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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 12/11/2005 : 18:36:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Why do you think that I said "is there anyone out there who could calculate those odds?" and "it seems much more statistically probable..."?
I thought that you were just talking out of your ass. Which is why I asked YOU to provide the calculations you used, and the premises, to reach your conclusion.
Without that, you are just making meaningless noise.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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GeeMack
SFN Regular
USA
1093 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2005 : 18:46:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ...
I think that everyone else understood that when I said "The following temporarily assumes an evolutionary model" all I meant was that statements like "So then, we have an animal which can communicate basic thoughts neccessary to survival" do not mean that I believe in evolution, merely that I am stating what the world would be like if the evolutionary theory was correct.
I think most of us actually understand you believe in magic and supernatural beings. Most of us understand that you've given the weakest support for your beliefs, which amounts to some tattered shreds of ancient anecdotal evidence, spread around in its entirety throughout a body of text consisting of a few hundred pages. Most of us understand you are so convinced of what you believe that you continue to try changing definitions of terms and even inventing your own brand of science to support your delusion. This is not how evidenced claims or science works. You have been told this several times yet seem unable, or unwilling, to understand.
In your effort to justify holding onto your delusion you posed some interesting, but completely unsupported guesses about the origins of religion. You've been called on it and asked to provide support for what you claim. But instead of answering any questions put to you regarding your silly guess, you're trying to turn the discussion around in such a way that you're demanding evidence from the other participants. Can we take it that you're just bailing out on backing up your assertions? It sure looks like it.
If you really want to convince us (and you apparently have very little real faith since it looks like you're trying desperately to convince yourself) that your imaginary friend is real, why don't you provide more support than your simple belief, your silly guesses, and your quotations from ancient myths? And if you can't, why don't you acknowledge that all you've got is your simple belief, your silly guesses, and your quotations from ancient myths?
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2005 : 18:53:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
In this case I'm interested in positive evidence. For instance, an interveiw with a primitive tribe in which the tribe says "Long ago one of our ancestors discovered that if you draw an animal with your spear in it you will have better success at hunting that animal. After this, we discovered that if you draw a picture of a great hunter and ask the hunter for guidance you will also have better success at hunting. And from this we realized that there was a great hunter above all hunters, and we could ensure success on a hunt by offerring him animal sacrifices." Failing that, some ancient writing to that effect would suffice.
Hippy, why on earth do you think primitive people would think this way? Do you really think they ever rationally expressed themselves in this way? Look no further to the modern equivalent of prayer. Numerous studies have shown that prayer has no effect. Zero. Yet people pray all the time. When people get sick, some even ask that others "keep them in their prayers." Why? Do you think it's because they logically looked at the efficacy of prayer? Of course not.
And I would suggest that if you think most people don't think about life's "big questions," then you're wrong. Perhaps most people don't spend they're time talking about about them because religion provides them ready-made answers. You don't hear them asking such questions because they think they already know!
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 12/11/2005 18:55:44 |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2005 : 19:17:07 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by hippy:
quote:
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And, they all managed to come up with distinctly different versions because? Was god supposedly that poor of a communicator?
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No, supposedly Satan is the author of confusion.
Well thanks for clearing that up.
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It's been several thousand years, and it seems that those smart enough to laugh at this nonsense are still a small minority.
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For thousands of years people were taught religion from birth. What we're discussing is the likelihood that people who had never thought of religion would have believed it.
People today who have never thought of reiki believe it, having been told of its power to heal what ails ya. People who have never thought of homeopathy believe it after reading claims that it works. Why would we assume that ancient man was any less gullible? |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2005 : 19:21:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
I think that everyone else understood that when I said "The following temporarily assumes an evolutionary model" all I meant was that statements like "So then, we have an animal which can communicate basic thoughts neccessary to survival" do not mean that I believe in evolution, merely that I am stating what the world would be like if the evolutionary theory was correct.
