New science of religion

A

arauca

Banned
Banned
http://www.newscientist.com/special/god

Can't live with him, can't live without him. In a special series of articles we lay out a new vision that resets the terms of the debate

In our enlightened world, god is still everywhere. In the UK, arguments rage over "militant atheism" and the place of religion in public life. In the US, religion is again taking centre stage in the presidential election. Try as we might, we just don't seem to be able to let go.

Perhaps that is because we have been looking at god the wrong way. Atheists often see gods and religion as being imposed from above, a bit like a totalitarian regime. But religious belief is more subtle and interesting than that. In these articles we lay out a new scientific vision that promises to, if not resolve ancient tensions, at least reset the terms of the debate.

Like it or not, religious belief is ingrained into human nature. And a good thing too: without it we would still be living in the Stone Age.

Viewing religion this way opens up new territory in the battle between science and religion, not least that religion is much more likely to persist than science.

Of course, the truth or otherwise of religion is not a closed book to science: the existence of a deity can be treated as a scientific hypothesis.

Meanwhile, society is gradually learning to live without religion by replicating its success at binding people together. This is something secularists ought to take seriously. Only by understanding what religion is and is not can we ever hope to move on.

I like that if there would not be religion there would not be science .
 
I can't read the issue without being a member, but hey they are probably right. Ignorance and superstition are natural. While it's also true that religious institutions traditionally dominated all forms of education, it doesn't mean that without religion there would be no science.
 
spidergoat said:
I can't read the issue without being a member, but hey they are probably right. Ignorance and superstition are natural. While it's also true that religious institutions traditionally dominated all forms of education, it doesn't mean that without religion there would be no science.
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Read history don't just trow your 5 cents
The early medicine man were they not religious
 
arauca said:
Read the article and research the authors opinion .. Dont just jump into your position . That is why I posted the article, for discussion not to bashing.
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I can't read the article unless I subscribe... Tell me, in your own words.
 
gmilam said:
I can't read the article unless I subscribe... Tell me, in your own words.
Click to expand...





As early humans expanded beyond hunter-gatherer groups, religion was the glue that held societies full of strangers together

Read more: "The God issue: New science of religion"

ON A hilltop in what is now south-eastern Turkey rests the world's oldest temple of worship. With its massive, T-shaped stone pillars carved with images of animals, Göbekli Tepe is challenging long-held assumptions about the origins of civilisation. While archaeologists are unearthing clues and debating their meaning, the significance of the site escapes no one.

No evidence of agriculture has been found at the site, which may be explained by the fact that it dates back about 11,500 years, making it old enough to have been built by hunter-gatherers. Yet the monumental architecture of Göbekli Tepe would have required the participation of many hundreds, possibly thousands, of people (Documenta Praehistorica, vol 37, p 239). It may therefore hold clues to two of the deepest puzzles of human civilisation: how did human societies scale up from small, mobile groups of hunter-gatherers to large, sedentary societies? And how did organised religions spread to colonise most minds in the world?

The first puzzle is one of cooperation. Up until about 12,000 years ago all humans lived in relatively small bands. Today, virtually everyone lives in vast, cooperative groups of mostly unrelated strangers. How did this happen?

In evolutionary biology cooperation is usually explained by one of two forms of altruism: cooperation among kin and reciprocal altruism - you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. But cooperation among strangers is not easily explained by either.

As group size increases, both forms of altruism break down. With ever-greater chances of encountering strangers, opportunities for cooperation among kin decline. Reciprocal altruism - without extra safeguards such as institutions for punishing freeloaders - also rapidly stops paying off.

The second puzzle is how certain religious traditions became so widespread. If you are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or an agnostic or atheist descendant of any of these, you are the heir to an extraordinarily successful religious movement that started as an obscure cultural experiment.

"Many are called, but few are chosen," says the Gospel according to Matthew. This might as well describe the law of religious evolution, which dictates that while legions of new religious entities are created, most of them die out, save a potent few that survive and flourish.

In the long run, almost all religious movements fail. In one analysis of the stability of 200 utopian communes, both religious and secular, in 19th century America, Richard Sosis of the University of Connecticut in Storrs found a striking pattern. The average lifespan of the religious communes was a mere 25 years. In 80 years, 9 out of 10 had disbanded. Secular communes, most of which were socialist, fared even worse: they lasted for an average of 6.4 years and 9 out of 10 disappeared in less than 20 years (Cross-Cultural Research, vol 34, p 70).

