the science of belief

[rone]

I've been meaning to share this with you for months now, but i kept forgetting.  Something whipartist posted reminded me about it.

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.

The companion interview to this article, "Wired for Creationism?", should also be read.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The logician and pop writer on philosophy Raymond Smullyan has some similar ideas--he once wrote that he didn't think belief in an afterlife was just wishful thinking, because there are some religions in which reincarnation is mostly bad and you are supposed to work to become sufficiently enlightened to eventually extinguish yourself entirely. A member of such a religion might dismiss disbelief in the afterlife as wishful thinking.

Instead, he thought that people believe in an afterlife because people can't viscerally not believe in it--it's very difficult, maybe impossible to fully conceive of not existing, because you keep trying to think of what it feels like.

He also, to my mind, somewhat over-romanticized Eastern religion, but I thought some of his ideas were interesting.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...He also, if I recall correctly, pointed out that the reason many people are horrified at the prospect of dying and just staying dead is that on some level, maybe without intellectually realizing it, they're imagining experiencing the process: experiencing being shut up alone in a dark box forever and ever. I think that's true--I recall having conversations in which people express horror at the idea that instead of going to heaven they'll just "lie in the ground and rot", and it's almost as if they're imagining being buried alive and rotting while conscious. The inability to fully conceive of nonexistence leads to this sort of horror-movie imagery in its place.

There are well-known ways of partially wrapping your brain around it, such as realizing that the state of being dead is exactly like the state of not existing yet, which you seemed to have no problem with for the billions of years before you were born; or that, as Hofstadter and Dennett once said, if you're not currently in Paris then you know what it's like to be dead in Paris right now. But they're a lot like the thought experiments we use to think about quantum mechanics or other intuitively alien things.

[nixzusehen.livejournal.com]

I read two books last month, the first was by Paul Bloom, who wrote the article. Called Descartes' Baby, he doesn't really focus on the God idea, though it is mentioned. Pretty interesting read. The other was Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, it focuses on the way percieve the future and how that effects our perceptions of happiness. Essentially what we do when we try to imagine how we'll feel about things, is think about we'd feel if that happened now, and assume that we'd do the same in the future. And how we're ususally not very good at predicting how we ultimately will feel.

Anyway, when I think of dying, I don't think of rotting in grave -- I try to imagine no longer having an existence. That freaks me out way more.

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

The idea of non-existance after death used to scare the hell out of me, until one day it clicked in my brain, "Oh hey, by definition, I'm not going to be there to experience not existing, so how could it be scary?" Of all the after-death possibilities, it's not only the most likely, but also one of the most preferable.

-- Schwa ---

I read that article when it came out.

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

I was thinking recently that because of those feelings, religion works really well as a dominance tool. The Mayans were just more upfront about doing that, but organized religion is to humans as rolling oil barrels down a hill is to chimpanzees (one of Jane Goodall's young male chimps did this and was instantly the alpha male of the group).

The religious folks are now trying to do this to Dawkins. "But we're still the most aware because you didn't study our esoteric inside information that we keep from the average believer because they wouldn't get it."

Being a god used to be the most effective way to get power over people.

I've met a few religious people who didn't use faith as a dominance tool, but they're rare and none of them are in the ministry. "I speak for the Man who created you. Accept your lot in life."

[waider.livejournal.com]

European churches are often under state control and, like many government monopolies, have become inefficient

Er, they are? they have? Funny, I was under the impression that the problem where it is perceived is precisely the opposite: European states are often under church control, my own state being a good example up until recent history.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I wonder if he's specifically thinking about England. Or maybe even that's not accurate anymore.

[mezdeathhead.livejournal.com]

I'm reading the God Delusion right now, and I just got done with Richard Dawkins writing all about by-products. 100% fascinating, 100% believable.

[filthy-habit.livejournal.com]

Interesting article(s).

Oddly enough, these innate senses he describes coincide with my beliefs regarding "hardwiring" in humans. I tend to regard much of what we are as individuals is driven by some form of hardwiring, perhaps set off by various biological or sociological triggers at various times in our lives. For example, recent studies support that sexual orientation is, in fact, some form of biological trigger that people have no control over. Psyco- and socio-pathic behavior might also be triggered. As such, I don't see that a certain hardwired pre-disposition toward religious belief is at all improbable, and, in fact, is quite likely. In fact, my hard thinking about this has enabled me to observe that people seem to fall into two distinct categories: They are either pre-disposed to desire an explanation of cause and therefore find their answers in Biblical creation, or they are content to relish their causeless existence and are accepting of whatever the universe may throw at them, and therefore become atheists.

