Where does religion come from?

Originally posted by sonhouse
One thought, our intelligence enables us to see patterns in randomness when in fact nothing is there. Chimps, for instance, cannot imagine patterns embedded in randomness because they have no sense of mind, they cannot visualize internally the idea there might be an active mind behind everything they cannot understand. Their brains are just not sophisticate ...[text shortened]... gious feelings, they can finally grow up and be adults which as a race, we are not even close.

Chimps, for instance, cannot imagine patterns embedded in randomness because they have no sense of mind, they cannot visualize internally the idea there might be an active mind behind everything they cannot understand. Their brains are just not sophisticated enough.

Out of curiosity, do you have references for these claims about chimp mentality?

Humans on the other hand, can attribute patterns, like thinking a god is giving them special messages in lightning, thunder, volcanoes, earthquakes, floods and so forth.

I don't think your argument here rests on a claim of attributing patterns, per se, but rather on a more focused claim of attributing agency. This is broadly related to notions like the "intentional stance".

At any rate, this won't constitute an explanation of why these types of religious commitments proliferated cross-culturally, etc, unless one can further support the claim that our ancestors were not only capable of this but broadly disposed toward this, which in turn also begs explanation of why that would be so. From a practical standpoint, this will require a concerted case to show that either (1) such was naturally selected for, in accordance with plausible mechanisms related to natural selection, etc or (2) such are predominantly spandrels of some sort or other. I have seen persons try to argue both cases.

If people understood that and were able to shuck the shackles of simulated religious feelings, they can finally grow up and be adults which as a race, we are not even close.

This I largely agree with. Even if the disposition toward attribution of supernatural agency (in cases where there is no rational justification for doing so) posed some evolutionary benefit, it doesn't follow that one should not endeavor to reform it upon standing back a little and introspecting on it. It seems complicated though. Persons, upon focused introspection, will have little trouble accepting that they ought to work on reforming some evolutionarily infixed disposition to stuff their faces whenever fatty food is readily available; but they will as easily fail to accept that they ought to reform some disposition toward attribution of agency that has no actual evidence in its favor. The latter can help in playing a strong narrative function that resounds strongly within for whatever reasons. But, at any rate, I think the march of science and education can wear away at this by breaking down some of the reinforcements for such disposition. At least nowadays its taken for granted that we have plausible natural explanations for things like lightning, earthquakes, etc.

With respect to attribution of agency and its (ersatz) explanative function, there are at least two issues. One is what you are hitting on: that willy-nilly attribution of agency doesn't actually play any real explanative role that a mature rational being should take seriously, and one should be able to understand this. The other is the underlying psychological neediness to have ready answers to questions that concern us, especially at the level that may inform our conceptions of personal meaning. For such questions, persons often do not seem too satisfied with "I really do not know why [this or that] is so". For those who are particularly disposed to this type of neediness, I would guess that introspection on this could aid in its dissolution on some level, which would promote more objectivity in one's inquiries into the world.

Originally posted by LemonJello

Chimps, for instance, cannot imagine patterns embedded in randomness because they have no sense of mind, they cannot visualize internally the idea there might be an active mind behind everything they cannot understand. Their brains are just not sophisticated enough.

Out of curiosity, do you have references for these claims about chimp me on some level, which would promote more objectivity in one's inquiries into the world.

As to the chimp data about theory of mind, I just saw it on Morgan Freeman's show 'through the black hole' on the science channel. There is this psychology researcher who did some interesting experiments with kids, too long to go into here, and another psychologist working with chimps and he did an experiment whereby he had these glasses, one you could see through (although they were dark sunglasses), and the other painted so you could not, totally opaque.

He would put one of them on the chimp and then the other, while holding out candy in his hand. The chimp could see with the sunglasses and took the candy but could not see through the other glasses and didn't try to reach out.

He then had two people sit one each side of a couch and took those same glasses and put one one one person and the other on the other one. He then gestured to the chimp to get the candy in the persons hands. He did not differentiate between the two people, begging for candy from each one in turn.

He then did the same on a 4 yo girl and showed her the glasses you could see through, then put the other one on her, showing her you could not see through the glasses.

Then he did the same with the glasses, put them on the two people on the couch and repeated the experiment.

The girl immediately went to the person with the transparent glasses (actually a shade of dark so you could not see the eyeballs) and begged for candy from that person, ignoring the one wearing the glasses the woman could not see through.

Then he asked the child why she picked the person with the semi transparent glasses. She said, because he could see.