Göbekli Tepe suggests an elegant solution to both puzzles: each answers the other. To understand how, we need to revisit the lively debates about the evolutionary origins of religion.

A growing view is that religious beliefs and rituals arose as an evolutionary by-product of ordinary cognitive functions (see "The God issue: We are all born believers"). Once that happened, the stage was set for rapid cultural evolution that eventually led to large societies with "Big Gods".

Some early cultural variants of religion presumably promoted prosocial behaviours such as cooperation, trust and self-sacrifice while encouraging displays of religious devotion, such as fasts, food taboos, extravagant rituals and other "hard-to-fake" behaviours which reliably transmitted believers' sincere faith (Evolution and Human Behavior, vol 30, p 244), and signalled their intention to cooperate (Evolutionary Anthropology, vol 12, p 264). Religion thus forged anonymous strangers into moral communities tied together with sacred bonds under a common supernatural jurisdiction.
 
arauca said:
As early humans expanded beyond hunter-gatherer groups, religion was the glue that held societies full of strangers together

Read more: "The God issue: New science of religion"

ON A hilltop in what is now south-eastern Turkey rests the world's oldest temple of worship. With its massive, T-shaped stone pillars carved with images of animals, Göbekli Tepe is challenging long-held assumptions about the origins of civilisation. While archaeologists are unearthing clues and debating their meaning, the significance of the site escapes no one.

No evidence of agriculture has been found at the site, which may be explained by the fact that it dates back about 11,500 years, making it old enough to have been built by hunter-gatherers. Yet the monumental architecture of Göbekli Tepe would have required the participation of many hundreds, possibly thousands, of people (Documenta Praehistorica, vol 37, p 239). It may therefore hold clues to two of the deepest puzzles of human civilisation: how did human societies scale up from small, mobile groups of hunter-gatherers to large, sedentary societies? And how did organised religions spread to colonise most minds in the world?

The first puzzle is one of cooperation. Up until about 12,000 years ago all humans lived in relatively small bands. Today, virtually everyone lives in vast, cooperative groups of mostly unrelated strangers. How did this happen?

In evolutionary biology cooperation is usually explained by one of two forms of altruism: cooperation among kin and reciprocal altruism - you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. But cooperation among strangers is not easily explained by either.

As group size increases, both forms of altruism break down. With ever-greater chances of encountering strangers, opportunities for cooperation among kin decline. Reciprocal altruism - without extra safeguards such as institutions for punishing freeloaders - also rapidly stops paying off.

The second puzzle is how certain religious traditions became so widespread. If you are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or an agnostic or atheist descendant of any of these, you are the heir to an extraordinarily successful religious movement that started as an obscure cultural experiment.

"Many are called, but few are chosen," says the Gospel according to Matthew. This might as well describe the law of religious evolution, which dictates that while legions of new religious entities are created, most of them die out, save a potent few that survive and flourish.

In the long run, almost all religious movements fail. In one analysis of the stability of 200 utopian communes, both religious and secular, in 19th century America, Richard Sosis of the University of Connecticut in Storrs found a striking pattern. The average lifespan of the religious communes was a mere 25 years. In 80 years, 9 out of 10 had disbanded. Secular communes, most of which were socialist, fared even worse: they lasted for an average of 6.4 years and 9 out of 10 disappeared in less than 20 years (Cross-Cultural Research, vol 34, p 70).

Göbekli Tepe suggests an elegant solution to both puzzles: each answers the other. To understand how, we need to revisit the lively debates about the evolutionary origins of religion.

A growing view is that religious beliefs and rituals arose as an evolutionary by-product of ordinary cognitive functions (see "The God issue: We are all born believers"). Once that happened, the stage was set for rapid cultural evolution that eventually led to large societies with "Big Gods".

Some early cultural variants of religion presumably promoted prosocial behaviours such as cooperation, trust and self-sacrifice while encouraging displays of religious devotion, such as fasts, food taboos, extravagant rituals and other "hard-to-fake" behaviours which reliably transmitted believers' sincere faith (Evolution and Human Behavior, vol 30, p 244), and signalled their intention to cooperate (Evolutionary Anthropology, vol 12, p 264). Religion thus forged anonymous strangers into moral communities tied together with sacred bonds under a common supernatural jurisdiction.
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What does this have to do with the existence of a diety being a scientific hypothesis? :bugeye:
 
@arauca --

Asking what the relevance of a post is isn't the same thing as dismissing said post.
 
arauca said:
What is that you want ? Do you want other views . or is it don't give me other views my mind is made up ........
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The article claims that the existence of a deity can be treated as a scientific hypothesis... Can you really not see how this has nothing to do with that claim? :shrug:
 
gmilam

The article claims that the existence of a deity can be treated as a scientific hypothesis
Click to expand...