I happen to work with a guy who is one of those YECs who believe the earth is 6000 years old and completely handcrafted by god. Talking to him about anything, especially in the realm of religious belief, is an exercise in futility. I happen to believe he is simply one of those people who gravitates toward YEC-ism because it satisfies his innate need to ascribe a cause to his existence, and god represents that cause. The extremely odd thing about this guy is that the unspooled thinking he uses to support his religious beliefs seems to spin off into every facet of his life; against all odds, this guy writes computer programs for a living, and delving into his code is like slogging through a nightmare. You can see how this guy thinks in the way he codes, and it is not pretty. I completely understand why it is necessary for this guy to take a half-dozen prescription pills every day just to be able to function.

A good question that lies hidden behind all of this is why should all of this persist? What would happen, for example, if we removed the modern social stimulus that triggers a religious frame of mind, such as religious indoctrination? We know that at some point in our past, all of the world's cultures fabricated some form of creation myth, so perhaps it is an innate human need to express these sorts of things to center ourselves and get our bearings together. However, in modern times, where science has adequately explained away things like creation, would a new religious order arise on its own? I can't think of a way to set up a controlled experiment on this matter, but, as I've observed in myself and my still growing children, the lack of religious indoctrination appears to allow the innate atheist in all of us to shine through.

Is it possible that mankind has evolved to the point where he no longer needs a god? I believe that the huge up-swing in modern atheism may be a sign that that time may be on its way.

Fun stuff to think about.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

They are either pre-disposed to desire an explanation of cause and therefore find their answers in Biblical creation, or they are content to relish their causeless existence and are accepting of whatever the universe may throw at them, and therefore become atheists.

I think that you're clumsily polarizing the issue. There are plenty of theists who are well acquainted with science.

Science has hardly explained away creation myths; they're still myths that function just fine as metaphors. In a way, one could say that science explains how God created us. But that doesn't make the stories less valid, unless you're a literalist idiot.

Is it possible that mankind has evolved to the point where he no longer needs a god?

It's plain that mankind has not (and i definitely think you're wrong about a "huge up-swing in modern atheism", unless you're talking about the doubling of a tiny percentage). Have we taken the first steps towards that? Perhaps. As i see it, though, the important thing is not to abandon God, but to embrace Man.

[filthy-habit.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I do have Xtian friends who embrace science as valid within the context of their interpretation of Biblical creation, thereby relegating god to a mere "metaphor" for creation. Such churches do exist and are almost always benign (as in not very politically active, unlike the fundamentalist fringe, those literalist idiots). What god does for these people is basically what I've said: It gives them a cause and a purpose, and through that, some form of comfort that they apparently feel that they need. Raw science, of course, is unable to provide those types of comforts, yet despite this, they embrace the validity of scientific method and work it into the fabric of their religion. All of this supports the notion that these people may be hardwired for some form of religion.

I see nothing intrinsically wrong with that. Personally, I cannot understand the need for the comfort of religion, but I am sympathetic to others who feel they are more centered because of it. I even believe such people are capable of working in the sciences, since their religious belief does not trump their ability to function rationally when confronted with a reality that might conflict with their religious dogma. I'm okay with all of this.

As I've often said, what one "believes" about creation (and other things) has little consequence in anyone's day-to-day life other than how they perceive the world themselves. If they think the sky is pink, then so be it. And so it is as it should be, even when they tend to be wrong. These are inconsequential beliefs, and the consequences of being right or wrong are minimal, if there are any consequences at all. It is only when they become dogmatic about it and become a malignant force that I feel the need to put my foot down and say enough is enough.

[justjenine.livejournal.com]

i was reading the article, (thanks for the link, btw, very interesting stuff) and i snorted at "it's difficult to be a person." raley, who was dressing her pony to have tea with the queen asked why i was laughing and i told her it was something in this article i was reading. she said, in a very queenly and imperious voice, "and what else does this ARTICLE say?" i read the rest of that paragraph and she said, "that is NOT funny. that is SAD. because it is true, someday we WILL all die, and that is SAD, not funny."

she has made no attempt to mitigate the sadness of this with some sort of proposed afterlife. i suspect she may be the next step in human evolution, with the cognitive functioning error corrected.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Either that or she's going to become a goth.