Huxley -like fascination with the drug-induced variety of "spiritual" experiences or claimed insights.
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#7
elte Offline
"-   Beliefs about all-knowing, punishing gods -- a defining feature of religions ranging from Christianity to Hinduism -- may have played a key role in expanding co-operation among far-flung peoples and led to the development of modern-day states, according to a UBC-led study published in Nature."      http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...135213.htm

Evolutionary "success" it seems.
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#8
C C Offline
(Feb 12, 2016 12:44 PM)elte Wrote: "-   Beliefs about all-knowing, punishing gods -- a defining feature of religions ranging from Christianity to Hinduism -- may have played a key role in expanding co-operation among far-flung peoples and led to the development of modern-day states, according to a UBC-led study published in Nature."      http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...135213.htm

Evolutionary "success" it seems.


It's difficult to imagine their leaders acquiring and maintaining their authority, and the "cities" of Aztecs, Mayans, and Incans coming about and stabilizing without the sacred loyalties, devotional draw to temple complexes, and so forth of their religious practices. Today there are all sorts of economic, political, philosophical, ethnic ideologies and reasons that can replace religion when it comes to the organizational impulse and cementing together of populations. But back then...

Agricultural practices and a nexus of trading routes and rivers could bring about some large villages in pre-urban times. But the extra push for greater extravagances seemed to demand additional motives and social-building and manipulating tools like religion.
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