Darwin's God

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 7 2007, 02:40 AM) [snapback]401505[/snapback]</div>

Don't make me go agreeing with Kow here, folks!

Putting it simply:

Theist: I believe God exists
Atheist: I believe God does not exist
Agnostic: I don't know if God exists

Of course, saying you're an Atheist is "cooler" than saying your an Agnostic, and Atheists get all the publicity, so many people who fall into the third camp incorrectly label themselves Atheists.

 

If you want to use that definition - go ahead. Just note that it is NOT accurate. I suggest you read Richard Dawkin's God Delusion to find out what atheism REALLY means instead of the verbatum (sp?) crap you conceive in your head and take to be reality.

Atheist = No evidence whatsoever to think there may be a god... but cannot absolutely disprove any existence of such.

And by the way... what is with referring to a god? This concept is just ridiculous... have you even considered, out of the infinite possilibilities, that there might just be multiple "higher powers," or perhaps that the universe was never created but has always existed... or perhaps even that any "higher power" is actually just an evolution of natural forces much like life on this Earth? No... you all are simple minded and have to think in terms of monotheism.

One thing I can and have disproven to an absolute existence is the nonexistence of the Xistianity deity... it's internally inconsistent for one... and there's plenty of proof showing it is completley man made... emotional mood swings, the whole works.

 

An athiest can't wait to tell you that there is no god.
An agnostic says, I don't want to get involved, go argue amogst yourselves.

These terms have not fully been set in stone, as athiesm is a very new religion. as little as 50 -100 years ago, it was extremely rare to say publicly that there is no god.

I view myself as agnostic, since the whole topic has no answer. You cannot prove or disprove it. And any discussion of it ends in anger, or resentment, and more questions than answers. Unless the discussion is between those on the same side of the fence. In that case, it ends with comradery and mutual satisfaction. Which is one of the benefits of religion to a group (regardless of religion).

 

Darwood,

Atheism is the most rational mode of thought... not a religion as you perceive. I suggest you read Richard Dawkin's God Delusion before you spout off more nonsense like that. I consider the belief that "you can't know anything" to be just that - a religious sentiment.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard...3602&sr=8-1

Another good book is Sam Harris's "The End of Faith."


I completely aggree with larkin, but I would go just a tad bit farther... I argue that you can disprove the Xistian, Muslim, etc concept of God... as they are internally inconsistent... yada yada (as I said before).

The distinction between atheism and agnosticism isn't so well defined... seems like that would bother a religious agnostic the most of all.

 

Nonsense??? I'm using the term "religion" in reference to athiesm to make a point. Religions are just camps of people with similar views. Jews, Pagans, Muslims, and Athiests all have independent religious viewpoints. Even if one of their views is that religion is a hoax, it is still a point of view on religion. My disbelief in religion is very similar to yours. I just won't take that last step and say that it is COMPLETELY inconceivable that some sort of clockmaker creator never existed.

From years of studying neuropsychology, I must take issue with the statement that "Atheism is the most rational mode of thought". It is the most rational mode of thought for you and I. But not for everyone. It takes years of studying biology, psychology, and sociology to see that Atheism is the most rational mode of thought. Most people in the world don't have that kind of education to understand evolution as basic concept, let alone the complexities of full blown human evolution.

Belief in a greater power is a sort of default state of the brain (as evidenced by superstition as well as the vast majority of mankind that follows religion. To get beyond that, a great deal of education is required.

I agree that the xtian, islam, etc view can be shown as internally inconsistant, but this is not the point. The concept of God itself cannot be disproven or proven. As a "darwinist", I feel pretty confident that science has shown humans to have evolved all the way down to the "spark of life" in the primordial soup. But what created that spark? And for that matter, what created the soup?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ Mar 7 2007, 01:01 PM) [snapback]401717[/snapback]</div>

Evolutionary biology definately excludes all establish religions. However, ther is still room for a "clockmaker god", or as another poster put it: The universe itself as a god.

I also found the article interesting and regarding the topic itself:
I learned in my studies of behavioral neuropsychology of a particular region in the brain that acts as a reasoning module. It takes the inputs from all the other modules (optical, auditory, memory, emotion, and others) and tries to put it all into context. Deletion of this region (typical way of testing a regions function) totally disrupts the minds ability to infer. This module explains how dreams work. The brain is always active as long as it has blood flow. During sleep, the activity drops to a minimum, but there are still semi-random nueral fireings going on. The reasoning module tries to make sense of these, as it too is still sort of on. That's why dreams can be somewhat nonsensicle, but still sort of make sense. The parts of the brain you used preceding sleep, will be a little more active from recent use and will tend to be more prominent in the dreams, and the reasoning module just keeps chugging along trying to put the external and internal inputs into the ongoing storyline that is our conscienceness.
This reason module also explains other mind related phenomenon. Peoples memories can be manipulated by other inputs that seem to contradict the previous memory. "Wait a minute.. I just saw...I thought I saw...oh never mind, I must have imagined it." You can pyschology implant something too, where you convince someone they saw something they didn't.
God is a concept that the brain finds as an easy way to explain unanswerable questions. Hence the default belief in a higher power. As someone learns more and more about the world and our own mind, fewer and fewer anomolies need to be explained by this concept within the reasoning module, which does not handle contradictions well. This is also why younger people have an easier time with "faith". Religiousness is very high when you are young and provided the brain continually tries to learn new things, this religiousness slowly fades as you age. At least until you start seriously facing your mortality. Then the religion comes rushing back to provide comfort as you face death. I wathced this happen as my brother fought cancer for 6 years. He never cared for religion until his cancer reappered and he realized he was terminal. Then he found comfort in religion. And that's a good thing. Religion, despite my disbelief in god (or at least any current theory of) still provides great benefit to mankind as a whole. The problems start when people of power use religion as a tool or when people try to push they own views on religion to others.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 7 2007, 10:41 AM) [snapback]401800[/snapback]</div>

