A Human Social Construct... GOD!!!

[5fish]

What do all religions have in common? They are created by man from the first god to Jesus to Badsmond to future gods... God is nothing more than a social construct a man made thing... Christianity, Islam, and Badsmond ( smaller fan base) all man made...

Who invented the idea that man made God?
The idea that humans invented God is often regarded as a modern one. While it only came to full expression in the last two centuries, its roots actually lie almost three millennia back.
www.abc.net.au

Snip...

The idea that we invented God rather than God inventing us is often regarded as a modern one. While it only came to full expression in the last two centuries, its roots actually lie almost three millennia back.

snip...

What begins to surface in the writings of eighth-century BC prophets - such as Amos, Micah, Nahum, and Isaiah - is the claim that these gods were manufactured by human creators. Humankind physically makes representations of the gods and then regards what is actually lifeless and unfeeling as real.

snip...

Jeremiah adds some vivid descriptive and comic touches. Since the Israelites' gods cannot speak or act they are worthless, deceitful, and of human rather than divine origin. Instead of basing his views on descriptions of how they are made, Jeremiah throws out a range of highly satirical questions and analogies. This springs, he says, from a loss of memory of the real God's character and uniqueness. He is also the first to suggest that by engaging in worship of these man-made creations their followers run the risk of losing their sanity and humanity.

snip...

Ezekiel underlines the irony in people making these gods out of the real God's own "most beautiful of jewels" of gold and silver, and then sacrificing their own sons to them. He argues that this false religious behaviour stems from blurring the distinction between creature and creator. This drains their worshippers of any vital spiritual life and divides them from their real selves.

snip...

A forerunner of these critics was Xenophanes (570-478 BC), a poet-philosopher from Ionia. In surviving fragments of his writings, he queries whether natural causes lie behind extraordinary divine phenomena and denounces the immoral and excessive behaviour of the gods. He also remarks on variations in the way gods were popularly depicted:

"Ethiopians make their gods snub-nosed and black; the Thracians make theirs blue-eyed and red-haired ... Mortals imagine that the gods are begotten, and that the gods wear clothes like their own and have language and form like the voice and form of mortals. But if oxen or lions had hands and could draw and do the work with their hands that men do, horses would have drawn the form of gods like horses and oxen gods like oxen and they would represent the bodies of the gods just like their own forms."

snip...

Plato probably had something similar in mind when he complained about those of his predecessors who advocated that
"the gods are human contrivances, they do not exist in nature but only by custom and law, which moreover differ from place to place according to the agreement made by each group when they laid down their laws."

snip...

Around the same time the Athenian playwright-poet Critias (c. 460-403) has the leading character in his play Sisyphus, promoting a related idea. Rather than men in general,

"... a man of shrewd and subtle mind invented for men the fear of the gods, so that there might be something to frighten the wicked even if they acted, spoke or thought in secret. From this motive he introduced the notion of divinity. There is, he said, a spirit enjoying endless life, hearing and seeing with his mind, exceeding wise and all-observing, bearer of a divine nature. He will hear everything spoken among men and can see everything that is done."

The science that proves we created God...

Science and religion: God didn't make man; man made gods
Science and religion: God didn't make man; man made gods

www.latimes.com

snip...

We can be better as a species if we recognize religion as a man-made construct. We owe it to ourselves to at least consider the real roots of religious belief, so we can deal with life as it is, taking advantage of perhaps our mind’s greatest adaptation: our ability to use reason.

 

[5fish]

WE made god...

The Human Brain Evolved to Believe in Gods

How belief in the supernatural makes sense in light of evolution.

www.discovermagazine.com

Psychological Prerequisites for Religion
Many mental ingredients are necessary for religion as-we-know-it. But scholars emphasize three tendencies in particular, which are pronounced in humans, but minimally expressed in other species: We seek patterns, infer intentions and learn by imitation.

