Muzman on 2/8/2009 at 05:57

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As something of a tangent, I've been ankle deep in the atheist wars (so to speak) for a while now and its fascinating stuff. But there's one area that most seem unable to address simply because of who they are. I don't know exactly how to phrase it but the question 'Why belief at all?' is a pretty good starting point. Why do we have to fill in the blanks, rationalising these bizarre (frequently a priori of knowledge) extrapolations on the nature of reality? Why is "I don't beleive in god exactly and I'm not religious, but I think there might be something." or "You've got to believe in something" still the most common things you'll hear in the secular West?.
The atheist camp is generally ill eqipped to handle these tendencies, and when they do (not that I've extensively read the psych or Dennet or anyone, really) it comes off as dismissive; oh it's pattern recognition gone overboard, consciousness talking to itself, social conditioning etc all creating some custerfuck in your noggin. Much of which seems mechanically true to me but seems to miss the point. The, dare I say it, spirit of the problem is lost. The sticking point I think is that these guys, by and large (Feynman, Myers, Dawkins, Dennet, et al. Jonathan Miller in the 'Rough History of Disbelief' series) profess to have never had much faith at all or lost it at a young age and never looked back.
I think they're kind of lucky though and certainly not in the majority of folks. I reckon the recurrence of spirituality, often regardless of upbrining, is evidence most people do have a sense of 'something' at or beyond the limits of their comprehension and feel a desperate need to explain it. And this is why religion ain't going away in a hurry and the atheist vanguard can't really deal with this (unproven) fact of life for most people.
The other team are little help either since all their arguments presuppose god and go on from there (if Grundy was still around he might go over the (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_argument_for_the_existence_of_God) trancendental apologetics again, which is pretty insightful in one respect, but you can't talk to anyone about it from any point of view that does not include god.)
Anyway, I can go on and on into further obscurity. Rest assured I think this 'thing' is in essence a flaw of human minds. But it's just that traditional philosophy, theology and modern day atheism, neuroscience etc can't get into it properly (or don't think it's all that big a deal).
I am curious if any non-specific deists, Gaianists, wiccans, New agers et al want to get into why they feel the need to explain reality. Why extrapolate to the ends/beginnings of all things? Why fill in those blanks?

Vasquez on 2/8/2009 at 09:45

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Muz, I'm sure you're familiar with the temporal lobe relation to religious experiences? I find it quite fascinating (scientifially) - since everything else in our brains seems to be there for a good, functional reason, what is the purpose of temporal lobe's ability to do this? Was it something actually useful somewhere in the past?

And even though the stronger hallucinations come with malfunction of the lobe, it's possible, maybe even likely, that it is also responsible for our seemingly "spiritual" sense of "something else must be out there".
As for the why some people don't yearn for spirituality at all, it can easily be counted as any other individual difference: Some of us have better eyesight, some run faster, and some have more (or less) active temporal lobe.


I don't count Taoism as a religion, for me it's a philosophy. If you read Tchuang Tzu, for example, you also find it's extremely interpretable (and meant to be that way), even to the point of nonsensical. To my understanding Tao is not an entity, not a "god" of any sort, it's the way things flow, and Taoism is a way to accept things as they come and go - it's often surprisingly difficult ;)

I guess religion can be a way to give reason to random things - especially bad things. We have a strong idea of what's right and wrong, and if a "good" person has huge misfortune, there must be some underlying, supernatural reason, otherwise it doesn't make sense (and worse, it could also happen to us, but if we believe strong enough and say enough prayers etc. then we'll be saved).

Sulphur on 2/8/2009 at 12:16

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You gotcher fax wrong, mate. It's turtles. Turtles all the waaayy dowwwn.

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/2042/realityturtles.gif

Starrfall on 2/8/2009 at 14:47

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I can't fucking believe it but I believe that 20 years later Bill and Ted STILL have the best life philosophy and I have yet to see a religion match it.

I mean you just don't really need anything other than "be excellent to each other and party on, dudes".

heywood on 2/8/2009 at 15:55

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I wonder the same thing. Why aren't we comfortable acknowledging the limits of our knowledge? And why does bullshitting seem to be an inherent part of human nature? It wouldn't bother me if it were confined to religion and philosophy, but when it intrudes into science I feel that it impedes progress. I really have a bug up my ass regarding cosmology.



I think the religious meme developed through evolution because it was useful in the development of human society. The fear of punishment by gods helps enforce moral & behavioral standards. The belief in an afterlife counters the fear of death, which is useful when people have to risk death or sacrifice themselves in order to benefit their society. And it may have been necessary to develop a common belief system in order to organize people in groups larger than the extended family or tribe.



:cool:

I think my body (and my ex) got tired of me following that philosophy when I turned 30.