It can be, any real god who actually has an effect on reality would be scientifically detectable. But theists should tread lightly on this path as the evidence so far gives a null result.

"We can consider the existence of god to be a scientific hypothesis and look for the empirical evidence that would follow. Many of the attributes associated with the Judaic-Christian-Islamic God have specific consequences that can be tested empirically. Such a God is supposed to play a central role in the operation of the universe and the lives of humans. As a result, evidence for him should be readily detectable by scientific means. If a properly controlled experiment were to come up with an observation that cannot be explained by natural means, then science would have to take seriously the possibility of a world beyond matter.
In fact scientists have empirically tested the efficacy of intercessory prayer -- prayers said on behalf of others. These studies, in principle, could have shown scientifically that some god exists. Had they found conclusively, in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial, that intercessory prayers heal the sick, it would have been difficult to find a natural explanation. They did not.
Similar tests have been done on near-death experiences (NDEs). Some people having an NDE during surgery have reported floating above the operating table and watching everything going on below. Whether this is a real experience or a hallucination can be tested easily by placing a secret message on a high shelf out of sight of the patient and the hospital staff. This has been tried, and no one reporting an NDE has yet to read the message.
Just as science can design experiments to test the existence of God, it can also seek evidence against a god's existence in the world around us. Here we must be clear that we are not talking about evidence against any and all conceivable gods. For example, a deist god that creates the universe and then just leaves it alone would be very hard to falsify. But no one worships a god who does nothing.
If God is the intelligent designer of life on Earth, then we should find evidence for intelligence in observations of the structure of life. We do not. The Intelligent Design movement failed in its effort to prove that the complexity found in some biological systems is irreducible and cannot be explained within Darwinian evolution. Life on Earth looks just as it should look if it arose by natural selection.
Most religions claim that humans possess immaterial souls that control much of our mental processing. If that were true, we should be able to observe mentally induced phenomena that are independent of brain chemistry. We do not.
If God is the source of morality, then we should find evidence for a supernatural origin in human behavior. We do not. People of faith behave on average no better, and in some cases behave worse, than people of no faith. History shows that the moral and ethical guides that most of us live by did not originate with the monotheistic religions, as proponents of those religions would have us believe. Instead, moral behavior appears to have evolved socially.
Again, if God answers prayers, we should see miraculous effects of prayer. With millions of prayers having been said every day for thousands of years, we would expect some to have been answered by now in a verifiable way. They have not.
If God has revealed truths to humanity, then these truths should be testable. Over the millennia many people have reported religious or mystical experiences in which they have communicated with one god or another. By now, we should have seen some confirming evidence for this, such as a verifiable fact that could not have been in the person's head unless it was revealed to them. We have not.
If God is the creator of the universe, then we should find evidence for that in astronomy and physics. We do not. The origin of our universe required no miracles. Furthermore, modern cosmology suggests an eternal "multiverse" in which many other universes come and go.
If humans are a special creation of God, then the universe should be congenial to human life. It is not. Theists claim that the parameters of the universe are fine-tuned for human life. They are not. The universe is not fine-tuned for us. We are fine-tuned to the universe.
After evaluating all the evidence, we can conclude that the universe and life look exactly as they would be expected to look if there were no God."

Victor Stenger Physicist

Sorry, I copied this from an essay(poorly), but it expresses my thoughts better than I can.

Grumpy:cool:
 
Grumpy said:
gmilam



It can be, any real god who actually has an effect on reality would be scientifically detectable. But theists should tread lightly on this path as the evidence so far gives a null result.

