Guest post: Would you believe in God if no one ever told you?
Today’s guest post comes from Carnun Marcus-Page. I did a guest post at his blog earlier this week, and he has kindly returned the favour. I want to open the scope of this blog out to look at different avenues for people leaving fundamentalism. Carnun has never believed in any kind of God. Later, we’ll hear from someone who has left fundamentalism but still considers himself a follower of Jesus.
My school-life experience and secular home upbringing – aspects of my life which are ongoing – could not be further from the fundamentalism Jonny left.
As Proverbs 22:6 will tell you: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
I was not ‘trained’.
From a young age I was taught to value evidence. Everything had a reason, be it why right was right and wrong wrong; or why evolution seemed, while hard to grasp initially, the most sensible origin of all of the beautifully complex life we have on Earth today.
I was taught that adults aren’t always right, and that I should challenge teachers if I had trouble understanding or agreeing with what they said. I constantly had my hand up in primary school, asking questions.
I was taught to make my own mind up about everything: including ‘God’.
Very few get that privilege. Even in the earliest years of Primary education, children around me knew that God existed. They wouldn’t be able to tell you why, just that he did (with his obvious masculinity seeming very odd to me at the time). Naturally, I was curious.
“How do you know”, I would say; not accusingly or aggressively, but friendlily.
“Because I believe”, they would proudly assert. “Don’t you?”
“No.”
“What?” mouth open, eyes wide, “Really?”
“No, really”
This next quote I remember very vividly.
“Well then God is going to stick pins in your eyes, and you will burn in hell.”
This sentence is ingrained in my brain not because it scared me, but because it was said with a confident smile by a sweet, young, ignorant, friendly little girl. That made me sad.
I think it’s worth saying that I have never (or at least never remember) believing in God. I didn’t need to. Everything had a reason, a logical explanation.
Why were there thunderstorms? Was Zeus angry?
No, lightning was but an electrostatic discharge.
Why were there earthquakes? Was Yaweh throwing a hissy fit at homosexuals?
No, tectonic plates explained that away.
Why was there suffering in the world? Was the Devil causing crops to fail?
No. Other humans’ greed, coupled with drought and desertification, made people suffer. As well as misinformation that tended to be wholly religious in origin.
Even as a small child, I was passionately Atheist.
I wasn’t an angry Atheist, and I was open to (and enjoyed) discussion. It just always pained me to hear young children (I was a young child too, bearing in mind) tell me that their God is love, their religion is peace, and if I don’t accept that I will be punished in the most brutally painful way imaginable.
It also struck me as rather odd that children that young had any beliefs at all. I mean, how can a child really comprehend the enormity of a universal puppet master, and make their own mind up about its likelihood? How can a baby?
As I would later find Richard Dawkins argue, it felt wrong to say ‘Muslim child’, or ‘Christian child’. They were ‘children with Muslim parents’ or ‘Children with Christian parents’, as I am a child with Atheist/Agnostic parents.
Only I was allowed to make my own mind up. The ‘children with X parents’ had no choice.
Sure, I was influenced by my parents – it’d be crazy to argue otherwise. But they taught me to question them, and that’s what I did.
Mum didn’t believe in God because there was no evidence for one, and she didn’t take kindly to the paradox of supposed religious moral superiority and widespread (directly linked to particular religious teachings) misery.
My Step-Dad also didn’t see evidence for one, and vocally opposed corrosive religious teachings. But he was open to ‘God the Physicist’ – a ‘something’ which kick-started the Big Bang.
Now, as I always have, I can get into long, thorough conversations with both of my parents on the topic – and can even argue, from a physics perspective (and as a purely intellectual exercise), with the seemingly unknowable ‘God the Physicist’ hypothesis… And I thank them for it. The unrelenting curiosity they instilled in me has led to my love of science.
This is why I believe the hallmark of good parenting is not teaching your children what to think, but how to think – and the world would be a better place if this humble practice was more widespread.
That’s obviously not to say that religious parents can’t be good, loving parents… It’d just be nicer if more of them would be open to, and receptive of, their children asking questions.
Thanks to Carnun; his blog is at carnunmarcuspage.wordpress.com. The thought I put to him, as an idea for his post, was this: I sometimes feel that, if no one had ever told me about God, I would never have thought of him for myself. I was curious to see whether someone raised secular ever had a sense of God. For Carnun, that answer is no. What do you guys think?
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Posted on March 13, 2013, in Education and tagged atheism, Guest Post. Bookmark the permalink. 92 Comments.
Leaving Fundamentalism 
Has anyone, ever, had their information about any God from any source other than a received or cultural one? Think about it. If God was detectable there would be no need for pastors, vicars, bishops or popes and they would be out of a job. It is only God’s non-appearance that keeps them in their positions.
Obviously back in prehistory somebody had the idea first, in a similar way, I guess, that scientific progress is fuelled by speculation about the real world. But in the last many thousands of years this hasn’t happened. Even new gods, arguably, start off as a reaction to old gods, and this applies to ideology too.
So if someone doesn’t get that information it’s unlikely in the extreme that they would ever think of it for themselves. After all, there is no god. Our sole source is religious epistemological presumption, as Eric McDonald said recently.
My own experience is different again. Within the family environment, God never came up in conversation, and therefore neither did the recommendation of autonomy that Camun received. At school we did get all the usual stuff, but it never seemed right to me and I rejected God first in a moral sense and then ontologically by the time I was eight. I suppose I was autonomous by default. Having said that, the fact that people are religious without any rational reason to be so, I have always found interesting.
Damned spellchecker! I meant to say presupposition, not presumption.
Thanks Tom. I raise the question because fundamentalists would argue exactly the opposite: Everyone knows God exists. napplegate (whose comments you may have seen around) said, “There’s no such thing as a true atheist”. They claim that all humans are born with an innate sense of God, and see him revealed in nature, so we are “without excuse” (as the book of Romans says) for not following him.
My feeling on this is that fundamentalists are very uncomfortable with the idea of faith (that’s why they spend so much time on evidence for Creation and evidence for the resurrection), but they feel a whole lot better about it by arguing that the existence of God is just common knowledge to all humans.
Yes, indeed. I’ve heard that argument many times. Either we’re denying something that we know for a fact exists for moral reasons (how does that work?) or we subconsciously accept Christian teachings, as Christianity has dominated our culture. The problem with that is that it involves an acceptance that things are transmitted culturally, and if so, why should religion be any different? Take, for example, the question which many Catholics are currently asking themselves as to the character of the next pope, or Rowan Williams bemoaning that his church has lost an opportunity to move forward into the last century regarding female bishops.
I sometimes think that they are really trying to convince themselves.
Has Jonny not read my recent enquiry about that creationist talk in Bath?
He’s now responded here (interesting discussion):
http://forums.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3042&start=45
Really interesting post. I find it really interesting to hear from people who were not raised religious. It’s interesting to hear your perspective on religion from someone looking totally from the outside, both your perspective as a child and your perspective with hindsight. I wish I’d been exposed to you as a child because until I read the God delusion at 21 I didn’t even realise that atheism existed and that my doubts were reasonable (I really was that deluded and sheltered).
“The unrelenting curiosity they instilled in me has led to my love of science.”
I think this is best stated like so: The unrelenting curiosity I was born with as a human was not choked out of me by my parents and instead allowed to grow that has led to my love of science.
Well, there’s the comment of the week.
Agreed… I’m tempted to ask Jonny to make an edit 😛
Reblogged this on christianagnostic and commented:
Very interesting guest post over at Leaving Fundamentalism. Carnun Marcus-Page writes about being the child of Atheist parents who taught him how to think, not what to think.
Check it out when you get the chance…..
Taught not what to think but how to think…
Ditto for me and my non religious home life.
Reblogged this on The Ramblings of a Young Atheist and commented:
Here’s a little post I wrote for “Leaving Fundamentalism” entitled ‘Would you believe in a God if no one ever told you?’… Enjoy.
Yes, this is just what I’ve been mulling over lately and my last post was on is very subject. I’m trying hard not to screw up my children’s lives; sometimes that’s all a mother can aim for!
Eva
Thanks for commenting, Eva.
For anyone interested, Eva’s post is here.
Hey Carnun, thanks for the interesting train of thought. I am a christian but not a fundie (christianagnostic can vouch for that……I hope. Anyway, if I overheard my kids tell someone that I taught them how to think for themselves, I would be quite proud.
As to the question, would I believe in God without outside influences? I would like to think I would but that is me coming from a believing construct. Do children that grow up in agnostic or atheistic families tend to believe or not believe in God? For some reason, I lean towards no.
But do questioning and non-believing parents influence toward non-belief without having tried to influence the free thought of their children? I’n not sure but I’m trying to figure out how I would be able to collect and analyze information because I have a feeling we influence our children more than we realize.
Even when we want them to think for themselves.
Thanks for commenting openmine. You raise an important question (and not one that’s easy to answer).
I’ve thought a lot about this. Certainly the fundamentalists I criticise claim that a secular upbringing is just indoctrination of another kind. Of course, I wouldn’t put too much store by their opinions, but I think it’s a conversation worth having.
My feeling is that if God is real, there must be a path for finding him/her/it that’s open to everybody. it would seem wrong for God to let children go to hell – or if you don’t believe in hell, simply miss out on knowing God – just because the child’s parents don’t believe.
Statistically, children with secular upbringings don’t convert to religion very often. You could say that’s evidence they are influenced by their parents. Or you could say it’s evidence that God isn’t real, and people only believe if they have the idea planted in their minds.
As you might guess from the phrasing of this post’s title, I lean towards the latter view, but I’m interested in people who want to make different cases.
God has put an inner-consciousness of Himself ( that He exists) so far into each and every individual that we are “without excuse” as the book of Romans puts it. I remember from the debate that I had with Allan T a few weeks ago when I mentioned that every remote village in the middle of Africa or wherever they are have a deity or deities that they worship. Obviously, the religions have been passed down from generation to generation. But what about the first native who came up with those religions. The human mind naturally wonders at the universe and the world and says, “where did this come from?” Allan T argued that the fact that natives have religions is insignificant as most of their gods or godesses are of animals. However, let us step back and look into these religions a little closer. The native North American Indians had many gods. One of these gods was known as the Great Spirit. In their religion, the Great Spirit was in control of everything, including their other gods. This god would be the equivilent of the Greek god Zeus. Many natives see something like a volcano or a deadly animal and they either come up with a god for it, or they interpret a volcanic eruption or an animal attack as the gods being angry with them. Did you catch that? Not only do all people including the natives know that there is some sort of god, but they also know right from wrong, and that God defines it. There is no relative truth, truth is constant. It applies to everyone. Having said that, I can say for a fact that I would believe God exists.
I disagree with your idea that belief in a god is somehow natural; I never had it. My parents sent me to Sunday school but I never understood why we were singing and praying to something that clearly didn’t exist. At six I told my parents that god didn’t exist. They still sent me to Sunday school because it was “good for me” (or gave them a couple of hours peace on a Sunday morning). The belief in a god never came.
I always thought that the sense of community gained from belonging to a religious group would be great but could never get past the need for belief in deity and the bigoted views that go along with it.
So sorry but I just can’t agree with the idea of an ingrained belief in god, I never had one and I doubt you would have had one without the indoctrination you have received from your family.
