Henry:

You seem to assume that for religiosity to emerge from deeply rooted instincts, there must be a "smoking gun"-style "God gene". That is a fairly extreme claim, and seems to be a non sequitur. It could very well be that there is no specific "God gene", but that there IS an enduring predisposition to religiosity in humanity which emerges as a result of various other instincts and predispositions encoded in human nature. Simply assume, as I believe you do, that human nature is determined, at least to a great degree, by biology, and we now have a religiosity directly linked to, inseparable from, generated by biological mechanisms.

Now, it might be asked: if that is true, why do some humans exhibit - or at least, seem to exhibit - very low levels of religiosity? The answer is: because that's what nature is like: there is variation. We can, and do, find outliers and anomalies, but that really doesn't matter; from the odd case of a person with no libido, we cannot infer that the sex instinct is a product of culture, not biology. You *do* get the odd border collie who's useless at rounding up sheep; it's just that there aren't many, and the exceptions don't mitigate the fact that inhering in the overwhelming majority of border collies are powerful herding instincts and capacities. In other words, you seem to be working with an extremely, and unjustifiably, narrow conception of what biologically-generated religiosity would look like.

Another question: if religiosity (and therefore, religion) in fact emerges from a suite of biological predispositions or instincts, what might they be?

Well...anyone who's spent time in Mormonism and has some degree of self-awareness, or awareness of human behaviour in general, should be able to make a few good guesses. One obvious one is that humans are social animals, and by definition primed to accept, and in fact seek out, emotional, psychological, physical comfort and safety in numbers (to seek community), as well as authority, direction, and a clear identity and sense of purpose bequeathed by - or at least subsidized or shaped by - one's position and function in that community.

Another obvious one is (evidently innate) moral intuitions ( http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/us/baby-lab-morals-ac360/ ). Add an innate moral sense to a social nature, and it becomes easy to see how humans would feel attracted to communities founded on a certain moral code - one which helps clarify, embody, codify, and validate their own moral intuitions - and which attempts to realize those intuitions as a community.

Another obvious one is a powerful cognitive capacity which constantly seeks to make the world intelligible - including our existence in it - and thus seeks out answers to the Big Questions: What the hell are we doing on this planet? What's it all about?, etc. Part of that is that minds tend to prefer any answer to no answer (along the lines of nature abhorring a void). Minds seek meaning.

And speaking of seeking meaning, the human disposition to regard certain things as just inherently "special" - a pendant, a grove of trees, etc. - or to *create* specialness, seems to be in the same area as imbuing objects with a sort of transcendent sanctity, even to the point of ascribing to them otherworldly "essence" of some kind. This sacralization process naturally borders on a deification process, if it is not just its prior stage. This particular process is even applied to moral notions; as I mentioned earlier, to place great weight on an ideal like liberty or equality easily leads to the construction of a whole philosophy based on that original premise, and can lead (for example) either to Marx or Von Mises (either of whose words will be studied by adherents with gravest attention, and who will be regarded as virtual revelators of a previously undiscovered Great Truth). Merely toss in a few thoughts about the "eternal" nature and rightness of valuing liberty or equality above all else, and form a community around the man and the message, and you would have something like a conventional religion right there - but the point is, you wouldn't have it without human predispositions and instincts rooted in human nature. It's not "accident" that this process happens over and over again wherever there are humans. It emerges from enduring human instincts.

Just to pause for a moment, let me ask this question:

If it were the case that religiosity (and therefore, religion) is rooted in biology, how would we know?

I suggest one good indication would be if, everywhere we looked, at any point in human history, we found unmistakable manifestations of religiosity: gods and goddesses, icons, sacred hymns and prayers, rituals, revered stories, revelations, scriptures, commandments, etc. And in fact, that is exactly what we find.

But if it were the case that religiosity is NOT rooted in biology, how would we know?

The answer is obvious: we would have large groups of people who, over time, display no signs of religiosity whatsoever - and that includes, though you seem to object, people with no evident predisposition to great secular movements like National Socialism or communism - movements which rest on claims about the "specialness" and sanctity of a single person and provide an attendant Grand Explanation of Right and Wrong and the World, and which are - literally - genetically indistinguishable from any "proper" religion (again, as historian Michael Burleigh pointed out in "Sacred Causes", and as many others have noted).

But people over time who do not manifest religiosity are precisely what we do *not* have, Henry. We have cultures spanning back over not just hundreds, but thousands and tens of thousands of years, which differ in all sorts of ways, but who do *not* differ in manifesting religiosity. As Human pointed out in the other thread, religion changes, but religiosity abides.

Does culture come in at all? Yes. Culture, human choice, accident, needs specific to time and place, etc., all affect how religiosity finds expression. Those things *shape the religion*; the important point is that *they do not bequeath the religiosity*.

Think of sex. Culture shapes its expression; it creates certain types of marriage, certain courtship rituals, etc.; but culture does not bequeath the original instincts for sexual gratification.

Now...as you consider all of the above, consider also that religion, whether strictly organized or more diffuse (along the lines of Asian religions) is *incredibly resource-consuming*. Religions consume time. They consume money. They consume the firstlings of flocks (food) and land and precious metals. People die defending them; people kill promoting them. They consume tremendous amounts of psychological, physical and emotional energy.

Because this is the case, religion should be, in evolutionary terms, an absolute disaster - a direct threat to human survival and flourishing - particularly throughout 99% of human history in which survival was a daily challenge; *unless*, that is, religion either (A) overall aids human survival and flourishing (i.e., is adaptive), or (B) is an unavoidable by-product of biological traits/predispositions so valuable, that they more than compensate for the incalculable amounts of waste (in the form of religious praxis) they produce. But in either case, religion - as the manifestation of religiosity - would trace back to very real, very durable instincts, needs, intuitions and predispositions, all of which are firmly rooted in biology.

Finally, I point out that in my comments here and elsewhere, I have accepted a burden of proof; but I don't think I have it, really. I think it lies on people who look at the human family, at any time, at any place, and see ALL the same sorts of manifestations of a massively resource-consuming religiosity, and yet - for reasons they never seem able to adequately articulate, if there even are any - DENY that this religiosity emerges from biology, and instead, depict it as a pretty much inexplicable *coincidence* of "culture". Where, I ask, is the evidence for *that*?

There is none. All the evidence we have, all our understanding of human behaviour and religiosity and religion, indicates that homo homo sapiens by nature is as much homo religiosus as it is zoon politikon, in Aristotle's phrase - and a few other things to boot.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2016 04:41AM by Tal Bachman.

We are biological. Anything we do is biological. Culture is created from our biology. I can't see any way to escape that, so religion has to be a pattern created by our biology. I think maybe the question to work out is whether religion as Tal describes it above is inevitable or whether the biology that drives religion could be satisfied another way.

There is no proof that we can't, or won't find a way to fill those needs in another way. There also isn't any proof that we will move on to a godless future.

The worst thing that religion does is to tell a story that can't be confirmed and seduce or coerce people into treating the story as ultimate truth.

We all have to make up working stories as we go along because there are too many details in life to stop and verify every one. The question is whether we recognize that the unverified parts of the story are tentative. Like the standard model in Physics. There are parts of it that are well tested and parts that are working models, but physicists keep testing to see if the stories they are telling work, or don't work. Hence the huge collider in Europe.

If the standard model were a religion it would stand as the most powerful people thought it should, and change when the powerful people changed.

So do people have the capacity to learn what parts of their knowledge are solid and which are more tentative? I think it is a skill that can be learned.

Do we have the critical mass and inertia to spread that kind of critical thinking around the globe. That's a story that we don't have the ending to.

But I do think that open interaction tends to enrich critical thinking, and the internet is promising in that way.

That's my tentative story on religion.

When I was a teen I was fascinated with psycohistory. I read everything I could, fourteen of fifteen books if I remember correctly. Today I am fascinated by the thought that I might live in a deterministic system where theoretically everything that I am and do might be both; the result of 13 billion years of changes and predictable.

I hesitate to add labels however because it might be that the sum of the parts (me) is just a sum. It doesn't solve for the variable without a constant also available.

2+2=4 or 1+1+1+1=4 or 2+1+1=4 or 1.5+2.3+.2=4 but ?=4 has infinite solutions.

So, god gene? Maybe. Just genes? Probably

OPENING COMMENT: First let me say that I appreciate your interest and willingness to dialogue with me on this important issue. To be perfectly upfront, my interest in this subject, which is also my main interest in participating on the Board generally, is to preserve a basic scientific and philosophical respect for what is essentially a strict humanist position, i.e. that human beings have freewill and are able to make personal changes to their lives and engage in positive social interaction without any implication that someone they are straight-jacketed by false, or questionable, scientific theories, wherever such theories might come from. In this case, your views seem to echo a common theme that genetics (broadly considered) and evolution prescribe in some materialist and deterministic fashion severe limits on the human capacity to formulate and change their beliefs when faced with reasonable arguments and evidence. Although there is no question that a number of factors inhibit such ability, a locked-in, genetic-evolutionary program is not one of them.
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TAL: You seem to assume that for religiosity to emerge from deeply rooted instincts, there must be a "smoking gun"-style "God gene". That is a fairly extreme claim, and seems to be a non sequitur. It could very well be that there is no specific "God gene", but that there IS an enduring predisposition to religiosity in humanity which emerges as a result of various other instincts and predispositions encoded in human nature.

COMMENT: The problem is that you are making a sweeping generalization about the source of religious faith as being biological, without evidence. The term "God gene" is a placeholder (for me) for a biological program that determines a propensity for religious faith. I don't care how complicated the program is taken to be, there is no such program. Religiosity in human beings generally is a complicated issue, and no doubt biology plays a role, but it is NOT a determining role. In my judgment a greater role is played by culture, and even at that, reason and freewill can trump any such cultural or biological propensities. Moreover, even within biology, the dynamics of genetics and development are far to complicated to make any generalizations about the basis for religiosity.
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TAL: Simply assume, as I believe you do, that human nature is determined, at least to a great degree, by biology, and we now have a religiosity directly linked to, inseparable from, generated by biological mechanisms.

COMMENT: No. First I reject the premise "to a great degree." First, "human nature" is a generalization that fails to account for individual natures. Now, it is true that an individual nature, or personality, is subject to biological factors. But it is not "determined" by such factors. Such determination is a product of biology, yes, but also culture and one's personal freewill, including decisions that continually affect who they are, what they believe, and what they do. Moreover, any claim that religiosity in humans is "directly linked" to biological mechanisms is false, and based upon fallacious reasoning, which is rampant in the social science literature on this subject. If this is a biological claim--which of course it is, then I need a biological link; not some statistical "study" that isolates preferred "data" in order to establish their conclusion.
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TAL: Now, it might be asked: if that is true, why do some humans exhibit - or at least, seem to exhibit - very low levels of religiosity? The answer is: because that's what nature is like: there is variation. We can, and do, find outliers and anomalies, but that really doesn't matter;

COMMENT: But you are talking as if people fall into two camps, religious or irreligious. That is nonsense. People are all over the map, both biologically and culturally, which makes it impossible to engage in "studies" that identify all of the relevant parameters. Moreover, how do you account for exMormons who are steeped in Mormonism, but who reason their way out? Is it because we are biological anomalies? Or is it because we value human reason and evidence in our decision-making, and have been fortunate enough to be able to overcome our cultural programing? Moreover, "anomalies" are statistical exceptions which are far more narrow than what you need here.
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TAL: You *do* get the odd border collie who's useless at rounding up sheep; it's just that there aren't many, and the exceptions don't mitigate the fact that inhering in the overwhelming majority of border collies are powerful herding instincts and capacities. In other words, you seem to working with an extremely, and unjustifiably, narrow conception of what biologically-generated religiosity would look like.

COMMENT: No. Instinct to herd sheep is one thing; instinct for sexual contact is one thing. Religiosity is something altogether different. It involves mental states and beliefs that are diverse and transient within a broad range of individuals. There is no way that the anomalous border collie that doesn't have herding instincts supports a claim that the lack of religiosity is an anomaly. First, unlike the border collie example, biologically-generated religiosity would not have clear cultural parameters, or the personal decision-making dynamics that religious and moral issues have. Moreover, if you take the non-herding collie and raise it in an environment of herding collies, you still have a non-herding collie. Not so with religion.
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TAL: Another question: if religiosity (and therefore, religion) in fact emerges from a suite of biological predispositions or instincts, what might they be?