Unfortunately, Hippy, you came to these forums demostrating a lack of knowledge of what evolutionary theory states. Given that, any assumption you might make about what the world would be like if evolutionary theory is correct is questionable. For example, you seem to think that every trait which has evolved in humans has had a measurable survival benefit from its first appearance, but that simply isn't a conclusion of modern evolutionary theory. We know, for example, that some traits increase in frequency in a population only because of happenstance, or because they're genetically tied to some other trait which does increase survival (without being a "related" trait in any other way). In other words, your long post seemed to me to be little more than a strawman argument from almost the first sentence. You went on to lay out only a few possible scenarios, and knock them down, without seeming to seriously consider that the reality is "none of the above." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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UncleJ
New Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2005 : 21:11:25 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
...what the world would be like if the evolutionary theory was correct.
Evolutionary theory may not be exactly correct, but if evolution occurred the world would look just like it currently does.
quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
I began this thread with an example of possibly supernatural events. Did you check out the link that I provided?
No, you began this thread with a complete misunderstanding of science and supernatural.
quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
The supernatural, which I define as 'that which is impossible according to the laws of physics', is excluded a priori from 'scientific' examinations.
No, actually it is not.
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"The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church." - F. Magellan
"I can't be a missionary! I don't even believe in Jebus!" - H. Simpson |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2005 : 03:38:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
Beskep:
Additional brain traits that led to religious beliefs were the need to have control, (it's less stressful), and the need to create beliefs that helped with the loss of group members,
HFC:
Evidence? I don't see why beliefs in fairy tales would have more appeal to primitive man than food would. As for the loss of group members, I'll think about it.
There are a number of studies where persons subjected to stress fared poorly if they had no control and fared much better when they could exercise some control. This is Psychology 101, Hippy and hardly an unsupported hypothesis.
You shouldn't have to think too hard about the fact people want to believe they will see their dead loved ones again.
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Beskep:
Really, ever hear of that bird that builds elaborate display for no other purpose than to attract a mate? And what about Peacocks?
HFC:
Elaborate display = vigorous bird. Shiny, colorful plumage = healthy bird. Clear, elaborate song = healthy lungs. What does artistic desire have to do with it?
Actually, that original hypothesis sounded good but has come into some doubt as of late. The Peahen's preference for mates with big tail feathers is actually a survival risk, not a survival trait. Selection pressures are not always clean one to one events. Sometimes a selection pressure acts on a trait that comes with a side effect. But I'm not sure where you are going with the human attraction to art. It certainly doesn't prove any supernatural or higher being influence. It only reflects on the evolution of the brain.
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Beskep:
Look around, brains survived much more efficiently than brawn.
HFC:
Sure, but why is the invention of a god neccessary to overthrow a pack leader if you're smart enough to develop tools that make the pack leader expendable?
H, you've lost tract of your first statement and drifted on to another argument altogether. But forgetting all that, lets just look at your statement here. You have chosen to pick a single event, tool development, and then argue that it could have been used instead of religion to take over a more powerful group leader. Well there are lots of things that could have happened and lots of things that did indeed happen. But that is not how one determines why and how humans developed the way they did with the religions many currently believe. This is what I mean by not getting your facts straight.
Instead of guessing what might have happened we can get a much better idea by two approaches here. You can discover how group behavior and human religious beliefs evolved by looking at historical data and events, and you can look at how those same things occur today among various groups.
What you cannot do is to take any single event or declaration out of context and claim you can draw any legitimate conclusion about that event. For example, which came first the tools or the group looking to a leader for his/her ideas? And, why does one of those events exclude the other?
We know today that leaders use religious beliefs to control others. Karl Rove used it to get people to vote against gay marriage instead of against the Iraq war. Osama uses it to get suicide bombers by convincing them to believe they are going to heaven with 72 virgins to meet them if they die a martyr. So why would you rule out religion as having been part of natural early human group behavior? And why wouldn't religion have developed all over as part of all human group behavior? Especially since groups separated geographically developed essentially different religious elements.
quote:
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Beskep:
And, they all managed to come up with distinctly different versions because? Was god supposedly that poor of a communicator?
