This is just a quickie post. The other day I caught myself wondering why some of us humans are atheists, and many of humans are not.
OK, I know there have been studies that give atheists a bit of a collective edge over theists when it comes to IQ and education, but still, there are quite a few theists who are pretty dog darn smart. Some are even smarter than me. Did I say that?
Yeah, I realize the common answer is that faith is separate from intelligence. I still don't buy that fully.
Why did I make the leap into realizing that there is no evidence that God exists, and that the world makes perfect sense without even considering a God, when I have siblings who believe in God (though none are religious)?
It brings me to the idea that atheists might have a different prewiring in our brains. Atheism might be predominant for certain personality types as well. Most atheists I know have a tendency to be analytical, and even over-analytical (and I'm not saying this as if it were a bad thing). I remember being on a date in my early twenties, and the girl looked into my eyes and said "you are always thinking, aren't you?" I thought that was odd, but maybe many of us atheists think a lot more than theists do.
Atheism still has to be mostly a product of nurture. Still, I wonder if I was forced to go to Hebrew school and if my parents were deeply religious, would I too be a theist today?
A study done in 2005, seems to indicate that spirituality might be more influenced by genetics. It doesn't explain why I am the only atheist out of 6 (my parents, my two brothers and one sister). In our household we always assumed God existed, and that is how we were brought up.
To atheists like myself, it is almost silly now to consider God as being real. And I'm very content with my world view today. But I wonder still, why me?
My wife and I once admitted to my son that there was no Santa Claus. We told him the truth and were honest. Everyone had a good laugh.
ReplyDeleteThe next day, I asked my son about whether he believed in Santa or not. He said he still wasn't sure! What?!?
First, I think our brains evolved to believe in supernatural things. Maybe it was a byproduct of becoming fully conscious. Maybe because we're the only species with the knowledge that we will die has led us to believe in an alternative reality. Who knows?
Second, quoting X-Files, "I want to believe". Like my son, we like the idea of the supernatural. We really want it to be true. It would make the world easier to understand if we could blame everything that happens on some mysterious external force. This is far less work than actually learning the truth. Just talk to a UFO believer - they really want aliens to be among us.
Reality seems to offer hopelessness. What's the point of life? We are born and then die and that's it? If the sun dies out, all known life is gone but the universe continues for no reason at all? This is immensely terrifying for us humans (the gerbils in my son's cage don't seem bothered by this).
I guess us atheists have decided to take reality head-on. We see a truth that others are blinded to. We understand that this is our only shot at life so why spend it in servitude to others? Why work in a meaningless job while the owner gets rich? Why sacrifice for an invisible entity? Live! Follow your dreams!
Just a thought...
The next day, I asked my son about whether he believed in Santa or not. He said he still wasn't sure! What?!?
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If your son was 4, it would be understandable, but if he was 14, I'd have a problem too.
I think our brains evolved to believe in supernatural things. Maybe it was a byproduct of becoming fully conscious. Maybe because we're the only species with the knowledge that we will die has led us to believe in an alternative reality. Who knows?
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You should read the God Part Of The Brain. The author pretty much agrees with you and goes into a deeper explanation.
Coming up with supernatural explanations for death and lightning were needed to keep sane and make it to procreation.
"I want to believe".
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True. This leads to wilful ignorance of course when no thinking is used.
Reality seems to offer hopelessness. What's the point of life? We are born and then die and that's it? If the sun dies out, all known life is gone but the universe continues for no reason at all? This is immensely terrifying for us humans (the gerbils in my son's cage don't seem bothered by this).
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I recently started asking theists, what is the point of living for eternity. At least as an atheist, I can explain purpose of life, because we share this purpose with every life form. That is survival and procreation. Doing what we can to make sure our species survives to the next generation. What is the theist's purpose of life?
I guess us atheists have decided to take reality head-on. We see a truth that others are blinded to. We understand that this is our only shot at life so why spend it in servitude to others? Why work in a meaningless job while the owner gets rich? Why sacrifice for an invisible entity? Live! Follow your dreams!
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Much of this sounds like something I would say. Appreciation that this is our one shot at life, especially.
But the question still is, why do some of us cross over the reality threshold and become atheists, while the majority of the population doesn't.
I can't imagine not being an atheist now, and I'm sure you feel the same way.
See my recent post, Religion, Health, and Happiness: What Causes What?
ReplyDeleteYou might as well ask why are some of us socialists?
ReplyDeleteBecause we're more analytical? Better thinkers? Genetically different? Nurtured differently?
your question doesn't seem to make much sense looked at like that, does it?
Or does it? Maybe the cosmos really does have a self-organising principle which, through intelligence itself, can eventually be discerned. Maybe intelligence always leads a certain way - perhaps in a similar way as history is process generated by historical-materialism, say? Or more simply, in the way numbers "work": once you have "one", then "two" is implicit.....
The supernatural can be explained as functional for early humans. But also the absence of the supernatural is implicit in the idea of the supernatural too, isn't it?
So I don't think there's an answer to your question, without assuming a sort of self-organising logic written into the cosmos itself......which seems to imply a sort of intelligent design, doesn't it?
This question is only valid if you presume that atheism is not itself a faith. I know that such a suggestion can draw rage in the followers of atheism, and I will not bother to waste time getting involved in that circular argument again, but this is the opinion I hold to and I'll just leave it at that.