That showed that the child, even though 4 years old, had a theory of mind, where she knew there was a mind inside the head of the two people on the couch.

The chimp would go randomly to each person showing it did not understand there was a mind inside the heads of the two people like his own mind. So the chimp did not have a 'theory of mind', where you recognize the intelligence inside the head of another as a mind like your own.

Originally posted by sonhouse
As to the chimp data about theory of mind, I just saw it on Morgan Freeman's show 'through the black hole' on the science channel. There is this psychology researcher who did some interesting experiments with kids, too long to go into here, and another psychologist working with chimps and he did an experiment whereby he had these glasses, one you could see ...[text shortened]... , where you recognize the intelligence inside the head of another as a mind like your own.

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't sure what you meant in the OP when you said chimps lack a "sense of mind". Now I see you were referring to a theory of mind.

In the literature, I would say this is a contentious topic but there is definitely some support for the idea that chimps lack this capacity. Here is a seemingly particularly apt paper (entitled Theistic Percepts in Other Species: Can Chimpanzees Represent the Minds of Non-Natural Agents? ), which argues for that position.

http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/InstituteofCognitionCulture/FileUploadPage/Filetoupload,90243,en.pdf

Originally posted by sonhouse
One thought, our intelligence enables us to see patterns in randomness when in fact nothing is there. Chimps, for instance, cannot imagine patterns embedded in randomness because they have no sense of mind, they cannot visualize internally the idea there might be an active mind behind everything they cannot understand. Their brains are just not sophisticate ...[text shortened]... gious feelings, they can finally grow up and be adults which as a race, we are not even close.

Yes, you are partially right. I would say that your explanation accounts for 95-99.5% of all "religious experiences". This does not include the people that have "off-beat" experiences and are wise enough not report them for various reasons, eg. they don't want to appear to be crazy, they value their sanity and r'ships with their families/friends and other such explanations.

I do personally believe that a minor fraction of these experiences are bonafide 'spiritual experiences' which is is so out there that the experiencee has no frame of reference into which to place these occurences.


When these series of "other-worldly" experiences happened to me I was quick to dismiss them as one beer to much or the trick of light at night,etc.


However when walls started "falling away" when visiting mates for a coffee, totally str8, when My girlie's head turned into a lizards head, and other bizarre things started happening to me, while I was totally straight that's when I turned full paranoid and it was not until I ACCEPTED my "initiation into divination" and went with "the program" (whatever that means?? ) , that I could once again venture out of my house.


I have talked about this experience to many people (well, the one's I thought might have an angle as to what the heck was hapening to me) and no one was able to shed much light on it. The best advice was to follow my own intuition on the matter and things have returned to 'normal' since then. (Mind you this was some 15 yrs ago, but needless to say it has changed my life irrevocably)

On a historical note the Upanishads, which is basically where all Hinduism,Buddhism and imho Christianity was derived from was the first "bible" which spawned the rest of the whole religious movements across the world.
There are exceptions, mind you, like the Australian Aboriginies, North American Indians, etc. which, at their heart have very similar "pagan" ideas as the other organized religions have.


(This is just a quick response to your op question, I must now run and busk up a few dollars to feed the family, however congrats on your thought-provoking op and I WILL BE BACK .... )

Originally posted by sonhouse
That's one rationalization. You seem to be admitting we have no connection to a god even if we did at one time.

Was lost now found.
Kelly

I read that with the ancient Hindus, wealthy families would hire priests to bless them , say good things about them and perform ceremonies . That religion started as 'rent a priest' from my understanding.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Was lost now found.
Kelly

Sounds like the opposite to me, was found then lost. Which of course I don't buy either way, just pointing that out.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Yes, you are partially right. I would say that your explanation accounts for 95-99.5% of all "religious experiences". This does not include the people that have "off-beat" experiences and are wise enough not report them for various reasons, eg. they don't want to appear to be crazy, they value their sanity and r'ships with their families/friends and oth ver congrats on your thought-provoking op and I WILL BE BACK .... )

Just wondered if you had ever taken LSD or mescalin? The problem with those drugs is they can have effects far removed from the day you take them and a recurrence of the high can happen years later, why I have no idea but that has been reported in the literature.

Like if you took acid in say 1990 and then you were at your house in 2005 and started seeing lizards on your gf's face and such, it could be explained by a delayed second reaction to an old acid trip.

Think about your earlier days and see if you remember taking acid or something like it years before or weeks before.

Not that I am even right, just wanting to eliminate mundane explanations.