Also I find that your use of the term “native” and “natives” makes your post sound extremely patronising and prejudiced
Likewise I had no experience of religeon until I went to school, where it was part of the daily assembly. From that early age belief in God seemed totally illogical and I resented the imposition of the belief in a God of Love who was prepared to do absolutely horrid things to people like me just because I could see no reason to believe in him.I used to envy the Jewish, Hindu and Moslem kids who were excused (and also going to Hell) and allowed to read in the library.
So, just to clarify, you think that the Christian god, Zeus, Allah, various Hindu deities, whatever, are manifestations of the same God?
Will you be making this machine that allows you to visit alternative realities available to the general public?
The reason you never believed that God exists is three-fold. First, when you were sent to sunday school, you were very young. When is the last time you heard of a child comming up with his/her own religion and deity? It is often the adults who would do that. The older you get, the more your brain developes, the more most people mature, and the more understanding one gains. When you were younger, you probably didn’t consider where the world came from. Second, when you did hear about God, you repressed that wonder of ” is there a God out there?” Third, you never dilligently sought God with your whole heart. In Jeremiah 29:13, the Bible says: “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” In Matthew 7:7, the Bible says: “… seek and ye shall find…” Of all the reasons you never believed in God, the third reason is the biggest. You never sought for Him with all your heart.
napplegate, I presume your comment is in response to Clair. I can’t speak for her, but I can answer it for myself.
It’s the second two points you make that I’d like to discuss.
I’d just like to point out that these are two very judgemental claims you have made. When I was a Christian, I used to hear non-Christians saying “You Christians are so judgemental all the time!” and I had no idea what they meant. I didn’t think I was judgemental. The Bible told me not to judge, and I thought I was obeying that. Maybe it’s the same for you. So the answer is, this. What you just did up there? That’s being judgemental. In this case, you’re making (negative) assumptions about the inner workings of people hearts and minds that you cannot possibly know.
I realise that you think you do know, because you believe that if someone wonders if there is a God, and genuinely seeks Him, they will always find Him. Would I be correct in saying that belief is very important to you? It was important to me. I believed in a just God who treated everybody equally. Salvation was available to everyone who looked for it.
Because you believe that, if you meet someone who doesn’t believe God exists, then clearly they haven’t looked for him sincerely, right? Simple.
The problem with this is that it wasn’t true for me. I am not a Christopher Hitchens-style atheist who hated the idea of God. Losing my faith was an agonising process over many years, with many hours spent on my knees crying out, “Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief!” I asked. I sought. I knocked. I prayed. I didn’t want to be an atheist. I went to different churches. I called out to God. A world without God terrified me and all I wanted was to believe.
And, for me, God was simply not there.
Perhaps you will not believe me. That’s up to you. But if you do that, you have to call me a liar. Even if I am a liar, there are thousands of other people with stories like mine. Are you sure they’re all liars? Perhaps you are. Perhaps you believe we’re all so blinded by the devil that there is no truth in us. If you spent some time hanging out with me, you’d find I’m someone who values honesty very highly.
Of course, all that doesn’t show that God doesn’t exist. But it does, I think, contradict the simplistic belief that everyone who seeks God will find him.
Oh sweet Napplegate, I’ve missed you. You never got back to me on my lost post to you.
Anyways, I’ll make this quick. Read, ‘The Evolution of God’ by Robert Wright. It might give you a better understanding of this whole concept of ‘god(s)’ as we human beings pretend to understand them.
Napplegate not replying to you might because I closed the thread, Aram.
“if no one had ever told me about God, I would never have thought of him for myself. I was curious to see whether someone raised secular ever had a sense of God. For Carnun, that answer is no. What do you guys think?”
Asking what we all think may be the wrong question if you are a rationalist. The right question is surely what does the evidence show?
I have seen several studies on this (of which this is one) which show that belief in God is natural, and left to themselves, children would generally believe. The research and the reasons are quite clear if you read up on it.
It seems that this is just one of several places where Richard Dawkins, leading many other atheists, has forsaken science for dogma and wish-fulfilment. (Here’s another example.)
Best wishes.
unkleE! It’s been a long time. Welcome back to the blog.
In response to whether the right question is “what does the evidence show?” for a rationalist, I suppose you are right. I am of the opinion that there is no evidence for God.
Nevertheless, some people feel they have a sense of God, or some gut instinct, or however else they choose to express what drives their faith. These people believe, simply put. Unlike some atheists, I think this is beyond criticism. I don’t believe personally, but I can’t definitely say they’re wrong. By contrast, I think people who believe in God on the basis of empirical evidence are simply mistaken.
So my view is this: Maybe there are ways of knowing God (or knowing about him/her/it) which are not empirical. But then I think, if the supernatural deity is at all fair, these ways of knowing must be open to everybody.
I have no sense of God, and I rather doubt I would ever have believed if I had not been raised to do so. There is testimony here and elsewhere from people who weren’t raised religious that they never believed in God. Christopher Hitchens’ memoirs are another example.
If God is real (and, as Christians claim, desires a relationship with humans), I would expect the sense of God to be universal. I have heard (as you say) that there is evidence that children can believe of their own accord, but this seems to be far from being true for all children. To claim otherwise is to say that a lot of people are lying.
too long, didn’t read: I think the existence of atheists poses a challenge to the existence of God.
Oh, I really wasn’t trying to be judgemental with my post. I understand why you say that I was being judgemental there. I particularly understand the second point being judgemental. “…you repressed that wonder of ‘is there a God out there…” It has been said that hindsight is 20/20. Looking back on that post, I now realize how judgemental that is, and I am sorry about that. I sould have said something like “This may not be the case, but maybee…” or “I am not saying indefinitely, but there is a posibility that…” then go on with the second point. Now that you brought up your experience on your knees, I have little more understanding about why you don’t believe God exists. Please understand, I am not saying this indefinitely, and nor am I judgemental by saying this, but it is possible that you never truly were “saved”. It is possible that you may have merely said a prayer without understanding or not meaning what you said. Once again, I am not saying that you are not “saved” indefinitely, what I am saying though, is that it is a posibility. Now let us move on to the third point. The way that you seek God is to truly be “saved.” The way to be saved is to realize that you, as a human being are a sinner on your way to eternal separation from God. There is nothing that you can do to save yourself. Jesus is the only way to Heaven. Jesus said in the book of John “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man commeth unto the Father, but by me.” Jesus took all my sin, and died on cross for it. Then trust Christ as your personal Saviour. Romans 13:10 says “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
You’re a good guy, napplegate. I think we probably disagree on almost everything, but as a wise man once told me, it’s OK to disagree.
OK, so you’ve said maybe I don’t believe God because I was never truly saved. I’m going to put that a slightly different way: Did I truly believe?
I have to say that, yes, I absolutely believed I was a sinner on my way to eternal separation from God (let’s avoid the euphemism and call it hell). I had a strong conviction that Jesus was the only way to salvation. I trusted in him as my personal Saviour. I was absolutely sincere in my beliefs. I’ve already posted some vlogs with footage of myself as a child, and I have more. There is no question that I was a true Christian.
I simply don’t believe it anymore.
There seems to be little doubt that the persistence of religion is in no small part due to its ability to provide “answers” to apparently fundamental questions, although we know in one way at least answers don’t have to be right to still be answers.
As to the existence of a god or gods, in the same way it is the power of suggestion that completes this answer insofar as a young, philosophically defenceless, child can readily accept any particular godly suggestion. From the précis provided in your linked article, although it might be true that children vaguely “believe”, nowhere does it suggest precisely what it is they believe in and that is by default left in the hands of those who can influence the child.
I stand by my earlier comments that, left to their own devices, people would not automatically postulate any particular god, and the fact that in later life they do so is nothing more than an acceptance of epistemological presupposition on a receptive mind, easily countered, as in Camun’s case. I notice that you use the capitalised (i.e. specific) version of God indicating that you think that children are naturally inclined towards Christianity (correct me if I’m wrong, please). But while biology and psychology might indicate a natural attractiveness towards the acceptance of the idea, the idea of any god is just something that has been implanted on such a receptive mind.
The idea that God exists because of the way a small child thinks is derisory and brings no credit to the religious viewpoint. Just as a primitive person might speculate that volcanic eruptions or animal attacks are to be thought of evidence for gods, as napplegate suggests, these events, being untested, serve more as evidence of epistemological limitations than anything else.
While I can’t speak for Jonny, here’s the correction you asked for: I wrote ‘God’ with a capital ‘G’ only out of habit. There is no deeper meaning. The ‘God’ I’m referring to is any sort of theistic view towards existence, not just the God of the Bible.
I hope that clears things up 🙂
“I have heard (as you say) that there is evidence that children can believe of their own accord, but this seems to be far from being true for all children.”
Thanks for the welcome. All my point was that the research suggests that generally children find it easy to believe, not just that they “can” find it easy (as you have said), or (as has mostly been said here) that they don’t naturally believe. Generally they do naturally believe, but of course not all. That’s what the research says.
“I stand by my earlier comments that, left to their own devices, people would not automatically postulate any particular god”
Hi Tom, I think you are probably right. The research doesn’t seem to suggest that children would come up with any dogma about God, but it does suggest that they find it easy to believe there’s a supernatural caring being that we generally call God
“The idea that God exists because of the way a small child thinks is derisory and brings no credit to the religious viewpoint.”
I’m not sure if you are responding to me here, but I certainly didn’t say this. But I hardly think the thought is “derisory”. After all, we have evolved so that a small child cries when it is hungry and it gets fed because there really are parents. Generally, we have evolved so that our brains think thinks that work out practically, otherwise we wouldn’t have survived. So maybe, just maybe, the small child has evolved to naturally think there’s a God because that also is true??
Well, yes, it would help if you would distinguish between upper-case and lower-case gods. Note that the title of this blog entry explicitly mentions the upper-case version.
As for things being easy to believe, I can think of countless examples of things being easy to believe but which nevertheless are not true – ancient volcanic eruptions as punishment for moral transgression being one of them.
I accept that you didn’t explicitly state that an immature belief is evidence for God, but I have noticed that whenever scientific study reveals such results (i.e. that psychologically in our early years we are accepting of god-belief) then religious apologists are usually quick to claim such evidence in their support. You are no different here, albeit that you speak of possibilities rather than certainties.
Suppose parents are indifferent to the cries of their child – rare but hardly unknown. Would this prevent the child from crying when he is hungry or in pain? The child here is not a practising rationalist, and his beliefs – if we can call them that – are not a practical response to reality in such cases. You could make a better argument for the connection between evolutionary behaviour and survival based on the effect that a child’s cries has on his parents rather than on the child himself.
In any case, pragmatic beliefs – often the preserve of the religious themselves – while philosophically interesting, are not to be trusted as knowledge. If, as you say, the child’s cries are useful to the child, and therefore a pragmatic belief, it doesn’t follow that other such beliefs reflect an underlying reality.
So maybe, just maybe, the small child has evolved to naturally think there’s a God because that also is true??
We assign agency where there is none all the time. That’s why we yell at machinery – not because it might just possibly be populated by gremlins susceptible to our pleas or haunted by spooks in need of being mollified but because we are better off believing the rustling in the grass really is caused by something wanting to kill us… even if we’re wrong 999 out of a 1000. The person who believes no such thing and is right 999 time out of a 1000 is still dead in comparison to the believer.
“We assign agency where there is none all the time.”
Hi tildeb.
We also all the time assign agency where there is indeed some. That’s why we yell at people who annoy us sometimes. That’s why we take antibiotics when we have a bacterial infection.