ReplyDeleteMZ, if you want to redefine the word "faith" it is up to you. But it doesn't take faith to not believe in Leprechauns or God.
ReplyDeleteLeft, my question doesn't imply ID at all. There are certain tendencies that help us survive and some that don't. Our ancestors needed supernatural belief to keep from going nuts and make it to adulthood. It didn't mean they there was anything intelligent guiding them.
Absence in the supernatural is what we see with most of the lower animal forms on this planet. They don't even have an idea of the supernatural.
I really don't get your point or thoughts regarding how my question helps prove ID.
As far as your socialist analogy, perhaps that is the default position for us social animals. Tribes who are on this planet right now, seem to be very socialistic. I think capitalism maybe completely learned or nurture. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
JA, interesting stuff. I glanced over it a week ago without really giving it in depth thought.
ReplyDeleteIt is a possible reason for atheism. A lack of the religious/happiness receptor. But I still think atheists are as happy as theists collectively. Maybe we are in a state of more serious thought more or the time than theists, and it could interfere with our happy time.
Longevity can be explained away because atheists tend to have smaller families. Perhaps if someone has an accident, a life can be saved by having someone near by.
We would need a better more detailed study.
Research on the gene for religion seems to sum it up. If there's a gene involved, then we can't really fight it. I'd like to think that the reason I'm an atheist is because I question everything. But theists are also dogged by questions that need explanation and religion seems to satisfy their curiosity. Personally I'm always baffled at how highly intelligent people can adhere to religious beliefs. Even some scientists have religious beliefs.
ReplyDeleteBEAJ:Left, my question doesn't imply ID at all.
ReplyDeleteWell, I dunno. I think it leads down the same path.
See, you say "There are certain tendencies that help us survive and some that don't." And you seem to want to place atheism in that scheme.
Yet we might ask WHY are there "certain tendencies that help us survive and some that don't."?
It's like asking "why the big bang?"
There's no real answer available is there? I think your question is heading down much the same avenue.
If we were to come across many alien species, and we found their physical and mental development essentially mirrored our own, we'd be asking "why?", wouldn't we? It would imply a sort of self-organising principle to the cosmos, and to such questions ID has an appealing answer.
Proteins can be stimulated into chains, and self-replication is the foundation of evolution. Fine. We can perhaps describe how it does it, but asking "why" it does so seems to lead inexorably to ID. Not to say ID is true, just that that's its realm. Just as asking "why" is reproduction the point of life? All we can do is describe life as it is - there's no answer to "why" it is as it is, outside of ID, religion, whatever?
Placing atheism in a hierarchical scheme of functional development seems to imply asking "What is this scheme for?", "Where does this scheme lead to?", "Why is this scheme present throughout the entire cosmos?" and "Why this scheme?"
Such questions invite a perspective of ID, don't they, because we have no answer to them?
Similar to your blog question, I've asked myself why I am a socialist whilst others in my family are not. Does it make sense to attribute it to functional evolution? I might like to think so, but I doubt I could persuade even a darwinian capitalist atheist of it! :)
Do you see what I am getting at? Does it make any sense? I think I'm incapable of explaining my point properly tbh. lol. It might become clearer if whenever you ask these questions about atheism, you consider the same questions with regard to socialism?
There is a natural explanation for why the Big Bang happened, though we don't know what it was for sure.
ReplyDeleteAs far as evolution goes, over 95% of all species that lived on this planet are extinct. It wipes out the likelihood of any sort of ID.
There is a natural explanation for why I am an atheist and why you are a socialist. It is most likely a combination of nature and nurture.
I don't think that all atheists today were destined to be atheists, nurture and learning had a lot to do with it in many cases.
Atheists can be created as well, just through exposure to facts (assuming the person drops wilfull ignorance, which too could have elements of biological predisposition).
From a scientific point of view the whole debate "Nurture v. Nature" is IMHO totally futile because for anything that is not a quite simple physical trait (height or eye colour), disentangling the influence of education (nurture) from our genotype (nature) is virtually impossible to do in the case of humans. To do so would require experimentation on such humans, in such a way that the influences of upbringing and genotype could be separated and quantified, by controlling the educational circumstances of various selected groups with similar genomes. In hard science that is the only way to uncover the secrets of the physical world empirically.
ReplyDeleteIn theory it could also be investigated by means of pure reason alone but the conclusions drawn from that kind of theoretical work could never be confirmed empirically.
That explains why for instance in the Nurture v. Nature debate on IQ such incessant and contradictory nonsense is peddled: the peddlers know very well that they can spout nonsense without suffering humiliating defeat by those who've ran experiments: such experiments would be illegal.
When your Pascal's Wager-types talk about faith as a conscious choice (or when they say it's easy to believe, I'm baffled.
ReplyDeleteFor me, there's really no choice involved. I agree that the correlation between IQ and belief does not imply causation; in fact, I suspect a closer examination of the statistics would show that if you only looked at people with a high IQ, you wouldn't find that atheist are necessarily smarter; the only problem is that people of a lower IQ, intellectually incurious people, tend to 'default' to theism and bring the theist average down.
To me it must be at least partly wiring in the brain. Just like sexual orientation, frankly.
This is what I ineloquently tried to express in this blog here: http://secularsundaysermon.blogspot.com/2008/05/god-gene.html