These are cognitive adaptations that helped our ancestors survive. For example, it’s obviously useful to notice paw prints (a pattern) laid by a lion planning to eat you (an intention), and to deter the predator with tactics others have successfully used (imitation, at least before you could read how-to online). However, people overextend these tendencies. We also find patterns in randomness — like reading tea leaves — ascribe intentions to nonexistent beings — like blaming disasters on angry deities — and copy others even when it’s costly — like fasting and sacrifice. In this way adaptive mental abilities could have led to religious beliefs.

The first prerequisite, pattern seeking, has obvious benefits for finding food, avoiding predators, predicting weather, etc. We constantly observe the world, trying to derive cause-and-effect relationships. And we demonstrably overdo it: wearing lucky socks to every football game, telling fortunes from palm lines, and seeing the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese.

The next prereq, inferring intentions, is known to psychologists as Theory of Mind (ToM), the understanding that others have beliefs, desires and goals, influencing their actions. ToM allows us to have sophisticated social relationships and to predict how others will behave. You couldn’t “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” without it.

Our closest primate relative, chimpanzees show some degree of ToM. Researchers have tested this by concealing food in plain view of some chimps, but out of sight of others. Then, the scientists observed if informed apes took advantage of their peer’s ignorance to nab more snacks. Based on these experiments, chimps likely understand that others can be informed or uninformed about facts, like the location of food. But, it’s debated if apes grasp that others can be misinformed, or hold false beliefs.

Humans, on the other hand, show extreme ToM, ascribing minds to inanimate or imagined things. A classic psychology experiment showed people even do this for geometric shapes. In the study, college students interpreted a circle and two triangles moving about a screen as goal-driven, emotion-ridden characters (for a more recent version, see here).

In real life, people apply ToM to forces of nature, ancestor spirits and invisible gods. And they seem to think about these supernatural actors the same way they conceive of fellow humans: fMRI studies have found ToM-related regions of the brain activate when people hear statements about God’s emotions and involvement in worldly affairs.

Finally, our natural tendency to over-imitate predisposes us to adopt religious practices. Rather than relying on experience and trial-and-error, humans learn most behaviors and skills from other people. Our success depends on so much cultural knowledge, accumulated over many generations, that figuring things out alone is impossible. Moreover, some of this knowledge contradicts what you would assume from personal observations or intuition.

For instance, many cultures have developed methods to make toxic plants edible (like Aboriginal Australians processing poisonous seeds of cycad plants). They’ve passed on these ritualized techniques, without necessarily understanding why the complicated, time-consuming steps are needed. But skipping seemingly unnecessary steps would lead to gradual poisoning. Thus, copying others, even when the reasons are unapparent, can benefit survival. This mentality gets extended to religious practices; if prestigious members of your community sacrificed deer every solstice, you probably would too.

 

[5fish]

Here we are... God...

Humans 'predisposed' to believe in gods and the afterlife

New research finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife. Research suggests that people across many different cultures instinctively believe that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lives on after-death. The studies demonstrate that people are natural...

www.sciencedaily.com

The £1.9 million project involved 57 researchers who conducted over 40 separate studies in 20 countries representing a diverse range of cultures. The studies (both analytical and empirical) conclude that humans are predisposed to believe in gods and an afterlife, and that both theology and atheism are reasoned responses to what is a basic impulse of the human mind.

snip...

• Studies by Emily Reed Burdett and Justin Barrett, from the University of Oxford, suggest that children below the age of five find it easier to believe in some superhuman properties than to understand similar human limitations. Children were asked whether their mother would know the contents of a box in which she could not see. Children aged three believed that their mother and God would always know the contents, but by the age of four, children start to understand that their mothers are not all-seeing and all knowing. However, children may continue to believe in all-seeing, all-knowing supernatural agents, such as a god or gods.
• Experiments involving adults, conducted by Jing Zhu from Tsinghua University (China), and Natalie Emmons and Jesse Bering from The Queen's University, Belfast, suggest that people across many different cultures instinctively believe that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lives on after-death. The studies demonstrate that people are natural 'dualists' finding it easy to conceive of the separation of the mind and the body.

snip...