I wonder why you assumed one side of the story and ignored the possibility of the other side?
My point was to offer a reasonable explanation why children assign agency: it’s a biological advantage to do so. In no way, shape, or fashion does this tendency offer us any reason to suspect the agency so imagined – arising as it does from ourselves – is itself true, is causal, is efficacious. Faith-based belief never, ever, produces knowledge. For that, we need reality to adjudicate the beliefs we favour. If and only if the imagined agency is supported by causal evidence from reality – like people who annoy us and bacterial infections – do we then gain anything like knowledge of such agency. My acceptance or ignoring of supposed agency doesn’t matter, you see (I – like everyone – fool myself all the time); what matters is respecting reality’s role rather than faith-based beliefs in arbitrating claims made about it. And that’s why the propensity for humans to assign agency cannot be considered the slightest evidence in favour of the agency itself.
I’ve made an unrelated comment at Jonny’s preceding blog re a creationist talk in Bath that he attended last year. A YEC who was present has presented his account of events here:
http://forums.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3042&start=30
“I accept that you didn’t explicitly state that an immature belief is evidence for God, but I have noticed that whenever scientific study reveals such results (i.e. that psychologically in our early years we are accepting of god-belief) then religious apologists are usually quick to claim such evidence in their support. You are no different here, albeit that you speak of possibilities rather than certainties.”
Hello again Tom. But you have made an assumption about me that is quite mistaken when you say “you are no different here.”
If you check back, my initial comment said nothing about claiming evidence in my support and that indeed wasn’t my purpose. I was simply concerned to point out that non-believers generally claim to be rationalist, and criticise believers for not basing their views on evidence, and yet here was a case where it was the non-believers were ignoring the evidence in favour of what they think, or want, to be true. That was all.
I only ventured into the area of apologetics because you did first, when you said the idea (which I hadn’t mentioned) is “derisory”, which is a fairly strong statement. I felt that was worth commenting on.
So let me clarify. I do not think the fact that children find it natural to believe in God is significant evidence in support of the existence of God. But I do think:
1. It is consistent with belief in God.
2. It is way too strong a statement to say it is “derisory”.
3. In this discussion, Johnny, and others here including you, have ignored the scientific evidence on this matter.
Can we make peace on those terms?? : )
UnkleE, you say that you have seen several studies on this which show that belief in God is natural, and left to themselves, children would generally believe. (…) It seems that this is just one of several places where Richard Dawkins, leading many other atheists, has forsaken science for dogma and wish-fulfilment.
This line of reasoning is criticizing Dawkins, as well as those who respect his contribution to both evolutionary biology and new atheism, for not following what you think qualifies as scientific evidence. But scientific evidence for what?
Well, ou ask/assert So maybe, just maybe, the small child has evolved to naturally think there’s a God because that also is true?? Here you are suggesting in the form of a question (with two question marks, no less) that the scientific evidence is that children believe in God because there may be a caring supernatural intervening agency called God.
But is this what the scientific evidence is actually suggesting?
Of course not. That’s why your criticism of Dawkins is completely misplaced – not because of what you presume is his ‘dogma’ but – because there isn’t a shred of scientific evidence to support an affirming answer to your question! You’re trying to use science to support something it does not support.
I pointed out that humans come equipped to assume agency for all kinds of beneficial reasons completely separate from whether or not that particular claim to agency is true. THAT is what the studies show. We are pattern seeking, meaning making critters, and we do that by projecting our humanity into nature so that we may believe that we better understand its motives and dangers. Yet those who want to artificially create an accommodation for religious beliefs that, in fact and practice, stand contrary to and in conflict with well supported scientific explanations seems to me to be a rather good example of neither appreciating nor understanding what the scientific evidence actually is. To then use that misunderstanding to intentionally try to casually smear a highly respected atheist falls squarely into ‘wish-fulfillment’.
1. A biological disposition to create agency is not necessarily consistent with belief in God if that belief has particulars. This works only with a generic notion of a god.
2. This propensity to assign agency is not evidence for any god or God. the suggestion it perhaps, maybe, might be, could possibly be evidence for God is accurately described as derisory.
3. No one is ignoring any scientific evidence here but there is someone who is intentionally misrepresenting it and that is you.
I would prefer if people would respect what reality tells us is true about it – first and foremost – over and above respecting people’s beliefs that often stand contrary to it. In that regard, perhaps you could stop your drive-by smearing of atheists in general and Dawkins in particular if you wish to attach peace with that mutual respect honoring what’s true.
I’m sorry tildeb, but you are tilting at a windmill (to corn a phrase).
I said that there was scientific evidence against what people were saying here about whether it is natural for children to believe in God, which Richard Dawkins was also saying.
No-one has yet contested that with any counter evidence.
Then, as an aside, I suggested that Tom (and now you) were making statements that were beyond the evidence about the possibility that a child’s perception might be accurate. But you seem to have missed how I summed up my view:
“I do not think the fact that children find it natural to believe in God is significant evidence in support of the existence of God. But I do think:
1. It is consistent with belief in God.
2. It is way too strong a statement to say it is “derisory”.
3. In this discussion, Johnny, and others here including you, have ignored the scientific evidence on this matter.”
So I was quite clear about what the evidence said, and what my somewhat tentative opinions were – which were not drawing any conclusion beyond questioning the certainty for yours and Tom’s conclusions.
So there is indeed serious scientific evidence for what I am asserting, just no scientific evidence for what I didn’t assert, and no scientific evidence for what you and Tom did indeed assert.
So if we are to continue the discussion, I hope we can confine it to what I did say:
1. That scientific evidence shows that it is natural for children to believe in God.
2. That statements that their belief is clearly wrong go beyond the evidence.
Do you have any disagreement about those two propositions?
Yes, I do have disagreements about your summation.
You think I said that the human mind has evolved so that it is to think that God exists.
I said no such thing. What I did say was that We assign agency where there is none all the time. Please note the differences. Because I assign agency to machinery (when it’s convenient for my anger to find a target) doesn’t mean I think god exists any more than children who assign agency to a bouncing ball think God exists. This tendency is biological and not theological. And the importance here is that we do assign agency – not because the agency is true and real and causal but because our biology has brought this willingness forward not for reasons of ascertaining what is true and real but because it offers an advantage to reproduction. We assign agency to wind and waves and stars and many go one step further to assign intention. This is a mistake – one commonly referred to as metaphysics – but a very common one… one attributed to the nature of things (as if things possessed a nature) and one that Galileo showed was entirely misplaced.
So when you say it is ‘natural’ for children to believe in God – as if that contained ‘evidence’ that religious belief is biological, you are making a mistake interpreting the data to mean something it does not mean. It has nothing to do with God but everything to do with assigning agency. These are not equivalent terms so they are not equivalent conclusions. Your summation is not an accurate interpretation of what the data shows us. And you can test this for yourself: substitute pixies and pink unicorns for “God” and you’ll quickly see where you go wrong; belief in agency does not mean it is ‘natural’ to believe in any of these specific notions any more than it is ‘natural’ to believe in God (of whatever specificity you care to name). To be clear, it is anything but ‘natural’ to believe in the christian god; for that, you need specific guidance (usually a childhood indoctrination) accompanied by all the specifics that must be learned. Reality doesn’t provide any evidence to come to this belief unaided, which is why it is quite reasonable to suggest the belief is entirely artificial (meaning made by man). The faith-based belief in God describes the belief itself and not anything we can attribute to the reality we share. In this sense, not believing in the claims about god or pixies or pink unicorns – from children or anyone else – is the default position. So when you say that statements that their belief is clearly wrong go beyond the evidence you are mixing up the burden of proof; we can quite reasonably say that the positive claim about God’s existence – like the positive claim for pixies and pink unicorns – does not have any evidence ascertainable in reality to support it. That means it is reasonable to not share that artificial belief. We can also safely say that faith-based belief describes the belief itself – the one that is learned – and not the reality we share because the source is entirely man made.
I hope that helps clarify why teaching children faith-based beliefs by abusing the biological tendency to assign agency is counterproductive to learning how to think well.
First of all, I’m not clear what you mean by “make peace”. I can assure you that there is no hostility on my part. If you consider that I am mistaken or have misrepresented you then I welcome your interaction. However, having debated Christians extensively over the years I am used to comments along the lines of “I must have hit a nerve”. To be sure, this is not an exclusively Christian trait. But a reader could be forgiven, when reading your comment, for thinking that I was a typical “strident atheist”. I give you the benefit of the doubt and accept that this is not what you intended, but if you intend to continue then please could you stick to the issues and refrain from such comments?
As for your three points:
“1. It is consistent with belief in God.”
Sure, what isn’t? As an aside I’m not an atheist for simple non-evidential reasons. The properties of God are non-cognitive and, furthermore, my view is that God is irrational based on the fact that reality does not conform to wishes or desires. The Christian idea that reality conforms to a subjective consciousness is contrary to what we actually observe and also contrary to the vast majority of our communication. But I digress. For the purposes of this argument only I accept the view of God as an objectively undetectable, transcendent or immanent being.
In this respect the fact that I am an atheist is consistent with God. A small army of apologists will tell you that any amount of horrors, including, say, Treblinka, is consistent with God. God is defined in such a way that anything is consistent with him. Perhaps you would let us know of any conceivable situation that is not consistent with God.
“2. It is way too strong a statement to say it is “derisory”.”
I don’t think so. dictionary.com defines derisory as worthy of ridicule or mockery, and this is certainly true of the view that an immature mind somehow has the cognitive capability to discern the presence of such a transcendent or immanent being which is immune to objective rational analysis. It smacks of desperation and cries out for ridicule. Don’t get me wrong, I respect Christians as persons for their views as much as any other, but as for the views themselves, I am not a cultural relativist and consider that they rightly ought to be shown as ridiculous.
“3. In this discussion, Johnny, and others here including you, have ignored the scientific evidence on this matter.”
I’m not sure what Jonny has said because he has barely addressed this part of the discussion, but I’d be interested to know where you think I’ve ignored the scientific evidence. The question, as evinced in the thread title, which is “Would you believe in God if no one ever told you?” Camun has clarified his position here, stating that he was referring to the concept of gods, rather than any specific god. However, I know of no case in which belief in the Christian God or any other culturally-expressed deity has arisen naturally within a person not previously exposed to the idea. Even in the linked scientific study, it is clearly suggested that at least some of the children from the study have been exposed to such ideas.
As far as vague ideas of gods within a child’s imagination are concerned, I readily accept that this is true enough. This is hardly surprising, as young children, in their early lives, are accustomed to seeing the world as the product of a conscious entity, whether it is their parents or something else, and as tildeb has pointed out, even as adults we regularly imagine agency where none exists. My wife, for example, frequently gives me the impression that computers are malevolent demons out to get her. But in general, as a child gets older it becomes more apparent that reality does not conform to consciousness. Until, that is, he or she is influenced by parents, teachers, friends or others to accept whatever specific god they have in mind. This reinforcement is in most cases done at a time when the childish mind is still susceptible to such ideas, and the propounded undetectable nature of these gods works in the favour of those putting forward such a view. I’m sure that, like me, you have been accosted by some panentheist or representative of some new-age guru during later life and dismissed such interference as absurd just as I dismiss the idea of the Christian God as such.