Well...anyone who's spent time in Mormonism and has some degree of self-awareness, or awareness of human behaviour in general, should be able to make a few good guesses. One obvious one is that humans are social animals, and by definition primed to accept, and in fact seek out, emotional, psychological, physical comfort and safety in numbers (to seek community), as well as authority, direction, and a clear identity and sense of purpose bequeathed by - or at least subsidized or shaped by - one's position and function in that community.

COMMENT: Yes. But those cultural human propensities, however ultimately biologically based, do not entail religiosity. At best, religiosity is a partial (and relatively insignificant) byproduct of such propensities in some cases. Such propensities can be satisfied in a host of non-religious ways. They do not establishment any sort of entailment from biology to religion.
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TAL: Another obvious one is (evidently innate) moral intuitions (http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/us/baby-lab-morals-ac360/). Add an innate moral sense to a social nature, and it becomes easy to see how humans would feel attracted to communities founded on a certain moral code - one which purports to clarify, embody, codify, and validate their own moral intuitions - and which attempts to realize those intuitions as a community.

COMMENT: But, again, the moral sense is universal (for the most part). Again, even if such moral sense is to some extent biologically based, there is no biological entailment from that sense to religion; i.e. there is no logical reason why that moral sense could not exist and prosper outside of a religious context.
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TAL: Another obvious one is a powerful cognitive capacity which incorrigibly seeks to make the world intelligible - including our existence in it - and thus seeks out answers to the Big Questions: What the hell are we doing on this planet? What's it all about?, etc. Part of that is that minds tend to prefer any answer to no answer (along the lines of nature abhorring a void). Minds seeks meaning.

COMMENT: Same argument same problem. You are identifying general human propensities. So what. How does that support any argument that religiosity is biologically based. Now it might provide some explanation as to why some humans, or a lot of humans, find religion attractive, but that is not your argument. First, these are all individual and cultural phenomenon without any logical connection to religion, or for that matter any tight connection to biology.
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TAL: If it were the case that religiosity (and therefore, religion) is rooted in biology, how would we know?

COMMENT: The same way we know that certain genetically based diseases are rooted in biology, or certain physical traits; i.e. by isolating the biological mechanism that produces the trait in question. This is precisely what you, and others, cannot do with religiosity.
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TAL: I suggest one good indication would be if, everywhere we looked, at any point in human history, we found unmistakable manifestations of religiosity: gods and goddesses, icons, sacred hymns and prayers, rituals, revered stories, revelations, scriptures, commandments, etc. And in fact, that is exactly what we find.

COMMENT: Absolutely not! Your comment says nothing about the source of such things. You need a link. You cannot go from complex human behavior to biology without a biological mechanism. Otherwise, it is just an assumption, and a false one at that. It is based upon a premise that all human behavior must be ultimately explainable by biology. But that assumption is not only patently false, it begs the question.
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TAL: But if it were the case that religiosity is NOT rooted in biology, how would we know?

The answer is obvious: we would have large groups of people who, over time, display no signs of religiosity whatsoever - and that includes, though you seem to object, people with no evident predisposition to great secular movements like National Socialism or communism, which rest on claims about the "specialness" and sanctity of a single person and an attendant Grand Explanation of Right and Wrong and the World, and which are - literally - genetically indistinguishable from any "proper" religion (again, as historian Michael Burleigh pointed out in "Sacred Causes", and as many others have noted).

COMMENT: No. No. No. You do not have to sweep all biologically or culturally based predispositions under the rug. Rather you know that religios faith is not ultimately based upon biology on an individual level by the following question: "Why did you reject Mormonism?" The answer is NOT, well because I was biologically predisposed to figure this out; or a claim that you are an anomaly of some sort. The answer is quite simple: You reviewed the evidence and made a conscious, free decision, based upon evidence that Mormonism is false. That's it. That is all there is to it. Anything more than that is overthinking.
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TAL: But people over time who do not manifest religiosity are precisely what we do *not* have, Henry. We have cultures spanning back over not just hundreds, but thousands and tens of thousands of years, which differ in all sorts of ways, but who do *not* differ in manifesting religiosity. As Human pointed out in the other thread, religion changes, but religiosity abides.

COMMENT: O.K. But that is a historical observation, not a biological one. For an explanation of it, we have to look at a number of factors, including biology, culture over time, etc. But, it does not say that human beings are biologically programed for religiosity. They may be programed to try to figure out who they are and their place in the universe. And that may lead some to some postulating Gods, etc. And they, then might have followers, etc. But that is a human response to a human predicament. It is not a biologically induced program.
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TAL: Does culture come in at all? Yes. Culture, human choice, accident, needs specific to time and place, etc., all affect how religiosity finds expression. Those things *shape the religion*; the important point is that *they do not bequeath the religiosity*.

COMMENT: So, then what "bequeaths the religiosity" itself? Biology? There is something in our biology that entails religiosity, i.e. that we are going to invent Gods to worship? No. It is not about biology. There is no biological mechanism that determines that a person will be religious, any more than their is a biological mechanism that determines someone will like baseball, or ballet, or the opera, or the Beatles. Such things are based upon culture, environment, and individual choices. If Beatlemania swept the world in the 60s, it was not because of some biological mechanism, such that if we were omnipotent we could look at all the teenagers' genetic codes and say, aha, there it is. It is all about biology. Forget it, there is nothing we can do. Same for religiosity. There is biological program to isolate that entails an aha moment that explains religiosity.
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TAL: Finally, I point out that in my comments here and elsewhere, I have accepted a burden of proof; but I don't think I have it, really. I think it lies on people who look at the human family, at any time, at any place, and see ALL the same sorts of manifestations of a massively resource-consuming religiosity, and yet - for reasons they never seem able to adequately articulate, if there even are any - DENY that this religiosity emerges from biology, and instead, depict it as a pretty much inexplicable *coincidence* of "culture". Where, I ask, is the evidence for *that*?

COMMENT: To suggest it is not biology is NOT to assert that it is coincidence. All it means is that it is a complex of factors, such that biology is only part of the explanation, and not a direct deterministic link.

Interesting, Tal, that your post sort of refutes your own "theory." Because you mention biological predispositions towards socialness, seeking answers, and fairness (morality) -- none of which are a biological predisposition towards religion or religiosity, yet can result in religion/religiosity as a side-effect or by-product. Thought about that?

Oh, and yes -- you do have the burden of proof. You made a classic mistake: insisting that unless those who espouse a different (or the opposite) idea can prove THEIR ideas, yours have no burden of proof. That's not how it works.
Yours could be wrong, the opposite could be either wrong or simply lacking sufficient evidence (as of yet) to be shown right. Doesn't matter -- to accept yours as correct, you have the burden to prove them. If you can't, "we don't know yet" is just fine, even if the opposite isn't proven.

This is a 'non-scientific' belief on what I consider the major determination of my being able to 'experience' numerous 'spiritual' activities (psychics, medium, other dimensions, past lives, dreams, etc. etc.) which I believe ties into 'religiosity'.

Basically, I attribute most of these experiences primarily to 'cultural' reasons.

I was born and raised Mormon where I grew up 'culturally' to believe in spirits, spirit world, God, and dreams. In fact one uncle had an NDE where he went to the 'spirit world' and made amazing statements I believed at the time but do not now.
However, 'culturally' I was open, not necessarily believing everything, to 'new/spiritual' things. Well the more 'spiritual' things I experienced the more open I was to 'other' things I heard or read about.

Being that my education is in human biology and medical field, I had read quite a bit regarding the evolution of religion out of personal interest. This Wiki article is a good summation of my readings. There are different studies cited that I believe support a number of Tal's comments.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_origin_of_religions

This link makes the following statement:

"There is general agreement among cognitive scientists that religion is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved early in human history. However, there is disagreement on the exact mechanisms that drove the evolution of the religious mind."

Here is the citation supposedly supporting this blatantly false comment:

"Evolutionary Religious Studies (ERS): A Beginner’s Guide[unreliable source?]"

The idea that religion is an "outgrowth of brain architecture" is nonsense. First, ask yourself, "what is brain architecture?" Presumably, it means the placement and modality of the specific neurons in the brain. Now, how does that get you to religious belief; i.e. what brain architecture generally could possibly entail religious belief? I would really like to see such an account. Please provide me with a citation. (Not evolutionary psychology, but BIOLOGY!)

Now, for every belief there is a corresponding brain state, and a complicated one at that. To causally abstract religious beliefs, or any other beliefs, in general from "brain architecture" as opposed to identifying a specific individual belief with a specific individual brain state, in a specific person, seems to me to be just preposterous. What you would need to do, to start, is to perform an MRI brain scan of a statistical sample of believers and non-believers, and identify a "brain architecture" that differentiates between the two in a specific identifiable way. Then, if you can do that, you need to establish that the "religious brain" had some sort of dominant evolutionary component; i.e. it was selected for.

I know of no such studies, or anything close.

Thank you for including me by name, Tal. Reading with great interest but cannot respond with the same (time).

One thing is certain: the question is far from settled, and has ripped apart not a few anthropology departments.

(Will look up your blog and say hi there. Maybe you're coming in to Cowtown for the reopening of the King Eddie? Maybe your dad will come in?)

Human

Henry:

Your opening comment insinuates - or perhaps, simply reveals - that your thinking on this topic is constrained by an a priori devotion to certain propositions, entailed by what you call "humanism", which themselves could plausibly be disputed. If so, with all due respect, I'm not sure that's the right way to think about this sort of thing.

Let me give one example: in the claim that religiosity is generated by biological mechanisms, you see an implication that the universe is deterministic, and therefore, incompatible with free will, which you believe in and cherish. (It is hard not to believe that your precommitments here might be clouding your judgment.)

Addressing your reasoning on this, I must say it does not follow that if we possess strong biological drives and predispositions, we lack free will. Even Benjamin Libet, a guy whose famous experiments weighed *against* the existence of free will, still held that we had free will (in the form of a "veto" over already-instigated decision processes). I might want to sleep with a beautiful woman; but I can still choose not to, for all sorts of reasons: a religious vow of celibacy, a commitment to a wife or girlfriend, a wish to avoid conception or disease, a personal expectation not yet met by the woman, a perverse desire to toy with the over-eager, etc.

In similar fashion, widespread religiosity emerging from biology across the human family does not mean humans are automatons. People do go religion-shopping, or on spiritual quests. They do doubt, they do search and shift and "evolve" in their opinions, and they do make choices - to accept a religion, change a religion, pick-and-choose between parts of a religion, or drop religion altogether. However, that last one is a bit tricky, because even those who eschew organized religion almost always continue to manifest religiosity. Even on this board a month or two, on a thread I started, I was amazed to see regular posters, ex-Mormons all, open up about their beliefs in astrology. The point is that, in most cases, the specific dogma or praxis changes, but the religiosity endures; people aren't going from colour to no colour; they're going from green and red to blue and orange or amber and sienna. They reject one religion - say, Mormonism - but then fill the gap with, say, secular humanism - a non-theist religion if there ever was one - or something else. Like Pete Townshend said, meet the new boss...same as the old boss, or at least, close enough.

As for your demands for a link to biology, I gave you a quick run-down of how a suite of biological drives could plausibly combine to produce an abiding religiosity, and I am not clear on why that quick run-down doesn't at least begin to answer your demand. Care to explain?

Lastly, to your final comment: cultures vary widely, but religiosity is a constant. So furnish us with your own explanation for the ubiquity of religion and religiosity, across time, space, race, nationality, language, etc.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2016 10:03PM by Tal Bachman.

Serendipity - Thanks for the link. You are now on my Christmas list.

Human: tcrbachman@gmail.com, or for anyone else who wants to write me.

Fool: Interesting thoughts...!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2016 10:17PM by Tal Bachman.

Yay! 352 more days....you better get shopping! I'm registered at Tiffany & Co. ;)

TAL: Your opening comment insinuates - or perhaps, simply reveals - that your thinking on this topic is constrained by an a priori devotion to certain propositions, entailed by what you call "humanism", which themselves could plausibly be disputed. If so, with all due respect, I'm not sure that's the right way to think about this sort of thing.

