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"If neo-Darwinism is true and reproductive success a measure of evolutionary fitness, then every neo-Darwinian
should abandon atheism immediately and become a religious believer, because no genes have spread more
widely than those of Abraham, and no memes more extensively than that of monotheism."

(Jonathan Sacks)


From a purely scientific point of view, this quote certainly has some truth in it (it is nonsense, as some atheists do, to treat religious "memes" (ideas) as mental parasites) , but philosophically there is no way form "is" to "ought". Even if religion X or ideology Y is very successful, that does not imply that I should embrace it and subscribe to its tenets.

Matias 8 May 6
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35 comments

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9

There is no evidence that anyone has Abraham's genes, since there is no evidence that Abraham existed .

7

1.4 billion athiest Chinese people may beg to differ...

7

So first of all, prove scientifically that Abraham even existed.

Next prove that he really fathered as many people as this person assumes.

Then, prove that he believed what people say he believed.

Finally, prove that what he believed is true.

I reject my current parents' religion. I see no reason to accept some ancient dead guy's religion, even if he is a direct ancestor.

Since we don't even know who Sacks is - Abraham is possibly not meant literally, but a place holder for Judeo/Christian/Muslim "civilisation" (Ahem!!)

@chazwin So I'm supposed to figure out some symbolic bullshit to understand this guy? No thank you.

@UpsideDownAgain There is little to figure out. "Abraham" in this case is shorthand fo the 3 messianic religions, also called Mosiac since they all stem from Moses.

@chazwin Oh, is that all?

7

How does a fictional character spread it's genes ???

You have heard about flat earth's right? I will use them as an example. They made a bunch of Internet videos, and there numbers increased, thus the idea that the earth is flat spread it's "genes" or the expression of its information capacity.

@Happy_Killbot that's spreading memes not genes you have to be alive to spread those . Memes are just ideas

7

To best of my knowledge, there is no proof that an "Abraham" figure from the Abrahamic religions actually ever existed. Can not pass on genes from a fictional character, that is unless you're Kurt Vonnegut (lol).

6

"Even if religion X or ideology Y is very successful, that does not imply that I should embrace it and subscribe to its tenets." Quite; or give any credit to its beliefs. And if J Sacks is really gullible enough to believe in the literal idea of decent from Abraham, how much credit should be given to any of his views.

Jonathan Sacks is a highly intelligent Rabbi who does not for one minute believe a literal interpretation of the Torah. I don’t know the quote but the text around it will be asking or answering a different question to the out of context text.

@Geoffrey51 Yes, but there are several forms of intelligence and they do not all exclude extreme gulibility. The two or three quotes I have seen from him on this site would certainly lead to that view. But then they all came from Matias.

5

"No genes have spread more widely than Abraham's...."????
WTF are you babbling about?
"Lucy" DNA from 6,000,000 years ago can be found in Everyone.........

See you're using facts and reason in a discussion that limited by religious BS. You're looking for rationality in the realm of make believe. Don't you accept that the world is only 6000 or so years old? Once that fallacy is included and believed your arguments disappear. Any evidence to the contrary was put there by a bad guy and should be ignored.

However if your using facts and reason, you make a very good point.

5

There is no proof of Abrahanic gene linking. There sure as Hell are a lot of people related to Genghis Khan however. Science.

5

Is there any scientific evidence that Abraham's genes are as widespread as they claim? And even if they are, why should that be proof of god? Some guy, a long time ago, manages to produce a bunch of kids who manage to stay alive long enough to produce their own kids and so on. That's end of story, in my opinion. You could draw the same conclusion about any large family.

@Matias So, all that proves is that religious people like to have more sex because some mythical sky being's book tells them they should. That's really what it boils down to.

5

I'll just stick with the old Darwinism.

4

This has zero scientific validity. Firstly, neo-Darwinism is no more a real thing than the illusory genetic code barrier. And secondly, the speaker hasn't provided any evidence that 1 Abraham's lineage still exists, 2 That Abraham existed, or 3 That the Abrahamic religion was a factor in his lineage's supposed success. Not scientific even a little.

@Matias If you're gonna use Abraham to describe religious adherents, then it's not biological. And can you cite that claim about religious prople having more children, and the claim that those children are more fit? I don't think that's true.

As Richard Dawkins said, and I tend to agree, "There may well be an evolutionary basis for religion, but that hasn't the slightest bearing on whether or not it's true. I care whether it's true."

@Matias You still haven't offered any reason to think your claim about religion improving fitness or reproductive success is true. You also misunderstood Dr Dawkins words. Either you're not reading what's written, or English isn't your first language.

4

Maybe surgeons should put away their scalpels and let the lord do the healing

3

Biological evolution is real. Social, cultural economical and political Darwinism are false human constructs used to promote privilege, and as a basis for discriminating against other groups, classes, cultures, and ideologies. Indeed, they are the tools of individuals and groups that are would=be tyrants.

3

Who the fuck is Jonathan Sacks and why should I care about his moronic viewpoint? I googled the name and this orthodox rabbi is a member of the british parliament, who the fuck cares about the musings of an orthodox rabbi about a character from the old testament that is as cruel as he is fictional? Waste of time.

One has to realise that which ever Sacks this is - the comment has no context, and is probably, originally delivered with a sense of irony.

Goddamn! Touched a nerve, did he?

@Matias it seems that way, doesn't it? Especially when irrelevant people are quoted.

@Matias i don't block people just because they post inane things.