In general we accept that reality doesn’t conform to (a) consciousness and the imaginary is of a different nature to the real. I can imagine my house, I can imagine a Labrador chasing a rabbit on Mars or I can imagine God, as examples. All these things are true to my imagination, but this says nothing about reality. Certainly I have a house, but its existence, while corresponding to what I imagine, doesn’t depend on it. All these things, my house, the dog or God, are real for other reasons or are are not real. I have grounds for believing I have a house which are outside whatever I imagine and I have no such grounds for believing in the existence of the dog or God. So I see no good reason why imagination can be used as grounds for claiming the existence of a god or anything else.
This particular study is rather sloppy, at least in terms of its presentation. I find it difficult to believe on this limited basis that Oxford University would produce such stuff. For one thing they seem to conflate “belief in gods” with religion, and as we all know, they are not one and the same. “Religious concepts” can quite easily exist in the absence of religion so it’s not at all clear what the authors mean when they say that “…attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived…” Who wants to suppress religion, anyway? Religion should take its chance in the marketplace of ideas just like anything else, and these ideas should stand or fall on their conformance to reality, again like anything else.
The study vaguely links religion with societal benefit, while conceding that the presence of alternative social structures would have a detrimental affect on religious adherence, which makes me wonder what the purpose of this project was, as what does this have to do with a “natural” belief in a god? Perhaps the authors are suggesting that religions are repositories where people can anchor their god-beliefs in the absence of anywhere else to put them. All-in-all a very sloppy piece of work, at least in overview.
Hi tildeb, thanks for your further comment. But I wonder if you have thought through the implications of what you have just said.
“My point was to offer a reasonable explanation why children assign agency: it’s a biological advantage to do so. In no way, shape, or fashion does this tendency offer us any reason to suspect the agency so imagined – arising as it does from ourselves – is itself true, is causal, is efficacious.”
So we agree we have evolved so that genetic characteristics that give us an advantage are reinforced. You say that the human mind has evolved so that it is to think that God exists, and this gives us a biological advantage, but the belief is nevertheless wrong.
So if that is the case, (1) drawing incorrect conclusions can still give us an evolutionary advantage, and (2) the cognitive faculties that we have evolved are not necessarily trustworthy. But you just used those same cognitive faculties to draw that conclusion! So maybe that conclusion is just as wrong? Maybe every one of your conclusions is just as wrong? Maybe your whole argument is self-defeating?
Sorry, the second sentence above should have said “so it is natural to think …”
“You think I said that the human mind has evolved so that it is to think that God exists.
I said no such thing.”
I’m sorry tildeb, but I think we are getting tangled up. I corrected that sentence to say ” the human mind has evolved so that it is natural to think that God exists”. You may have missed that. This is what the research says, and you responded: “My point was to offer a reasonable explanation why children assign agency: it’s a biological advantage to do so”
So was not your “children assign agency” your response to my statement about the research? Or were you talking about something different to the research? If I have misunderstood you I am sorry.
” What I did say was that We assign agency where there is none all the time. “
Yes, I understand this, but I pointed out that often when we assign agency we are correct, so that statement of itself tell us nothing.
“So when you say it is ‘natural’ for children to believe in God – as if that contained ‘evidence’ that religious belief is biological, you are making a mistake interpreting the data to mean something it does not mean.”
That is what you say, but this is what the newspaper report said:
“The studies (both analytical and empirical) conclude that humans are predisposed to believe in God and an afterlife, and that both theology and atheism are reasoned responses to what is a basic impulse of the human mind, a university release said.”
Further, I read up more on the Oxford University website and the press release and I found similar words. So, are you asking me to believe what you say over against what the Oxford university study team says?
It seems to me we are in danger of going round in circles. May I therefore ask again whether you disagree with these two statements:
1. That scientific evidence (the Oxford University study) shows that it is natural for children to believe in God. To make clear, do you believe I have misrepresented the study, or do you believe other studies show something different?
2. That statements that their belief is clearly wrong go beyond the evidence.
Thanks again.
Look, my criticism is that a branch has been confused for the root. The root cause of belief in gods and ghosts and goblins is our biological propensity to assign agency in the same way the root cause of political tyranny is our biological propensity to yield to authority. It’s important to get the order right so that we may better understand causal efficacy. Religious belief is one result. Believing in ghosts is another. Believing in homeopathy is another. And the list is very long. These are specific results and not causes for belief in supernatural agency.
If you get the order wrong, you’ll get horrifically bad ‘studies’ and this is what we have from the Oxford team that has produced a paper you think is good science. It isn’t.
Did you happen to notice the project goal? Let me quote:
The overarching goal of the project is to support scientific research that promises to yield new evidence regarding how the structures of human minds inform and constrain religious expression. The project will conduct research on the cognitive underpinnings of religious concepts and practices – for example, ideas about gods and spirits, the afterlife, spirit possession, prayer, ritual, religious expertise, and connections between religious thought and morality and pro-social behaviour. Research is not limited to any particular religious belief or tradition. Indeed, much scholarship in this area is concerned to explain broad patterns of recurrence and variation in religious concepts and practices across diverse cultural and ecological contexts, and throughout history and pre-history. The project forms part of a broader field of interdisciplinary scholarship on the cognitive foundations of cultural expression more generally.
That’s why it’s a meta-study intentionally looking for support for religious belief by attributing very broad cognitive ‘underpinnings’ to be acceptable evidence.
Do you see the problem yet?
This is the cart before the horse (before the study even begins, we already know the result) and any first year science student should recognize the danger immediately: this is an exercise is confirmation bias.
Let’s continue our investigation into the quality of this ‘research’.
First: who is doing this scientific research for broad cognitive underpinnings?
Well, we have experimental psychologist Dr Justin Barrett (Primary Investigator, Centre for Anthropology and Mind), philosopher Prof Roger Trigg (Co-Investigator, Ian Ramsey Centre), and Dr Miguel Farais (Theology).
The science part of this team is Barrett, who describes himself to be “an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” as he wrote in an e-mail message. “I believe that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.” (a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html?pagewanted=11&ei=5087&em&en=166dbd9e75680e73&ex=1173243600&adxnnlx=1305522983-QuW2p/rqr7fhZhVgOHHeqg&_r=0”>NY Times)
So is anyone surprised that the paper leans towards philosophy and theology, neither of which is good science?
Second: what about funding? How does more than three million from the religious promoting Templeton Foundation affect the direction of this ‘scientific research’?
Well, I think it adversely affects what the results are going to be: biased.
Are we surprised that the conclusion promotes religious belief to be the default position when this was the stated goal by dedicated people who are funded to reach this goal?
Yet when one does a google search to find information about this topic that offers any evidence linking religious belief to belief in agency, one is inundated with links back to this one study as if the conclusion has been reached ‘scientifically’. This is why I continue to point out that what the data from dozens of child development studies actually shows (before being hijacked by this group) is that humans are predisposed to assign agency. Agency is not the equivalent term to ‘religious’ but this is EXACTLY what the Oxford team has assumed in order to inform their ‘study’ to be legitimate and meaningful ‘evidence’ for claiming religious belief is ‘natural’, claiming that we are predisposed to believe in gods and an afterlife. Rubbish. Religious belief is at best a single branch of this propensity to assign agency, derived from seeing what appears to be a designed world filled with agency and assumed intention (purpose) and not the root biological condition as this meta-study presents to us.
It is no more natural to believe in any specific gods than it is to believe in any specific ghosts. But the belief does not show us whether or not that assigned agency is in fact and reality a causal effect. The propensity to believe in assigned agency, however, is clearly biological in origin and religious belief is one of many results. And this presents us with knowledge to arm ourselves against being fooled by our misguided, misplace beliefs. Claims for causal agency – regardless if they involve gods, ghosts, or goblins – require more than belief to make them real. Calling any of these beliefs ‘natural’ is a distortion of what’s really going on here and serves only to fool us into confusing the cart with the horse as this team from Oxford has been fooled.
I was going to speculate that the study stunk of Templeton, but forgot. Thanks for pointing that out.
You’re quite welcome. Funding came from the John Templeton Foundation for $3,876,247.
Thanks tildeb, you have made your position clear now.
This study is conducted by Oxford University and involves 57 researchers from at least five countries (UK, USA, Australia, China, and Canada). It has so far published dozens of papers in recognised peer reviewed journals. And yet because you don’t like the outcomes and the source of funding, and because the lead researcher is a christian, you feel free to impugn him and the rest of this team and accuse the whole project of bias. Therefore you say the results are wrong even though you haven’t so far offered any contrary research.
(In passing, you haven’t explained the David Sloan Wilson article I referenced which also criticises Richard Dawkins for unscientific views on religion similar (in some respects) to what you are presenting here – and Wilson is an atheist.)
Imagine what you would say if I was a young earth creationist, and I opposed the research of an evolutionary biologist because he or she was an atheist!!
But I appreciate you sharing your views in this way. You have shown you would rather believe unsubstantiated libel about reputable universities and researchers rather than believe the research or offer contrary research. We have reached an end point in our discussion – where the christian believes the evidence and the atheist does not – and I can’t see there is any point in discussing further. Do you agree?
Thank you and best wishes.
UnkleE, you are the one who introduced atheism as a factor by suggesting that the believer is the one following the evidence about belief in god being ‘natural’ while the atheist is the one following dogma. This is simply not true, which I have explained several times now and which you have simply ignored in order, I presume, to maintain your opinion that the evidence for belief in god is ‘scientific’. Again, it is not.
What the science actually reveals is a willingness to believe in agency of which god is but a single data point equivalent to ghosts and goblins and pixies and leprechauns and malignant and benign spirits of air, water, fire, and earth, and so on. It is those with a theological agenda (bought and paid for) to insert ‘god’ in place of ‘agency’ from all this data and pretend they are equivalent terms when they are not. I continue to point this fundamental flaw out to you… to absolutely no effect.
I have tried repeatedly to get you to appreciate this important difference between generic agency of all kinds that people believe in, regardless of whether the agency is true in reality or not, but you won’t even recognize that such a difference matters in the process of doing good science; instead, you continue to maintain that belief in ‘god’ is natural and therefore scientifically valid, that this ‘scientific evidence’ is ignored by atheists but not believers, and my-oh-my but isn’t that ironic. No, it’s not ironic because it’s not true in reality.
Again, I’ve explained several times now in different ways why it’s not true. And it matters to me (if not you) that we exchange ideas and opinions with the goal of finding out what’s true rather than what is simply believed to be true. And what’s true in this case is that reality offers us no evidence to follow that would lead us ‘naturally’ to belief in a christian god, or a muslim god, or a hindu god, or a jewish god, or any other god you care to name; to find out about these beliefs requires a teacher. You ignore this key factor. This means that the claim made by the trio of bought and paid for investigators to make belief in religions seem ‘natural’ have put together a meta-study that cherry picks data of “57 researchers from at least five countries (UK, USA, Australia, China, and Canada) (who have) so far published dozens of papers in recognised peer reviewed journals.” And this lack of vigor to do good science is obvious from the method they admit using, namely, allowing any ‘underpinnings’ to stand in for ‘belief in god’. In case you missed it the first time around, let me reiterate: they used references to various beliefs in various agencies to mean what they wanted it to mean when they admitted to using any and all ” ideas about gods and spirits, the afterlife, spirit possession, prayer, ritual, religious expertise, and connections between religious thought and morality and pro-social behaviour” to mean a ‘natural’ belief in god. All of this to them MEANS belief in god rather than what it actually is, namely, attributing agency (and purpose) to a world that looks designed, and it all these references that is used by them to indicate belief in god to be ‘natural’. That is not ‘scientific’, unkleE; that’s theology in action pretending to be what it is not: good science. And to be absolutely clear, you’ve fallen for it hook, line, and sinker not out of ignorance but out of desire to smear atheists as people who avoid scientific evidence while and pretending that it is believers who follow it to attain their ‘natural’ religious belief. I suspect there is nothing anyone can say will alter the fatally flawed method by which you reach such an obviously incorrect conclusion, namely, that until you decide that finding out what’s true in reality matters more than what people would like to believe is true, what others say contrary to your beliefs simply doesn’t matter. I just wish you had stated this first so that I wouldn’t have wasted my time and effort here.
