SRL Archive - Discussions & Debates

A short article in the paper today:

Humans are programmed to believe in god because it gives them a better chance of survival, researchers claim.

A study into the way children's brain develop suggests that during the process of evolution those with religious tendences begin to benefit from their beliefs - possibly by working in groups to ensure the future of their community.

Discuss, I'll post my views later. Its worth noting to the people that are going to say "god made evolution", that idea has only been around as long as the idea of evolution has - as in, the last few hundred years. Before that people believed in adam and eve and other such "creator of all" gods.

I lol'd.

I didn't lol, but it was kind of the inward chuckle that I do when I read about the bright little religious people.

I was born a Monkey.

Well I've known about something like this for quite some time.

In fact I once heard of this study to try to see if genes effect people's belief in God. IIRC it went something about getting data on identical twins who were seperated at birth and comparing it to non-identical twins in the same situation.
It turns out that belief in God is influenced by genes in this way.

Its important to remember that its only an influence, and it doesnt mean that you're doomed to a lifetime of faith through no fault of your own, through your genes.



As I understand, religious belief is explained in biology terms by evolutionary-misfiring.

If you look at a moth which circles around a candle and ends up getting burned, you could argue that evolution has made it kill itself. But actually, when a moth evolved there were no candles around and its circling-of-light method is a navigational tool.
The only comparable light source at night was the moon, and if the moth were to keep the moon at a bearing of 30 degrees, it would be guarenteed to travel in a dead straight line because the moon is at optical infinity.
But a candle isnt at optical infinity so keeping it at 30 degrees means circling around it and ultimately burning your wing.
An evolutionary misfiring has happened.


Humans have evolved to be intuative pattern-seekers. This is very useful because it helps us understand the seasons, the habits of migrating animals like buffalo, when to plant seeds or harvest crops.
But this also leads to the evolutionary misfiring of all supersitition, astrology and, I'm afraid, religion.

Religion is not a pattern though, it is an explanation of lack thereof.

There were patterns to start with.
Some people saw patterns where there were non, involving things like disease and earthquakes, etc.

But now that modern science has exploded those claims, religion has sort of moved back and now deals with other things.

No, acts of God are still used to describe 'random' events, or events where finding a pattern would be (physically, not theoretically) impossible or computationally complex.