COMMENT: My view is constrained not by any "a priori devotion" to any propositions, but by a realization that if you are not willing to take human autonomy, human reasoning, and freewill seriously, there is not much left to discuss, since the genuineness of our very debate depends upon it. Moreover, I am more than capable of defending this position scientifically.

On the other hand, your underlying assumption seems to favor a view of humans as a kind of biological automaton. That does not get you very far in an argument where you assume that genuine human reason might convince someone to change their view. As for my use of "humanism," I wanted to point out that we most often use this word to contrast human vs. religious values, which highlight the reality of human reason as opposed to dictates of the divine. The same point applies when the divine is replaced by the dictates of biological determinism.
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TAL: Let me give one example: in the claim that religiosity is generated by biological mechanisms, you see an implication that the universe is deterministic, and therefore, incompatible with free will, which you believe in and cherish. (It is hard not to believe that your precommitments here might be clouding your judgment.)

COMMENT: See comment above. A deterministic universe is by definition incompatible with genuine freewill, but not incompatible with the illusion of freewill. I subscribe to genuine freewill. Do you really want to argue that my commitment to freewill is "clouding my judgment?" I would argue that a denial of freewill *precludes* your judgment, since "judgment" entails a conscious selection among alternative propositions, not an algorithmic computation!
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TAL: Addressing your reasoning on this, I must say it does not follow that if we possess strong biological drives and predispositions, we lack free will.

COMMENT: Agree, but this is not your argument. Your argument is that we possess a biological determinism, i.e. a biological mechanism, that causally links a specific biological mechanism to religious belief: That somehow religious belief is in "our genes" so to speak. Now, even if this were true, I suppose one could still argue that genuine freewill can trump such biological dictates, but once you take the path of biological determinism where does it stop. Are all our beliefs biologically determined? If so, where is there room for freewill.
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Even Benjamin Libet, a guy whose famous experiments weighed *against* the existence of free will, still held that we had free will (in the form of a "veto" over already-instigated decision processes). I might want to sleep with a beautiful woman; but I can still choose not to, for all sorts of reasons: a religious vow of celibacy, a commitment to a wife or girlfriend, a wish to avoid conception or disease, a personal expectation not yet met by the woman, a perverse desire to toy with the over-eager, etc.

COMMENT: See comment above. I grant that there isn't a strict inconsistency here. But the implications are disturbing because of the alleged strict tie from biology to beliefs. But, putting freewill aside for the moment, you still need to establish a biological mechanism that underlies a specific kind of belief. What distinguishes the mechanism for religious belief from that of other kinds of beliefs. Aren't beliefs all just psychological mental states in individuals that are born from a variety of influences, which explains their diverse character?
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TAL: In similar fashion, widespread religiosity emerging from biology across the human family does not mean humans are automatons. People do go religion-shopping, or on spiritual quests. They do doubt, they do search and shift and "evolve" in their opinions, and they do make choices - to accept a religion, change a religion, pick-and-choose between parts of a religion, or drop religion altogether. However, that last one is a bit tricky, because even those who eschew organized religion almost always continue to manifest religiosity.

COMMENT: But how are you defining "religiosity?" I assumed that this idea was tied to beliefs in God, and all the baggage that goes with it. Now, "religiosity" applies to almost anything where an emotional commitment is involved. The variety of stances you describe demonstrate that "religiosity" as applied to religion, is complicated in a manner that is beyond biological categories. If all you are saying is that human beings have some innate interest in making emotional commitments, I have no problem with that. But it seems to me that your original thesis was much stronger and that you are back-peddling here.
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TAL: As for your demands for a link to biology, I gave you a quick run-down of how a suite of biological drives could plausibly combine to produce an abiding religiosity, and I am not clear on why that quick run-down doesn't at least begin to answer your demand. Care to explain?

COMMENT: Science usually does not accept "quick rundowns." Moreover, the proposed "run-down" must be a biological account, not some speculative story or "study" from evolutionary psychology. Otherwise, there indeed is no beginning to your argument. Biology is about biological mechanisms, not psychological mechanisms.
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Lastly, to your final comment: cultures vary widely, but religiosity is a constant. So furnish us with your own explanation for the ubiquity of religion and religiosity, across time, space, race, nationality, language, etc.

COMMENT: Well, first, I am not making any specific claims here, you are! But off the top of my head, I would think that the explanation lies in (1) the human existential condition; (2) personal religious experiences (so interpreted); and (3) a predisposed mentality to follow persuasive leaders. The last two points involve biology to be sure, but not exclusively so.

In short, we are conscious agents that make genuine choices within the context of our individual lives, our culture, and our environment. Sure, we are influenced by our biology. But, the fact that some people cling to Mormonism, for example, while others reject it is fundamentally a choice that is most certainly not dictated by biology.

Use of fire is ubiquitous in human cultures.
So there must be a use of fire gene, or genes, right?

Oh, wait...never mind.

Whew this is heavy sledding..i smell burning rubber....i do admire the tremendous intellect and reasoning displayed here...the depth is admirable..sadly im more convinced of the lack of intelligent design...every time i see people scurrying by in a mall on mindless voyages to no where to secure another bobble or shiny bead..seeing the deepest thoughts many will have is where and what shall we eat...or the near unconsciousness that affects every human when they havent had a snooze for a few hours....the psychosis that can arise when deprived for a few days..or the need to blow a tire at 150 mph just cuz itll go that fast...seems a few design flaws to powerful self actualizing humans...and then theres the inevitable realization that darn near half the population will subscribe to any dam nimrod they flush outta the weeds and call em a Leader or profit regardless of mental capacity or moral character...hi tommy..hi dick..hi George..hows your old man..to think the future of a once great nation is in the hands of anyone who cant do a hanging chad and calls their child...honey boo boo or Deewayne or moriancummer
Praise jesus brothers and sisters...gawd has a plan for us all...jeebus needs you to buy me a jet...ever notice the throngs who attend these hucksters of hope...almost rivals general conference...just when you think its safe to be optomistic then hilldegard hamhocker shows up and all bets are off...my theory..we just aint that bright..religeous or not

Henry:

There are a few persistent misunderstandings here that I would like to clear up.

1.) That your alarm sensors perceive acceptance of biological predisposition as the beginning of an inevitable slide toward acceptance of the universe as deterministic, and human reason, autonomy and free will as nothing more than illusion, only means that your alarm sensors need to be re-calibrated. There is no need to see a discussion about innate religiosity as a proxy war for these concepts, or to dismiss out of hand that amongst biological predispositions in humans, one might be religiosity. Innate religiosity could exist, even to a very advanced degree, and could manifest itself in many different forms, without that meaning that human reason, freewill, and autonomy do not exist.

To believe otherwise is to believe in a blatant non sequitur; and to war against innate religiosity because of a misguided fear of where it might lead us is to deploy a slippery-slope fallacy to terminate an investigation before it's begun. Any way you slice it, I am respectfully suggesting that you are thinking, even from the get-go, about the possibility of innate religiosity in the wrong way (about which more below). (I might add...there is no philosopher or scientist that I have ever heard of, who views biological *predisposition* as equivalent to, or inevitably entailing, biological *determinism*. So...let's just get away from that.)

2.) The second thing I'd like to clarify is that *the invocation of the explicitly supernatural - including the existence of a god living somewhere in the sky - is not necessary for religiosity to manifest itself*.

Buddhists do not believe Buddha created the world, or could work miracles, yet no one would deny that Buddhists exhibit religiosity. Germans did not believe Hitler lived in the sky, or was non-mortal, but they did believe he was a "man of destiny", and the *only* man who could *save* them - physically and spiritually as a volk - from enemies within and without. He was the Saviour, the All-Father, the Beacon of Hope in a Hopeless World, the Rock, etc. His portraits hung on their walls; his writings and speeches were regarded with utmost reverence; his dicta were obeyed; his aesthetic preferences adopted; his teachings accepted as unalterably true, his morality accepted as unalterably just. Songs, signs, celebrations, poems, rituals, mode of dress, mode of greeting, etc., lent support. The point is that this was a (fairly extreme) manifestation of religiosity which did not rely on any invocation of the supernatural, aside from relatively hazy notions about providence and destiny. Hitler, the leader and founder of his own (civil) religion, was a god in every way that mattered. He certainly wielded more god-like influence over his benighted, fanatical followers than any Mormon prophet has since Brigham Young. The current Mormon prophet can't even discriminate against homosexuals without being publicly called out by *believing* Mormons.

And consider, Henry - the only reason there is any dispute over whether National Socialism, as it existed as a social phenomenon in 1930's Germany, should be considered a manifestation of religiosity is because the supernatural wasn't invoked - at least as clearly - as it is in Roman Catholicism or some other theist movement. I am arguing that the invocation of supernaturalism doesn't matter *when all the effects and patterns and behaviours are the same*. On this, I am with Thomas Hobbes, who made this point four hundred years ago, in "Leviathan". It has been made many times since, in so many words, by many other scholars (just off the top of my head, guys like Charles Taylor, Durkheim, George Steiner, Alisdair McIntyre, Rudolf Otto, Leo Strauss, Nietzsche, John N. Gray, Terry Eagleton, etc.) and to a lesser extent, by guys like Ronald Dworkin and Thomas Nagel. I am simply restating it here.

In your question about the definition of "religiosity", you characteristically think again in terms of extremes: for you, it either deals with God, or it only refers to making emotional commitments. In once again thinking reflexively in this way, you are once again focusing on the barren, outlying banks instead of the broad, deep river inbetween.

So, what is religiosity? For an introduction to how some sociologists think of religiosity, see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity. I would only clarify that description so as to reflect the more expansive conception of religiosity offered by the scholars I mentioned above.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2016 06:28PM by Tal Bachman.

TAL: 1.) That your alarm sensors perceive acceptance of biological predisposition as the beginning of an inevitable slide toward acceptance of the universe as deterministic, and human reason, autonomy and free will as nothing more than illusion, only means that your alarm sensors need to be re-calibrated. There is no need to see a discussion about innate religiosity as a proxy war for these concepts, or to dismiss out of hand that amongst biological predispositions in humans, one might be religiosity. Innate religiosity could exist, even to a very advanced degree, and could manifest itself in many different forms, without that meaning that human reason, freewill, and autonomy do not exist.

COMMENT: Well, first my "alarm sensors" were really not the point, although I admit that they are there, and for good reason, in my view because of the implications of biological determinism. The point here is your insistence that religiosity (in the sense of a predisposition to religion and religious faith) is biologically programed. What that amounts to is the claim that a newborn baby, left without environmental factors, will be programed by biology to invent Gods and religion. I think that this proposition is factually mistaken, for much the same reason that some people would falsely claim that baby's are born atheists. Biology does not program for beliefs! Beliefs are mental structures that arise, and are modified, based upon a complex of factors, not because of the dictates of biology. So, although your attempt to preserve reason and freewill as potential "trumps" to biology, offers me some relief, it does not help your thesis. And remember, as you originally presented this, the social impact was huge, and something you said we just have to live with, as if reason and freewill were essentially powerless to make any real difference on a social scale.

TAL: 2.) The second thing I'd like to clarify is that *the invocation of the explicitly supernatural - including the existence of a god living somewhere in the sky - is not necessary for religiosity to manifest itself*.

COMMENT: Well, part of your problem is the diversity of this term as you are now defining it. The broader you make "religiosity" apply the looser you can tie it to biology, as I tried to explain earlier. Where are you drawing the line? Is someone that is emotionally committed to deism covered under "religiosity?" How about someone who just strongly believes in some ultimate force and meaning to life; is that also encompassed by religiosity? You see, biological mechanisms are deterministic (from a classical view). You start with some biological state of an organism, run the cause and effect relationships end up with some brain state that presumably (in your view) corresponds to a religious belief. Underlying biological states, like the genetic "code" simply cannot match the complications entailed by belief structures of individual brains, not even on a general level.

TAL: In your question about the definition of "religiosity", you characteristically think again in terms of extremes: for you, it either deals with God, or it only refers to making emotional commitments. In once again thinking reflexively in this way, you are once again focusing on the barren, outlying banks instead of the broad, deep river inbetween.