'This project does not set out to prove god or gods exist. Just because we find it easier to think in a particular way does not mean that it is true in fact. If we look at why religious beliefs and practices persist in societies across the world, we conclude that individuals bound by religious ties might be more likely to cooperate as societies. Interestingly, we found that religion is less likely to thrive in populations living in cities in developed nations where there is already a strong social support network.'


'This project suggests that religion is not just something for a peculiar few to do on Sundays instead of playing golf. We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies. This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.'

 

[rittmeister]

actually, i do believe inventing the first god was some act of science. not understanding lightnings an almighty dude throwing them at us because we were kinda bad is a hypothesis as good as any.

this hypothesis however has been put to rest by ben franklin in 1852 once and for all


... and while we are at it: and man said, let us make god in our image, after our likeness

 

[5fish]

by ben franklin in 1852 once and for all

So Ben Franklin caught god...

 

[rittmeister]

So Ben Franklin caught god...

one of them, he kinda cancelled dr zeus (i know that the spelling is different)

 

[5fish]

cancelled dr zeus

lol...

The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired Into Our Genes - Nature Genetics

www.nature.com

There a thought...

The most important words in Hamer's book surely are the last ones, where readers will find a take-home message. Unfortunately, the final pages seem to have a few unintentional slips. For example, “Spirituality is based in consciousness, religion in cognition. Spirituality is universal, whereas cultures have their own forms of religion. I would argue that the most important contrast is that spirituality is genetic, while religion is based on cultures, traditions, beliefs, and ideas. It is, in other words, mimetic.” Well, even the most die-hard genocentrist would say that there are genetic influences that underlie a tendency toward spirituality, not that “spirituality is genetic.” Hamer goes on: “The fact that spirituality has a genetic component implies that it evolved for a purpose.” Although the question of why spirituality might have an evolutionary advantage is an important one, I haven't yet given in to the notion that every base pair of my DNA has some higher purpose.

 

[Mike12]

WE made god...

The Human Brain Evolved to Believe in Gods

How belief in the supernatural makes sense in light of evolution.

www.discovermagazine.com

Psychological Prerequisites for Religion
Many mental ingredients are necessary for religion as-we-know-it. But scholars emphasize three tendencies in particular, which are pronounced in humans, but minimally expressed in other species: We seek patterns, infer intentions and learn by imitation.

These are cognitive adaptations that helped our ancestors survive. For example, it’s obviously useful to notice paw prints (a pattern) laid by a lion planning to eat you (an intention), and to deter the predator with tactics others have successfully used (imitation, at least before you could read how-to online). However, people overextend these tendencies. We also find patterns in randomness — like reading tea leaves — ascribe intentions to nonexistent beings — like blaming disasters on angry deities — and copy others even when it’s costly — like fasting and sacrifice. In this way adaptive mental abilities could have led to religious beliefs.

The first prerequisite, pattern seeking, has obvious benefits for finding food, avoiding predators, predicting weather, etc. We constantly observe the world, trying to derive cause-and-effect relationships. And we demonstrably overdo it: wearing lucky socks to every football game, telling fortunes from palm lines, and seeing the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese.

The next prereq, inferring intentions, is known to psychologists as Theory of Mind (ToM), the understanding that others have beliefs, desires and goals, influencing their actions. ToM allows us to have sophisticated social relationships and to predict how others will behave. You couldn’t “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” without it.

Our closest primate relative, chimpanzees show some degree of ToM. Researchers have tested this by concealing food in plain view of some chimps, but out of sight of others. Then, the scientists observed if informed apes took advantage of their peer’s ignorance to nab more snacks. Based on these experiments, chimps likely understand that others can be informed or uninformed about facts, like the location of food. But, it’s debated if apes grasp that others can be misinformed, or hold false beliefs.

Humans, on the other hand, show extreme ToM, ascribing minds to inanimate or imagined things. A classic psychology experiment showed people even do this for geometric shapes. In the study, college students interpreted a circle and two triangles moving about a screen as goal-driven, emotion-ridden characters (for a more recent version, see here).

In real life, people apply ToM to forces of nature, ancestor spirits and invisible gods. And they seem to think about these supernatural actors the same way they conceive of fellow humans: fMRI studies have found ToM-related regions of the brain activate when people hear statements about God’s emotions and involvement in worldly affairs.