3

It appears to me that if we follow this kind of logic, then it would be Neanderthals who should be reversed for their genetic fitness over Abraham. All those outside of Africa bear somewhere between 2% and 5% of Neanderthal genes. Since we have no reason to believe that Abraham's descendents spread into the Asian race and ethnicities, we have a very significant number (like, a couple billion) more individuals descended from Neanderthals than descended from Abraham. Of course, this assumes Abraham was a real historical figure (as so many others have pointed out) and that his descendents are as wide spread as claimed.

I also recently read a headline that claimed it was likely that all those with western Europeans anscestry were descended fro Charlemagne. Anyone who has looked into their geneology much knows that certain ancestors had large families and created a large number of descendants. Unless incestous relastipns were common, the number of descendants increases exponentiolly each generation. A large descency from someone who lived thousands of years ago is hardly proof of anything except that they had some surviving offspring. The same claim made of Abraham is likely as true for Omar the camel trader who lived at the same time. Perhap, Omar should be equally revered as Abraham is supposed to be?

3

Here we are discussing “Abraham”. And the only evidence of his existence, is a bunch of books that everyone outside of a clan mentality, considers to be cruel and evil fiction. The evolution of any savage, on any continent, could have been “Abraham”. The resulting “Abraham” was obviously the result of many factors. Famine, wars, disease and who knows what, would have allowed “him” to have occurred at about the time the species began to record thoughts and dreams. Many of those thoughts and dreams occurred when that individual was high on poison mushrooms, etc.

3

Illogical .

2

Genghis Khan has the most descendants I thought from dna evidence

2

There's no truth at all to that quote. What idiot would let a fairy tale override meticulous research?

2

I agree totally with the second part or your post. Even if there were to be a range of deities, they are no more enlightened than ourselves so why adhere to a doctrine that doesn’t sit right with one.

2

I don’t think that being descended from Abraham is anything special. Almost everyone is descended from not only Abraham but from just about everybody else from ancient times who reproduced. For example, it is said that anyone with European roots descended from Charlemagne.

The tree branch model doesn’t do justice to genealogy. Genealogy is more like a rope, with a person represented by a fiber. The length of the fiber represents the lifetime of the person.Where a male and female fiber touch a new fiber might begin.

Looking at the fiber that represents Abraham, we can see that it is of little significance to the rope as a whole. A single fiber would be of interest only if it possessed a valuable new mutation in its genes.

I doubt if the development of monotheism caused enhanced survival of its adherents. More likely the strong, intelligent, creative tribes that were capable of formulating monotheism survived because they were strong, intelligent, and creative.

Besides that, what about China and India? They aren’t noted for monotheism, yet their populations haven’t been petering out.

Quite agree there. I have been looking in to my ancestry and experience the same as you with the fibres. Looking back hundreds of years and the lives that came together to bring you into being is quite humbling. Each with a story that gives birth to you. It’s the same as the oral tradition. We are all heirs to a magnificent transmission of knowledge and wisdom and dismiss so much because it comes with a label marked ‘religion’. Perhaps it’s time to get out of the nursery and explore the past to understand who we are.

2

It’s allegorical. All part of the oral tradition. A literal take on any ancient text, whether an adherent or otherwise, will just lead to argument and dispute as we see, both in the world and the microcosm of this forum. Perhaps we should listen with our minds and not our ears.

2

I would counter that with the fact that the wealthier a country becomes the lower is the birthrate. For example even the birthplace of Roman Catholicism .Italy, has a birthrate of around 1.6/1, much less than the replacement rate of 2.1/1.
So using the above logic to be successful we should throw all our possessions away,cut of the electricity and walk everywhere.

1

A major part of evolutionary theory relates to fitness in the face of NATURAL selection. There's not much that is natural about the last 5000 years of human history.

The concept of memes comes from Dawkins' Selfish Gene, and those who understand that definition do compare self-replicating ideas as potentially parasitic. The formulation of religions as memes has more to do 1) with understanding how ideas spread; and 2) with the proposition that ideas may exist as nucleic acid polymers (either RNA or DNA) that are stored and retrieved memories. Plainly, memes have nothing to do with germline DNA unless you're a Lamarkian.

Why do you keep posting the absurd writings of Sacks? Other comments effective dissect the many flaws in his statement. What he's really doing is advancing a reason for atheists to be believers, which might be viewed as part of his calling (to disseminate disinformation). Lacking a basis in truth or logic, Sacks statement is just silly BS, and for you to repost it reflects on your own intellectual rigor. Why don't you tell us why you have an interest in this guy?

@Matias religion (the real belief) drains the host. The host waste resources, work in sub-optimal routines etc.
BUT it aggregates people, when the non religious can create a system that have the same aggregation power than religion it will be an end game.
Power in numbers, we can't beat the lions, but we can gather a group a dozen times bigger than the lions and coordinate to attack and win. Same with religious.
But the real top predator is the religious leader that does not need really to be a true believer. The top predator is the manipulation of religion, not the belief.

1

"it is nonsense, as some atheists do, to treat religious ideas as mental parasites"

"Some atheists," huh?

I dare you to give me one example of that actually happening.

(I think will block you after this. Your atheism jabs are really boring.
It's funny how the "pure" agnostic crowd get off on sneering at atheists for taking time to argue about religion, while the pure agnostics find it wholly acceptable to bash "some atheists".)

Dr. Darrel Ray literally wrote a book called The God Virus. Religions can, indeed, be parasitic on their hosts. More generally, they're symbiotic and their hosts wouldn't adhere to them if they didn't come with perceived benefits.

@Matias No examples. Clearly there is no use in keeping you around.

And don't falter yourself. You're not a dissenting voice. If you were merely that you would have had an example to site.

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