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[MariusVI]

Duh...

Why do I find this disconcerting? Probably because this may develop in this direction: religion has benefited the evolution of mankind, so let's continue doing it.

Now I am an outspoken atheist of the non-Dawkins type (as far as there is such a type), but this outcome doesn't seem desirable to me from both an atheist and a Christian (or otherwise religious) point of view... Really, what happened to the search for truth? And to the freedom to do what isn't good for you? And by what standard should one measure what is good for you - me - us?

Still, I'm really curious as to the details of their eventual conclusion...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3393198.ece

Researchers at the University of Oxford will spend £1.9 million investigating why people believe in God. Academics have been given a grant to try to find out whether belief in a deity is a matter of nature or nurture.

They will not attempt to solve the question of whether God exists but they will examine evidence to try to prove whether belief in God conferred an evolutionary advantage to mankind. They will also consider the possibility that faith developed as a byproduct of other human characteristics, such as sociability.

Researchers at the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and the Centre for Anthropology and Mind in Oxford will use the cognitive science disciplines to develop “a scientific approach to why we believe in God and other issues around the nature and origin of religious belief”.

The cognitive sciences, or the science of mind and intelligence, combine disciplines such as evolutionary biology, neuroscience, linguistics and computer sciences to examine human behaviour.


God Alone Knows

Justin Barrett, a psychologist who has been quoted in support of arguments by both the atheist Richard Dawkins and his critic, Alister Mc-Grath, a Christian theologian, said: “We are interested in exploring exactly in what sense belief in God is natural. We think there is more on the nature side than a lot of people suppose.”

He compared believers to three-year-olds who “assume that other people know almost everything there is to be known”. Dr Barrett, who is a Christian, is the editor of the Journal of Cognition and Cultureand author of the book Why Would Anyone Believe in God? He said that the childish tendency to believe in the omniscience of others was pared down by experience as people grew up. But this tendency, necessary to allow human beings to socialise and cooperate with each other in a productive way, continued when it came to belief in God.

“It usually does continue into adult life,” he said. “It is easy, it is intuitive, it is natural. It fits our default assumptions about things.”

The research will feed into other areas, such as whether the conflicts associated with religion are a product of human nature. The project will also examine whether belief in the afterlife is something that needs to be taught or is a product of natural selection.

Dr Barrett said: “The next step therefore is to look at some of the detailed questions - which religious beliefs are most common and most natural for the human mind to grasp?” The most exciting questions were in areas such as the different responses to polytheism and monotheism, for example, and relationships between religion and evolutionary biology.

He and his colleague Roger Trigg will be investigating whether religion is a part of the selection process that has helped humans survive or merely a byproduct of evolution.

The three-year study is being funded by a £1.9 million grant to the Ian Ramsey Centre from the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research into religion, science and spirituality. There will be seminars and workshops, while £800,000 will go towards a small grant competition, with 41 grants for different projects.

Professor Trigg, a senior research Fellow at Oxford and author of Religion in Public Life: Must Faith be Privatised?, said: “Religion has played an important role in public life over the past few years and the debate about the origin of religion, and how it fits into the human mind, has intensified. This study will not prove or disprove any aspect of religion.”

[t'Sade]

That will be an interesting study. In three years, post the results?

[MariusVI]

Hokay... I guess they will be difficult to miss, for me. I once met Roger Trigg, by the way, and read one of his books - he seemed more of a philosopher than a psychologist/biologist/genetic historian to me, so I do hope that the results won't be just a lot of "soft" chit-chat under a veneer of hardworking intellectualism.

[t'Sade]

Hokay... I guess they will be difficult to miss, for me. I once met Roger Trigg, by the way, and read one of his books - he seemed more of a philosopher than a psychologist/biologist/genetic historian to me, so I do hope that the results won't be just a lot of "soft" chit-chat under a veneer of hardworking intellectualism.

Never met him, but you know that a study like this is going to be "invalidated" by people who don't agree with it. That is the problem with the topic, people are so high-strung on it, they can't and won't see any view other than their own.

[der Wandersmann]

Egg-zackly!

Happens that I, personally, believe some very queer stuff, indeed. I often refer to myself as a card-carrying member of the Lunatic Fringe. I seem to have lost my card, though. Anyway, I have noticed that in any inquiry as to the objective reality of some of these beliefs, metaphysical in nature, there is always "the other explanation". "On the other hand, ..." as Tevye says. And, being somewhat of a nutter, I feel that this situation is probably set up on purpose. People are not constitutionally or developmentally at the same places; some require no explanation; some require a physical science explanation; others can accept a metaphysical explanation. And the really groovy part about the different explanations, or lack of them, is that none of them ... repeat, NONE ... have the slightest effect upon the truth, which, whatever it is, remains true no matter what one believes.

Throw in multi-valued logic, and you've got all kinds of fun.

