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Author | Topic: Born believers: How your brain creates God | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
It is only through thousands of years of human psychological and social evolution that humans have gone from: a. acognitive (lack of thought/rationalization) i.e. an animals lack of higher cognition needed to develop a system of religious beliefb. animism/totemism (belief in human-like spirits which inhabit both living and non-living things) Gosh. That's an awefully big step, dontcha think? How many points do you think there are between a and b here?
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DevilsAdvocate Member (Idle past 3354 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: |
CS writes: Myself writes: It is only through thousands of years of human psychological and social evolution that humans have gone from:a. acognitive (lack of thought/rationalization) i.e. an animals lack of higher cognition needed to develop a system of religious belief b. animism/totemism (belief in human-like spirits which inhabit both living and non-living things) Gosh. That's an awefully big step, dontcha think? How many points do you think there are between a and b here? Having taken some cultural anthropology and visiting similar cultures, my understanding is that what modern Christian/Western World think of as spirits and that of primitive cultures is two totally different things. Many of these cultures did not see these "spirits" as supernatural but rather natura phenomena that caused animate objects to move i.e. trees, stars, animals, etc. Early animism did not consist of religious practices i.e. praying, worshiping; later more evolved religious beliefs did. Once humanoids were capable of attempting to comprehending the world around them, they used whatever tools and previous learning to attempt to understand why things behaved the way they did. Thus they may have asked? Why do things move i.e. animals, the sun, the moon, etc. Since they themselves moved than they thought that these other animate things must be powered by these same thing that animates them like some type of life force aka "spirit". For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Dr. Carl Sagan
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ICANT Member (Idle past 280 days) Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: |
Hi DA,
DevilsAdvocate writes: The Pirah tribe of the Amazon have no concept of God(s) or religion, though they do have a primitive form of belief called animism (human like "spirits" inhabit If I am wrong why do they believe in any kind of spirits?
DevilsAdvocate writes: BTW, other cultures/religions that are atheist include Buddhism and Taoism amongst others. Religion does not have to incorporate a belief in god(s). The Buddist that I know have a little Budda statue who has a special place in the house and nobody desecrates that space. He is God.
DevilsAdvocate writes: Even so, would you consider an American Indian a Christian and saved? Would he/she go to heaven without believing in Jesus? It doesn't make any difference what I think. God is the judge and I believe He is a just Judge so I will leave their eternal destiny in His hands just as I left my eternal destiny in His hands. Why should I try to put limits on God and tell Him what to do and not to do there is enough religious people and atheist doing that already. Nobody can put limits on God. If they could they would be God. "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
DA writes: Show me a child that has an inate notion of the Christian God without someone teaching it to them at an early age. I know not one. Religious faith is preceded by indoctrination. I never head a sermon, read or heard a Bible verse or darkened the door of a church until I was in the 3rd grade at about age 8. However, there was a time before we moved to town and were taken to a church when my bother, sister and I prayed. My parents were gone for the evening and we three were left home. My brother and I did something we never did before or since. We streaked through the house with our pants off. My sister did not participate but saw us. After we went to bed, my sister said we should pray. We all prayed and asked God to forgive us. That was it. That alone was all I had experienced relative to God relative to anything. It was not until we moved to town and were taken to a local Baptist church by our new neighbors that we were exposed to anything Biblical. My point is that we three all were convicted of God that we were sinners. This was my first experience of an awareness of God. I believe God heard our prayers and effected our eventual coming to the place where we were ministered of the gospel and became Christians by receiving Jesus, the savior. To this day our whole family which grew to six children remain faithful to God as Christians and survive our godly parents who have since deceased to await the resurrection when we will all be united in Heaven. BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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DevilsAdvocate Member (Idle past 3354 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: |
Buz writes: Myself writes: Show me a child that has an inate notion of the Christian God without someone teaching it to them at an early age. I know not one. Religious faith is preceded by indoctrination. I never head a sermon, read or heard a Bible verse or darkened the door of a church until I was in the 3rd grade at about age 8. However, there was a time before we moved to town and were taken to a church when my bother, sister and I prayed. My parents were gone for the evening and we three were left home. My brother and I did something we never did before or since. We streaked through the house with our pants off. My sister did not participate but saw us. After we went to bed, my sister said we should pray. We all prayed and asked God to forgive us.
Would you have believed in God much less prayed if you were never taken to church or exposed to Christianity in the first place?