COMMENT: I am O.K. with the broad river that says only that human beings are biologically "programed" to make emotional commitments. But, again, you started with "religiosity" and that implies religion, and that implies God beliefs. Moreover, the more you dilute "beliefs" the looser the connection to biology, and the more trivial your argument becomes. If all biology does is provide dispositions that might make a lot of people turn to religion, that is trivial, because the same biological structure might make people turn to different commitments. As such, the commitments themselves are only loosely tied to biology, with a complex of other factors being paramount as where those commitments are directed.

TAL: So, what is religiosity? For an introduction to how some sociologists think of religiosity, see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity. I would only clarify that description so as to reflect the more expansive conception of religiosity offered by the scholars I mentioned above.

COMMENT: As a rule I don't argue with links. (I made one exception on this post already.) But, the problems I have identified here are not resolved by the imagination of social scientists or sociologists. Again, if you are making an argument from biology, you need to make it "within" biology, i.e. with specific biological facts that can be directly linked to specific "religiosity" beliefs.

Henry:

1.) Your newborn baby example doesn't work here. The effects of social and sensory deprivation on children are catastrophic. They include, depending on the extent of deprivation, permanent and often severe disability in language skills, motor skills, social skills and general intellectual aptitude. Feral children, for example, usually remain mute despite every effort to teach them to speak.

In other words, sensory and social deprivation causes severe psychological impairment, such that even a biological predisposition as commonly acknowledged as Chomsky's Universal Grammar fails to manifest itself. That religiosity also fails to manifest itself in such cases is therefore no surprise, and just doesn't say anything against its possibly biological basis.

2.) You are again assuming that "religiosity" necessarily entails belief in a God. It can, and often does, but does not necessarily. Buddhists do not believe in a personal, superintending god. Do they not exhibit religiosity? I feel like many of the points I make simply bounce off you, like a coin off a basketball.

3.) You write that "biology does not program for beliefs". If by this sentence, you mean, "biology does not program for a *specific* belief about the world" - well, sure. But if you mean to say that biology does not program for *the cognitive capacity to form, maintain, and re-appraise beliefs about the world*, then you are completely wrong. The power of even infants to do just this has been amply documented (by Yale's Paul Bloom for one, just off the top of my head). And that sort of programming is what I'm talking about when I talk about an innate disposition toward religiosity. You seem to think that "innate religiosity" entails an infant being born, in whose head resides the seed of a specific belief in a god, which blooms at some point. That's an inaccurate caricature.

4.) You write that my claim for the enduring nature of human religiosity means that "reason and freewill are essentially powerless to make any real difference on a social scale". Let me try to show you just how convoluted your thinking is on all this stuff, okay? Follow me for a second. Here we go.

You believe strongly that (A) humans have reason and freewill. You also believe strongly that (B) religion, on a large scale, can be overcome through the reason and freewill humans have. You have also said, I believe, in other threads, that (C) reason and freewill lead away from religion. YET...(D) you *know* that throughout the whole of history - thousands upon thousands of years - including right to the present, the overwhelming overwhelming majority of these very same humans - the ones you claim are in possession of a reason and will which can entirely vanquish religiosity - *steadfastly maintain religious beliefs and practices*. (Even now, with more information about the natural world available to more people than ever before, the avowedly religious are *steadily increasing* as a percentage of the world's population.)

Is the convolution becoming clear yet? Let me address it:

If your (A), (B), and (C) are true...how could (D) ever possibly be true? Just 200,000 years of bad luck in every single culture which has ever existed?

Your claims here, taken together, sum to an implausibility indistinguishable from absurdity. Something, clearly, has to be wrong in all that. Let me suggest a few possibilities.

First off: (C) is wrong: reason does not inevitably lead *away* from reason. It can also lead *to* religion. Like this: John says, "I feel lonely and hollow - I feel like there's some purpose to everything, but I don't know what it is. At the very least, I'd like to be able to talk about this kind of stuff with people. Maybe I'll try attending a few churches". That's a reasonable decision. And what about four weeks later, when John feels happier than ever singing in the choir down at Community Gospel Church, surrounded by new pals, discussing what it means to be a good person, and helping out with some service projects? Would it not be perfectly reasonable for John to infer from his newfound happiness, that it was caused by his *choice* to attend Community Gospel Church? Yes.

In this case, John exercised reason to solve a problem, and made a choice. His reason and freewill led him *to* religion, not away from religion. So, your (C) above is wrong. And now that we know (C) is wrong, we also can see that (B) is wrong, because we now see that while, theoretically, reason and freewill *could* lead most people away from religion (as it did in my case), the case is that reason and freewill *won't* do that overall, because - ta-da - many people PREFER the religious life to the non-religious life: if they are not as happy outside religion than inside, then *reason* will tell them religion is the cause, and they will *choose* - using their freewill - to practice that religion.

And what do you know - now that we see (B) and (C) are wrong, we can start to see plausible explanations for an otherwise inexplicable (D). Like this: religion is ubiquitous because it answers many deep-seated human needs quite niftily, and so - notwithstanding the many absurd beliefs promoted by religions - the *choice* to adhere to some religion is more reasonable than not, in many circumstances.

So Henry, in my view, you are missing a lot of stuff on this; but one important thing is that it is not so much that reason and freewill "can't" effect large-scale rejection of religion, as that they *won't*, because in very real ways, the choice to follow religion is often more rational than not. And if you think about it, this commonsense suggestion protects your beloved (A) - the existence of reason and freewill - more than anything you've said so far, in that it reconciles reason and freewill with an otherwise inexplicable ubiquity of religion across time and place, culture and race, through all of human history, even until this very moment.

Amen.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2016 05:58AM by Tal Bachman.

TAL: 2.) You are again assuming that "religiosity" necessarily entails belief in a God. It can, and often does, but does not necessarily. Buddhists do not believe in a personal, superintending god. Do they not exhibit religiosity? I feel like many of the points I make simply bounce off you, like a coin off a basketball.

COMMENT: Your prior post started with demographical claims regarding religion. It then claimed that the underlying "religiosity" that supported such demographics was based upon "instinct." Here is your quote:

"I think what we are really talking about is, in a way, obscured by the terms "religion" and "religiosity". What we are really talking about is a seemingly insuperable instinct to sacralize certain things, demonize other things, organize or connect those things into some sort of (at least semi-) coherent worldview, and then adapt our behaviour accordingly."

You then claimed:

"This instinct and process seemingly cannot be extinguished. If people decide that "equality" is the highest virtue, an entire civil religion can be constructed upon it (and has been), one held in such high esteem by its followers, that they will not only die for it, but kill for it, with more gusto than a more traditional "theist" religion...but the processes, and their results, are all the same."

So, it seems to me that you are claiming that religion--and presumably other ideologies--cannot be extinguished because of some biological "instinct" that supports it. So far, that is all you have offered, some vague appeal to "instinct" without any underlying identification of the biological basis for it. Since religion is where *your* focus was, that was where my focus was.
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TAL: 3.) You write that "biology does not program for beliefs". If by this sentence, you mean, "biology does not program for a *specific* belief about the world" - well, sure. But if you mean to say that biology does not program for *the cognitive capacity to form, maintain, and re-appraise beliefs about the world*, then you are completely wrong.

COMMENT: Of course I didn't say that. But, notice how this statement compares with your earlier one quoted above. There it was an inextinguishable "instinct" such that people will adhere to ideologies, like religion, and kill and die for it. Now, this instinct is described as merely "the cognitive capacity to form, maintain, and re-appraise beliefs about the world." You are completely back-peddling here, which is embarrassingly obvious.
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TAL: You seem to think that "innate religiosity" entails an infant being born, in whose head resides the seed of a specific belief in a god, which blooms at some point. That's an inaccurate caricature.

COMMENT: What you said is that there is an innate "instinct" for people to form ideological beliefs that likely "cannot be extinguished" and are therefore in large part beyond the control of human reason or influence. There is no such instinct.
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TAL: 4.) You write that my claim for the enduring nature of human religiosity means that "reason and freewill are essentially powerless to make any real difference on a social scale".

COMMENT: "Cannot be Extinguished" Your language.

TAL: You believe strongly that (A) humans have reason and freewill. You also believe strongly that (B) religion, on a large scale, can be overcome through the reason and freewill humans have. You have also said, I believe, in other threads, that (C) reason and freewill lead away from religion. YET...(D) you *know* that throughout the whole of history - thousands upon thousands of years - including right to the present, the overwhelming overwhelming majority of these very same humans - the ones you claim are in possession of a reason and will which can entirely vanquish religiosity - *steadfastly maintain religious beliefs and practices*. (Even now, with more information about the natural world available to more people than ever before, the avowedly religious are *steadily increasing* as a percentage of the world's population.)

If your (A), (B), and (C) are true...how could (D) ever possibly be true? Just 200,000 years of bad luck in every single culture which has ever existed?

COMMENT: This is just silly. First, I never claimed (C). Reason leads in a lot of directions, including to religion for some. I am not making any claim that reason necessarily overcomes religion. Only that humans have a capacity to respond to rational arguments and change their views, one way or another. More importantly, there are forces at work that maintain religious and other ideologies over time beyond human biological makeup, which forces are persistent and difficult to penetrate. First and foremost are social and cultural forces, including social power dynamics. There are influences of tradition. There are philosophical influences based upon the human desire to understand the world. There is a follower mentality that no doubt has biological roots. Also, there is a desire for social interaction generally, and a desire of individuals to be part of groups. But none of this demands any sort of inextinguishable biological "religiosity" as you originally have defined it.

TAL: So Henry, in my view, you are missing a lot of stuff on this; but one important thing is that it is not so much that reason and freewill "can't" effect large-scale rejection of religion, as that they *won't*, because in very real ways, the choice to follow religion is often more rational than not.

COMMENT: Yes, that may be true, but my point was never that reason will lead people away from religion in large numbers. I have never really been interested in the demographical point of the other post because for me it seems far to speculative to follow isolated "trends" in a dynamic social and world order. All I am saying is that adherence to religion is not a biological trait that is inextinguishable by appeal to reason. Sure, some will reason to religion, we see that all the time. But that means is they can also be reasoned out of religion, we see that too. There are no biological straight-jackets, of any form, that explain current religious demographics. That is all I am saying.

TAL: And if you think about it, this commonsense suggestion protects your beloved (A) - the existence of reason and freewill - more than anything you've said so far, in that it reconciles reason and freewill with an otherwise inexplicable ubiquity of religion across time and place, culture and race, through all of human history, even until this very moment.

COMMENT: The ubiquity of religion, i.e. the persistence of belief in God, religious faith, and association with religion entities, is a cultural phenomenon that is difficult to explain in any precise manner. There are so many forces at work here. But to notice this feature, and announce that the underlying psychology is likely inextinguishable because of some unidentified biological "instinct" is just false, and in my view irresponsible. Among other things, it devalues human reason, and suggests a world dynamic that is both harmful and inevitable.














This process repeats itself in every aspect of life. National socialism and communism are two examples from the political world, such that there is essentially no difference between these two "political movements" and any big-time religion out there. Germans "followed the Fuhrer"; Mormons "follow the prophet". Islam, for its part, has this process going on a This instinct and process seemingly cannot be extinguished. If people decide that "equality" is the highest virtue, an entire civil religion can be constructed upon it (and has been), one held in such high esteem by its followers, that they will not only die for it, but kill for it, with more gusto than a more traditional "theist" religion...but the processes, and their results, are all the same.
dual track - a political/earthly track and a spiritual/heavenly track.


Because this is the case, it makes little sense in the end to try to genetically distinguish between, say, Catholicism and communism. Moreover, because this human instinct appears essentially inextinguishable, it makes little sense to wage war against it. It makes far more sense to try to accept it, channel it, provide incentives for more benign expressions of it.

Henry:

1.) You write: "you are claiming that religion--and presumably other ideologies--cannot be extinguished because of some biological 'instinct' that supports it. So far, that is all you have offered, some vague appeal to 'instinct' without any underlying identification of the biological basis for it."

So, if I understand you correctly, your big torpedo here is that *I haven't identified the biological basis of instinct*. Are you serious?