Finally, our natural tendency to over-imitate predisposes us to adopt religious practices. Rather than relying on experience and trial-and-error, humans learn most behaviors and skills from other people. Our success depends on so much cultural knowledge, accumulated over many generations, that figuring things out alone is impossible. Moreover, some of this knowledge contradicts what you would assume from personal observations or intuition.

For instance, many cultures have developed methods to make toxic plants edible (like Aboriginal Australians processing poisonous seeds of cycad plants). They’ve passed on these ritualized techniques, without necessarily understanding why the complicated, time-consuming steps are needed. But skipping seemingly unnecessary steps would lead to gradual poisoning. Thus, copying others, even when the reasons are unapparent, can benefit survival. This mentality gets extended to religious practices; if prestigious members of your community sacrificed deer every solstice, you probably would too.

They're moving around social constructs too. Maybe all of them are products of the Islamic Golden Age - Wikipedia

 

[5fish]

They're moving around social constructs too

A God(man made) only exist if he is worshipped and his(man made) tenants are follow. Once a God is not worshipped and his tenants forgotten he ceases to exist, if lucky he becomes myth, instead of a footnote in history...

The question you should be asking is how much time before the Presbyterian version of God will exist before becoming a footnote history...

 

[5fish]

@Mike12 , my is to teach you humanity...

 

[5fish]

. Maybe all of them are products of the Islamic Golden Age - Wikipedia

Their golden age save Greek and Roman literature, science and philosophy...

How Arabic Translators Helped Preserve Greek Philosophy … and the Classical Tradition

In the ancient world, the language of philosophy—and therefore of science and medicine—was primarily Greek. “Even after the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean and the demise of paganism, philosophy was strongly associated with Hellenic culture,” writes philosophy professor and History of...

www.openculture.com

The Moors of Spain...

snip...

Alexandria “rivalled Athens and Rome as the place to study philosophy and medicine in the Mediterranean,” and young men of means like the 6th century priest Sergius of Reshaina, doctor-in-chief in Northern Syria, traveled there to learn the tradition. Sergius “translated around 30 works of Galen [the Greek physician]” and other known and unknown philosophers and ancient scientists into Syriac. Later, as Syriac and Arabic came to dominate former Greek-speaking regions, the Greek texts became intense objects of focus for Islamic thinkers, and the caliphs spared no expense to have them translated and disseminated, often contracting with Christian and Jewish scholars to accomplish the task.

The transmission of Greek philosophy and medicine was an international phenomenon, which involved bilingual speakers from pagan, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish backgrounds. This movement spanned not only religious and linguistic but also geographical boundaries, for it occurred in cities as far apart as Baghdad in the East and Toledo in the West.

snip...

In Baghdad, especially, by the 10th century, “readers of Arabic,” writes Adamson, “had about the same degree of access to Aristotle that readers of English do today” thanks to a “well-funded translation movement that unfolded during the Abbasid caliphate, beginning in the second half of the eighth century.” The work done during the Abbasid period—from about 750 to 950—“generated a highly sophisticated scientific language and a massive amount of source material,” we learn in Harvard University Press’s The Classical Tradition. Such material “would feed scientific research for the following centuries, not only in the Islamic world but beyond it, in Greek and Latin Christendom and, within it, among the Jewish populations as well.”

snip... Christians try to wipe it out...

Indeed this “Byzantine humanism,” as it’s called, “helped the classical tradition survive, at least to the large extent that it has.” As ancient texts and traditions disappeared in Europe during the so-called “Dark Ages,” Arabic and Syriac-speaking scholars and translators incorporated them into an Islamic philosophical tradition called falsafa. The motivations for fostering the study of Greek thought were complex. On the one hand, writes Adamson, the move was political; “the caliphs wanted to establish their own cultural hegemony,” in competition with Persians and Greek-speaking Byzantine Christians, “benighted as they were by the irrationalities of Christian theology.” On the other hand, “Muslim intellectuals also saw resources in the Greek texts for defending, and better understanding their own religion.”

snip...