Another possibility is eating bread that got certain molds on it, that was a huge problem a thousand years ago when entire villages would go nuts, not knowing they had just gone on an acid trip because of a bread mold that makes LSD or something very close to it.

I'll tell you of an experience I had once as a result of something I had to do at my job, many years ago. I lived in Scottsdale Arizona at the time, and rode my little 250 yamaha 2 stroke bike to work every day. The company was called General Instruments and it was my first job in a semiconductor cleanroom, So I had driven to work like normal and that day someone went to clean out a bucket of used photo resist where the stuff gets poured on a wafer and the wafer is spun to make a thin coating of the stuff. So what happened was they tried to get the bucket of used resist out from underneath the machine and accidentally spilled 10 gallons of the stuff on the cleanroom floor. So they evacuated the workers and such but sent in a detail crew to clean up the mess. I was new to the job so of course I was on that detail. Mopping up ten gallons on noxious smelling liquid from the floor. It took quite a while to do that and after about 30 minutes I was getting a bit woozy so I said I am going outside to get some fresh air. Let me tell you about my bike. It had a gas tank on it and that was painted a sparkly blue. So I went outside and my bike was parked right next to the employee entrance in a little bike parking area. I looked at the bike and lo and behold, the gas tank was now an emerald green! My first thought was someone was screwing around and had spray painted my bike while I was inside. I couldn't imagine just WHY someone would do that, it seemed preposterous, so I went back inside. Went to the lunch room thinking about why they painted my bike. About 30 minutes later, I was feeling a bit better, went back outside and lo and behold again, my bike was back to its original sparkly blue! Then I realized the photo resist chemical I had been mopping up had effected my color perception. It was really freaky I can tell you! It was obvious what had happened and it neatly explained why my bike had been 'painted'.

With that in mind you need to carefully go over what you had consumed that day and whether or not you had taken an acid or something similar in the past.

Only after all that would you want to ascribe your experience to some kind of supernatural event.

"Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief." -Oscar Wilde

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
"Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief." -Oscar Wilde

'religion is a smile on a dog' edie brickell.



i dont think anybody has ever summed religion up any better.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sounds like the opposite to me, was found then lost. Which of course I don't buy either way, just pointing that out.

If we had it, lost it, than it was restored....that was lost than found.
Kelly

Originally posted by sonhouse
As to the chimp data about theory of mind, I just saw it on Morgan Freeman's show 'through the black hole' on the science channel.

As an aside, the show is 'Through the Wormhole' on the Science Channel and I love that show.

http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole

Originally posted by sonhouse
One thought, our intelligence enables us to see patterns in randomness when in fact nothing is there. Chimps, for instance, cannot imagine patterns embedded in randomness because they have no sense of mind, they cannot visualize internally the idea there might be an active mind behind everything they cannot understand. Their brains are just not sophisticate ...[text shortened]... gious feelings, they can finally grow up and be adults which as a race, we are not even close.

Evolution is a Religion - Not Science

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=9RLcfwAYCjQ&feature=endscreen

YouTube

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
Evolution is a Religion - Not Science

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=9RLcfwAYCjQ&feature=endscreen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCbqe-aJMmg

The Instructor

Creationist sites that don't publish in peer reviewed papers is totally un credible. Creationists are one trick ponies, doesn't matter HOW much evidence comes out about evolution, they will never admit they could be wrong. There is only one answer for creationists. Hey, it's been 150 years now and no more evidence for creationism has come out then there was 150 years ago, it was the same story then and it's the same story now. However, evolution itself has evolved. As we learn more, we change the story some. Creationism on the other hand CANNOT evolve by definition.

So now isn't it time to drag in the piltdown man fakery? Come on, there MUST be some 100 year old conspiracy against evolution you can come up with. Don't DARE come up with recent work on evolution or biochemistry.
It always has to be AT LEAST 30 years old. Anything newer is verboden.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Creationist sites that don't publish in peer reviewed papers is totally un credible. Creationists are one trick ponies, doesn't matter HOW much evidence comes out about evolution, they will never admit they could be wrong. There is only one answer for creationists. Hey, it's been 150 years now and no more evidence for creationism has come out then there was n or biochemistry.
It always has to be AT LEAST 30 years old. Anything newer is verboden.

Why should we believe a story that changes every 10 to 20 years? Isn't it more reasonable to believe one that has not changed, but has remained the same over thousands of years? One is built on the shifting sand of lies and the other on the solid ground of truth. Man did not evolve from monkeys. Man was created by an intelligent designer, who most of us call God.

The instructor