” I’m not clear what you mean by “make peace”. I can assure you that there is no hostility on my part. “
Hi Tom. No, I didn’t feel any hostility. It was just an expression. Perhaps I should have said “agreement”. Sorry for any confusion.
Thanks for your reply. I’ll only comment briefly, as I don’t think we are going to get any closer to agreement.
“This particular study is rather sloppy, at least in terms of its presentation. I find it difficult to believe on this limited basis that Oxford University would produce such stuff.”
I am glad to see that your objection to the study is that it is “sloppy”, not that it is biased as tildeb has said. That is at least a lesser accusation. But I also note that you suggest in your last sentence that you have only read the study “in overview” – have I understood that correctly? In which case, the sloppiness you perceive may only be in your own understanding because you have read it too briefly – I don’t know.
Anyway, here is a major study about how children come to belief in God, and it seems to contradict the original blog post and most of the discussion, but no-one seems interested in it except to find fault without actually reading much of it. (I admit I haven’t read much either, but I am happy to accept the press release.)
So as I said to tildeb, the christian is accepting the evidence while the atheists are not, nor are they refuting it, except with unsubstantiated accusations.
This was all I hoped to point out when I made my first comment – that people who claim to be evidence-based rationalists are not always as they claim, and the resulting discussion has demonstrated that, it seems to me. I mean no nastiness, as you and everyone else have been very courteous, which I appreciate, but I am disappointed.
Thanks for reading this rave. Best wishes.
The link that you provided, and Oxford University’s own media blurb, were themselves only overviews, and I didn’t look any further at that stage. So you are correct – my description of the work as sloppy was indeed based on a cursory view, which is what you provided, and to which I readily concede.
One reason I described it so was the connection that the authors seemed to feel was present between childhood cognition and “suppression of religion”. Why, I asked myself, would the authors feel that they should include this apparently irrelevant opinion among their findings, especially when they concede that religious adherence is only one of a large number of potential outlets for social interaction.
As soon as I posted I noticed that tildeb had also done so, almost at the same time as myself. So I immediately read his post, noticed that he had looked at the study in more detail. I then did my own digging, and was forced to come to the same conclusion as tildeb.
I am not saying that the scientific opinions of religious scientists should be rejected by default. The Catholic Ken Miller, for example, by his understanding and communication of evolutionary theory, was paramount in the destruction of the defendants’ case at the Dover trial. I do have some problems with some of Miller’s other views but have no hesitation in identifying him as a serious scientist, dedicated to honest scientific endeavour. Nor am I saying that scientific findings from atheists or secularists should automatically be trusted. Marc Hauser (of the trolley problem), and who I believe is an atheist, was recently dismissed from Harvard for falsifying data.
I do worry about the motives of the three project members named by tildeb, however, and the main reason is the involvement of the Templeton Foundation. It used to be the case that the tobacco companies paid the piper, now it’s a dead Christian multi-millionaire. The activities of the Foundation are controversial to say the least, especially in the areas of the human sciences and it seems that all a potential recipient has to do, provided that there is at least some legitimate basis for enquiry, is to provide religion-friendly – or at least not hostile – research,
I fear for Oxford’s reputation. But they are not alone. One of the three, Miguel Farias, is also involved with something called the “Investigating Atheism” project at Cambridge. One would think that such an august institution as Cambridge would encourage academically honesty and rigour but a brief view of the website beggars belief:
(my emphasis).
Astounding! Someone should remind Farias and his colleagues that atheism is nothing more or less than a lack of belief in gods, and while atheists necessarily cannot accept things such as meaning, purpose and morality come directly from God this certainly does not mean that atheists by definition lack meaningful views or arguments on such matters. Indeed, I personally feel that being an atheist gives me an advantage here, although I might choose not to use it.
But back to the Oxford study. You have claimed that Jonny, tildeb and myself have rejected the scientific evidence and I asked you to point out where I did this. You have not responded. As I said earlier, I have no problem in accepting that children will very often imagine that some conscious force is controlling the world. Where I do have a problem is more with their conclusion – that religion should be encouraged – or at least not discouraged – to accommodate these beliefs, as opposed to providing them with the intellectual tools to distinguish between their imagination and reality. As Lawrence Krauss recently said ” the purpose of education is not to validate ignorance, but to overcome it.
” you’ve fallen for it hook, line, and sinker not out of ignorance but out of desire to smear atheists as people who avoid scientific evidence …. I just wish you had stated this first so that I wouldn’t have wasted my time and effort here.”
Tildeb
It is obvious you are frustrated, and I am sorry you feel I am responsible. But really, I must plead not guilty. In my very first comment I made the criticism, mentioned the study in question and suggested that atheists weren’t always as rationalistic, and as evidence-based, as they claim. Those have been my themes all the way through, as you can see if you check back. And you joined that discussion.
I’m sorry, but nothing’s changed. I have quoted a large research study. Neither you not anyone else has thrown any credible doubts on that study – you have offered ad hominems about the lead researcher and assertions, but assertions are not evidence. You haven’t mentioned any qualifications you have to dispute the findings, nor given any factual evidence to dispute them, nor offered a study that gives a different conclusion, even though I have several times invited you to do so. So I am still asking, why should I believe you rather than the research?
I invite you again to either offer tangible evidence for your assertions, or else say that you have none, and they are just opinions.
UnkleE, there is no counter study because this is a meta-study that looks for belief in any agency from a number of other studies and attributes this to mean evidence for a ‘natural’ belief in god. Note that they cannot show any direct evidence for belief in any specific god but a generic one. This reveals a fatal flaw in connecting evidence for belief in agency to be evidence for belief in God – somehow qualitatively different from ghosts and goblins. Otherwise, the article would say we have a ‘natural’ tendency to believe in spooks… or underworld critters, or pink unicorns, or whatever, because that is exactly what these studies show: a willingness to assign agency. So is this what the study concludes?
No. It drops all the other objects of belief and focuses solely on gods, which they then term ‘religion’ in order to reach their conclusion.
.
Is this good science?
Well, consider evidence for bias:
Confirmation bias: “These intriguing findings would certainly be strengthened by replications with additional stimuli sets, alternative methods, and with different cultural populations. As they stand, they suggest one possible cognitive reason for the culturally widespread existence of religious beliefs in deities that either order or create the natural world: such ideas resonate with an early developing and persistent intuition that the natural world looks purposefully designed.
Positing a designer (or designers) fits with our intuitions.” – Barrett.
Biased interpretation: “We are moral realists. Gods, by virtue of having access to the facts of any matter, also know the moral facts of the matter, and (perhaps not surprisingly) tend to see things the way we do. Theists, then, can glibly accept moral realism. Not so for the atheist. Atheists may have approximately the same moral intuitions and behave just as morally as theists, but have some intellectual work to do that the theist has managed to avoid by relying on the authority of the gods. Atheists have this extra work to do in the moral domain, but that does not mean that it cannot be done.” – Barrett
Demonization: Refusing to accept that, in principle, science could ever allow space for non-material, even theistic, explanations demands philosophical argument, not an assertion of the supremacy of science. The obscurantist refusal to allow the theory of Intelligent Design to be even discussed in a scientific context can only be the product of a deeply-ingrained materialism, even atheism.”
– The Religious Roots of Science, Roger Trigg.
There is every indication that the team set out to prove a very specific conclusion – belief in religion is ‘natural’ – by fair means or foul. They do not show causal effect for their thesis, namely, that humans come hardwired for specific religious belief different from belief in ghosts.
It is one thing to suggest that religious tendencies to agency-based belief are a consequence of childish or uneducated thinking which has genetic or evolutionary origins, and quite another to suggest that there is scientific evidence that thinking is naturally hardwired for religion. This they have clearly failed to do (hence the meta-study). I have no problem with the first statement, but that is not what the study’s conclusion shows. They assert evidence from the former to be equivalent evidence for causal effect of the latter. This data they have collected does not pertain but gives the veneer of validity for their preordained conclusion.
Tildeb, at the risk of aggravating you further, I think I will quietly withdraw at this point. We are going in circles. You still offer me no reason to believe you rathe than a peer reviewed study. Let’s call it a day. Best wishes.
The study in question “was not setting out to prove the existence of god or otherwise, but sought to find out whether concepts such as gods and an afterlife appear to be entirely taught or basic expressions of human nature” according to Oxford’s press release. Therefore, even according to the study itself, there was no question of any “proof” of God being postulated.
Neither myself nor tildeb has disputed the scientific evidence of the findings. I don’t dispute that young minds can easily, within their minds, construct the existence of a designer or an omniscient, controlling being. I can imagine such a thing myself if I wanted to do so, although I don’t recall having such thoughts personally. tildeb has accepted the “natural” findings at face value and given a “natural” explanation. UnkleE has asked for counter-research but what form would this take? I know personally of no such research, or how it would look, but well-known and respected cognitive scientists have promulgated tildeb’s view for some time – in particular, BF Skinner and Michael Shermer have provided their own research, studied and written extensively on the subject. I would recommend either or both of Shermer’s books “The Believing Brain” and “How the Mind Works” to UnkleE.
Yet UnkleE has accused both of us of ignoring or rejecting the scientific evidence from the study, while at the same time saying himself “I do not think the fact that children find it natural to believe in God is significant evidence in support of the existence of God.” So we agree, then? Maybe not, because he later says “the Christian is accepting the evidence while the atheists are not”. At this point we don’t really know what UnkleE’s views actually are and how they diverge from my own or tildeb’s views. If one takes one view of the study being that it provides evidence for a god (meaning UnkleE’s god or any other specific one) then neither myself, tildeb, the researcher themselves or UnkleE actually agree with this. I’ll ask UnkleE again: What part of the scientific evidence from this study have the atheists on this thread rejected or ignored?
As I’ve said, what really gives the game away is the recommendations that arise from the study. Barrett et al seem to think that religious adherence is a natural reaction to such cognitive limitations, and should at least not be discouraged as a result. For limitations is what they are. If I go out to my back garden any birds there will fly away, in order to avoid a potential danger, and this is held to be an evolutionary advantage. But what if they were able to ascertain correctly the level of danger, and could tell the difference between me and a buzzard or a cat? This would be even more of an evolutionary advantage, one would have thought. Ascertaining what is true or not requires much more than subjective thought, even if such thought “comes naturally”. First of all, it requires an acceptance that truth does not conform to consciousness, something that most of us in most areas of life, can readily see. Unfortunately, in the areas of religious and political ideology it seems harder to break down.
Barrett et al also see religion as a tool for social cohesion. Quite what this has to do with the study itself is unclear, and they admit themselves that there are alternatives if social cohesion is held to be a goal. In any case, however social cohesion is defined, would anyone argue in favour of, say, the Saudi, as opposed to the Danish, social model?