That was it. That alone was all I had experienced relative to God relative to anything. It was not until we moved to town and were taken to a local Baptist church by our new neighbors that we were exposed to anything Biblical. It only took one time of meeting Santa Claus at the mall at the age of 2 1/2 for my daughter to believe that Santa Claus really existed. This is reinforced after watch many of a Santa Claus movies on tv and family members reenforcing this belief. So how is this any different than your experience about God?
My point is that we three all were convicted of God that we were sinners. No, Buddhists do not believe they are sinners. Many adherants of other religions do not believe they are sinners as defined by the Bible. Fallible yes, sinners no.
This was my first experience of an awareness of God. I believe God heard our prayers and effected our eventual coming to the place where we were ministered of the gospel and became Christians by receiving Jesus, the savior. To this day our whole family which grew to six children remain faithful to God as Christians and survive our godly parents who have since deceased to await the resurrection when we will all be united in Heaven What I am saying is that if child grows up with zero exposure to the Bible, they will never believe in the God of the Bible until they are exposed to it. You were exposed and as a result you latched onto that religion. Nothing wrong with that, but it is a lie to claim that all humans have some sort of innate knowledge of God when they are born. They do not. How do I know? I have a 4 year old daughter. Even after she began coherently talking at about age 1 1/2 it wasn't until about 3 1/2 to 4 that she really started talking about God. Her knowledge of God comes from her mother and her taking her to church. How do I know? She repeats verbatim exactly the same phrases her mother and her grandmother tell her i.e. God created everything, God created us, God loves us. If my daughter was raised strictly in an atheist home who never talked about God, she would not be talking like this. Only when exposed i.e. at school, on tv, etc would that child even learn to know what the concept of God was about. How do I know this? My sister and her husband are pretty much agnostic atheists. There son never talks about God or religion. For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Dr. Carl Sagan
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Dawn Bertot Member (Idle past 335 days) Posts: 3571 Joined: |
The devil writes:
Nothing wrong with that, but it is a lie to claim that all humans have some sort of innate knowledge of God when they are born. They do not. Yes they do boy, and watch it or youll get suspended again, ha ha. Ill be in here in just a while confonjulating your arguments. See you in a while son. Bertot
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DevilsAdvocate Member (Idle past 3354 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: |
ICANT writes: Myself writes: The Pirah tribe of the Amazon have no concept of God(s) or religion, though they do have a primitive form of belief called animism (human like "spirits" inhabit. If I am wrong why do they believe in any kind of spirits? I explained it in my previous post, but to reiterate: What the Pirah call spirits and what Western culture calls spirits are two totally different things. The Pirah define spirits as what causes animate matter to move i.e. humans, animals, plants, the wind, water, sun, moon, etc. These "spirits" are physical manifestations of real objects and animals, not the ephemeral, ghost-like entities as described by modern mystics and paranormal enthusiasts.
As far as the Pirah have related to researchers, their culture is concerned solely with matters that fall within direct personal experience, and thus there is no history beyond living memory. Like everything else in their world view, their belief in spirits is drawn from direct experience. Everett writes: They believe in spirits, though these are not the same kinds of spirits in other cultures. These "spirits" can be jaguars, trees, or other visible, tangible things. Everett writes: Moreover, the Piraha tell no creation myths and don't make up stories or draw pictures. They believe in spirits that they directly encounter at times, "but there's no great god who created all the spirits, in the Piraha view" Everett says. Anytime a being has enough intelligence to begin to comprehend the world around them, they are going to use known concepts i.e. human-like "spirits" to attempt to explain the unknown "why do things move?". The Pirah understand that they (humans) move, so therefore whatever is making them move, behave, speak, etc must also be what makes other things in their world move as well. This concept of relating known phenomena (or what they thought they know) to unknown phenomena is why religion reigned human belief thousands of years before scientific reasoning and logic really took hold. A good quote to describe this concept is this:
Aldous Huxley writes: You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. . . . Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough. ICANT writes: The Buddist that I know have a little Budda statue who has a special place in the house and nobody desecrates that space. He is God. How are you defining the term "god"?
