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Author Topic:   Born believers: How your brain creates God
uco:nin
Junior Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 2
From: Plymouth, UK
Joined: 01-28-2009


Message 11 of 74 (497738)
02-05-2009 10:14 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by NosyNed
02-04-2009 3:09 PM


Hi,
This is my first post at EVC but I have read (lurked you might say) for quite a couple of years. Hopefully I will be more active from now on.
As for the OP: the concept of 'wired in' in neuro/psycho/cogni-science is such a fought over issue in-itself that pairing it with religion it a almost a guarantee of a no-hoper topic. However ...
If religion is wired into the brain then everyone would be religeous. This , of course, devolves into a an arguement about what is reglion and what is belief. Or why encode a predetemination for religion and not specifically for Christainity , or Judaism, etc.
I feel that there is a lot to discuss on this thread, however, the reason i decided to finally contribute is History.
I am an atheist. I am also a scientist. But I dont believe that deliberate confrontation between science and religion is the best way to convince believers that they are wrong. Science requires effort to understand and is, it seems, easy to misinterpret. Weapons that require the victim (as it were) to put in effort before they become effective are pretty much useless, in my opinion. (OK a pretty s**t metaphor, i know, but its late).
So, the point. Read the history of religion and philosophy. Look at the circumtances that led to the creation of each religion. This provides ample evidence that religion is a human trait and that like any other myth, legend or story it adapts from generation to generation. The 'The History of Western Philosophy' by Bertrand Russell is what I see as the best cure for religion I have encountered. Any special treatment of religion in psychology or neuroscience essentially dissovles into study of belief, intention or motivation. It is a creation of humans as much as any other human behaviour is.
There really is nothing in science that can disprove the existance of one god or another but once you understand the origins of relgion the whole thing becomes a lot more mundane. For this approach to be effective people do not need to be able to comprehend novel ideas, solve equations or even thing laterally, all they need to do is understand human nature.
sorry, I have tried to compress all the pent-up sentiment garnered from a couple of years reading this forum into a single post. I would like to expand more in subsequent posts. when sober, of course.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by NosyNed, posted 02-04-2009 3:09 PM NosyNed has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Nighttrain, posted 02-05-2009 11:38 PM uco:nin has not replied

  
uco:nin
Junior Member (Idle past 5530 days)
Posts: 2
From: Plymouth, UK
Joined: 01-28-2009


Message 12 of 74 (497743)
02-05-2009 11:04 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Modulous
02-04-2009 5:21 PM


I've watched the first 30 mins and I have to say that this is a very poor presentation. while I don't necessarily disagree with everything said, for anyone with strong religious conviction this isnt going to provide anything they cant argue away into nothing. If fact some of the points are rather weak. I guess my point is that, on a forum with a thread containing a hundred-odd posts dedicated to every specific issue, how is a video that covers topics in 30 sec segments every going to make any headway.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by Modulous, posted 02-04-2009 5:21 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by Modulous, posted 02-06-2009 6:46 AM uco:nin has not replied

  
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