Religion is instilled in us Page 2

Started by elnoor September 19th, 2014 10:43 AM
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Kenchiin

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But that is, in turn, what you believe in. Not needing to have any particular IS your belief. This proves that OP is right, if only because of a nice little loophole.
I'd suggest you to read some of Stephen Jay Gould's works, especially Rocks of Ages (1999).

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Entermaid

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I've read some research on the evolution of religion as a naturally occurring phenomena.

Why did civilizations separated in each corner of the world partake in some form of faith.

The by product theory states the humans have cultivated the ability to make causal relationships and the ability to identify unknown agents.

1) Causal Reasoning

Bears eat berries --- bears die ---- don't eat berries.

It's easy to see why humans with capacity out produce others.

2) Identifying unknown objects

Bushes rustle --- assume there is a deliberate agent making the bush rustle--- attack bush or flee.

It's easy to see why that human will outproduce the others that don't engage in this.

3. Synthesis these two mechanisms, which are tied to survival are cultivated through natural selection.

Flood occurs --- must be a cause --- must be unknown agent causing flood -- belief in unseen agent able to cause flood.

You could replace flood with famine, sickness, ect.

This led to early animist spiritual beliefs which have expanded further to humanization of agents. I haven't actually read anything to explain how that came to be from this theory.

From there, the actual knowledge imparted is based on socialization. But from the process explained above we can maybe figure out why there are similarities as far as creation story and flooding stories among spiritual/religious groups. ie Native Americans and Christians separated by an ocean. Also, it can explain why there are some deviations, and how social/cultural difference can manufacture different beliefs.

That said, I am a somewhat spiritual-Agnostic-Bible reader if that is at all relevant :p
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Phantom

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As for the original question posed-

Instilled? No.

A baby is a blank slate. They barely have a memory at birth, their senses are limited. Besides basic life functions there is little to a baby. While the growth of the brain and the progress a child makes as it grows is amazing, we were all blank slates once.

Simply said, all babies are born atheists. It is our experience, our raising, our youth, which makes us who we are. There is a predisposition for youth to follow the belief system of the parents. Indoctrination. Did I have a choice when I was baptized? No. I couldn't even roll onto my side when I was baptized, let alone contemplate the universe. A child does not think for the future besides, "What's snack today?" They do not think, "How is this a life changing decision?" or "Do I believe in god?"

So, naturally, no, religion is not instilled in us.

Tek

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As for the original question posed-

Instilled? No.

A baby is a blank slate. They barely have a memory at birth, their senses are limited. Besides basic life functions there is little to a baby....

Simply said, all babies are born atheists.
Let's define "atheist" as someone who understands what a creator god is, and believes that such does not exist.


If a baby is a blank slate with no understanding of a God, then the baby has no ability to believe that God does not exist. Therefore, babies are not born atheist.

It is our experience, our raising, our youth, which makes us who we are. There is a predisposition for youth to follow the belief system of the parents. Indoctrination.
The developmental aspect of a person which you bring up is rather central in understanding the OP.

A kid who doesn't believe in God because they're following the parents example is fundamentally different from a kid who has looked at the available evidence and drawn a conclusion about a creator God's existence. The difference is that of deriving truth from authority rather than deriving truth from logic.

We can also apply this to believers in a creator god. One who believes on the Bible's authority is fundamentally different from one who has looked at the available evidence and concluded that a creator god exists (like some of America's founding fathers, who thought of God as an architect or watchmaker).

I feel like the OP equates the two paradigms and thus says that belief and disbelief in God are the same. And it's pretty popular to think that everyone who believes in something Divine is backwards and/or delusional, but that's a flawed opinion for the same reason.

CoffeeDrink

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Belief is human nature, we all tend to be attach to an ideology and a way of life. Even those who say they are atheist and don't believe in anything, is not being atheist in itself a belief a way of life that is followed.
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Talon

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I saw this somewhere in here, and thought it was a cool thing:
A baby is blank slate. They know only what they've been taught so far, other than natural instincts, such as breathing. Religion is not in them yet, they haven't even experienced any form or fashion of religion yet, and as they grow up they will exposed to it, and make a decision on what religion they follow, if any, whether it a natural or forced choice.

I do not believe that religion is instilled in us. I think it's a choice, and in the end, a choice that doesn't even matter (In my opinion), and has no definite answer. It's a cquestion that has no right answer or wrong answer. You can't pick the wrong religion. Whether the choice is influenced by your surroundings or whatever, the choice is yours, and as a baby, you have not chosen yet, and probably wont for another 4-5 years, when your brain develops enough to really hold memories.
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Phantom

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One, can you not edit your post four freaking times? It sends me a 'blah quoted you' notification EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Let's define "atheist" as someone who understands what a creator god is, and believes that such does not exist.


If a baby is a blank slate with no understanding of a God, then the baby has no ability to believe that God does not exist. Therefore, babies are not born atheist.
You need to look up the different forms of atheism, there are quite a few, though I will only discus the necessary ones here.

Atheism in a broad sense is a rejection of belief in the existence of deities, in a narrower sense, the specific belief that there are no deities, and most inclusively, it is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.

'Absence' being the important word.

The argument that we are 'all born atheist' is an old one. It was a term quoted from a late 1700's philosopher the Baron d'Holbach.

