[Science & Religion]God Created Human Brains to Believe in Him

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

 

It makes sense to me that an overdeveloped sense of "cause and effect" would come about in the course of natural evolution.

[rquoter]Other studies suggest our minds come with an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect, which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even when there is none.[/rquoter]

 

There are lots of people who don't believe in God until much later in life. Interesting article, though.

 

My brain must be malfunctioning then, because I have always found the idea pretty ludicrous.

 

Exactly. That's why I have a hard time with a study like this.

I know people who've arrived at faith for lots and lots and lots of different reasons. Some by their own reason...some because "i've always believed"...some because of some experience that changed them...etc.

If people all arrived at faith in the same way, perhaps I'd feel differently about this article.

And that it would suggest there's something abnormal about someone who doesn't believe is troubling to me, too.

 

But they believe in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the boogie man.

 

Uh, no.

 

People do not want to feel lonely.


We are scared of what we do not understand, what is not tangible.
So we make **** up!

 

Survival is a primal instinct. Faced with the certainty of death, the human mind copes by accepting the concept of life after death as a chance at the continued survival of the consciousness.

 

What is this "believe in God" crap?

Apparently the practitioners of other religions are mentally handicapped.

 

OK, so wes's and the article's titles don't match the article itself.

 

I'm not a believer, and yet I have no problems with a study like this. What they describe makes a lot of sense to me. How else could one explain that virtually every culture in historical times had a belief in a God?

In my opinion, there's no contradiction in believing our brains are "wired" to believe in a God, and yet no supernatural God-entity actually exists. As it said:

"Other studies suggest our minds come with an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect, which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even when there is none."

 

Actually, the fact that people arrive at the same conclusions via multiple paths kinda supports the idea that our brains are naturally predisposed to faith.

There is one thing that is fairly constant with humanity. We always seek answers to questions. Our brain obviously works to solve problems. When something occurs that we cannot solve, we have to 'invent' an answer.

 

There are more than a few faith traditions that do not speak of afterlife. The Sadducees among the Jewish did not.

My personal faith has very little to do with what happens when I'm dead. Jesus isn't fire insurance to me.

Maybe this is part of my problem with this study...that it assumes to much about what faith is...or better stated, it doesn't encompass enough of what faith is beyond, "i believe."

 

Given this response, I don't think i did a very good job of explaining myself earlier. I'll try later.

 

A new direction to take to try and DISPROVE God's existance

I think it is crazy to NOT BELEIVE in a maker
Seriously. . .
I look at this computer in front of me and think
1. DID SOMEONE MAKE THIS THING
or
2. DID IT RANDOMLY and LUCKILY JUST CAME TOGETHER PERFECTLY TO WORK

Tell me. . . which is more logical?

Rocket River
Look at I-Robot - when man Makes an inteligent being
do you seriously think we WON'T HARDWIRE some commands into it?

 

You mean like Dark Matter?

Understanding how someone does something. .. does not discount that THEY DID IT.

Rocket River

 

But who would win in a fight between God and Q ?

DD

 

I can agree to a point. I can say that God doesn't exist within the context of mainstream religions (you are going to go to this place or that place, if you don't do this or that or have to perform some ceremony/ritual to invoke a spirit...yeah that is kind of silly), but to say there are no supernatural or super beings in the universe is kind hard to prove from both directions. We're so primitive in the grand scheme of things, we couldn't possibly know what exists... it could be anything beyond our reality or absolutely nothing. We can't quite quantify, yet.


Here's a way to some it up, an athiest can't prove (logically) that there is no God/Gods, while a believer can't prove definitely (through logic) that there are Gods/Gods. It's almost unwinnable argument in both directions.


If there is God, I believe he's much closer to a deist/theist interpretation of him/her/it...which is mainly...they're here, but not specifically for you, as it doesn't need your allegiance for anything.