As I (evidently mistakenly) believed you already knew, instincts are innate patterns of behaviour which emerge from complex, interlinked biological systems, and which ultimately trace back to DNA. If you're asking me why instincts exist, I presume they exist for the same reason everyone else aside from creationists assumes they exist. I have no idea what you're even trying to say here.

2.) In attempting to argue I'm backpedaling, you write: "now, this instinct is described as merely 'the cognitive capacity to form, maintain, and re-appraise beliefs about the world.' You are completely back-peddling here, which is embarrassingly obvious."

Actually, what is "embarrassingly obvious" is that you misread my plain comments. My comments on cognitive capacity were not meant to account for religiosity (that's all I can surmise you're talking about here); they were, rather, a passing description of a psychological fact: brains are (amongst many other things) hardwired to form, maintain, and re-appraise beliefs about the world. That is a completely unobjectionable - and I might say, indisputable - statement, and you are really reaching here. That psychological fact certainly plays into religiosity, but itself is not religiosity. There is no "backpedaling"; only a seemingly futile attempt to reason with someone who clearly has locked himself in a box of unjustifiable pre-commitments, which no force of fact or reason can jimmy open.

3.) You write: "What you said is that there is an innate 'instinct' for people to form ideological beliefs that likely 'cannot be extinguished' and are therefore in large part beyond the control of human reason or influence. There is no such instinct."

So Henry...merely announcing an opinion (especially one apparently formed entirely without reference to empirical data) is not an argument. It's just a statement. Unless you're omniscient, that doesn't count for anything. Now if, by some amazing chance, you actually can produce some sort of reasoned, plausible, evidence-backed argument for why innumerable, extraordinarily varied cultures better explain universal patterns of religiosity than biology, by all means, provide that.

4.) You write: "Humans have a capacity to respond to rational arguments and change their views, one way or another."

But since that has never been denied and is not even relevant to anything I'm writing, why do you keep repeating it? It's like me continuing to mention corn flakes in a discussion about what diesel engine to buy.

You write: "More importantly, there are forces at work that maintain religious and other ideologies over time beyond human biological makeup, which forces are persistent and difficult to penetrate. First and foremost are social and cultural forces, including social power dynamics. There are influences of tradition. There are philosophical influences based upon the human desire to understand the world. There is a follower mentality that no doubt has biological roots. Also, there is a desire for social interaction generally, and a desire of individuals to be part of groups. But none of this demands any sort of inextinguishable biological "religiosity" as you originally have defined it."

Okay - so finally, a hazard at a "primarily non-biological explanation" for the ubiquity of religion. Let's look more closely.

You list five main factors: (A) "Social and cultural forces, including social power dynamics"; (B) "Tradition"; (C) "Philosophical influences based on human desire to understand the world"; (D) "Follower mentality"; and (E) "Sociality".

Of the five, you upfront acknowledge that (D) has "biological roots". So that brings us down to four.

Taking (E) first, that I know, there is literally no one on earth but you who denies (though by insinuation) that human sociality is biologically driven. Yours is an absurd proposition belied by literally everything we know about human behaviour from a multitude of academic field: human sociality (while its expression is to varying degrees mediated by culture) is hard-wired. Children raised in isolation suffer from catastrophic debilitation. Adults left in isolation too long begin to suffer severe psychological, emotional and even physical problems. Your point (E) is out, big-time, and that you could even insinuate such a thing is hard to believe. As one neuroscientist puts it, "The neocortex comprises many of the brain areas involved in higher social cognition, such as conscious thought, language, behavioral and emotion regulation, as well as empathy and theory of mind -- the ability to understand the feelings and intentions of others. We are, so to speak, biologically hard-wired for interacting with others, and are thus said to be endowed with a 'social brain'".

Well...yes. I thought you knew. Now you do. Anyway, that brings us down to three. What about (C), a human desire to understand the world? Interesting you should mention that one, since it's precisely what I suggested above as one important instinct contributing to human religiosity...and what is crucial about this particular trait is that *it too is known to be innate*. The Infant Cognition Center at Yale alone has been documenting this literally for a quarter of a century, in study after study. Infants don't just sort of pick up from the cultural miasma that they really ought to be forming beliefs about the world; healthy brains, even in newborns, just do that sort of thing; and as the understanding of the world grows more complex, so do the beliefs, and the questions which prompt them. That's how human brains work, regardless of culture.

And NO, none of that necessarily means "we have no free will", so no need to (once again) go there. All of us know plenty of people who sincerely believe God revealed the Ten Commandments, but who break them anyway; and this should alleviate any concern we have that a propensity to believe, or beliefs themselves, necessarily extirpate free will.

So (C), known to be at its root instinctive, is out, too, for you. That leaves two. What about "social and cultural forces, including social power dynamics"? Well - social and cultural forces do exist, and do influence beliefs and choices. But everyone already knows that, including those who propose innate predisposition to religiosity. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we already know that culture helps shape the expression of an instinct; the point is that culture does not *bequeath* the instinct. That again is utterly absurd. Cultures don't give us a desire to have sex; they shape how that desire expresses itself. Culture influences what religious options we have - but culture doesn't give us the religiosity in the first place. Nature does that, for reasons highlighted not only be me here in what is clearly a waste of time, but explained by so many others who have devoted entire careers to understanding, and writing about, religion and religiosity.

That brings us down to your last one: tradition. But this seems redundant; how is it that tradition would not fall under the last category of "social and cultural forces"? Surely, tradition is a primary feature of culture. In any case, tradition - as one feature of culture - of course might influence the manifestation of religiosity (if your parents are Buddhist, you'll probably grow up to be Buddhist, rather than Sikh); but since there has never been any culture, no matter how remote, which did not have religious traditions - and again considering just how fantastically costly religious praxis is in evolutionary terms - it remains a perfect mystery (or perhaps, impossibility) how these supposedly maladaptive "traditions" could have all independently arisen around the world, without there being an original instigator - namely, a biological predisposition to what we call "religiosity".

Point is, you're busting me for not giving you enough reasons to believe that religiosity is rooted in biology (despite its expressions being influenced by culture); but the reasons you provide for a cultural explanation are actually biological reasons, with maybe just one exception; but even if they weren't biological, you did not provide any account of how "culture" would have gotten a universal, precious-resource-consuming religiosity going in the first place (amongst other things).

You write: "my point was never that reason will lead people away from religion in large numbers."

Okay, I accept that. I must have mistakenly assumed that because of other posts where you've stumped for a sort of secular humanism.

You write: "All I am saying is that adherence to religion is not a biological trait that is inextinguishable by appeal to reason". Okay, just to be clear - I do not deny that. Hell, I myself have helped deconvert hundreds of people from Mormonism. Within three weeks of me leaving, over forty of my closest friends and relatives, devout Mormons all, had left.

What I am disputing is that religiosity will ever diminish on a large scale. In individual cases, sure; overall, no. And I am also pointing out that religiosity is not as simple as "religion", in the sense of a formal organization with theist beliefs; and the assumption that religiosity wanes as formal, organized religion wanes is problematic, in that the patterns and predispositions comprising "religiosity" often manifest themselves merely in different ways. A devout papist or Muslim isn't distinguishable from a devout Leninist or Nazi, once you get past the paint job.

You write: "The ubiquity of religion, i.e. the persistence of belief in God, religious faith, and association with religion entities, is a cultural phenomenon that is difficult to explain in any precise manner."

It is "difficult to explain" because the evidence is not there, and therefore, there is not, and cannot be, any clear picture of how any such thing could be true.

By the way, we're supposed to be trying to get at the truth here - not shying away from certain lines of inquiry because of prior ethical or ideological commitments (to freewill, to reason, etc.), which you have repeatedly invoked her, and which you again invoke here in saying that to "announce that the underlying psychology is likely inextinguishable because of some unidentified biological instinct is...devalues human reason, and suggests a world dynamic that is both harmful and inevitable."

We're not supposed to begin our inquiries into the truth with a main goal being the protection of previously identified sacred cows. That ain't science; that's religion, paradoxically enough. Or at least, it's irrational - like deciding who will, and will not be, a suspect in a murder investigation *before the investigation has even begun*.

So...if the true explanation for the ubiquity of religion reveals the power of reason to not be quite what we'd hoped...so be it. Who cares? At least we'll have gotten to the truth. Accepting that, even if we don't particularly like it, is what distinguishes us from the loser apologists still out there stumping for Joseph Smith's stupid religion. Let's just go for it, come what may.

Amen.

TAL: So, if I understand you correctly, your big torpedo here is that *I haven't identified the biological basis of instinct*. Are you serious?

COMMENT: The word "instinct" is not an explanation for, or evidence of, anything--unless you further identify "the complex, interlinked biological systems" or pattern that underlie the behavior in question. It adds no more that the bare statement "It's biology."
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TAL: So Henry...merely announcing an opinion (especially one apparently formed entirely without reference to empirical data) is not an argument. It's just a statement. Unless you're omniscient, that doesn't count for anything. Now if, by some amazing chance, you actually can produce some sort of reasoned, plausible, evidence-backed argument for why innumerable, extraordinarily varied cultures better explain universal patterns of religiosity than biology, by all means, provide that.

COMMENT: But, it is you that are making the unsubstantiated claims here about the reason for the ubiquity of religion, not me. As I said, I think the issue is complicated. But to just announce, "it's instinct," or "its biology," adds nothing without further explanation of the mechanisms involved.

TAL: What about (C), a human desire to understand the world? . . . *it too is known to be innate*. . . . Infants don't just sort of pick up from the cultural miasma that they really ought to be forming beliefs about the world; healthy brains, even in newborns, just do that sort of thing; and as the understanding of the world grows more complex, so do the beliefs, and the questions which prompt them. That's how human brains work, regardless of culture.

COMMENT: Correct. But a general statement about how brains work, or that human beings have an innate desire to understand the world is not an explanation for the ubiquity of religion, or religiosity, unless its just trivial. Moreover, remember, you added the further claim that the underlying psychology was likely inextinguishable; that it had a sort of inevitable quality. That is what I was reacting against.
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And NO, none of that necessarily means "we have no free will", so no need to (once again) go there.

COMMENT: O.K. I accept that, but when you make a claim that biology, or instinct, dominates some aspect of human behavior in a way that seems to undermine the self-determination of individuals, then you are walking a slippery slope. Next comes "justification" of such behavior by appeal to biology, with the attitude, "I couldn't help it, it was biology." Or the implication here, "Religion is biology, just get used to it."
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As I mentioned in an earlier post, we already know that culture helps shape the expression of an instinct; the point is that culture does not *bequeath* the instinct. That again is utterly absurd.

COMMENT: It is not that simple. Instincts, so-called, are manifested in psychological attitudes, and resulting behavior. Culture instantiates psychological attitudes and behavior, even when biological instincts are profoundly opposite. Moreover, I dare say that one's own will can instantiate such attitudes and behavior. Thus, the lesson here, is that you had better be careful in announcing that some unsupported biological instinct is the explanation for a social behavior. Religiosity, as you broadly define it, may very well be a largely a product of culture.
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TAL: Cultures don't give us a desire to have sex; they shape how that desire expresses itself.

COMMENT: But culture does instantiate competing desires to refrain from certain sexual conduct. So, does instinct "explain" human sexual conduct. Surely not! And it doesn't explain religiosity either.
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TAL: Culture influences what religious options we have - but culture doesn't give us the religiosity in the first place. Nature does that, for reasons highlighted not only be me here in what is clearly a waste of time, but explained by so many others who have devoted entire careers to understanding, and writing about, religion and religiosity.

COMMENT: But this is precisely what you have not shown. And neither has anyone else, regardless of their devotion to their careers. If you have an argument, THAT IS BIOLOGICALLY based, and that goes beyond an empty reference to "instinct," let's finally here it! Not a link, but your biological explanation.
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TAL: Point is, you're busting me for not giving you enough reasons to believe that religiosity is rooted in biology (despite its expressions being influenced by culture); but the reasons you provide for a cultural explanation are actually biological reasons, with maybe just one exception; but even if they weren't biological, you did not provide any account of how "culture" would have gotten a universal, precious-resource-consuming religiosity going in the first place (amongst other things).