This tradition of translation, philosophical debate, and scientific discovery in Islamic societies continued into the 10th and 11th centuries, when Averroes, the “Islamic scholar who gave us modern philosophy,” wrote his commentary on the works of Aristotle. “For several centuries,” writes the University of Colorado’s Robert Pasnau, “a series of brilliant philosophers and scientists made Baghdad the intellectual center of the medieval world,” preserving ancient Greek knowledge and wisdom that may otherwise have disappeared. When it seems in our study of history that the light of the ancient philosophy was extinguished in Western Europe, we need only look to North Africa and the Near East to see that tradition, with its humanistic exchange of ideas, flourishing for centuries in a world closely connected by trade and empire.

In Spain...

How Islamic Scholars Saved Knowledge (and Science)

My grandfather was concerned with a relatively small number of things in the last years of his life; one of those things was the dark ages. As an intensely curious man, a furiously curious man, he could not fathom how even a single generation of humans lacked the spirit necessary to try to...

yourwildlife.org

snip...

But the most amazing thing about the Islamic scholars in Toledo is that from about 1100 until 1300 they were not alone. They worked alongside Christian and Jewish Scholars in what is now known as the Toledo School; they worked to translate the knowledge of antiquity from Arabic (in which it had been preserved) into Hebrew, Latin and ultimately Spanish. Side by side, lit by candles, Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars put aside religious differences and bound to a common belief in the importance of curiosity, inquiry, knowledge and the search for the truth worked together, their hands cramping as they scribbled.

 

[5fish]

A thought on the Muslims... Moors...

History: How African Muslims “Civilized Spain”

Four hundred and eight years ago today King Phillip III of Spain signed an order, which was one of the earliest examples of ethnic cleansing. At the height of the Spanish inquisition, King Phillip III ordered the expulsion of 300,000 Muslim Moriscos, which initiated one of the most brutal and...

ibw21.org

snip.. sample...

After the collapse of the Roman Empire multitudes of white warring tribes from the Caucasus were pushed into Western Europe by the invading Huns. The Moors invaded Spanish shores in 711 AD and African Muslims literally civilized the wild, white tribes from the Caucus. The Moors eventually ruled over Spain, Portugal, North Africa and southern France for over seven hundred years.

Although generations of Spanish rulers have tried to expunge this era from the historical record, recent archaeology and scholarship now sheds new light on how Moorish advances in mathematics, astronomy, art, and philosophy helped propel Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance.
One the most famous British historians Basil Davidson, noted that during the eighth century there was no land “more admired by its neighbours, or more comfortable to live in, than a rich African civilization which took shape in Spain”.

During an era when Europe had only two universities, the Moors had seventeen. The founders of Oxford University were inspired to form the institution after visiting universities in Spain. According to the United Nations’ Education body, the oldest university operating in the world today, is the University of Al-Karaouine of Morocco founded during the height of the Moorish Empire in 859 A.D. by a Black woman named Fatima al-Fihri.

In the realm of mathematics, the number zero (0), the Arabic numerals, and the decimal system were all introduced to Europe by Muslims, assisting them to solve problems far more quickly and accurately and laying the foundation for the Scientific Revolution.
T
he Moors’ scientific curiosity extended to flight and polymath, Ibn Firnas, made the world’s first scientific attempt to fly in a controlled manner, in 875 A.D. Historical archives suggest that his attempt worked, but his landing was somewhat less successful. Africans took to the skies some six centuries before the Italian Leonardo Da Vinci developed a hang glider.

Clearly, the Moors helped to lift the general European populace out of the Dark Ages, and paved the way for the Renaissance period. In fact, a large number of the traits on which modern Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain, namely, free trade, diplomacy, open borders, etiquette, advanced seafaring, research methods, and key advances in chemistry.

At a time when the Moors built 600 public baths and the rulers lived in sumptuous palaces, the monarchs of Germany, France, and England convinced their subjects that cleanliness was a sin and European kings dwelt in big barns, with no windows and no chimneys, often with only a hole in the roof for the exit of smoke.