[LT]

Things have happened to me and to members of my family that reinforce my belief in a higher power.  Primarily I'm just not a big believer in organized religion, and like everythign else I believe that religion has its place, which is why I'm pretty secularist when it comes to everyday life and matters of the state.

[MariusVI]

Hokay...

That's an answer to the question posed in the thread title. But what about the research project sketched, or announced, in the text body?

[LT]

I'll answer that with another question: why do we care?  I've never understtod this need by either side to either prove or disprove aspects of their faith, whether it's creationists pretending to be scientific or atheists going out of their way to point out how insane and contradictory the Bible can be, I just don't get this overwhelming need people seem to have to validate what in my view is a very private and personal thing to people who couldn't possibly care any less.

More directly, this study stinks of having an agenda, whether it's to make religious people look like pathetic fools who believe in magic sky pixies simply because their parents told them to as children, or to paint religion as some kind of glue that's held civilization together despite all the setbacks that it's given us with things like the Inquisition and the persecution of scientists pretty much up to present day, because we still have nutters threatening to kill people over teaching evolution in science class (gee, imagine that, teaching science in science class  ).  From my perspective, this study is a pointless waste of time, money, and effort.

[der Wandersmann]

Wow! Magic sky pixies! I think I'll believe in them, it'll be a refreshing change-up.

[Ludovico]

Well, all knowledge about human nature is worth pursuing, but they may be on the wrong track. A number of points:

1. Religion originated from need to control natural events around us. Cave paintings indicate this. Early humans felt helpless, and tried to develop ways to influence what we now call nature.

2. This stemmed from projecting our own volitional powers on a existing things -Animism. It also included not accepting life ending with death.

3. The proof of this is that religion is universal for all early tribes - called natural religions as each tribe developed it's own, naturally.

4. As human society grew more complex, so did religion. This included evolving codes for social control as well as controlling natural events.

5.  Eventually, with increased development of society, polytheist evolved naturally into montheism, and social control became predominant.

6. Ultimately, this became more political as humans became more political. Afterlife became a very powerful political tool!

7. This led to the surplanting  of natural tribal religions with the so-called World Religions, with afterlife becoming an important part of their powerbase.

8. Since humans are naturally warlike (or at least men, demonstrated by the current popularity of violent video games), religious violence and wars occurred.

9. Once very political world religions became established, they were, and are, perpetuated by the brainwashing of infants from birth.

10. This brainwashing, political and social power, together with psychological need keeps them going today, especially the need of an afterlife.

11. There also may be a natural spirituality that makes us not want to believe we live in a purely materialistic universe, and all life ends completely with death!

Nothing can change the minds of those who believe, so this study will be for the open-minded. Many folks turn toward Wicca, which is a revival of natural religions.

Just my two cents. 

[t'Sade]

That was a really good summary of things. I'll expand on it a bit. Wicca has begun to hit the dogma aspect of its development as a religion. You have your witch wars where different people claim theirs is the best and you have the increase of rules. I used to go to DragonFest, which was a really nice mostly Wicca festival, but it started getting so institutional that it wasn't fun anymore.

I think it is the natural order of events with anything. You start off with a good idea, but as you build more and more on it, it gets this structure that becomes inflexible. Then, you have other smaller religions/demoninations that go back to the original idea, but if they take off, they also start to get it.

Actually, change religion to corporation and you got my philosophy of all organizations, religious and otherwise.

But, I think that core idea is there. I full admit, I'm religious without church. I've had things in my life that have pulled me back from a brink and gave me faith.

[KK]

I agree. At its core religion can be a goosd thing as it supplies individuals with faith and gives them the strength and courage to do things they couldn't normally do.

Religious institutions eventually get more and more concerned about power. It's inevitable, because institutionalism involves getting a hierarchy. That means challenge between different individuals at first, then between factions led by individuals and eventually the hierarchy and keeping the institution alive (and growing) becomes more important than the reasons of its founding.
So, basically I view all religious institutions as bad things.

Individuals are seldom fanatics in their own right. They only become fanatics if they can lend on an institution that fuels them or if they oppose an institution that (real or perveived) hurt their beliefs. Mostly it's both at the same time.

[LT]

It's too easy for one side to paint the other in simplistic, collective terms.  Unfortunately they lose sight of the fact that for every Pat Robinson there's also a Martin Luther King, Jr. 

[Ludovico]

It's too easy for one side to paint the other in simplistic, collective terms.  Unfortunately they lose sight of the fact that for every Pat Robinson there's also a Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Good point! It's not religion, it's us!!
You start out with someone like Jesus, who had beautiful ideas, and look what human beings turn it into. Same with the Buddha. I think they would have loved each other, but people have turned their ideas into massive oppositional institutions. Same thing now with Wicca.

Religion needs to remain entirely individual, each of us seeking our own path. Then we can appreciate all the beautiful ideas, and lose the dogma.

[der Wandersmann]

The Magic Sky Pixies are gonna punish you guys.