ICANT writes: myself writes: Even so, would you consider an American Indian a Christian and saved? Would he/she go to heaven without believing in Jesus? It doesn't make any difference what I think. But you brought up the statement that American Indians believe a Great Spirit of the Happy Hunting Grounds as part of a defense that all humans have some type of innate belief in God. If the belief in this spirit is not accepted by God as being the same as believing in himself and Jesus and thus the American Indians are not saved than your point is moot. BTW, not all American Indians believe in this "Great Spirit up in the happy hunting grounds". The religious beliefs of American natives are as varied as there cultures. In fact there religious beliefs and rituals were one and the same with there culture. The Inuit (Eskimos) believed in an underwater goddess named Sedna who was part human and part fish, as well as a host of other deities who were the masters of different kinds of artic animals. The Lakota and Dakota believed in a single spiritual force (but not a single divine being) called Wakan-Tanka. Some Native Americans believed in reincarnation and coming back as animals, others believed that the after-life consisted of coming back as spirits. Different tribes had different accounts of Creation (both of the world and of humans). The Great Spirit of the Happy Hunting Grounds was only believed by some not all of American natives i.e. the American Indians of the Great Plains area but I think it is a far stretch to equate these two as being the same supernatural entity (at least in beliefs and practice).
ICANT writes: God is the judge and I believe He is a just Judge so I will leave their eternal destiny in His hands just as I left my eternal destiny in His hands. Why should I try to put limits on God and tell Him what to do and not to do there is enough religious people and atheist doing that already. Nobody can put limits on God. If they could they would be God. Ok, so you are taking an agnostic position on the salvation of the American Indians who believe in the Great Spirit (or any other parallel beliefs). I have no problem with that however I would like to see the parallelism between the God of the Bible and the Great Spirit of the Happy Hunting Grounds. Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : Correct spelling For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Dr. Carl Sagan
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
DA writes: Would you have believed in God much less prayed if you were never taken to church or exposed to Christianity in the first place? Perhaps my message was ambiguous. What I meant to say is that before we moved to town and became exposed to something Biblical, my sister, brother and myself had a prayer session in our country house to whom we regarded as God. We were genuinely convicted by some power of sinful acts which we had done. After having learned about the power of the Holy Spirit I am convinced in my own mind that it was that spirit of God which had convicted us as ignorant children. What we call conscience may be have a bearing on that spiritual power. BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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DevilsAdvocate Member (Idle past 3354 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: |
Buz writes: Perhaps my message was ambiguous. What I meant to say is that before we moved to town and became exposed to something Biblical, my sister, brother and myself had a prayer session in our country house to whom we regarded as God. We were genuinely convicted by some power of sinful acts which we had done. After having learned about the power of the Holy Spirit I am convinced in my own mind that it was that spirit of God which had convicted us as ignorant children. What we call conscience may be have a bearing on that spiritual power. Sorry, call me a liar but I do not believe that you had some innate, inborn knowledge of God and how to pray without first having some exposure to prayer and God in the first place. You may have learned it at school, as at that time prayer was incorporated into schools. Even when I was a child back in the 1970's in the South, prayers were said over the loud speaker in the morning in my school. I trust you were not born in China. America is not a vacuum of Christianity. It is all over the place, and probably more so when you were a child. It would have been pretty easy for you to pick up bits and pieces of the Christian faith in American society at the time. Babies and infants have no knowledge of God or prayer until they learn it through the example or indoctrination by other people. Otherwise why would not children all around the world be believers in the Christ and God of the Bible when they turn 8 years old. Your logic is screwy. Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given. For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Dr. Carl Sagan
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Nighttrain Member (Idle past 4246 days) Posts: 1512 From: brisbane,australia Joined: |
Hypothetically, when God exterminated the human race (Great Shades of Hitler)by a world-wide Flood, the survivors apparently did a diaspora to the four corners of the world (hypothetically). How come we don`t find echoes of Noah and Co.'s beliefs in all races? Where are the lingering traces of a mono god? Where are the talking snakes? The ribless man? Please don`t bother about legends of floods, etc.
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ICANT Member (Idle past 280 days) Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: |
Hi DA,
DevilsAdvocate writes: How are you defining the term "god"? Anything you put your trust in. Like your God. You trust completely in your intelligence. Thus your God.
