LINK Is atheism unnatural?
Socialization is the process whereby we passively, informally, and often unconsciously internalize the norms and values of our culture. Our experience of socialization is most profound and powerful when we are young, as we are growing up. And the people who most potently socialize us are those who raise us, keeping us fed and safe – usually our parents and other immediate family members. But any humans we come into contact with – either in-person or virtually – can socialize us, to varying degrees: neighbors, friends, teachers, coaches, nurses, or those we see in TV shows, movies, on TikTok and on Instagram.
I would say that, unlike past civilizations, an electron might be observed (and therefore become a "real" entity; that is, not everywhere at once) by digitally "meeting" it instead of only inventing an idea of it through the tales of others.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.The author seems to be suggesting that nothing other than socialization perpetuates theistic belief, and if we just stop doing that, theism will evaporate on its own... and that this is now happening globally at an increasing rate. This does not comport with the known relevant science or Pew's own 2015 study, and 2017 followup, that showed the religiously unaffiliated of the world to be shrinking as a percentage of world population, a trend that is projected to continue into the foreseeable future.
If, as the article states, there are a billion religiously unaffiliated people in the world, that's still only about 12.5% of the world population, leaving an 87.5% majority being believers.
Nature rarely produces monocultures. Diversity is nature's way. So even if nature has genetically predisposed the overwhelming majority of Homo sapiens toward God-belief, it doesn't mean it didn't also predispose a minority otherwise. In some sense, everything that exists is "natural", theism and atheism alike. But I have yet to see a serious study showing that non-belief is growing worldwide, isolated exceptions notwithstanding. This is mostly due to the fact that the increased fertility rates of religious communities are producing children faster than the idea of atheism is gaining ground, particularly in Muslim populations.
God belief evolved, nearly simultaneously in evolutionary time, in geographically isolated populations, as a solution to the evolutionary pressures of advancing civilization. If it had no cause other than socialization, it would never have gotten started. Humans don't "socialize" complex cultural systems for no functional reason. We do whatever works, given the current environment. Animism worked for hunter/gatherers - god belief worked for agricultural societies.
If we cling to science only when it supports our prejudices but abandon it when it causes discomfort, then we are truly no different than the most fundamentalist religious believer. Better to embrace long-form science unconditionally, and continuously adjust our worldview accordingly.
skado
Level 9
Feb 10, 2023
1
Interesting comment. I agree with all of it except the end conclusion. Accepting anything unconditionally is dogmatic and dogmatism corrupts. The medical industry is a fine example of how science can be used to direct opinion, obedience, and profits. Just like religion.
@rainmanjr
Notice that I said "long-form" science. Like any other human endeavor, science can make mistakes at the cutting edge. It is only after examination by competing teams, and usually subsequent generations, that science becomes increasingly reliable. Even then, it can't be guaranteed to be flawlessly accurate, but it can still be relied upon to be more likely accurate than any other source known today. By "unconditionally" I don't mean dogmatically. Dogmatism is when you believe what you believe regardless of evidence. Unconditional reliance on continuously evolving evidence is the opposite of that.
Pew is not a scientific group. We cling to science when it is true, when it is pseudo-science we understand that that is the worst form of anti education, and anti intelectualism there is, exactly because it is trying to wear sciences clothing. And yes since science takes a long form, so why are you still pedaling things which have long been discredited even as bad pseudo-science.
@Fernapple
This link takes me to a list of the 10 least religious countries in the world, not to a survey of world religious trends. It doesn’t say anything about the religious countries, or how they compare in numbers to the non-religious, or which direction they’re trending. It doesn’t in any way refute the Pew survey. Can you provide evidence that any, more credible, institution has challenged the Pew survey’s accuracy, or even Pew’s reputation in general?
Can you be more specific about what you think I’m pedaling that has long been discredited? I’d like to learn. I’m only going by the best information I can find. If you know of better, I’d be happy to see it.