COMMENT: You haven't given ANY reasons to believe it. All you have said is that religiosity is ubiquitous, and so it must be biology or instinct. I can't provide a scientific explanation for the ubiquitous persistence of religion. But, I never claimed to offer such an explanation, except to show you that a biological explanation is hardly obvious, and most likely false. The social sciences are replete with unscientific, simplistic accounts of human behavior, supported by poorly conceived "studies," the results of which are often wildly inflated, if valid at all. Unfortunately, people (except real scientists) often buy into such nonsense.
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TAL: What I am disputing is that religiosity will ever diminish on a large scale. In individual cases, sure; overall, no. And I am also pointing out that religiosity is not as simple as "religion", in the sense of a formal organization with theist beliefs; and the assumption that religiosity wanes as formal, organized religion wanes is problematic, in that the patterns and predispositions comprising "religiosity" often manifest themselves merely in different ways. A devout papist or Muslim isn't distinguishable from a devout Leninist or Nazi, once you get past the paint job.

COMMENT: Again, you can dispute all you want. And speculate all you want. But, when you say that the basis for religiosity is biology, or instinct, and that this will never go away, I need an argument grounded in biology. Neither you, or anyone else, has provided that.
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TAL: You write: "The ubiquity of religion, i.e. the persistence of belief in God, religious faith, and association with religion entities, is a cultural phenomenon that is difficult to explain in any precise manner."

It is "difficult to explain" because the evidence is not there, and therefore, there is not, and cannot be, any clear picture of how any such thing could be true.

COMMENT: In science, when a phenomenon surfaces and you set out to provide an explanation, you either prove by experiment, what caused the phenomenon, or in this case by at least providing a biological account, or you rule out all other possibilities. Sometimes, you are left with admitting that the phenomenon is just too complex for a singular, simplistic explanation, no matter how much we would like to know the truth and understand. Human behavior falls within this category. There are just too many levels of explanation, and too many variables, to explain why any individual does what he or she does, much less a human society over time.
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TAL: We're not supposed to begin our inquiries into the truth with a main goal being the protection of previously identified sacred cows. That ain't science; that's religion, paradoxically enough. Or at least, it's irrational - like deciding who will, and will not be, a suspect in a murder investigation *before the investigation has even begun*.

So...if the true explanation for the ubiquity of religion reveals the power of reason to not be quite what we'd hoped...so be it. Who cares? At least we'll have gotten to the truth. Accepting that, even if we don't particularly like it, is what distinguishes us from the loser apologists still out there stumping for Joseph Smith's stupid religion. Let's just go for it, come what may.

COMMENT: I agree with this. But my point was when you make a statement, as you have here, that claims to be scientific, but is left vague and unsupported, it compounds the problem when such a claim has potentially negative social consequences, or undermines human values, like freewill and self-determination.

HENRY: "The word 'instinct' is not an explanation for, or evidence of, anything--unless you further identify "the complex, interlinked biological systems" or pattern that underlie the behavior in question. It adds no more that the bare statement 'It's biology'."

COMMENT: Huh?

First, instinct IS an explanation of a great many behaviours - just ask any neighbour kid who's had a seventh grade biology class. Or ask a biology professor if you don't believe the twelve year old. Second, I've already explained concisely what an instinct is and how it works. Third, I've already explained how several instincts - the reality of which no one disputes - working together could sum to the religiosity so consistently evident in all human populations.

In reply, you continue in full-tilt denial mode on the (frankly specious) grounds I haven't gone into enough detail about how instincts work. And you've already announced that you won't read any links, precluding me from simply posting a link to an article explaining in detail how instincts work. Nice insulation job.

HENRY: "It is you that are making the unsubstantiated claims here about the reason for the ubiquity of religion, not me. As I said, I think the issue is complicated. But to just announce, "it's instinct," or "its biology," adds nothing without further explanation of the mechanisms involved."

COMMENT: My claims are not unsubstantiated. That you are unaware of the large volume of evidence supporting a biological basis for religiosity, or have chosen to reject it in a misguided attempt to protect pre-selected ideological sacred cows, is not equivalent to that evidence not existing. (I must say, for someone who claims to be a champion of "reason", you're doing a very good impression of someone who is startlingly selective about where and when to employ it.)

Moreover, while religiosity appears to emerge from enduring instincts and predispositions, clearly its varied manifestations owe much to culture, unique creativity, tradition, accident, etc. - i.e., non-biological factors. I have mentioned that several times now. What that means is that your characterization of me "just announcing" that biology explains everything about religiosity and its varied manifestations is not accurate. It is a straw man, and yet another fallacy.

HENRY: "A general statement about how brains work, or that human beings have an innate desire to understand the world is not an explanation for the ubiquity of religion, or religiosity, unless its just trivial".

COMMENT: Certainly it is not "an explanation"; it is *part* of the explanation; and if you can't tell the difference between the entirety of an explanation and but one part of it, then you are again doing an excellent impression of someone whose relationship to reason is unusually sporadic.

HENRY: "Moreover, remember, you added the further claim that the underlying psychology was likely inextinguishable; that it had a sort of inevitable quality. That is what I was reacting against."

COMMENT: I did say that, and I have proposed how that could be. Nothing you have written on any of your posts has shown how that explanation could be flawed - that includes your demands that I describe in minute detail the microbiology of instinct-generating biological processes, an endeavour which is by the way (A) unnecessary if you merely acknowledge the existence of instincts, and (B) clearly would put no dent in your mental lockbox anyway.

The fact is that there is a large amount of evidence from all sorts of fields supporting a biological basis for religiosity. I've sketched it here and gone into more detail in earlier conversations. Maybe check out "The Faith Instinct" by Nicolas Wade and we can go from there...there's a lot more where that came from.

HENRY: "When you make a claim that biology, or instinct, dominates some aspect of human behavior in a way that seems to undermine the self-determination of individuals, then you are walking a slippery slope."

COMMENT: Two things: no, I am not "walking a slippery slope"; but even if I were, *it would not matter*, because we are supposed to be trying to discover the truth, not protect your personal sacred ideological cows. Yet you can't get off the cows, Henry. It's amazing. You are acting as obsessively as a head-nodding Orthodox Jew at the Wailing Wall, and as irrationally defensively as any Mormon being asked about the endowment ceremony.

What you're actually doing here is *manifesting one aspect of religiosity at low-level*: you have pre-determined (presumably without conclusive evidence) that "human self-determination" is Real, and Very Important, such that belief in it *must be protected*; any threat - real or even imaginary, as all of them are here - must be neutralized.

Where did that impulse of yours come from, Henry? Did a teacher or parent ever sit you down and say, "now Henry - you must begin to start choosing out a few concepts or objects or people and heavily imbue them with sanctity, to the point where your ability to carry on a meaningful, rational discussion is impeded"?

No, they didn't. No one's ever said that to you. You just did it on your own. And why?

Because you're human, and that's one thing that we humans do, you and I both and almost everyone else, all around the world, in every time, in every place, in every culture. It is in us. Culture largely determined what the options were; but the impulse to adopt our parents's form of religiosity, or to break away and choose a few new cows of our own to sacralize and defend and fight for and believe in even long after they ought to be believed... that doesn't come from "culture". That's just in us, like it or not. You're just one of many millions of walking, talking proofs of it yourself.

More to come later.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2016 02:54AM by Tal Bachman.

TAL: First, instinct IS an explanation of a great many behaviours - just ask any neighbour kid who's had a seventh grade biology class. Or ask a biology professor if you don't believe the twelve year old. Second, I've already explained concisely what an instinct is and how it works. Third, I've already explained how several instincts - the reality of which no one disputes - working together could sum to the religiosity so consistently evident in all human populations.

COMMENT: In biology textbooks "instinct" or "innate behavior" refers to patterns of behavior that an organism appears to be born with without need for learning. In some cases, particularly in the animal world, such behavior can be identified by controlled experiment. In other cases a biological mechanism is identified. In such contexts, a scientist might conclude that the behavior was based upon instinct, or was innate. Now, if that conclusion is reached, it presupposes evidence, e.g. an underlying biological mechanism which is the cause and effect explanation for the instinctive behavior. Labeling a behavior as "instinctive" is not informative, except as a description of the result of an experiment, or research program. Moreover, it is often used as a scientific platitude for "we don't know."

So, when you label "religiosity" as instinctive or innate, without offering any genuine explanatory evidence for such a conclusion, it is NOT an explanation for anything. It is a hypothesis at best, and a bad one at that.
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TAL: In reply, you continue in full-tilt denial mode on the (frankly specious) grounds I haven't gone into enough detail about how instincts work. And you've already announced that you won't read any links, precluding me from simply posting a link to an article explaining in detail how instincts work. Nice insulation job.

COMMENT: But I am not asking for a textbook definition of "instinct." I am asking you how the "instinct" conclusion is justified IN THIS CASE! What is the underlying mechanism that you are proposing that instantiated this instinct. Now, that's a hard demand, but I should at least get some sort of mechanistic, or meaningful experimental response that leads us from biology to the psychology of religiosity. Otherwise, there is nothing there for you to chew on. It is an empty, rhetorical statement, and nothing more. The observation that there is a lot of religion in the world, doesn't begin to meet your evidentiary burden.

Regarding links, I do look at them. But it is impossible for me to analyze and rebut a whole article. You need to provide an account of the study you are referring to, with the main points you want to highlight, then I can go to the linked article and reasonably quickly respond. Also, that helps other readers (if there are any) know what we are talking about. But, I am telling you that there are tons of "studies" in social psychology that have no scientific merit for all sorts of reasons. So, in reading your evidence, ask, "What is the basis for the conclusion," and tell me. Then, I will have something to respond to.
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TAL: My claims are not unsubstantiated. That you are unaware of the large volume of evidence supporting a biological basis for religiosity, or have chosen to reject it in a misguided attempt to protect pre-selected ideological sacred cows, is not equivalent to that evidence not existing. (I must say, for someone who claims to be a champion of "reason", you're doing a very good impression of someone who is startlingly selective about where and when to employ it.)

COMMENT: Such a conclusion can only be justified if you can identify the evidence, including the nature of the "study" the results, and the conclusions drawn. Until then you have given me nothing to respond to. (By the way, I never do what you are doing, i.e. citing links and demanding the reader read them and respond. I always provide a synopsis.) I assure you I have read a great deal of this stuff. (By the way, when did I claim to be a champion of reason?)
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Moreover, while religiosity appears to emerge from enduring instincts and predispositions, clearly its varied manifestations owe much to culture, unique creativity, tradition, accident, etc. - i.e., non-biological factors. I have mentioned that several times now. What that means is that your characterization of me "just announcing" that biology explains everything about religiosity and its varied manifestations is not accurate. It is a straw man, and yet another fallacy.

COMMENT: Not so. The problem is clear. The more you are willing to allow varied additional and non-biological contributions to religiosity, the harder it is for you to separate such contributions in any meaningful way, and provide anything significant about the causes in question. All you end up with is something like, "It is part biology, part instinct." That is trivial, and of no scientific interest. Everything humans do is part biology.
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TAL: Certainly it is not "an explanation"; it is *part* of the explanation; and if you can't tell the difference between the entirety of an explanation and but one part of it, then you are again doing an excellent impression of someone whose relationship to reason is unusually sporadic.

COMMENT: See comment above. O.K. Religiosity is partly biological, just like everything else humans are or do. Now that is a great scientific discovery!
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TAL: I did say that, and I have proposed how that could be. Nothing you have written on any of your posts has shown how that explanation could be flawed - that includes your demands that I describe in minute detail the microbiology of instinct-generating biological processes, an endeavour which is by the way (A) unnecessary if you merely acknowledge the existence of instincts, and (B) clearly would put no dent in your mental lockbox anyway.

COMMENT: THERE HAS BEEN NO EXPLANATION TO BE FLAWED! Claiming that religiosity is "partly biology" is no more an explanation than the claim that social migration is partly biology because people have to find jobs in order to eat. I don't need (here) minute detail of the "microbiology of instinct-generating biological processes." What I need is general detail as to the basis for the claim that biology (instinct) is responsible for *religiosity.* When you ask how planes fly, you expect an aerodynamic and mechanistic explanation about planes--not something like, hey, look at birds.
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TAL: The fact is that there is a large amount of evidence from all sorts of fields supporting a biological basis for religiosity. I've sketched it here and gone into more detail in earlier conversations. Maybe check out "The Faith Instinct" by Nicolas Wade and we can go from there...there's a lot more where that came from.