Nicely put.

Is your degree in evolutionary biology? I'm currently working toward one in Evolution, Ecology and Biodiversity.

 

Is your degree in evolutionary biology? I'm currently working toward one in Evolution, Ecology and Biodiversity.
[/quote]

No, my degree is in Behavioral Neuroscience (psychology focused on the biology of the brain as opposed to Frued et al.) which required a minor in biology. They overlapped quite a bit.
I did research work at a PET scan facility at the VA.

All that work, $, and time on that degree and the research and here I am in an office job killing time on PC!
Oh well...I studied what interested me, and one of the reasons it did interest me, was this very question.
Learning the specifics of brain function has provided me with firm biological answers to all sorts of questions I had.
Did you know that if you cut the corpus collosum (Connector between the 2 halves of the brain) the individual will have 2 trains of thought? Said person will actually fight themselves over decisions. The right and left hand of the person will fight and hit over which shirt to grab out of the closet. What does that say about the nature of conscienceness and the soul?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 7 2007, 10:17 AM) [snapback]401627[/snapback]</div>

I hope that you didn't take my post personally. And, I wouldn't want you to use demeaning and hurtful terms. My point was that just because a society is composed of atheists does not mean that they will die out. Thus, evolution does not have anything to do with whether you are religious or not.

However, I do agree with you that by default, we are hardwired to be believers. That is, we need something to explain what is happening around us. Most choose religion. I have chosen science. I think you have also.

 

Darwood, are you familiar with a bloke named C. Robert Cloninger? You might find his work interesting if you aren't familiar with him.

People are, to varying degrees, wired for religion. I have never been religious, but on one side of my family my cousins definitely are. I doubt it's really different from any other human trait. The "religiosity" of the population probably sits comfortably on a Bell curve.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ Mar 7 2007, 07:15 PM) [snapback]402029[/snapback]</div>

What that means, with several hundred members of congress, is that there are without statitistical doubt a number of atheist congressmen - closet atheists: they'd never have won their election had their atheism become known. Might even be 1 or 2 atheist senators. It's nice knowing that at least some rationality has a chance of being brought to bear in the cesspool (oops, meant to say sessions) of legislative process.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Mar 7 2007, 07:34 PM) [snapback]402037[/snapback]</div>

That is pretty much the basic idea presented in "The God Delusion". There are most likely double the observed number of athiests out there because most are afraid to speak out for various reasons .

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Mar 7 2007, 10:34 PM) [snapback]402037[/snapback]</div>

The only openly Atheist American politician I could find died in 1962.

Now, let's all hear how those poor, poor Christians are being persecuted again.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 7 2007, 07:49 AM) [snapback]401655[/snapback]</div>

Well, aside from the mis-characterization of atheism as a religion, which others have noted, it's also a mistake to consider it new. In fact, atheism is older than Christianity. The term itself comes from ancient Greek and is at least 2500 years old. It was not uncommon for classical Greek and Roman philosophers to express a disbelief in the polytheistic religions of their times.

Brutal suppression of religious dissent in Europe by the Christian authorities did make public atheism rare for a while (at least in the records that survive), but that came to an end with the Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century. In the French Revolution in the late 1700s, it wasn't just the king, but also the church that was overthrown, and officially replaced with a "Cult of Reason" for a while. Public atheism has never died out since, in spite of various official efforts to fight it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Mar 7 2007, 11:56 PM) [snapback]402141[/snapback]</div>

Things might be about to change. On Monday, the Secular Coalition for America announced that a member of the US Congress will come out as an atheist in one week, on March 12. Stay tuned.

http://www.atheists.org/nogodblog/index.ph...me_out_of_the_c

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ Mar 7 2007, 07:30 AM) [snapback]401642[/snapback]</div>

In none of my posts have I tried to tell what to believe so don't try to pin that on me.

Wildkow

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Mar 7 2007, 07:28 AM) [snapback]401640[/snapback]</div>

OK , show me the generally accepted defention and cite sources like I have.

Wildkow