In the 10th century, Cordoba was not just the capital of Moorish Spain but also the most important and modern city in Europe. Cordoba boasted a population of half a million and had street lighting, fifty hospitals with running water, five hundred mosques and seventy libraries, one of which held over 500,000 books.

thou of these achievements occurred at a time when London had a predominantly illiterate population of around 20,000 and had largely forgotten the technical advances of the Romans some six hundred years before. Street lamps and paved streets did not appear in London or Paris until hundreds of years later.

 

[Leftyhunter]

What do all religions have in common? They are created by man from the first god to Jesus to Badsmond to future gods... God is nothing more than a social construct a man made thing... Christianity, Islam, and Badsmond ( smaller fan base) all man made...

Who invented the idea that man made God?
The idea that humans invented God is often regarded as a modern one. While it only came to full expression in the last two centuries, its roots actually lie almost three millennia back.
www.abc.net.au

Snip...

The idea that we invented God rather than God inventing us is often regarded as a modern one. While it only came to full expression in the last two centuries, its roots actually lie almost three millennia back.

snip...

What begins to surface in the writings of eighth-century BC prophets - such as Amos, Micah, Nahum, and Isaiah - is the claim that these gods were manufactured by human creators. Humankind physically makes representations of the gods and then regards what is actually lifeless and unfeeling as real.

snip...

Jeremiah adds some vivid descriptive and comic touches. Since the Israelites' gods cannot speak or act they are worthless, deceitful, and of human rather than divine origin. Instead of basing his views on descriptions of how they are made, Jeremiah throws out a range of highly satirical questions and analogies. This springs, he says, from a loss of memory of the real God's character and uniqueness. He is also the first to suggest that by engaging in worship of these man-made creations their followers run the risk of losing their sanity and humanity.

snip...

Ezekiel underlines the irony in people making these gods out of the real God's own "most beautiful of jewels" of gold and silver, and then sacrificing their own sons to them. He argues that this false religious behaviour stems from blurring the distinction between creature and creator. This drains their worshippers of any vital spiritual life and divides them from their real selves.

snip...

A forerunner of these critics was Xenophanes (570-478 BC), a poet-philosopher from Ionia. In surviving fragments of his writings, he queries whether natural causes lie behind extraordinary divine phenomena and denounces the immoral and excessive behaviour of the gods. He also remarks on variations in the way gods were popularly depicted:

"Ethiopians make their gods snub-nosed and black; the Thracians make theirs blue-eyed and red-haired ... Mortals imagine that the gods are begotten, and that the gods wear clothes like their own and have language and form like the voice and form of mortals. But if oxen or lions had hands and could draw and do the work with their hands that men do, horses would have drawn the form of gods like horses and oxen gods like oxen and they would represent the bodies of the gods just like their own forms."

snip...

Plato probably had something similar in mind when he complained about those of his predecessors who advocated that
"the gods are human contrivances, they do not exist in nature but only by custom and law, which moreover differ from place to place according to the agreement made by each group when they laid down their laws."

snip...

Around the same time the Athenian playwright-poet Critias (c. 460-403) has the leading character in his play Sisyphus, promoting a related idea. Rather than men in general,

"... a man of shrewd and subtle mind invented for men the fear of the gods, so that there might be something to frighten the wicked even if they acted, spoke or thought in secret. From this motive he introduced the notion of divinity. There is, he said, a spirit enjoying endless life, hearing and seeing with his mind, exceeding wise and all-observing, bearer of a divine nature. He will hear everything spoken among men and can see everything that is done."

The science that proves we created God...

Science and religion: God didn't make man; man made gods
Science and religion: God didn't make man; man made gods

www.latimes.com

snip...

We can be better as a species if we recognize religion as a man-made construct. We owe it to ourselves to at least consider the real roots of religious belief, so we can deal with life as it is, taking advantage of perhaps our mind’s greatest adaptation: our ability to use reason.