COMMENT: Read it. Now, why don't you outline what his claim is, and how he supports it (maybe another post) and we can discuss it. Let me give you a hint. What is the biological mechanism he says supports the alleged instinct? Any biologically oriented studies? Or is it all social psychology?
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TAL: Two things: no, I am not "walking a slippery slope"; but even if I were, *it would not matter*, because we are supposed to be trying to discover the truth, not protect your personal sacred ideological cows. Yet you can't get off the cows, Henry. It's amazing. You are acting as obsessively as a head-nodding Orthodox Jew at the Wailing Wall, and as irrationally defensively as any Mormon being asked about the endowment ceremony.

COMMENT: Getting offensive will not help your case. Moreover, motivation for discovering "the truth" is not justification for accepting bad evidence and accepting questionable conclusions. Finding "the truth" does NOT imply that any old theory is probably true, or should be believed without evidence.
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What you're actually doing here is *manifesting one aspect of religiosity at low-level*: you have pre-determined (presumably without conclusive evidence) that "human self-determination" is Real, and Very Important, such that belief in it *must be protected*; any threat - real or even imaginary, as all of them are here - must be neutralized.

COMMENT: So, now I have accepted freewill without any conclusive evidence. Well, I make decisions every day, and in fact my life depends upon it. That is pretty conclusive. More importantly, if you want to have a debate about freewill, I am all in. Good luck!
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TAL: Where did that impulse of yours come from, Henry? Did a teacher or parent ever sit you down and say, "now Henry - you must begin to start choosing out a few concepts or objects or people and heavily imbue them with sanctity, to the point where your ability to carry on a meaningful, rational discussion is impeded"?

COMMENT: Is this what you resort to when you can't win an argument, Tal?
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No, they didn't. No one's ever said that to you. You just did it on your own. And why?

. . . ; but the impulse to adopt our parents's form of religiosity, or to break away and choose a few new cows of our own to sacralize and defend and fight for and believe in even long after they ought to be believed... that doesn't come from "culture". That's just in us, like it or not. You're just one of many millions of walking, talking proofs of it yourself.

COMMENT: O.K. We have an instinct to choose one belief or another. It is "just in us, like it or not." So, like it or not, I chose to be a Mormon; and like it or not, I chose to be an exMormon. It was just in me. *I* had nothing to do with it. It was all biology. All the studying, questioning, heart-wrenching decision-making. All biology. Yeh right. But, heh, I did have an instinct to choose something. What a powerful insight!

[Is there anyone else following this? If not, what's the point?]

Bachman, Bemis, this kinda went nowhere in a not too hurry, eh? It's a shame.

I was away and couldn't read in real time. Reading it now reminds me why I've never really liked this chopping up reply-posts with this kind of quote-reaction-quote-reaction pattern. I use to mindfully not do it, then I started doing it because it's easier. But I'm going to try to not do it anymore.



I think innate religiosity is embedded in our ability for language. George Steiner tried to demonstrate this in "Real Presences", a rather language-thick book that I wouldn't recommend, actually. And it was kinda in the background in the Pinker-Deacon debate about language in the 90s, if I remember correctly. So, since language is biological Tal is right, and since language reaches out to the 'environment' Bemis is right.

John Gray was getting at something like the same thing in this interview question:

Question: What is your own relationship with religion?

John Gray: I don’t belong to a religion. In fact I would have to be described as an atheist. But I’m friendly to religion on the grounds that it seems to me to be distinctively human, and it has produced many good things. But you see these humanists or rationalists who seem to hate this distinctively human feature. This to me seems to me very odd. These evangelical atheists say things such as: religion is like child abuse, that if you had no religious education, there would be no religion. It’s completely absurd.

Question: You also say that ‘atheism does not mean rejecting belief in God, but up a belief in language as anything other than practical convenience.’ What are you getting at here?

John Gray: I was referring to Fritz Mauthner, who wrote a four-volume history of atheism. He was an atheist who thought that theism was an obsessive attachment to the constructions of language: that the idea of God was a kind of linguistic ideal. So that atheism meant not worshipping that ideal. But he took that as just an example of a more general truth: that there is a danger in worshiping the constructions of language. Of course religions like Christianity are partially to blame for this. But for most of their history, these so called creedal faiths didn’t define themselves by doctrine. Instead they had strong traditions of what’s called Apophatic theology: where you cannot use language to describe God.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2013/02/interview-with-a-writer-john-gray/



The minute we say "God" we are no longer talking about God. But what is the motive for metaphor, anyway? Whence this motive to say "God"?

I doubt science can ever bring us to be able to say "biology" made us do it, but per Chomsky language is biological. And those that say the 'environment' made us do it' aren't denying biology, they're just talking about something else.

I appreciate the efforts. And Henry, even if no one is watching there's a point to writing. Writing is its own reward.

Cheers,

Human

Thanks for these comments, Human.

From my recent reading, I think the old nature-nurture dichotomy is a bit passé at this point. With developmental biology, evolution has become increasing much more complicated than the simplistic natural selection explanation of Neo-Darwinism. This has carried over to psychology, and the general trend of holism and complex systems approaches to science. Evolutionary psychology appears to me to be essentially a complete waste of time. Sure, from time to time, you might get some interesting statistical "facts," but virtually nothing that identifies what it means to be human, including all of the nuances of individual personalities, thoughts, worldviews, etc., and related behavior.

I think Tal is right for suggesting that I am perhaps too adamant in my insistence on freewill (I think he put it a bit more harshly), and perhaps that sensitivity carries me beyond my logic. However, I have an aversion to simplistic thinking, which I think the nature-nurture debate too often succumbs to, often leaving the impression that biology, environment, and evolution, when combined provides all we need to know about human beings and their behavior. I resist this (rather fiercely at times) not only because I think it is scientifically unsupportable, but because for me it makes no sense to accept conclusions that undermine the very process from which such conclusions arise. Some people proudly wear their intellectual hats, cavalierly denying freewill. But when going about the business of living, they happily immerse themselves in freewill assumptions.

But here is the rub. Once you accept freewill, the implications for science, consciousness, mind, and the nature of human beings is extraordinary. Moreover, let's admit it, these implications open the door to a metaphysics of mind that is much more conducive to religious faith, however you define it. So, when Tal says that he is O.K. with freewill, while insisting upon a dominant role for deterministic biology when it comes to religion, something is amiss. The question now is, Notwithstanding "religiosity," why do people freely choose religion over other forms of expression of "religiosity." This question plays right into the existentialist hand.





To suggest that humans have "religiosity" in any meaningful sense just seems to me to be barren of much substance. I *do* appreciate Tal's efforts and arguments, however.


Anyway, maybe we can revisit this another time. I *am* disappointed with the lack of interest.

Hey guys - I got busy but I do want to come back to this, if you're at all interested in continuing. Don't have time at the moment but maybe later tonight.

Henry, just one quick comment: to say that members of some biological group have an "innate predisposition to" something is not to imply that we live in a mechanistic, wind-up toy universe, in which everything that happens is pre-determined by invincible biological or physical laws, and in which there is no such thing as volition, such that we are all automatons for whom the only real function of consciousness is to create profound delusion. This is a very extreme claim I have never before encountered anywhere, and yet you repeat it even again in your reply to Human. To actually believe such a thing would certainly explain your sensitivity to claims about biological predispositions; but I am saying there is no reason for you to nurse this extreme claim - which is frankly a non sequitur - in the first place.

"Tendency" is not "destiny". "Potentiality" is not "inevitability". It's not only Walt Whitman who contained "multitudes"; each human being contains multitudes of motives, desires, instincts, goals, etc. A healthy person by definition possesses a "self" which guides - or at least, seems to guide - the whole, and which makes discriminating choices between often conflicting urges and impulses. I acknowledge the Libet experiments, but I don't think they are near enough for us to conclude that free will does not exist. Not even Libet concluded that from them.

I'll try to get back to this soon.

Henry, just one quick comment: to say that members of some biological group have an "innate predisposition to" something is not to imply that we live in a mechanistic, wind-up toy universe, in which everything that happens is pre-determined by invincible biological or physical laws, and in which there is no such thing as volition, such that we are all automatons for whom the only real function of consciousness is to create profound delusion.

COMMENT: If you believe in something called "innate predisposition to" that is based upon biology, then you have to complete the phrase and specific in clear and concise terms the behavior or psychological state that follows from that predisposition. Then, you have do more than just announce it; you have to justify it. Otherwise "innate predisposition to" provides a sort of blank check to explain any behavior or all behavior. It is a given that biology plays a role in all behavior, so that is just trivial. So, if the point is to have explanatory value, there needs to be a link between the precisely stated biological predisposition and the precisely stated behavior that is strong enough to have explanatory value over and above the mere platitude that all behavior has a biological component. I have not seen this in your explanation of "religiosity." So far, there is the claim that there is some sort of loose relationship between biology and religiosity. But, how is that helpful as an explanation, especially when both the behavior and the biological link is not adequately identified?
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This is a very extreme claim I have never before encountered anywhere, and yet you repeat it even again in your reply to Human. To actually believe such a thing would certainly explain your sensitivity to claims about biological predispositions; but I am saying there is no reason for you to nurse this extreme claim - which is frankly a non sequitur - in the first place.

COMMENT: Determinism, i.e. the lack of freewill, is the logical result of scientific materialism. Even in modern complex systems theory, and emergence, determinism still rules the day, even if most people do not appreciate the implications of this view. Some, who *DO* understand such implications outright deny genuine freewill. (See, for example, Wegner, "The Illusion of Conscious Will." Dan Dennett, essentially denies it by dismissing it. Your claim that this is a non sequitur is completely false. Again, it is not just what people say, but what the implications are for their views. If, for example, one holds the view that all of human behavior is a product of our genetic or developmental makeup, coupled with environmental influences, you have eliminated freewill--unless you can explain where freewill comes from within this materialist, deterministic, worldview. You can't.
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"Tendency" is not "destiny". "Potentiality" is not "inevitability". It's not only Walt Whitman who contained "multitudes"; each human being contains multitudes of motives, desires, instincts, goals, etc. A healthy person by definition possesses a "self" which guides - or at least, seems to guide - the whole, and which makes discriminating choices between often conflicting urges and impulses. I acknowledge the Libet experiments, but I don't think they are near enough for us to conclude that free will does not exist. Not even Libet concluded that from them.

COMMENT: See above. The platitudes you state at the beginning of this paragraph are entirely rhetorical and unhelpful. The Libet experiments weigh against freewill, and as such they have to be explained and interpreted, as Libet does himself. Now, you might well believe in freewill, and still adhere to a biological "predisposition to" thesis. But, we need more science and philosophy here to make the "predisposition to" claim meaningful, particularly when you want to preserve genuine freewill in the context of the behavior that you claim is the result of predisposition, even if only in some unstated part.

Let me respond to your first point by asking you a couple of simple questions:

1.) Do you believe that human beings possess certain instincts? If so, will you give a few examples?

2.) Via what specific process do those instincts manifest themselves in human behaviour?

To your second point:

First, I have never argued for scientific materialism or determinism.

Second, when I said I had never before encountered such a view as yours, I was referring to your view that "biological predisposition entails determinism". That IS an extreme view, and I don't know of anything in the writings of Dennett or Wegner which implies they believe it (notwithstanding their own attachments to determinism). No - your view, at least in my experience, is unique to you.

Third, it IS a non sequitur to suggest that "tendency toward" implies "no ability to resist", which implies "determinism". A man may have a biological tendency to avoid violent death; that is not to say he may not choose to disregard that tendency, or lacks the power to overcome it. I have no idea how anyone could possibly disagree with that.

Lastly, my "platitudes" are actually plain statements meant to try to jog you out of a mental state in thrall to an eccentric notion that biological tendencies equal behavioural inevitabilities and a thoroughly deterministic universe - a notion held against all reason and evidence, and maybe even personal experience. You have never even tried to defend this claim (maybe because it cannot be adequately defended).

1.) Do you believe that human beings possess certain instincts? If so, will you give a few examples?

