h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This thread seems to have tapered off quite a lot.
Anyway, I don't know why but it's recently dawned on me that it really seems that the evidence for evolution is very strong. I don't know why it's only now sunk in, - perhaps because I hadn't studied much about fossils and the phylogenetic tree before - but this realisation is something of a paradigm shift for me, to such an extent that I find myself staring atheism in the face. I know there's the whole intelligent design idea, but the random course of evolution doesn't suggest an intelligence driving it forward. I certainly think it makes young earth creationism an untenable position. I don't understand how someone can hold such a position if they are in possession of the facts that I have been researching.

I think it's a matter of what one considers 'facts'

I read recently that a place in the brain is active when the subject thinks of something that is true to them. If you say two plus two equals four to the subject in the MRI then this spot will light up where if you say unicorns live in Paris the spot remains inactive. It's the first effective lie detector but only works if the subject is consciously lying.

The problem is that there's nothing in the brain itself that can distinguish true from false, it's just a matter of what you accept as true as your mind develops. If you already believe that the world is flat and that Jesus is LORD then no scientific so called facts will change that.

I had an argument recently where my friend sneered at my reliance on evidence based reality.
The truer reality is revealed to the heart.

Children are born believers in God, academic claims
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/3512686/Children-are-born-believers-in-God-academic-claims.html

"Children's normally and naturally developing minds make them prone to believe in divine creation and intelligent design. In contrast, evolution is unnatural for human minds; relatively difficult to believe."

Children are perhaps born believers in a flat earth -- but childish predisposition to believe something does not make that belief a true reflection of reality.

And, to repeat some anecdotal evidence:


I was in my late teens before I discovered that *anybody* in the developed world actually believed in these superstitions. I certainly never had a predisposition to such belief.

I may be wrong but I think that all known human societies (tribal
communities etc) have some form of religion, so this study should not
come as a surprise.

Oh, and . . .


I can't remember a time in my life when the idea of evolution by means of natural selection did not only seem easy to believe but also an absolutely obvious fact. I simply don't understand how anyone can not find it obvious and simple to understand.

Dr Barrett claimed ...
"In contrast, evolution is unnatural for human minds; relatively
difficult to believe."

I don't think Dr Barrett has any evidence for the above statement - so I would dispute that.

Here's another ..

"The evidence from Japan is particularly striking, she says, because there is a great deal of literature in anthropology that assesses the conceptual differences between the West and Japan that are believed to explain why Japan was a relative late-comer to modern science. Japanese are supposed to have a different conception of nature, that there's no firm boundary between living and non-living. Instead, she found that the similarities were striking between Japanese and UK subjects at the same age. Even Japanese subjects think of God as creator even though their culture strongly discourages such beliefs."
http://blogs.theage.com.au/thereligiouswrite/archives/2008/07/in_the_beginnin.html

I've shown you mine (scientific/psycholgical studies) .. do you want to show me yours? :D

How can you state” seem easy to believe”, truth has a collective property based on thoughts, statements or propositions that are said in spoken or written communication or debate that agree with the facts or state what is the case. There can be no “seem” and to imply “easy” is elevate your position above others views and as for “believe” that is a frame of mind where you accept that something is true without proof.

I think Dr. Barrett is referring to young children instinctively finding it more plausible that 'someone' created this astounding world, rather than its existence being a coincidence .. a pointless accident

The evidence I have offered is my own experience of childhood. Because at least one child did not have an inborn belief in God (whatever that might be) such a belief is not inborn in all children.

Plus, Dr. Barrett's 'evidence' is a personal opinion derived from a few very limited studies of fairly old and experienced children. One could just as easily conclude that indoctrination begins very early in the child's life.

And, most importantly: if a child believes his little sister was brought by a stork, that belief does not imply that his mother has no uterus. The evidence you have presented is a big barrel of crimson Clupea harengi.

>>this astounding world, rather than its existence being a
coincidence .. a pointless accident<<

Of course those proclaiming the world and life as a pointless
accident are not going to get many followers ...

I'm a little confused by this from one of warner's posts:

'Japanese are supposed to have a different conception of nature, that there's no firm boundary between living and non-living.'


There *isn't* a firm boundary between living and non-living, as far as I've ever thought.

And what does a purported boundary between living and non-living have to do with a groundless belief in a creator-god-thingy?

Ah, now it becomes clear:


'Barrett is described in the New York Times as a "prominent member of the byproduct camp" and "an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” [and] “that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.” He considers that “Christian theology teaches that people were crafted by God to be in a loving relationship with him and other people, Why wouldn’t God, then, design us in such a way as to find belief in divinity quite natural?”'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_L._Barrett


No bias there.

"a groundless belief in a creator-god-thingy"

I think that most children have got a lot more sense than many adults

They perceive that this astounding world/existence must have 'an author' .. and it must be someone like Dr. Who or God

As I say, they instinctively dismiss that this world has no significance. Anhaga (so he says), must have been born as a monster
He seemed to know at the age of 3-4 that there WAS no god .. that this world is meaningless.

Come on, after all this time on this thread, you still believe that a world without god must be meaningless?

I think Hindu's believe in a form of evolution.

>>"I think that most children have got a lot more sense than many adults."<<

Figures.

I do not and never understood this unreasonable and questionable desire of the credulous to not only live as a child but to be perpetually addressed as one, and never to move beyond this state of ignorance into one of knowledge and reason.


It's an asceticism I find most profoundly perverse and perplexing.


>>They perceive that this astounding world/existence must have 'an author' .. and it must be someone like Dr. Who or God<<

If they do, and there is as Anhaga has already pointed out, every necessity to take the reasonable step to ensure that there has been no indoctrination from an early age, then so what?

Why is the barometer test of accuracy? That something 'simply must be' is the clarion call of unreasoned assertion over fact (read observable and verifiable observation) - it's how flies get eight legs and candles burn with waxy earth, continents sink beneath the seas and the planets move in perfect spherical motions.

Then this non sequitur into meaningless drivel. Sorry meant OF meaningless drivel. OF. Consisting in. Comprised of. Made entirely from. etc.

'He seemed to know at the age of 3-4 that there WAS no god .. that this world is meaningless.'

No. The idea of some sort of creator simply never occurred to me. When I did learn of religions later they seemed to offer obviously ridiculous explanations for phenomena which were more reasonably explained with observation and a bit of thought.

Perhaps I was born a 'monster', but I've never strapped on an explosive waistcoat or piloted an airplane into a tall building. It strikes me that an ideology which justifies such behaviour makes a most emphatic statement that it holds this world to be meaningless. Religions, in my opinion, tend to only offer meaning in another world and deny that life is worth much of anything in the imagined scheme of things.

If you find this world meaningless, warner, that's your failure, not the world's.

>> Perhaps I was born a 'monster', but I've never strapped on an explosive waistcoat or piloted an airplane into a tall building

Ugggh! Is that your best?

I do believe that we were discussing children .. do you think that they would consider suicide 'in the name of God' ?
I certainly don't!