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Posted by Bill on June 04, 192001 at 16:27:43:
In Reply to: The evolution of religion posted by eif on May 20, 192001 at 05:42:52:
>>>>There are a number of things about the human brain that we are only just beginning to understand. One is it's capacity for religion. Religion, in its various manifestations, has evolved in the human condition.<<<<<<
Actually there's no evidence for this statement. Religious expression appears abruptly in the fossil record with the Neanderthals. Since the Neanderthals are supposed to have split from the human line with the Antecessor fossils about 750,000 years ago, this would mean that mysteriously the capacity for religion appeared in Antecessor at least that long ago. It was then not expressed for 700,000 years. It then was expressed, and has continued to expressed since then, in both Neanderthals, until their end, and in the human line.
>>>It is neither good nor evil, true nor untrue. It is an expression of the brains capacity to relate to culture, in conjunction with inherited mechanisms and predispositions.<<<<<<<
This just happens to fit in perfectly with the postmodernism of the day. What a lucky conincidence.
>>>>What many people fail to understand is that the Bible, or any other historical text, is neither true nor untrue, it is simply an expression of the relation of one society to it's time, both in inherited knowledge, and the external changing environment. Because human knowledge has grown, and society has changed, it follows that ancient texts lose their relational meaning.<<<<<<<
Another good postmodernist statement to begin. But if the bible books "lose their relational meaning", that does make them untrue doesn't it?
>>>>The Bible records many systems of thought, all of which are epxressions of the abilities of the brain which have been inherited from evolutionary processes. Some of these abilities have been believed to come from God(eg Holy spirit), some people with dissociative, inherited neuronal thought patterns, intricately designed to be effective in a myriad of past environments, to be connected to God (eg epileptics). These conditions, and abilities, and the people who inherited them, were/are real, it is just that they do not necarily relate to any divine being. The Bible is a record of one nations journey through a changing and difficult development, in relation to their myriad inherited dispositions and capacities. These capacities are given meaning by the brain itself, regardless of their innate truth. It is the brains plasticity which enables us to create our own meaning, relational to our own times.<<<<<<
Besides the question begging, you are also wrong regarding the New Testament. The Christian community after the resurrection soon encompases the peoples of many nations not just one.
In general, this portion of your piece displays your clic reductionist viewpoint, the logical end of your evolutionary belief system.
>>>As such the Bible is not the unchanging 'word of God'. It is the word of our inherited dispositions and abilities, and ociated knowledge. The tragedy of any society, ancient and present, is that this knowledge can and is used for power, and the exploitation of the weak, young, or uninformed. The Bible as such, like much of history, is not a clear record of events, but an edited version of tribal struggle, power plays and random accident. It is full of human and environmental accident, relational meaning, and technical error.<<<<<
Compared to what? Name a religious, nonreligious or antireligious point of view, that hasn't had all and most of the same characteristics you note. Human beings are nothing if not flawed. Every system they produce is
flawed. But is the bible itself flawed or does it rather flawlessly record the flaws and the underlying history?
You also said earlier that the bible was neither true nor untrue. Now you change your mind. Is such changability a genetic characteristic of those predisposed to an evolutionary mindset?
>>It contains soulful expressions of the human spirit. It contains the travails of the oppressed, and the expressions of inherited mechanisms to deal with such oppression. These mechanisms will always be with the human condition, because they are inherited from our evolutionary past. It is the triggering of these modules and mechanisms ineffficiently and inappropriately, which cause the greatest tragedies (eg the crusades, holy wars). It is up to us to define our future selves in the light of our existing knowledge, and to modify our inherited predispositions for the benefit of all, and not leave this design to the cruel randomness of our inherited dispositions, nor incomplete ancient texts, which relate to former tribal environments.<<<<<
The means to fight against oppression where inherited via evolutionary means? Please detail the story of how this happened. The tragedies coming from relgious sources you mentioned are terrible. Do you have any evidence that tragedies coming from other sources like ideological (Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao) or ethnic (Turks on Armenians, Tutsi on Hutu) are any less severe? Is the religious source particularly aggregious, or do all these tragedies have a common source in something more deeply flawed in the human character? Does the bible indicate a source for this flaw? Is there any evidence that the bible's theory is incorrect and that perfect people and/or systems DO exist? If so, provide sources.
>>>>Some useful texts on these sorts of general ideas are contained within "Why God wont Go away, brain science and the biology of belief", and others.
: If anyone is interested I could further discuss the relationshiops between science, religion, and evolutionary theory in more detail.
: roger mcevilly<<<<<<
The reason God won't go away, much to the distress of many people, is because the universe and everything in it shows every evidence of insufficiency and incompleteness. This has been true in every age. It is true today. It will always be true. Each new level of understanding also indicates a new or several new layers of complexity underneath it. But at some point, randomness breaks down in explaining complexity, especially of the specified kind. Only intelligence remains, an intelligence in back of it all.
The human genetic program is a good example. It achieved its goal of "reading" our genetic code. This produced 30,000 genes instead of the 90,000 expected, indicating that each gene is much more complex than thought. These 30,000 genes code for 300,000 proteins meaning that the old theory of each gene coding for one protein is untrue. But if genes are so complex, aren't they even more mysterious from an evolutionary point of view? Isn't the best og to a gene an artificial intelligence program? But what put that information in the gene? Now that we have "read" our genetic code do we understand it?
In other research, it has now been found that "junk" DNA is not. Some genetic diseases are due to mutations on the "junk" part of the code. But if the "junk" DNA is not, then the randomness expected from a mutational development of genetic sequence isn't there. Aren't we on a "dangerous" slippery slope where it is found that a lot, maybe even most, maybe even almost all, the genetic code is NECCESSARY? But if that turns out to be the case, a major prediction expected if evolutionary theory is true will be proven wrong. Only time will tell.
The logic of your philosophy has taken you to the endpoint of your belief system, that is evolutionary reductionism. Bottled up by your own thought processes, you will now have to wait and see if you have made the correct decision. Good luck. You'll need it.
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