COMMENT: Yes. (Sex and survival are the most basic biological instincts that are universally acknowledged)

2.) Via what specific process do those instincts manifest themselves in human behaviour?

COMMENT: Even though these instincts are indeed basic, even these instincts do not manifest themselves in human behavior simplistically. As an obvious example, human beings have an "instinct" for sex, which by the way has an identified biological basis. Notwithstanding, society as strong mores as to how such an instinct is manifest. Thus, you cannot say that human sexuality is "explained" by the sex instinct. The psychological attraction is explained, but the behavior is complicated. AND THIS IS PROBABLY THE BEST UNDERSTOOD OF ALL INSTINCTS! When you get to the notion of "religiosity" and other claims of instinct, you are in much deeper water.
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Second, when I said I had never before encountered such a view as yours, I was referring to your view that "biological predisposition entails determinism". That IS an extreme view, and I don't know of anything in the writings of Dennett or Wegner which implies they believe it (notwithstanding their own attachments to determinism). No - your view, at least in my experience, is unique to you.

COMMENT: You don't understand the terminology. Biological predisposition is deterministic. What that means is that whatever the disposition is, that predisposition follows from deterministic physical processes. That is uncontroversial. What this means is that if you adhere to a biological predisposition, like "religiosity, there must be a biological source that causally determines this predisposition. This does not mean that the underlying behavior is predetermined. Materialists like Dennett believe that ALL human behavior is ultimately biologically based, which means that it is all biologically determined. (After environmental input, of course) They do not accept genuine freewill as an intervening factor. This is the standard materialist worldview that dominates science.
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Third, it IS a non sequitur to suggest that "tendency toward" implies "no ability to resist", which implies "determinism". A man may have a biological tendency to avoid violent death; that is not to say he may not choose to disregard that tendency, or lacks the power to overcome it. I have no idea how anyone could possibly disagree with that.

COMMENT: Biological determinism (or physical determinism generally) is not necessarily the same as behavioral determinism. But, as I said, to the extent that any behavior is instinctive, to that extent it is biologically determined. Using your example, the survival instinct is biologically determined, even if the ultimate behavior is not.
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Lastly, my "platitudes" are actually plain statements meant to try to jog you out of a mental state in thrall to an eccentric notion that biological tendencies equal behavioural inevitabilities and a thoroughly deterministic universe - a notion held against all reason and evidence, and maybe even personal experience. You have never even tried to defend this claim (maybe because it cannot be adequately defended).

COMMENT: Whatever you want to call your "plain statements" they have NO explanatory value. NONE! Alluding to "religiosity" as a human instinct to explain religion adds nothing, again ZERO, to any understanding of human behavior, because, again and again, YOU HAVE NOT, AND CANNOT, IDENTIFY THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OR MECHANISM THAT SUPPORTS SUCH AN INSTINCT, AND YOU CANNOT LINK SUCH UNSPECIFIED MECHANISM TO THE BEHAVIOR YOU ARE TRYING TO EXPLAIN. And to make matters worse, you now admit that somehow freewill is involved. You have explained nothing here, and have drawn conclusions about society and culture based upon a claimed "religiosity" that is entirely vacuous.

Henry: What, in your view, is the identified biological basis for the instinct for sex?

You're not serious, right!

Here is an exercise for you. Go to your nearest library, and find a biology book; any one will do. Now, go to the index and look up "sexuality" "hormones" and "reproduction." O.K. now read everything you find referenced on these topics. Bingo! You have discovered at least some of the biological mechanisms underlying human sexuality, including the biological basis for the "instinct" for sexual behavior.

Now, using the same procedure, look up "religiosity." Of course, you will find nothing. What does that tell you?

This exercise is perhaps the simplest way to point out the deficiency of your entire post. Hopefully, you get it.

Henry:

I feel frustrated. Certain characteristics run through your writings on this topic, and others we have discussed in the past (like consciousness), which make clear engagement with you very difficult. With all due respect, I want to bring a couple of them to your attention.

1.) The first is a pervasive amorphousness. The terms are all there, the references are all there, but there is no clarity there in the end. As an example, in our earlier discussions on consciousness, I spent quite a bit of time wondering what in the world you were actually trying to say, and trying to extract it from you. What was your core argument underneath all the verbiage? When you finally disclosed it, I was surprised to see it was incoherent and unintelligible. It could be summarized as follows:

"Mind is the result of 'dualism'; but that 'dualism' is actually 'monism', because mind might actually be a physical thing governed by laws we don't know about yet - even though, at the same time, it is entirely 'autonomous'."

A more reduced summary might be: "Mind comes from a dualism which is a monism which is a mystery which is a contradiction".

Lewis Carroll himself could not have composed a more absurd proposition. It does not even rise to the level of vacuity.

Now here, on the present question of innate religiosity, the same amorphousness pervades your comments. As a result, I have been fighting a growing suspicion that, as before, when you finally unveil your view of what accounts for the manifestation of religiosity in all human cultures, it will again turn out to read like a lost passage from "Jabberwocky". I hope you prove me wrong.

So, let me pause to ask: what precisely IS your explanation for why religiosity has manifested itself in every known human culture?

And related questions: What precise information would convince you that you were wrong? What would a convincing counterargument look like to you? Can you provide us with a template of your own based on an instinct you do acknowledge (like sex)? Furnish me, us, that, and maybe I can convince you.

2.) In this discussion, as before, it has become clear that Goal Number One for you is: protect your sacred cows. They form a tidy little trinity for you - not a trinity of "God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost", but rather, "Freewill, Human Autonomy, and Human Self-determination".

This is a problem. Your sacred cows are propositions which might be true; but it is not known for certain they are true; therefore, for you to elevate them to the status of "dogma to be protected at all costs" makes conscientious, rational, even scientific investigation, impossible for you. For it to become possible, you would need to *suspend your attachment to those notions*. After all, the goal of rational or scientific investigation is "Find the Truth", not "Protect Cherished Values". By *clearly* seeking to "Protect Cherished Values" first and foremost, you are displaying the very religiosity you are denying could be innate - and not even noticing. And because you are, you give the impression of being closed to the implications - no matter how true they might be - of any line of evidence or argument which you, early on, identify as potentially faith-threatening. The analogue here to Mormon apologists could not be clearer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2016 03:14PM by Tal Bachman.

TAL: "I feel frustrated. Certain characteristics run through your writings on this topic, and others we have discussed in the past (like consciousness), which make clear engagement with you very difficult. With all due respect, I want to bring a couple of them to your attention."

COMMENT: Engagement with me is not difficult if one understands the issues, and knows what they are talking about. Why have I not had any trouble with anyone else understanding me?
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"1.) The first is a pervasive amorphousness. The terms are all there, the references are all there, but there is no clarity there in the end."

COMMENT: You are blind to logical clarity. My logic is impeccable. If not, provide me an example of where I have gone wrong. That is not to say I am necessary right, but the argument is crystal clear.
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"As an example, in our earlier discussions on consciousness, I spent quite a bit of time wondering what in the world you were actually trying to say, and trying to extract it from you. What was your core argument underneath all the verbiage?"

COMMENT: The "verbiage" represents background knowledge that you apparently don't have, and which prevents your understanding. But that's another post.
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"When you finally disclosed it, I was surprised to see it was incoherent and unintelligible. It could be summarized as follows:

"Mind is the result of 'dualism'; but that 'dualism' is actually 'monism', because mind might actually be a physical thing governed by laws we don't know about yet - even though, at the same time, it is entirely 'autonomous'."

COMMENT: Your misplaced paraphrase of my view demonstrates your lack of understanding. Please stop putting quotes around such paraphrases, and man up. Quote me verbatim and explain why you don't understand, and I will try to clear it up for you.
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"A more reduced summary might be: "Mind comes from a dualism which is a monism which is a mystery which is a contradiction".

COMMENT: I never said any of this nonsense.
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"Now here, on the present question of innate religiosity, the same amorphousness pervades your comments. As a result, I have been fighting a growing suspicion that, as before, when you finally unveil your view of what accounts for the manifestation of religiosity in all human cultures, it will again turn out to read like a lost passage from "Jabberwocky". I hope you prove me wrong."

COMMENT: I have proven you wrong over and over again, but you refuse to listen.
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"So, let me pause to ask: what precisely IS your explanation for why religiosity has manifested itself in every known human culture?"

COMMENT: I never offered an explanation, or claimed to have one. IT WAS YOU THAT DID THAT! Do you think that a lack of explanation is an intellectual license to invent one?
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"And related questions: What precise information would convince you that you were wrong? What would a convincing counterargument look like to you? Can you provide us with a template of your own based on an instinct you do acknowledge (like sex)? Furnish me, us, that, and maybe I can convince you."

COMMENT: What would convince me?" Evidence and argument. You have provided neither. For the sexual instinct, see above.
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"This is a problem. Your sacred cows are propositions which might be true; but it is not known for certain they are true; therefore, for you to elevate them to the status of "dogma to be protected at all costs" makes conscientious, rational, even scientific investigation, impossible for you."

COMMENT: THis post was not about my "sacred cows." If you want to discuss that, start another post. But, I assure you I am more than prepared to scientifically and philosophically defend these cows, sacred or not. (See also Human's response!)

Heh. It's as if John Gray is watching us:

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2016/01/why-humans-find-it-hard-do-away-religion

Of course I like this bit of red-meat:

"For some, atheism may be no more than a fundamental lack of interest in the concepts and practices of religion. But as an organised movement, atheism has always been a surrogate faith. Evangelical atheism is the faith that mass conversion to godlessness can transform the world. This is a fantasy. If the history of the past few centuries is any guide,
a godless world would be as prone to savage conflicts as the world has always been. Still, the belief that without religion human life would be vastly improved sustains and consoles many a needy unbeliever – which confirms the essentially religious character of atheism as a movement."


Tal, quick question:

Henry's "sacred cow", as you term it, free will, a proposition "which might be true," as you concede, tell me, where is the burden on this one, on those who wish to propose that free will is non-existent, an illusion at best, or on those that take it as a given?

You are exaggerating immensely when you assert that Henry elevates free will as a "dogma to be protected at all costs". The counter evidence is extraordinarily weak (Libet's stuff is not much! as Mele clearly shows), especially when weighed against how wildly strong the counter claims usually go and especially given that *everything* that makes our society what it is, our "western civilization" that you evidently prize very much, is premised a priori on the simple, lived fact that we do indeed enjoy the freedom of exercising our wills as is our wont.

We can disagree and quibble on what "free" means, to what degree it exists and under what conditions etc, but it isn't so weirdly radical to propose we have it. In fact, proposing that we don't have it is weird and radical, an extraordinary claim. And as they say about extraordinary claims...

Speaking of extraordinary claims, I love the one that positively asserts that they simply "...lack belief". Heh:

"Johnson is on stronger ground in suggesting that a need to find meaningful patterns in random events may be hard-wired in human beings. Here the historical record of atheism is instructive. Johnson devotes a longish chapter to what he calls “the problem of atheists”, arguing that, like the rest of humankind, they are “inclined to supernatural thinking”, which lives on in them in the form of “superstitious beliefs and behaviours”. This may be so, but it is not the most important way in which atheists have continued to be governed by the needs that religions have evolved to satisfy. Practically without exception, the atheist movements of the past few centuries testify to a demand for meaning that has led them to replicate many of the patterns of thinking distinctive of monotheism, and more particularly of Christianity."

Love John Gray.

Human, ever soft for the misanthropes

Do all sentient beings create religions? Who knows, probably not, maybe elephants and dolphins.

I could convert to a dolphin religion.

Religions come from man asking questions about existence.

Religion is a simple wrong answer, an energy minimum that is easy to fall into given very little data. A false solution that many make because it is easy. There must be a higher power because I don't understand my environment.

The next step is a shaman who feels like they can control the religion and hence the followers.
The alpha male ruling the heard, or sometimes like elephants the alpha female. A fingerprint of God's hand or more likely an evolutionary successful strategy to maximize control of all resources and mates.

And for every 10 religious followers there is the one kid who does not believe and gets the shit beat out of him until he moves out. Having neuronal processing that quickly identifies bullshit.

The dolphin religion involves lots of surfing and sex.