Basically, there are different interpretations on what atheism is/its nature. There is implicit and explicit atheism. Implicit atheism "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it", while explicit atheism is the opposite, consciously rejecting it. A baby, ignorant and unable to comprehend the higher parts of philosophical understanding would be considered an implicit atheist. I, an educated person knowing of religion and rejecting it based on logic and reasoning would be considered an explicit atheist.

There are many different was to describe atheism. I suggest some research before throwing around the definition argument, especially in a philosophy discussion.

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Entermaid

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Tabula Rasa is an artificial concept. There are no blank slates, but rather innate mechanisms by which interact with the environment. So there are reasons that might drive human behavior, though the it's a reciprocating relationship between nature AND nurture. Sometimes the phrase is used to describe an external evil, like the proclivity to murder...though if anything, external institutions encourage us to act against our nature, and refrain from violence. (in the state of nature, violence would exist universally.)

Human nature changes over long periods of time, but human nurture is changing at a rapid rate, especially since socialization, and the non-existence of natural selection among humans (rather, sexual selection and artificial selection.) That said, human nurture acts in accordance with the natural frameworks, which are fairly static.

Though humans are the only known species to have a propensity of spiritual thought, or rather the ability to detect intangible agents, the content of spirituality is defined by socialization. It's a grey area in distinguishing what is social and what is natural -- there is overlap as social behaviors are derived from our nature. One thing is certain, we are not blank slates.


Let's not get too caught up on the individual level either...what would happen if children never exposed to religious/spiritual thought we raised and lived in a utopia of sorts. After generations of children in isolation, would this population exhibit spiritual thought?
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Tek

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Let's not get too caught up on the individual level either...what would happen if children never exposed to religious/spiritual thought we raised and lived in a utopia of sorts. After generations of children in isolation, would this population exhibit spiritual thought?
I think it's safe to say that spiritual thought would arise on its own, since that's exactly what happened in humanity's distant past.

I think it's also safe to say that spirituality is a fundamental aspect of a human. When we look at the basic functions of people, like gathering food, making shelter, and reproducing, we see that these things have always been around but have changed as humanity's cognition evolved. It's the same with spirituality, which we can broadly define as the question "what is the ultimate nature of reality?"

Tribal foragers believed the world was composed of capricious animistic spirits. For example, the myths and folklore of native North American tribes.

Horticultural societies, which historically correlate with an aggressive warrior culture, perceived there to be powerful entities running the show, who were generally the embodiment of the warrior mindset. We can think of Greek and Norse pantheons, as well as ancient Egyptians and Mayans.

In agrarian societies, we begin to see a mythic-membership culture arise. Agrarian populations were much larger, so in order to maintain stability, we evolved creeds that could unite people previously divided by kinship or tribal identity. The ultimate nature of the world, from this perspective, is that there is a divine patriarchal judge who runs the show.

A funny thing happens when humanity industrializes and rationality emerges. We perceive a rational order to the universe, one which does not need a creator god to explain its existence. But the spiritual line of inquiry is mistaken for the mythic level of development; we equate Spirit in any form with pre-rational thought, and reject spirituality and religion as useful or necessary in pretty much any way. Generally speaking.

As industrialized nations transitioned to an informational social structure, we see pluralistic (post-rational) culture emerge. The general consensus about reality at this stage is that there is no pregiven and objective world, there are only perspectives which are enacted. Specific spiritual attitudes vary widely, religion is sometimes deconstructed and given new meaning, but most probably would say that 'what is true for me isn't neccesarily true for you.'

History is much more messy than all of that, but these general patterns of development are pretty evident. The porpoise here is to show that spirituality, once it arose, changed form but was never discarded; at all stages of development, people have questions about the nature of reality, and they formulate answers according to their framework.



One, can you not edit your post four freaking times? It sends me a 'blah quoted you' notification EVERY SINGLE TIME.



You need to look up the different forms of atheism, there are quite a few, though I will only discus the necessary ones here.

Atheism in a broad sense is a rejection of belief in the existence of deities, in a narrower sense, the specific belief that there are no deities, and most inclusively, it is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.

'Absence' being the important word.

The argument that we are 'all born atheist' is an old one. It was a term quoted from a late 1700's philosopher the Baron d'Holbach.

Basically, there are different interpretations on what atheism is/its nature. There is implicit and explicit atheism. Implicit atheism "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it", while explicit atheism is the opposite, consciously rejecting it. A baby, ignorant and unable to comprehend the higher parts of philosophical understanding would be considered an implicit atheist. I, an educated person knowing of religion and rejecting it based on logic and reasoning would be considered an explicit atheist.

There are many different was to describe atheism. I suggest some research before throwing around the definition argument, especially in a philosophy discussion.

*drops mic, exits left*
Corrections needed to be made. Not sure if you're trying to be funny, but you're coming across as pretty hostile. It's pretty easy to get rid of notifications, isn't it?

Anyway, I was presenting a definition that made sense to me, so that my statement would be clear. My argument was not intended to account for every possible definition. So nothing needs to be changed there; the argument holds true with the definition I gave.

Besides, that was the least significant part of my post.

That said, I find it pretty misleading to characterize people who don't understand what theology, god, or spirituality are to be atheist. They aren't any kind of '-theist' at all, and a different term should be used to describe them than the one that refers to people who do understand those things. "Born atheist" may be an old argument, but it isn't a very good one in my opinion.