HFC:
No, supposedly Satan is the author of confusion.
Like I said, so god wasn't good enough to get the same Bible out there to all the continents? That little Maori kid is going to hell because Satan confused his ancestor? 
quote:
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Beskep:
One needs to first get the facts straight.
HFC:
What facts have I not gotten straight or have ommitted?
You do not have your early anthropology facts correct at all. You are speculating about events for which there is a wealth of information on a few disjointed beliefs about how human behavior developed. |
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UncleJ
New Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2005 : 15:16:43 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
EVIDENCE OF NON-HUMAN INTERFERENCE WITH EARLY MANKIND
The following temporarily assumes an evolutionary model...
Now, with all this mind, it is possible that some people out there stumbled upon a belief in a god. But every single culture on the face of the planet? The statistical odds of that occurring without any interference from any non-human intelligence are incredible (is there anyone out there who could calculate those odds?). Even if it is possible, it seems much more statistically probable that something non-human affected the development of mankind. Whether that something is Yahweh, God, gods, or aliens is a different question.
Early man is really not my area of expertise so a question for Dude, Dr Mabuse, Dave W., etc. (and HFC if he must)
Assuming the Single-origin hypothesis, do you think that the seeds of superstitious belief in god(s) or spirits could simply have been present in very early man before we spread around the world? Then there would be no need for an independent start for religion in different cultures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-origin_hypothesis
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"The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church." - F. Magellan
"I can't be a missionary! I don't even believe in Jebus!" - H. Simpson |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2005 : 15:55:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by UncleJ
Assuming the Single-origin hypothesis, do you think that the seeds of superstitious belief in god(s) or spirits could simply have been present in very early man before we spread around the world? Then there would be no need for an independent start for religion in different cultures.
I fail to see why these are mutual exclusive explanations. I think the seeds of superstitious belief in god(s) or spirits could simply have been present in very early man, and this accounts for the independent emergences of various religions around the world. But perhaps I'm not fully understanding your question.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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UncleJ
New Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2005 : 16:23:54 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by H. Humbert
I fail to see why these are mutual exclusive explanations. I think the seeds of superstitious belief in god(s) or spirits could simply have been present in very early man, and this accounts for the independent emergences of various religions around the world. But perhaps I'm not fully understanding your question.
I guess I am interested in your opinion on whether man was at a stage of development to entertain religious ideas before the migration. Personally, I see no reason why not.
I am definitely not putting this forward as an idea that excludes other explanations offered. As with most subjects the answer is probably a combination of different variables, not just a single one.
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"The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church." - F. Magellan
"I can't be a missionary! I don't even believe in Jebus!" - H. Simpson |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2005 : 17:46:52 [Permalink]
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quote:
Assuming the Single-origin hypothesis, do you think that the seeds of superstitious belief in god(s) or spirits could simply have been present in very early man before we spread around the world? Then there would be no need for an independent start for religion in different cultures.
Makes more sense than h4c's claim that all the many different human cultures "independently" came up with religion.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2005 : 18:00:39 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by UncleJ
I guess I am interested in your opinion on whether man was at a stage of development to entertain religious ideas before the migration. Personally, I see no reason why not.
Well, impossible to say for certain, of course. I think primitive man would have had ideas concerning what we might now term the supernatural--a sense that "forces" were at work in the world that could not be seen. I'm not sure that they would have developed any notion of a god or gods at that point, powerful supernatural entities which had to be appeased. It seems like that idea would have been articulated later. Maybe, though.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2005 : 03:47:52 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by H. Humbert
quote:
Originally posted by UncleJ
I guess I am interested in your opinion on whether man was at a stage of development to entertain religious ideas before the migration. Personally, I see no reason why not.
Well, impossible to say for certain, of course. I think primitive man would have had ideas concerning what we might now term the supernatural--a sense that "forces" were at work in the world that could not be seen. I'm not sure that they would have developed any notion of a god or gods at that point, powerful supernatural entities which had to be appeased. It seems like that idea would have been articulated later. Maybe, though.