"We can consider the existence of god to be a scientific hypothesis and look for the empirical evidence that would follow. Many of the attributes associated with the Judaic-Christian-Islamic God have specific consequences that can be tested empirically. Such a God is supposed to play a central role in the operation of the universe and the lives of humans. As a result, evidence for him should be readily detectable by scientific means. If a properly controlled experiment were to come up with an observation that cannot be explained by natural means, then science would have to take seriously the possibility of a world beyond matter.
In fact scientists have empirically tested the efficacy of intercessory prayer -- prayers said on behalf of others. These studies, in principle, could have shown scientifically that some god exists. Had they found conclusively, in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial, that intercessory prayers heal the sick, it would have been difficult to find a natural explanation. They did not.
Similar tests have been done on near-death experiences (NDEs). Some people having an NDE during surgery have reported floating above the operating table and watching everything going on below. Whether this is a real experience or a hallucination can be tested easily by placing a secret message on a high shelf out of sight of the patient and the hospital staff. This has been tried, and no one reporting an NDE has yet to read the message.
Just as science can design experiments to test the existence of God, it can also seek evidence against a god's existence in the world around us. Here we must be clear that we are not talking about evidence against any and all conceivable gods. For example, a deist god that creates the universe and then just leaves it alone would be very hard to falsify. But no one worships a god who does nothing.
If God is the intelligent designer of life on Earth, then we should find evidence for intelligence in observations of the structure of life. We do not. The Intelligent Design movement failed in its effort to prove that the complexity found in some biological systems is irreducible and cannot be explained within Darwinian evolution. Life on Earth looks just as it should look if it arose by natural selection.
Most religions claim that humans possess immaterial souls that control much of our mental processing. If that were true, we should be able to observe mentally induced phenomena that are independent of brain chemistry. We do not.
If God is the source of morality, then we should find evidence for a supernatural origin in human behavior. We do not. People of faith behave on average no better, and in some cases behave worse, than people of no faith. History shows that the moral and ethical guides that most of us live by did not originate with the monotheistic religions, as proponents of those religions would have us believe. Instead, moral behavior appears to have evolved socially.
Again, if God answers prayers, we should see miraculous effects of prayer. With millions of prayers having been said every day for thousands of years, we would expect some to have been answered by now in a verifiable way. They have not.
If God has revealed truths to humanity, then these truths should be testable. Over the millennia many people have reported religious or mystical experiences in which they have communicated with one god or another. By now, we should have seen some confirming evidence for this, such as a verifiable fact that could not have been in the person's head unless it was revealed to them. We have not.
If God is the creator of the universe, then we should find evidence for that in astronomy and physics. We do not. The origin of our universe required no miracles. Furthermore, modern cosmology suggests an eternal "multiverse" in which many other universes come and go.
If humans are a special creation of God, then the universe should be congenial to human life. It is not. Theists claim that the parameters of the universe are fine-tuned for human life. They are not. The universe is not fine-tuned for us. We are fine-tuned to the universe.
After evaluating all the evidence, we can conclude that the universe and life look exactly as they would be expected to look if there were no God."

Victor Stenger Physicist

Sorry, I copied this from an essay(poorly), but it expresses my thoughts better than I can.

Grumpy:cool:
Click to expand...

Here you have put as if god is an object and you are evaluating god , is it not to much . Pretty soon you will test god how fast can he move or other things . So what kind of god will it be who will surrender to your wishes. Would that not be a subordinate god ?
 
arauca:

The god you speak of is just an invention. The medicine man you speak of probably had little or nothing in common with any religion you may conceive of. Most likely this guy would hear voices in the woods, so that's how he got the job. Religion did not bring humans out of the Stone Age. But we have dragged it, kicking and screaming, out of the Bronze Age, where it belongs. Like some old piece of junk in the back of the closet of human history, religion sits on the back shelf, gathering dust and taking up valuable space.

Religion surfaces in American elections because the average voter is stupid.

Although you think it is here to stay, I doubt it. It has probably run its course; eventually a new generation will come that will probably say "Enough already!" and move on. People will probably look back and wonder why it took so long.

As far as a science that embraces or describes a divinity, no. That would be ludicrous.
 
arauca

Here you have put as if god is an object and you are evaluating god , is it not to much . Pretty soon you will test god how fast can he move or other things . So what kind of god will it be who will surrender to your wishes. Would that not be a subordinate god ?
Click to expand...

Dude, you posted the thread:bugeye:

But the kind of god who has actual influence in the Universe is the same kind of god who would leave evidence of that influence that science can evidence, IE he will define himself by the evidence of his influence. But despite the efforts of many serious scientists no such evidence has yet been found. It has nothing to do with my wishes, it has to do with showing whether or not there is evidence of the influence of a god.

"If God is the intelligent designer of life on Earth, then we should find evidence for intelligence in observations of the structure of life. We do not."

"Most religions claim that humans possess immaterial souls that control much of our mental processing. If that were true, we should be able to observe mentally induced phenomena that are independent of brain chemistry. We do not."

