- Mar 6, 2005
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A few questions, actually.
Definition: By "human inclination to believe in a higher power and participate in organized religion" I specifically mean the scientific observation that religious people show activity in different parts of their brain when doing stuff like praying, but generally include any other research that's been shown that the practice of religion / exercise of belief has physiological causes and effects in the human body and mind.
Do you think that the human inclination to believe in a higher power and participate in organized religion, at some point in human history, served an evolutionary purpose? Perhaps as a tribal social bonding type experience that, by creation cohesion in groups, helped some tribes succeed where others died?
Do you think that the human inclination to believe in a higher power and participate in organized religion in the modern day could be reasonably recognized and accepted as an evolutionary human trait largely beyond control of the individual, not necessarily worthy of ridicule?
Do you think humans will ever evolve beyond the inclination to believe in a higher power and participate in organized religion?
Do you think that humankind has reached a point in our hold over science that we are artificially delaying, obstructing or otherwise tampering with our own evolution? (kinda separate from the religion question)
I do recognize that there are religious and agnostic people who believe in evolution and could also answer these questions but I'm particularly interested in the atheist view. If you're religious and want to answer them anyway in the thread, go ahead.
Cliffs for the attention-impaired:
- Is there an evolutionary reason for the development of religion?
- Do you think religious people are evolutionarily geared to be that way?
- Will we ever evolve past religion?
- Are we interfering in our own evolution?
Definition: By "human inclination to believe in a higher power and participate in organized religion" I specifically mean the scientific observation that religious people show activity in different parts of their brain when doing stuff like praying, but generally include any other research that's been shown that the practice of religion / exercise of belief has physiological causes and effects in the human body and mind.
Do you think that the human inclination to believe in a higher power and participate in organized religion, at some point in human history, served an evolutionary purpose? Perhaps as a tribal social bonding type experience that, by creation cohesion in groups, helped some tribes succeed where others died?
Do you think that the human inclination to believe in a higher power and participate in organized religion in the modern day could be reasonably recognized and accepted as an evolutionary human trait largely beyond control of the individual, not necessarily worthy of ridicule?
Do you think humans will ever evolve beyond the inclination to believe in a higher power and participate in organized religion?
Do you think that humankind has reached a point in our hold over science that we are artificially delaying, obstructing or otherwise tampering with our own evolution? (kinda separate from the religion question)
I do recognize that there are religious and agnostic people who believe in evolution and could also answer these questions but I'm particularly interested in the atheist view. If you're religious and want to answer them anyway in the thread, go ahead.
Cliffs for the attention-impaired:
- Is there an evolutionary reason for the development of religion?
- Do you think religious people are evolutionarily geared to be that way?
- Will we ever evolve past religion?
- Are we interfering in our own evolution?