DevilsAdvocate writes: I have no problem with that however I would like to see the parallelism between the God of the Bible and the Great Spirit of the Happy Hunting Grounds. They couldn't help it if down through the years there were no fundies to keep the correct story before them so their belief had degenerated to what they had. God is a Great Spirit.Heaven to the Indian would be a hunting grounds. So they worshiped a Great Spirit that had a Paradise for them. So as I said I will leave their destiny to God just as He has mine in His hands. I will be satisfied with His decision. God Bless, "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
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Dawn Bertot Member (Idle past 335 days) Posts: 3571 Joined: |
Bertot writes:
Sorry for the intrusion and I did not know where to put this information. I tried under Announcements but couldnt get it to work. Anywho there is a day debate on evolution and the God of the Bible, Thursday, hosted by Apologetics Press between Kyle Butt and Dan Barker. I called them and they said they were not sure whether there would be a live feed from the internet, they were hoping there would be. They told me call back on Wed afternoon and they would probably know. I will post it it there is. At any rate it will be on the website and dvd afterwards. Here is the website above for details and sorry again for the interuption in your thread. UPDATE: This debate mentioned above will be available live on webcast. Starting at 6:00 pm central 12 Feb 09. Simply go to the above website and you will be able to access it. Sorry again for the intrusion. D Bertot
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DevilsAdvocate Member (Idle past 3354 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: |
ICANT writes: Anything you put your trust in. Like your God. Typical Christian platitude. In this case science is your god. Your parents are your god. Your granparents are your god. Friends are your god. Your federal, state and local government is your god. The police and emergency services is your god. Doctors are your god. Teachers are your god. Pastors are your god. Even your dog can be your god. Society in general is your god. Trust is doled out in the shovel fulls across human society.
ICANT writes: You trust completely in your intelligence. Thus your God. And you trust your intelligence that you are right and I am wrong about your faith. So where does this get us? Nowhere. If you can't provide evidence to back up your claims and are using emotion and irrational claims to back it up, than you are comitting a logical fallacy called Special Pleading. Please correct me if I am wrong ICANT. Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given. Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given. For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Dr. Carl Sagan
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DevilsAdvocate Member (Idle past 3354 days) Posts: 1548 Joined: |
ICANT writes: Anything you put your trust in. Like your God. You trust completely in your intelligence. Thus your God. To ammend my previous statements about you considering that anyone can take the place of God, I would like to steal a line from the movie "The Incredibles": Syndrome/Buddy states the following when he threatens to release his superhuman "incredible" technology: "When everyone is incredible...then NOBODY will be." The same can be said of god. If everyone can be considered a god, than NOBODY will be.
ICANT writes: They couldn't help it if down through the years there were no fundies to keep the correct story before them so their belief had degenerated to what they had. God is a Great Spirit.Heaven to the Indian would be a hunting grounds. So they worshiped a Great Spirit that had a Paradise for them. Can you provide some historical evidence to back up this unsubstantiated claim that American Native spiritualism evolved from Judaism/Christianity? Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given. For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Dr. Carl Sagan
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
DA writes: Sorry, call me a liar but I do not believe that you had some innate, inborn knowledge of God and how to pray without first having some exposure to prayer and God in the first place. You may have learned it at school, as at that time prayer was incorporated into schools. Even when I was a child back in the 1970's in the South, prayers were said over the loud speaker in the morning in my school. I trust you were not born in China. America is not a vacuum of Christianity. It is all over the place, and probably more so when you were a child. It would have been pretty easy for you to pick up bits and pieces of the Christian faith in American society at the time. Babies and infants have no knowledge of God or prayer until they learn it through the example or indoctrination by other people. Otherwise why would not children all around the world be believers in the Christ and God of the Bible when they turn 8 years old. Your logic is screwy. Though I don't remember of my teachers praying in school or of my early school teachers advocating Christianity, likely there were references to God in some of the text books or history lessons relative to the founding fathers. In some of he patriotic songs and things like the Pledge of Allegiance there were references to God but not to the point that I had a particular awareness of them. Most of the stories were things like Dick, Jane & Spot or fairy tales, etc. At Christmas it was all Santa. Certainly prayer or Bible reading was neither in the school or home in my experience. I never heard the term "born again" until I heard it in church. We lived in the country in Wyoming and I never experienced a flush toilet until the 2nd grade, though the year before we moved to town our home had a flush toilet. The one room schoolhouse had a wood pot belly stove and an outhouse. All 8 grades were taught in the school house. When we moved to town that all changed. That was during grade 3. I don't remember of prayer in our home before we went to church. There was a little prayer I prayed before bed time as a child, but to the best of my recollection that was after we began going to church. It was the one, "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." ....or something like that. BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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