It was a common theme in the earliest myths and rituals to give inanimate objects animate features. The mountain, the Sun, the volcano, the rain and so on had their own force and will to act. So things that impacted the earliest people were almost certainly the first gods. The rain god, the deer god, the corn god and so on. Ancestor worship came very early as well. I think anthropologists interpret burying objects with the dead was done because the dead would notice and/or use the items. No sense burying the gold with grandpa unless you think he's going to thank you or abstain from cursing you because you did so.
Early story telling contained elaborate mythical explanations for how things came to be and how they would continue. Story telling would have expanded on the god themes. The earliest recorded stories were of mythical past events and creation stories. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2005 : 04:03:58 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
Assuming the Single-origin hypothesis, do you think that the seeds of superstitious belief in god(s) or spirits could simply have been present in very early man before we spread around the world? Then there would be no need for an independent start for religion in different cultures.
Makes more sense than h4c's claim that all the many different human cultures "independently" came up with religion.
I'm sure such beliefs came with the beginning of complex language. But I see no reason why religion isn't a natural stage of social/cultural evolution of the human mind. First comes observation, then a few wrong conclusions about cause and effect, (because our minds are primed to see patterns), until a more advanced systematic level of observation develops.
One need only look at the development of science. It occurred much more recently and well after written records began. First sky observation brought you prediction of the seasons, but astrology was embedded until more careful observations gave us astronomy. The Sun seemed like a god to every culture until more careful observation revealed it to be inanimate.
There are so many reasons for religion to develop. It lessens one's grief to think your loved ones live on. It give you comfort to believe something is there waiting for you instead of nothing, it gives identity to the group. And there's that old, "they'll be sorry later because my god will show them!" that seems to be a natural means of satisfaction for some people. There are many reasons for religion to develop in early peoples regardless of it having been in the original group before the first migrations.
And you can see the variation as well. Just as language and physical features developed in different directions, so did religions. And what does the pattern look like? Just like the language and physical pathways, divided by geographic regions differences grew when the groups became separated and no longer interacted. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 12/13/2005 04:05:36 |
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hippy4christ
Skeptic Friend
193 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2005 : 23:49:52 [Permalink]
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Hello Board:
I think we need to clear up a bit of confusion:
quote:
Beskeptigal said:
One needs to first get the facts straight.
Then consider all the possible interpretations.
Then draw a conclusion as to which interpretation best fits the data.
Then determine what measure could confirm or refute the conclusion.
Then using that measure test the conclusion (hypothesis).
Humbert quoting Lenny Flank:
1. Observe some aspect of the universe
2. Form a hypothesis that potentially explains what you have observed
3. Make testible predictions from that hypothesis
4. Make observations or experiments that can test those predictions
5. Modify your hypothesis until it is in accord with all observations and predictions
Here are two different accounts of the scientific method. When writing my essay I began with the method described by Lenny Flank, completing steps 1 and 2. The one which beskeptigal posted seems to be more likely to avoid confirmation bias. Since you all seem to disagree with my usage of the scientific method, please tell me which account (Lenny's or beskeptigal's) is a better rendition of the scientific method, or if there is a third one which is better yet.
I would like to note that either case leads you to a situation where you may accept a theory as true not because you have direct evidence that it is true, but simply because the theory works. For instance, the Law of Gravitation discusses the observed fact that mass is drawn towards other mass, but the Theory of Gravity discusses why the Law of Gravity works; and while the Theory may provide workable technology, it is not neccessarily true. This is not to say that I disrespect science, I simply think that we need positive evidence before we can start to consider a theory to be a fact.
Question to all:
How many of you have read the article that I posted in my OP? I think that I asked this earlier but didn't get a response.
Hippy |
Faith is believing what you are told, whether it's by a priest or a scientist. A person's scientific beliefs are ones based on personal observation and experimentation.
Lists of Logical Fallacies |
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