"If God is the source of morality, then we should find evidence for a supernatural origin in human behavior. We do not. People of faith behave on average no better, and in some cases behave worse, than people of no faith. History shows that the moral and ethical guides that most of us live by did not originate with the monotheistic religions, as proponents of those religions would have us believe. Instead, moral behavior appears to have evolved socially."

"If God is the creator of the universe, then we should find evidence for that in astronomy and physics. We do not."

"If humans are a special creation of God, then the universe should be congenial to human life. It is not.(It is amazing at creating Black Holes in all sizes-G)"

These are the reasons I said that theists need to tread lightly on the path of trying to assert that science supports their beliefs. It does not.

Grumpy:cool:
 
Grumpy said:
arauca



Dude, you posted the thread:bugeye: Don't tempt me for misunderstanding or your intent is maliciously to ban me.

But the kind of god who has actual influence in the Universe is the same kind of god who would leave evidence of that influence that science can evidence, IE he will define himself by the evidence of his influence. But despite the efforts of many serious scientists no such evidence has yet been found. It has nothing to do with my wishes, it has to do with showing whether or not there is evidence of the influence of a god.

"If God is the intelligent designer of life on Earth, then we should find evidence for intelligence in observations of the structure of life. We do not."

"Most religions claim that humans possess immaterial souls that control much of our mental processing. If that were true, we should be able to observe mentally induced phenomena that are independent of brain chemistry. We do not."

"If God is the source of morality, then we should find evidence for a supernatural origin in human behavior. We do not. People of faith behave on average no better, and in some cases behave worse, than people of no faith. History shows that the moral and ethical guides that most of us live by did not originate with the monotheistic religions, as proponents of those religions would have us believe. Instead, moral behavior appears to have evolved socially."

"If God is the creator of the universe, then we should find evidence for that in astronomy and physics. We do not."

"If humans are a special creation of God, then the universe should be congenial to human life. It is not.(It is amazing at creating Black Holes in all sizes-G)"

These are the reasons I said that theists need to tread lightly on the path of trying to assert that science supports their beliefs. It does not.

Grumpy:cool:
Click to expand...

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"If God is the intelligent designer of life on Earth, then we should find evidence for intelligence in observations of the structure of life. We do not."

I don’t expand my thought beyond the earth .
Lets think about a living cell. Des require wisdom to bring those chemical together and as a final it become alive ? HAVE WE PROVED THAT we can duplicate , or even we have a complete understanding on how to make it work ? Who do you think come up with a thought to make a living cell ? Please don’t come up with the BS of primordial soup , because I will ask you to put the chemical together or any biochemist or molecular biochemist to do the job, and don’t give me the billion years time for random reaction.
Correct your we do not .
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"Most religions claim that humans possess immaterial souls that control much of our mental processing. If that were true, we should be able to observe mentally induced phenomena that are independent of brain chemistry. We do not."

That is poor question : My answer to you . How would an immortal soul contact with us but through brain . There have been some MRI study of this phenomena and the pattern of praying in tongue show difference then in chanting
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"If God is the source of morality, then we should find evidence for a supernatural origin in human behavi
We do not.
People of faith behave on average no better, and in some cases behave worse, than people of no faith. History shows that the moral and ethical guides that most of us live by did not originate with the monotheistic religions, as proponents of those religions would have us believe. Instead, moral behavior appears to have evolved socially."

Ten commandments were given to us and a choice was given to us follow or not . Is that the fault of the source of the morality giver , obviously not , we follow our desires , When you was a kid did you follow the rules of your parents , some time you did sometime you did not, if you would ended un jail for 20 or 50 years is that your parents fault , I don’t think so. SO WHY BLAME THE CREATOR .
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"If God is the creator of the universe, then we should find evidence for that in astronomy and physics. We do not."
I don’t argue about the universe , that is beyond my comprehension
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"If humans are a special creation of God, then the universe should be congenial to human life. It is not.(It is amazing at creating Black Holes in all sizes-G)"
The cell is programmed for evolution and intelligence so we have evolved . we have progressed look into history even we kill each other we have progressed , our social life for security for food and shelter have increased , you even don’t have to wash your garment in the river . About black hole , that is your bread and water .
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These are the reasons I said that theists need to tread lightly on the path of trying to assert that science supports their beliefs. It does not.
Well that is your view , which I don’t share . Science is for all of us to understand nature that was created for our enjoyment . Obviously there are different views , not only from atheist point.
 
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