@skado Here you go, you only have to compare the lists for yourself.
[worldometers.info]
[en.wikipedia.org]
Hold on to your hat, if I have time there will be a lot more to come on all the other issues over the next few weeks.
@Fernapple
I don’t see how comparing a list of world life expectancy to a wikipedia entry on the social progress index refutes the Pew survey on whether religious affiliation is growing or diminishing worldwide. Maybe you can explain?
Regardless of whether it has been discredited, what do you think I’m pedaling? What are you referring to?
@skado No. Quite the contrary, I was well prepared to back up my claims with evidence, and posted this as a starting point. A starting point which was in many ways open to critical debate, and I myself could, and still can, see many weaknesses in the line I was planning to take, and was therefore planing to address several critical lines you could engage in. But instead of a genuine counter argument all I got was a shallow version of the argument from ignorance fallacy, which is just plain frustrating.
If however you do not want to do the evidence from demographics, perhaps you would prefer to do genetic determinism ? I take it that you believe in genetic determinism, since you believe that a preference for religion is an evolved trait ?
@Fernapple
I don’t know anything about genetic determinism other than it has nothing do with my question. You say Pew is not a scientific group. I don’t know what you mean. They are very transparent about their methodology and have excellent ratings.
If you know of any group who has made a similar survey and found opposite trends for religious affiliation as a percentage of world population, then I’d be happy to look at their results, but don’t feel bad if you haven’t found any - I haven’t either.
@skado The Pew research centre is not even by its own statements a scientific institution, it self defines as a. "public oppinion polling" organization, I quote its own statement directly.
I did not make any claim that religion is in decline globally. Only that where religion declines, then social welbeing increases.
If you want accurate stats on religion globally, then a few seconds search turned these up, it was not hard. The second does indeed come from PEW, which I think should amuse you.
@Fernapple
I’m glad it wasn’t hard because it didn’t support your position, unless your position is that you agree with me.
A direct quote from the Statista site you supplied:
“While in some regions, particularly Western Europe and East Asia, religious adherence is currently in sharp decline, the number of religious adherents as a share of world population is in fact predicted to increase over the coming century.”
They won’t disclose their source for this information without signup, but I would bet money they did not conduct the survey themselves, and in all likelihood the source was Pew, because the statement is, practicality verbatim, identical to Pew’s.
You have not been able to find any contradictory data, so you, understandably, want to change the subject (to another unfounded bluster) which is outside the context of this discussion, but if you’d like to start a new discussion where you claim “where religion declines, then social welbeing increases” I’ll be interested to see if you have any better luck supporting that claim. Meanwhile I’ll continue holding onto my hat because there’s a lot of wind around here.
@skado Did you not read my comment above, I said quite plainly. "I did not make any claim that religion is in decline globally." Nor was I even interested if it was. My only point which should have been self evident from the stats I posted, was that welbeing is clearly seen to increase where religion does decline.
@Fernapple
I read all of your comments above and none of them support your innuendo about pseudoscience, nor do they supply contravening data from more reliable sources. Your comments about wellbeing don’t address anything I’ve said on this post so I won’t respond to them here.
I’ll look forward to your new post where you present your case that global wellbeing is declining.
I regard Psychology Professor Justin L. Barrett as a self-confessed nincompoop.
anglophone
Level 9
Feb 10, 2023
2
It was an interesting conversation for this community, I thought, but your assessment of Justin seems accurate to me.
A good well argued article on the whole. But it misses another important point, which is the fact that what the, "religion is natural" theorists like J. L. Barrett are arguing for, is not just religion, but specifically, theist religion, indeed there own Abrahamic form in most cases. And while there may be a few evolved human traits such as "we have an innate, natural propensity to believe what our parents teach us" and a positive error bias, which tends to make us see more than is there. They do not force theist religion, indeed they only make a vague push, in the direction of believing there is more than we directly see, which our brains can correct anyway.
