Re: Is religion "cultural baggage" or a natural, default way of thinking?

From: Family Man (nospam_at_nospam.com)
Date: 09/06/04 

Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 18:59:53 -0400

"darth_versive" <darth_versive@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8e0e3045.0409061432.6cadf978@posting.google.com...
> Some people say that the fact that religion is so common in society
> shows that people naturally think in religious terms. Of those who
> say this, some say it's because God designed us this way, and others
> say it's a result of evolution.
>
> Other people say that atheism is the "default" state of mind, and that
> religion is just "cultural baggage" from past centuries, which will
> fade away as the culture becomes more educated in modern knowledge.

It's just baggage. If families just let their children decide what they
wanted to believe instead of brainwashing them from birth, then religion
would be just treated like an ancient myth (which it is).

> I think that this is a question that can be answered in terms of the
> social, behavioral and cognitive sciences. At least I think it can be
> answered in these terms a lot better than it can be answered by just
> arguing about it without reference to scientific research in these
> areas.
>
> While a lot more research needs to be done before this question can be
> answered definitively, enough data is out there now for us to at least
> discuss it.

Yes. Such as Atheism is growing faster than religions.

> To start with, isn't talking about "cultural baggage" and "default
> ways of thinking"--as if this is an "either/or" issue--a bit
> simplistic?

Not really. You either believe the mythical man-made stories or you don't.

> That is, isn't "cultural baggage" a natural part of the human
> condition? That is, didn't we evolve within some cultural environment
> or other? If so, then whatever mental structures are involved in
> taking on "cultural baggage" is just as "natural" as those involved in
> acquiring language. At least it seems this way to me.

Not when children are brainwashed with santa clause, easter bunnies, church,
sunday school, etc..

> And so, if a particular system of thought or worldview is part of a
> particular human culture, then I would think that acquiring whatever
> system of thought is present during child development would be
> "natural," or the "default"--whether that happened to be an atheistic
> system of thought or a theistic system of thought.

A child acquiring basic living skills is natural. Being brainwashed with
ancient myths is not.

> So, the "default" state of the human mind is one that is open to a
> variety of different ways of thinking, just like it is open to a
> variety of languages. It has evolved the mental structures to quickly
> "make sense" of the world in terms of some system of thought or the
> other, in the same way as it has evolved the structures to quickly
> acquire some language or the other.

Default would be Agnostic or Atheist, but certainly not brainwashed with 1
particular religion.

> In the same way that the mind is no more predisposed to acquire French
> than German, perhaps it is no more predisposed to acquire a theistic
> system of thought than an atheistic one. Perhaps the greater
> prevalence of theistic systems of thought over atheistic ones nowadays
> is that these theistic systems of thought have been around longer, and
> have themselves "evolved" in such a manner as to come up with more
> appealing answers to those sorts of questions that people have been
> asking since the beginning (such as, why am I here? what's my purpose
> in life? what happens after I die? etc.). The atheism I usually see
> around me seems less designed to answer these sorts of questions from
> young, developing minds, like the theistic systems are, and more
> designed to address the minds of adults, and to deny or to not believe
> the answers that the theists have come up with, rather than coming up
> with psychologically appealing answers of their own to these
> fundamental questions that children ask. Therefore, perhaps the
> theists just happen to get to the young people first more often, with
> the answers to those questions that they want answers to; and getting
> there first, these ideas are much harder to dislodge from the mind
> than if an atheistic system of thought had been there with the same
> sorts of answers when the young minds were first asking these
> questions.

Exactly. Brainwashing.

> It seems to me that the older someone gets, the harder it is for them
> to change their general perspective on life, and therefore the less
> likely it is that someone will change that perspective. There are
> many exceptions to this rule, of course, but on the average, most
> people who are raised in a particular system of thought will remain in
> that system of thought. And so that may be part of the answer as to
> why theistic worldviews are so much more prevalent than atheistic
> worldviews nowadays, and why theists are so resistant to the reasoning
> of atheists.

Very true.

> At least, this seems like a reasonable hypothesis to me. Has anybody
> heard of any research, or do they have any scientific evidence, that
> might undermine this hypothesis?

The evidence lies in the fact that 90% of people are of the same religion as
their parents and families. Having been brainwashed from birth, its not
likely they will change. However, some manage to break away and start
thinking on their own.

My hope is that someday religions will all be gone and the world can live in
peace. But I doubt that will happen before another 100 years.

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