As far as “consistency” goes, UnkleE hasn’t answered that either. Is the fact that I am an atheist “inconsistent” with God? Many apologists are quite happy to postulate that Treblinka and God are consistent because a deprivation of free will is a worse scenario than 800,000 deaths in one place. So if that’s not inconsistent, then what is?
UnkleE has not responded, so far, to my questions regarding rejecting scientific evidence and consistency. But he has twice asked for comments on DS Wilson’s piece on group selection, and made the point that Richard Dawkins has ignored Wilson’s theory in favour of his own pre-determined conclusion. First of all, how UnkleE thinks that we are prepared to critique a 6,000-word document in a blog is beyond belief. Secondly, I can’t speak for UnkleE or tildeb or anyone else, but the conflict between gene-based selection and group selection (or kin selection) is not something that I am qualified to comment on.
DS Wilson might be right – if so, it wouldn’t be the first time that a minority view was the correct one and Wilson might just be the 21st Century Copernicus. But the charge against Dawkins is baseless. Dawkins has written extensively critiquing group selection models, in particular in his book River Out of Eden and his review of the unrelated but associated EO Wilson’s Social Conquest of Earth. Perhaps UnkleE could offer a précis of DS Wilson’s arguments and show objective evidence of Dawkins’ considered ignorance.
As I said, I am not qualified to comment on this dispute. Most information I have comes from Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True website. Coyne has looked at the dispute in some detail over many posts and concludes that, firstly, the evidence just doesn’t hold up, and secondly, that both Wilsons seem to have an axe to grind, in particular against Dawkins. Group selection theories are very much in the minority, and there is a reason for this. I repeat that this doesn’t mean in itself that group selection models are false.
But UnkleE’s objection here is that here we have a situation where the ostensibly rationalist Dawkins is ignoring evidence for his own purposes. As far as I can see, Dawkins has examined the evidence and found it wanting, as have many other evolutionary biologists. Of course, we know that an attack on Dawkins’ character is often seen as a mortal blow to atheism.
So I’m not sure what UnkleE’s argument actually is, and at times he appears to disagree with it himself.
For the third time in this thread I have to correct myself. If anyone is guilty of sloppiness here it is me and I must learn to take more care. Of course How the Mind Works was written by Steven Pinker, not Michael Shermer – unforgivable as I actually own the book.
Assigning agency is something all of us do quite naturally. No news here. And I don’t need nearly four million dollars to show this. Yet the meta-study does just this, which makes one question why. Sure, this study collates many of the current studies to show just how widespread are these assignments. So what? That’s not anything new.
But this is where Templeton money comes into play: how can well funded believers spin this widespread assigning of agency to be ‘evidence’ for a ‘natural’ belief in God? Well, first they must change what assigning agency means in order to offer false equivalencies, namely, alter the assignment of any agency to be evidence for belief in God. Next, they arbitrarily make this now-pregnant and widespread ‘belief in God’ to be equivalent evidence for a ‘natural religious belief’. Oh look: now we have a ‘scientific’ study that tells us that religious belief in God is natural because it is so widespread! Quelle surprise.
Not.
That’s the scientific criticism of this meta-study: it does not relate the conclusion to the data except by changing the meaning of terms. Standard operating procedure for apologists, accommodationists and believers trying desperately to rope in science to be an ally rather than a combatant of woo.
Not going to work.
Now comes the second part of unkleE’s comment, to use criticisms of the conclusion of this headline-making study (gee, I wonder why? Is there evidence that we come hardwired to believe in God? Umm… no, but this study pretends it has uncovered data that does just this!) to be falsely equivalent to ignoring scientific evidence. This narrow interpretation of experts in genetics and evolutionary biology dismissing this silly meta-study’s conclusion then becomes an opportunity for religious apologists and accommodationists and believers to smear those nasty militant new atheists who continue to reliably and effectively show how and why religious belief is incompatible with the method of science. UnkleE states “this is just one of several places where Richard Dawkins, leading many other atheists, has forsaken science for dogma and wish-fulfilment.” This is a smear job, plain and simple, intended solely to demean atheists as wish fulfilling followers of a dogmatic Dawkins who doesn’t respect science. That’s absolute bull-pucky in fact but achieves the drive-by opportunity of using a throw-away criticism that requires not one jot or tittle of evidence. And smear jobs have an agenda other than respecting what’s true in reality. That’s why the defense put up by unkleE is all over the map, trying to hide behind a faux-respect for ‘evidence’ and ‘science’ that he is unwilling to exercise himself in his quest to belittle those who dare demand compelling evidence to believe extraordinary claims. I suspect that’s why he is willing to back off on suggesting (as much as he may want to do otherwise) that the widespread use of assigning agency is not evidence for any gods or God. He saw an opportunity to smear those nasty and brutish Gnu Atheists and he took it, assuming no one would call him on it.
Out of nowhere comes the question… Would we believe history to have happend as it is written if we weren’t choked with it in schools by propoganda fed instructors?
The belief in a God is so widespread that even in the absence of being force-taught by our parents, we’re subject to tales and rumors by our peers. I believe everything in the world to be a science in that we’re constantly learning the “what is it” and the “why is it so”. If we don’t fully understand something through the method of proven science, we’re making it up and justifying it by “having faith”.
I can’t possibly believe in any god I’ve heard of based on one comparison:
Outside of pure lore and speculation, we lack real evidence of a creator, much less one that stuck it out and is still around caring for any of us. Big bang or not, something happened to start it off. The difference between creator and god?
I’m sorry, I’ve been calling the post author Camun when his name is actually Carnun. It still looks that way from a distance – not own his blog, though – but obviously I’ve not being paying attention. Again, my apologies.
Regarding unkleE’s assertion that atheists are being ‘led’ by Dawkins away from good science about belief in God while theists respect the apparent evidence from ‘good’ science in its favour, here is a timely and critical review by the well known new atheist and evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne about a paper put forth by Banerjee and Bloom regarding exactly this post’s issue: Is religion hardwired?
This is evidence clearly and unambiguously stands contrary to unkleE’s ridiculous claim.
Just a quick heads up that my comment has gone into moderation because it has two links in it. Also, I have no clue why the previous comment dropped the word ‘that’ from my last sentence, “This is evidence that…
I had a comment that suffered the same fate.
I wonder if you found the same link as I did – hopefully not because the more evidence the better Jerry Coyne has just posted evidence of the type that UnkleE is looking for:
Is religion hardwired?
Thanks to everyone for your contributions to a high quality discussion here. I regret that I haven’t put my oar in more, but I want to read the actual research more thoroughly before critiquing it.
I would say that, at various points, the discussion seems to have got more personal than necessary – on a few occasions, posters have seemed to be criticising the other person, rather than the ideas. Keep it friendly.
Yes, that’s one of the links I provided. But the central point i want to make is that Coyne is quite critical of the submission that stands in favour of negating the claim that religion is hardwired into our biology! I wanted unkleE to wrap his head around this example of a new atheist who holds his own preferences and biases to the same rigorous scientific standards used to criticize other conclusions in favour of studies that appear to support faith-based beliefs.
This evidence (Coyne’s criticism) reveals just how misguided UnkleE’s belief is that atheists are led by dogma and wishful thinking away from good science. The opposite is the case in Coyne’s review, just as it is throughout new atheism where respect for what’s true in reality takes precedence over any and all faith-based beliefs… including beliefs held largely because of bias and prejudice. The faithful can learn an important lesson here, that the world does not end if one’s beliefs admittedly are not reflected in the reality we share, are not supported well by evidence revealed through honest and critical inquiry through the method of good science.Our beliefs can be wrong, and that’s okay. Why not allow reality, rather than our faith-based beliefs, to arbitrate claims made about it? It keeps us all honest.
Well, the research is very thin about specific causes for assigning agency. Within the parameters of evolutionary benefit, I think we can easily ascertain that it is an advantage to always assume intention that may be harmful but, upon further examination, discard agency when there is no compelling evidence that it is so. Humanity didn’t really grasp this insight until Galileo showed that objects didn’t have ‘natures’ that presumed agency because of motion. But this metaphysical underpinning wasn’t clearly shown to be false until Galileo’s thought experiment of the inclined plane (objects in motion will remain in motion until another force is encountered). Unfortunately, much of modern christianity began by taking on board Aristotelian physics that we now know is not just incorrect but badly misleading (the eye, for example, doesn’t have the ‘nature’ to see; it is the brain that accumulates input and formulates what we think we see. The eye is simply the most useful organ to do this but we can equivalently ‘see’ – with training – using our skin, for example. The brain doesn’t much care how it accumulates sensory input as long as the model it formulates works to successfully navigate our environments). Yet the notion of assigning ‘natures’ to objects continues to pollute our ability to perceive reality accurately. And the biggest proponent of this flawed method remains religious belief that assigns agency and intention (because stuff looks designed, looks purposeful, and seems to indicate meaning) where we have no good reasons from reality to think this is so.
Regarding the criticism of people rather than the ideas they present, consider this analogy: if someone suggests that the particular hue of pigment of one’s skin causes a certain negative behaviour and questionable morality, and someone of that hue reads and disagrees with that thinking, then any criticism of the assumption can be viewed as being a personal attack. After all, the thinking is usually informed by personal confirmation bias and personal interpretation as well as personal experiences, and taken together often produce an unshakeable bias and prejudice, so any criticism of this thinking or the conclusions derived from it it can be seen to be personal. Smearing atheists – even by other atheists (yer doin it rong!) – is an all too common occurrence that often goes without direct rebuttal. More, not less, rebuttal is needed for this promotion of bias and prejudice to be properly addressed, for it really does provide a socially acceptable front behind which hides an intention to attach negative behaviours to a cause that simply is not true in reality.
If some find that rebuttal offensive, then it’s an opportunity to at least learn how these false accusations negatively impact on real people in real life. Atheists are the most despised and untrustworthy group of people of any identifiable group, including terrorists and rapists! (There’s a remarkable UBC study of us ‘polite’ Canadians on just that comparison). The staggering amount and scope and depth of bias and prejudice against non believers throughout the world is not justifiable by any evidence from the world (that hasn’t first been completely misrepresented and grossly distorted to fit the conclusion). So when I come across any typical drive-by smearing of atheists, I feel obligated to confront it head on and reveal it for the bias and prejudice on which it is based. Nobody likes being revealed to be a bigot, to be prejudiced, to be a spreader of distortions and misrepresentations that help tolerate bias and discrimination that causes such malignant distrust of non believers (and their supposed lack of morality), but if one is willing to promote such distrust without justifiable cause, then one must be willing to receive justifiable rebuke. And that, unfortunately, is personal… but as far as I can tell unavoidable.
Well, my concern about attacks becoming personal wasn’t directed at any one person in the thread. I thought Unkle E came across as unnecessarily attacking at times too, though he appears to have left the thread now.
I haven’t seen the level of discrimination towards atheists you talk about. I’m aware that it exists, and I’m aware that, being from the UK, I’m one of the least affected by it, but I don’t believe the level of discrimination is as bad as you make out. I could be wrong.
If you are right, as you may be, I still don’t think that necessitates the use of personal language. It is still the ideas that are bad and not the people, at least until they demonstrate otherwise. I think on the internet, where it is so easy to come across more aggressively than we intend, it is very important to assume good intentions from other posters, and to refrain from personal criticisms.