 

[Leftyhunter]

This is not news hot off the presses. Atheism has been around a good long time.
Leftyhunter

 

[Mike12]

This is not news hot off the presses. Atheism has been around a good long time.
Leftyhunter

Yes I've also heard we have "choices" I've heard of Choices. Which socially constructed calendar, year date system, social models, virtues and vices, are in his badsmond?

 

[Leftyhunter]

Yes I've also heard we have "choices" I've heard of Choices. Which socially constructed calendar, year date system, social models, virtues and vices, are in his badsmond?

Just saying folks from long ago knew religion is not real. Atheism has been around a good long time. Atheism is not a belief system it's just that Atheists don't kill and argue about who has the best pretend friend.
Leftyhunter

 

[rittmeister]

Just saying folks from long ago knew religion is not real. Atheism has been around a good long time. Atheism is not a belief system it's just that Atheists don't kill and argue about who has the best pretend friend.
Leftyhunter

actually that's not entirely true. if there was a god they needed to be so much above us that they are necessarily incomprehensable for us. an atheist has as much a definitive answer as a theist when the question is is there a god? - both answers yes, mine! and none! are nonsense as we can't understand a god (if they existed) there is only one valid answer

how the hell should i know that? ​

with a most likely not a distant second

 

[5fish]

atheist has as much a definitive answer as a theist when the question is is there a god?

This is true...

I've heard of Choices.

I am offering the choice of truth pick your God...

who has the best pretend friend.

Yes, who does have the best pretend friend...

 

[5fish]

@Mike12 , believing in a God is another form of Superstition... We believe in a God to make sense of the world...

Genes for Superstition????

I was delighted to see that “SuperSense” got a plug in today’s “Independent.” Dr Kevin Foster and Dr Hanna Kokko have published a paper on the evolution of superstitio…

brucemhood.wordpress.com

Specifically, they have argued that superstitions arise from a common error of reasoning where humans make wrong assumptions about cause and effect. Very often when two events happen close in time, the natural tendency is to assume that they are causally related. For example, imagine that you have a surprisingly good day on the tennis court or at the poker table. How do you explain it? What did you do differently from the day before? Maybe it was the mismatching socks you wore? So you repeat the odd socks routine and very soon you have developed your own personal superstition.

snip...

Foster and Kokko argue that just like altruism (something that has also been similarly modeled and talked about in Dawkin’s “The Selfish Gene”) so long as the mismatching mechanism in the brain occasionally gets it right then this can outweigh all the times superstitions get it wrong. And they have proven this mathematically. “The results are clear,” Foster says. “Being superstitious makes sense in an uncertain world.”

 

[5fish]

@Mike12 a little more... We are all superstitious... You more than others...

Superstitious? It’s in your genes – It’s in your culture.

Halloween seems like an appropriate time to discuss superstition. What with ghosts and goblins and black cats and witches and all. But would not Easter or Christmas, or any other evening that a f…

geraldguild.com

Bruce Hood takes this notion further and adds that the cultural factors discussed at the opening of this piece and other intuitive inclinations such as dualism (a belief in the separation of mind and body), essentialism (the notion that all discernible objects harbor an underlying reality that although intangible, gives each and every object it’s true identity), vitalism (the insistence that there is some big, mysterious extra ingredient in all living things), holism (that everything is connected by forces), and anism (the belief that the inanimate world is alive) shape adult superstition. These latter belief mechanisms are developmental and naturally occurring in children: they are the tendencies that make magic and fantasy so compelling for children. It is when they lurk in our intuition or are sustained in our rational thought that we as adults fall victim to this type of illusion.

Snip...

“The Belief Engine is real. It is normal. It is in all of us. Stuart Vyse [a research psychologist] shows for example, that superstition is not a form of psychopathology or abnormal behavior; it is not limited to traditional cultures; it is not restricted to race, religion, or nationality; nor is it only a product of people of low intelligence or lacking education. …all humans possess it because it is part of our nature, built into our neuronal mainframe.”

snip...

notes that superstition is a belief “that there are patterns, forces, energies, and entities operating in the world that are denied by science…” He adds that “the inclination or sense that they may be real is our supersense.” It involves an inclination to attempt to “control outcomes through supernatural influence.”