That is exactly how natural evolution works, it only gives animals vague pushes in certain directions, but then gives them brains to work things out. If genetic determinism was perfect and complete, animals would not be adaptable, and they would not need brains.
The biggest logical leap beyond what is justified that these people are taking therefore, is that from vague trends towards belief, religion in the widest possible sense, to a need for theist religion. And the evidence is that most early human societies, at the hunter gathering level, certainly those that survived long enough for modern anthropologists to observe, were not theist, usually being animist, spiritualist, ancestor worshiping etc.
And that is one big leap, nearly a leap equal to the one which apologists often make, when they try (and fail ) to prove a prime cause for the universe. And then say, "therefore Jesus." But making big leaps without any bridge of evidence seems to be in, at least, their nature.
Fernapple
Level 9
Feb 10, 2023
2
Yeah. I return to this being an illusion. In such a state everything is possible within an illusion because we simply create the place or circumstance when we need it to exist. Our body/brain is also illusion so we go where we want and how we do that is simply a mechanical exercise.
We are facing a concerted propaganda campaign (partly funded by Putin) to balkanize the West. Part of this campaign acts to radicalize the Evangelicals. We've all heard about how, according to them, the US is a Christian country. Now they take it a step further to say the Humanity is a Christian species. The claim is just a false, and just as specious. Facts are excluded from evidence; facts like the prevailing beliefs have been polytheistic throughout history, with monotheism always being a small minority.
It is tedious to have to encounter this nonsense knowing that most people will read it uncritically....
racocn8
Level 9
Feb 10, 2023
3
I've said before, will say again, that I think some people are born more wired towards religious belief, while other wired not to believe, and a lot of people are kind of neutral and sort of go along with it through socialisation and Pascal's Wagering fear. However, fundamentally religion is a corruption of a natural human inclination to try to understand the mystery of existence; this inclination is corrupted by others flogging supernaturalism in all its forms.
David1955
Level 8
Feb 10, 2023
1
I see no reason to think that some are wired to religion and some aren't. I see it as more likely that we are all born with the same determination on this and then we are socialized.
@David1955 If the legend becomes real then go with the legend. I have yet to see why my theory can't be true, or why Tao can't be real, and making it my structure hurts nobody. It is not from threat of pain or any other eternal disaster which calls me to adopt it as truth. The worst that can happen is people will call me nuts. They have called me that for over 55 years so I'm immune to it and don't mind. The biggest plus is that, like the article states, a large enough following could eliminate dogmatic religions within a generation. Determinism is merely a state of mind.
Children are born into this world with an innate sense of a being greater than themselves. A being who loves them unconditionally. Who protects them from danger. Who supplies all their needs from the moment they enter this world as a helpless infant. This being is…
…the child’s mother.
If this innate evolutionary adaption persists into adulthood, then this person is more likely to have a “god-shaped” hole in their heart that needs to be filled with religion. If it doesn’t, then such a person will become either neutrally predisposed, as you put it, or wired not to believe at all.
Something to think about, but it’s not my theory. But I like it, and believe it has some merit for the origin of the religious impulse.
@NostraDumbass Also as the article says. "we have an innate, natural propensity to believe what our parents teach us."
@NostraDumbass When you take religion back far enough then god is female just like your mother.
@Fernapple That is clearly the most dominant factor in determining religious BELIEF. But what this theory is referring to is the experiencing of “God’s presence”, which would then be the first step in formulating an explanation for this phenomenon. The resulting explanation then evolves into a religious narrative. It’s described in detail in The Illusion of God’s Presence by Dr. John Wathey. Or you could just listen to the Nov. 22 episode of The Thinking Atheist podcast.
@NostraDumbass It certainly sets one up for such an idea. Yes.
@NostraDumbass, @DenoPenno In fact, Tao is said to be a Feminine idea because it gives birth to the 10,000 things (this is a metaphorical saying).
@NostraDumbass No need I saw that too.
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