“Well, my concern about attacks becoming personal wasn’t directed at any one person in the thread. I thought Unkle E came across as unnecessarily attacking at times too, though he appears to have left the thread now.”
Hi Jonny, I haven’t left the thread, I was still seeing the posts, I just wasn’t responding (til now). But I’m surprised and disappointed that you say I have been “unnecessarily attacking at times” because I try very hard to be polite while saying things that others will disagree with, and I thought I had done that here.
Tom said: “So I’m not sure what UnkleE’s argument actually is”
I think there has been continual misunderstanding, despite what I thought were several clear statements by me. Let me just state it again, though I don’t intend to get back involved in arguing the case.
My main point all along has been that the initial post, and many of the early comments, were based on personal opinions, and not on scientific study, which in my reading suggested something contrary to what people were saying. And I said I saw this occurring a lot in atheism right up to Richard Dawkins, who has spoken many times about children’s belief in God without referring to the science. That was my main point. I think it was factual, not personal (i.e. I talked about outcomes, not motives).
I did comment on the statement that it was “derisory” to think that the naturalness of children’s belief was an indication that God exists, but only to say that I thought that was an overstatement – I said I thought it might be a very small factor only (and I said that right from the beginning too, not as some change halfway through).
Tom and Tildeb:
I stopped responding because, like I said to you Tildeb, I didn’t think we were progressing anywhere useful, and in such circumstances, someone has to decide to stop.
I think it is interesting, and good, that you have both searched and found some other references and studies on the topic. I truly want to compliment you on that – many people I have made a similar criticism of in the past have simply dug in their heels. And I note that Banerjee & Bloom are not totally opposed to Barrett (who they quote and reference) but only partially in disagreement.
So Tildeb, I was not trying to “smear those nasty and brutish Gnu Atheists”, I was making what I felt was a valid point on actions, not motives. And I suggest the ensuing discussion has demonstrated I was correct. You were all commenting without any basis in science, but after I unfortunately goaded you, you have started to do the “research”, which is good.
I am sorry you all felt badly towards me. I recognise that having contrary opinions presented can easily be aggravating (I feel the same way as you do, we’re all only human), so I try to be factual and not personal (again I stress, I mentioned outcomes but made no accusations about motives). I don’t believe I said anything personal in this discussion (contrary to Jonny’s view). But you have accused me of a number of bad motives, though I don’t feel offended by that. So having tried to explain myself and draw things to some sort of conclusion from my perspective, I think it best to really quit this time. I will leave you all to it. Thanks, and best wishes.
Perhaps you don’t believe that you said anything personal. However, I already brought to your attention the comment about “making peace” and since then you have accused tildeb of being frustrated and aggravated and both of us of “feeling badly towards you”. Not classical well-poisoning, maybe, but along the same lines, even if unwitting. Whoever is in possession of the moral high ground, if anyone, is irrelevant.
Personally, I welcome contradictory opinions to my own because it is only through the introduction of such contrary opinions that we can learn. However, we are free to dismiss these opinions on their merits as well.
You have said that “…the initial post, and many of the early comments, were based on personal opinions, and not on scientific study, which in my reading suggested something contrary to what people were saying.” Bear in mind that the initial post referred to upper-case rather than lower-case gods, and this has since been clarified. But what does the scientific evidence from the study you link to say? The researchers are at pains to point out that the purpose of the study is not to give any evidence for the existence of any god. Instead, they concentrate on childrens’ cognition and found evidence that children will readily imagine agents of this nature. Now imagination and reality are completely separate ontological categories, unless you can demonstrate a single workable example of reality being dependent on imagination. For something to exist in reality it requires much, much more – something that the religious should be regularly reminded. It’s also the case that models of reality very often start with imagination and speculation, but to be accepted as real they still have a long way to go. Derisory is not too strong a description for the idea that reality depends on imagination.
As I said, I don’t know what your views actually are. You have accused both us of ignoring or rejecting the scientific evidence from the study, implying that the study gives evidence for God (which it doesn’t). This would mean that you see it in this way, as you say “the Christian is accepting the evidence”. But then you say “I do not think the fact that children find it natural to believe in God is significant evidence in support of the existence of God.” Surely I can be forgiven for being somewhat confused as to your actual beliefs here? As far as I’m concerned I accept the evidence while rejecting utterly the policy recommendations arising from it. So I ask again: What part of the scientific evidence from this study have the atheists on this thread rejected or ignored? Bear in mind that the research itself does not come to the conclusion that a god exists or possibly exists. My personal view is that such behaviour is learned rather than innate, but I’m happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Note that I didn’t go out and seek counter-research, so, as you disingenuously imply, you are not responsible for giving the atheists a wake-up call. Looks like more well-poisoning, I’m afraid. I am a subscriber to Jerry Coyne’s website (he doesn’t like to call it a blog) and as such was sent the information on an email. So it was sent to me without any intervention from myself. But as it was so timely I thought I would share.
If you should choose to respond perhaps you could answer my other question and give an example of something that is inconsistent with God.
Tom, I was going to withdraw , but you have asked me to respond, so I will. ButI find it hard to know how to approach this. It seems that whatever I say, you think things of me that are not true, even based on the evidence you have before you. As I said in my last comment, disagreements about such deep matters always have the potential for misunderstanding. You apparently feel I have misunderstood you, and I certainly feel the same in return. In the hope that we can at least resolve this mutual feeling I will have a go at responding.
1. Being personal. I honestly have trouble believing the examples you have given of my alleged “being personal” – not that I didn’t say them, but that you would think they were “being personal”. Let’s look at them:
“making peace” – I already said it was just an expression. And since it didn’t make any accusation at all, just a clear wish to resolve conflict, how can that be being personal?
“frustrated” – Tildeb said “I just wish you had stated this first so that I wouldn’t have wasted my time and effort here.” That sounds very much like frustration to me, wouldn’t you say? But I didn’t make any personal or accusing comments, instead I apologised by saying: “It is obvious you are frustrated, and I am sorry you feel I am responsible.” How can an apology be misconstrued as “being personal”?
“aggravated” – My actual words were: “Tildeb, at the risk of aggravating you further, I think I will quietly withdraw at this point.” Again, I was trying to smooth the way, by in effect apologising for not continuing the conversation. I did not accuse her of anything, and I said nothing personal about her.
“feeling badly towards you”. – again, this was part of an apology: “I am sorry you all felt badly towards me.” Again, how can an apology by accusing or personal? And my concern was well-based. Consider:
Jonny had already said: “Unkle E came across as unnecessarily attacking at times”. Jonny has every right to moderate his own blog, but since he made a criticism, I was responding by apologising.
Tildeb had wished I had said something different so she wouldn’t have wasted her time, accused me of wanting to “smear those nasty and brutish Gnu Atheists” and called one of my statements a “ridiculous claim” – and there was more. I didn’t object at the time to any of Tildeb’s comments, but they seem much more personal to me, not apologising like mine were, but accusing. But nevertheless I didn’t object to them, but I apologised for any bad impression I had given her.
But I don’t think that you have said anything personal to me, so if I shouldn’t have included you in that apology, I am sorry. I was only trying to smooth things over.
“Not classical well-poisoning, maybe” – I honestly don’t see how this was well poisoning in any way. Every example you gave was me trying to avoid giving offence, and I find it difficult to understand how you could think otherwise. And I cannot see how it had anything to do with the “moral high ground”.
I won’t go any further. Either I have inflamed things further, in which case I will definitely withdraw. I have no wish to continue to have this sort of discussion, or hopefully I have shown that your reaction was not because of so-called “personal” comments. If we go further, it may even be helpful to analyse together why this apparent conflict has arisen.
Now, what do you say? Can we put these accusations of “personal comments” behind us and discuss the actual points I was making, and you were disputing, or can we not? If we can, then I will endeavour to answer your questions.
Best wishes.
Fine. Too much time and too many words have been spent on this already. I have already conceded that such comments might unwitting or not intended. The internet, of course, is a different medium than face-to-face communication, where body language predominates. It is easy, therefore, to misconstrue intentions and the best way to deal with this is to be careful exactly what one writes. I have, no doubt, been guilty of such failures myself. Nevertheless, I hope you accept that the impression of the nice considerate Christian against the angry, frustrated and aggravated atheists is one that could have been imputed and that you will learn. I have debated Christians extensively over quite a few years, and the accusation that I am “bitter” (a favourite word) is a frequent one. No sort of argument, of course.
If you have any issues with tildeb or Jonny you could take them up with them, should you choose.
So feel free to respond to my points.
Thanks Tom, I appreciate your response. I have never thought you were bitter, and I certainly had no intention of trying to give any impression at all about your or others’ emotional state. I just want to comment on the issues. So let’s go to it.
There are two main issues between us. Let’s try to keep them separate, shall we? And let’s try to clarify where the issues are.
1. Would you believe in God if no one ever told you?
1.1 This is the title of this post. People made comments about it. None of them mentioned any scientific study on this subject.
1.2 I pointed this fact out, and then commented that there were studies I was aware of that suggested something quite different to the thrust of the post and the initial comments – namely that “it is quite natural for children to believe in God”.
1.3 You expressed some opinions on my views, and for a while didn’t mention any scientific studies either. Eventually either you or Tildeb did refer to one study which took a different line but didn’t seem to refute the study I referred to.
1.4 Your main objection seemed to be that the study I referred to didn’t prove the point you thought I was making.
Do you disagree with any of those statements? If so, then let’s clarify, if not then we can move forward.
2. If it is natural for children to believe in God, is it “derisory” that this should be an argument for the existence of God?
2.1 You said that it was, I said that I thought that was too strong a statement. I said there “maybe, just maybe” some merit in the idea, but I said I didn’t think it was “significant evidence for the existence of God”.
2.2 You seem to think that I am saying more than I said. e.g you say: “The researchers are at pains to point out that the purpose of the study is not to give any evidence for the existence of any god.” But I have never suggested the researchers said that. I didn’t bring up the subject of the existence of God, you did.
Do you disagree with any of those statements?
“If you should choose to respond perhaps you could answer my other question and give an example of something that is inconsistent with God.”
I think excessive pain and suffering in the world is inconsistent with God as I understand him.
So I hope that answers your final question, and I hope my statements and questions help us clarify what the issues are. Thanks again. Best wishes.
1. Would you believe in God if no one ever told you?
1.1 This is the title of this post. People made comments about it. None of them mentioned any scientific study on this subject.
1.2 I pointed this fact out, and then commented that there were studies I was aware of that suggested something quite different to the thrust of the post and the initial comments – namely that “it is quite natural for children to believe in God”.
1.3 You expressed some opinions on my views, and for a while didn’t mention any scientific studies either. Eventually either you or Tildeb did refer to one study which took a different line but didn’t seem to refute the study I referred to.
1.4 Your main objection seemed to be that the study I referred to didn’t prove the point you thought I was making.
That’s because it doesn’t, if the point you are making is that childhood imagination is evidence for God, a point that you later deem insufficient, making me wonder what it is, in fact, that you do believe. Indeed, the press release that you linked to says “The researchers point out that the project was not setting out to prove the existence of God or otherwise, but sought to find out whether concepts such as Gods and an afterlife appear to be entirely taught or basic expressions of human nature. . There is a typo here as “Gods” should be in lower-case – indeed, it clearly identifies gods for the purposes of the study as concepts.
I agree with tildeb that this is just another case of assigning agency, and is hardly surprising given the environment and intellectual and cognitive restrictions under which young children operate.
As the press release states: The studies by Emily Reed Burdett and Justin Barrett suggest that children below the age of five find it easier to believe in some superhuman properties than to understand similar human limitations. Children were asked whether their mother would know the contents of a box in which she could not see.
Children aged three believed that their mother and God would always know the contents, but by the age of four, children start to understand that their mothers are not all-seeing and all knowing.. Well, of course they would, as they accumulate experience of their mother getting things wrong, but a god is not testable as their mother is, indeed, not testable at all. There is also an inference here that at least some of these three-year-olds had already been introduced, externally, to the idea of God, which if true would negate the study, at least for those children.
Barrett, Trigg and Farias are not themselves claiming that that their study is evidence for the existence of God, and I am in complete agreement with them here. Now it’s true that it was you that initially brought this study to our attention, and it is you that is claiming that people here are ignoring scientific evidence for, it seems, the reason that we didn’t offer our own. The fact that I and some others didn’t offer scientific evidence doesn’t mean that we are rejecting it.
Barrett, Trigg and Farias offer their thoughts on their findings, and seem to think that as children, and many other people, have some belief in their imagination that some, perhaps vague, god exists then this should be sated by introduction to a ready-made god. They also make the assertion that it is better for us as individuals and as society that we encourage god-belief. These things I cannot agree with, for good reason.
God cannot be shown to exist outside the imagination. The best that Christian apologetics can do is to assert that without God, the universe is unintelligible, but they have no evidence to support this contention whatever. The imagination, of course, is very important in shoring up belief, to the extent that the lines between imagination and reality are often blurred. See here for example, where a Christian argues for the real existence of a leprechaun on the basis of his imagination, and extends this analysis to the reality of his god. I’m confident that you would agree that such an argument is “derisory”.
Back to the study. In my conversations with Christians I cannot fail to notice that while they will generally seize any opportunity to scientific evidence to support their case, the most-used arguments in favour of Christianity are in respect to the benefits of belief, not to the purported reality of God. Barrett, Trigg and Farias are no different here. Indeed, reading their policy recommendations, it is difficult to avoid coming to the conclusion that it is more important to them that people believe in God, than that he exists.
As far as I’m concerned the study doesn’t prove [one of] the points you are making. So please tell me what part of the scientific evidence I have rejected or ignored. I don’t regard policy recommendations as scientific evidence, just so you’re aware.
2. If it is natural for children to believe in God, is it “derisory” that this should be an argument for the existence of God?
2.1 You said that it was, I said that I thought that was too strong a statement. I said there “maybe, just maybe” some merit in the idea, but I said I didn’t think it was “significant evidence for the existence of God”.
2.2 You seem to think that I am saying more than I said. e.g you say: “The researchers are at pains to point out that the purpose of the study is not to give any evidence for the existence of any god.” But I have never suggested the researchers said that. I didn’t bring up the subject of the existence of God, you did.
But it is not natural for children to believe in (upper-case) God. The best you can infer is to state that such immature beliefs in agency, not necessarily supernatural, correspond to the god identified by a religion – and note that Trigg conflates “belief in a god” to “religion” to an alarming extent. The two things are not the same. If children believe in God it is because they have been introduced to the idea externally. I have yet to hear of any case where belief in God – i.e. the Christian / Jewish / Muslim God, with all the paraphernalia – has arisen “naturally”.
You said: “I have seen several studies on this…which show that belief in God is natural, and left to themselves, children would generally believe, which included the study under discussion. But Barrett, Trigg and Farias have not explicitly made this connection, so this study does not attempt to show that belief in God is natural. However, you say above that it does. As far as I can see, this was the first mention of purported scientific evidence of the existence of God. Prior to that, the original blog post and subsequent discussion focused on the role of cultural transmission.
I think excessive pain and suffering in the world is inconsistent with God as I understand him.
Well, that is surprising and not at all what I expected you to say. This is generally thought to an atheist argument, and many Christians admit that they think it is the strongest atheist argument – not something with which I would agree. However, the small army of apologists don’t usually agree with you here. CS Lewis, for example, thinks of suffering as a test of Christians’ faith, and five-point Calvinism decrees that we deserve to suffer, totally depraved filthy rags as we are. And atheist philosopher Stephen Law points out that given the reality of both suffering and happiness, there is no qualitative difference between defending the existence of suffering with a good god than defending the existence of happiness with an evil god.
I admire your position here, while noting that it obviously isn’t sufficient to change your view.
UnkleE, you make the claim that only opinion – not science – informs the claim that belief in God is not natural. You cite a meta-study that claims it is natural and insist that because no contrary studies have been cited, you are simply following the evidence and avoiding the kind of bias that leads atheists to follow a dogmatic Dawkins in its stead.
This is disingenuous. To explain why requires a great deal of words. My apologies.
The entire field of child development is full of studies about how we develop ways and means of understanding causal effects. All the research and studies that inform it as a field of inquiry It is not absent from this question but an essential area to understand and then apply if one wishes to actually answer it honestly. The reason why no studies have been cited to address the specific question Would you believe in God if no one ever told you? is because, as I’ve said earlier, “the research is very thin about specific causes for assigning agency.” There is lots and lots of research about children (as well as adults) assigning agency with intention, purpose, and meaning… as well as ample evidence from our individual lives that we do, in fact, assign agency all the time. But it’s not direct evidence for any of the agencies themselves, which is why it is thin regarding the actual question about God.
What the meta-study accumulates is not evidence in the form of data for belief in God to be natural, and I’ve gone to great effort already to explain why assigning agency is not the issue, even though this is the very basis for the meta-study conclusion you cite; the issue is whether assigning agency results in children ‘naturally’ developing a belief in God.
This is highly problematic. To address this specific claim, one must differentiate between agencies in general and a definable God specifically so that we can accumulate data about this specific belief. The study avoids this problem by accumulating any and all beliefs that are based ona supernatural explanation. The problem here is that it is extraordinarily difficult to isolate this specific belief in God; what we have is a generic belief about the actual existence of this vague notion we call God (undefinable as it is in this regard of actual existence because of a lack of any evidence in reality to help us do this). In other words, none of us have a common clue about what it is being described to be ‘believed in’ by the meta-study. The confusion about what it is we are talking about when we use the term ‘God’ is clearly demonstrated by the tens of thousands of different, contrary, and often conflicting frameworks we call religion. The conclusion from the meta-study simply switches these terms – belief in supernatural agencies to be belief God, wjhich is then presented to evidence for religion to be a natural belief. But we know that none of these specific religious frameworks comes to us by way of reality or we would have ONE religion based on ONE god demonstrable from nature; each and every belief about this God comes to us from either one person’s revelation/imagination (with no way to determine which) or the teachings of someone else.
So to use good science, what can we do to answer this question?
Well, if left alone for a set period of time, will individual children come up with a recognizable framework we can immediately identify as chirstian, or mulsim, or hindu, or jainist or scientology or mormon or jewish, etc.? There is no evidence to suggest this is a reasonable claim. But what is perfectly reasonable and very easy to do is to come up with evidence for children assigning agency – supernatural or not – with intention. In fact, all of us do it all the time. But the story doesn’t end here.
We know that our cars and computers work because they are machines carrying out mechanical functions. When they don’t work, we know that the cause is not gremlins or evil spirits even though we yell at them all the same. We know that no one fixes a mechanical problem by calling in the exorcist to cast out its evil spirits, any more than we would pay a plumber to fix plumbing problems by divination and prayer. In other words, we curtail our beliefs in agency-with-intention when we have no reasonable grounds to do so.
I reiterate this because the notion of all people across all social constructs assigning agency is very well researched (which explains why the meta-study used some it). And it has everything to do with figuring out cause and effect by coming up with explanations that work to produce knowledge. We can attribute agency to all kinds of stuff but most of us figure out that assigning agency to some supernatural critter doesn’t work to produce knowledge applicable and efficacious in the real world (otherwise, prayer would work and we’d all do it). In technical terms, we call this process ‘causal learning’, in that infants try to figure out by what mechanism effect relates to perceived cause. We then shift into understanding the difference in reliant processes, namely, whether we should trust our perceptions over and above our reasons. Belief in agency, in this sense, is a perception that we then naturally subject to reason and we do this by coming up with a mechanism that we can test and verify in our environments… not by belief but by practical application. Perception (like beliefs in agency with intention) we call ‘temporal contiguity’ when we link cause (agency) with effect (intention), and this contiguity is then subject to our understanding-through-testing of the mechanism that links them. You can witness babies doing exactly this through banging, and you can watch them extend and test their reasoning about causal effect when they bang objects against different objects. They quickly discover that the delightful sound produced is not an inherent property of the object being struck (as an agent for sound) but a result of two objects colliding. When the collision stops, so, too, does the sound. New sounds can be produced by finding different objects to bang together. It’s all very stimulating stuff but it reveals a process of aligning what we assume we perceive with what it is we are trying to understand.
Another way to think of this is how magicians and con men make their living: by fooling our perceptions. And this is accomplished pretty easily! Our perceptions can be fooled, and predictably so, because using them is a natural first step we undertake whenever we try to figure out causal effect about anything. This is not evidence for belief in God.
But what we knew as infants we often forget in our sophisticated adult thinking: we need to test our perception of cause with effect by means of testing for an understandable, reliable, consistent mechanism that works for everyone everywhere all the time. A specific belief in a causal God for real world effect is as natural as having a specific belief in the wood sprite called Barry living in your garden causing, we must then presume, all kinds of horticultural effect. In other words, it’s the willingness to first believe in perceived causal effect that is shared by all humans but mitigated by reason – in other words, real world testing for consistency and reliability.
The offspring of assigning agency claimed to be belief in God-as-Jesus, or Wood-Sprite-as-Barry, is not explainable as being ‘natural’; the parent of these specific beliefs is natural: our tendency to assign agency – to assign cause, in other words – in order to link a perceived intention, purpose, or meaning – to attribute effect, in other words. But this natural tendency requires modification by reasoned testing for mechanism in order to have any knowledge value to us at all. Your cited meta-study fails to provide this key ingredient; it is empty of knowledge value.
Tom, at the risk of offending you, I’m going to have to point out to you that despite my pointing this out several times, you still are assuming I’m saying something I’m not. There is no point in going on until we agree on what we’re disagreeing about.
It was for this reason that I posed my 6 sets of statements (1.1 – 1.4 & 2.1 – 2.2). If you tell me which statements you disagree with, then we can see where we’re disagreeing. If you don’t we are still arguing at cross purposes.
Can you please tell me your response to whether you agree or disagree – yes or no is sufficient for now – or we are going nowhere. Thanks.
What does this mean? I have to say things like “yes, I agree that this is the title of the post”, or “no, I don’t agree that this is the title of the post”. Rather trivial. If I didn’t agree I would have said so, and in fact did.
Take statement 1.4. “Your main objection seemed to be that the study I referred to didn’t prove the point you thought I was making..
Let’s play this game and say no to that one then.
Tildeb, I’m sorry but I have to say the same to you as I did to Tom. When you start you post with this: “UnkleE, you make the claim that only opinion – not science – informs the claim that belief in God is not natural. ” you are starting from a premise which I have not said, but which you have assumed. It means that you well written post doesn’t address anything I wish to contest, I’m sorry.
If you check back, you’ll find I didn’t say that “only opinion – not science – informs the claim that belief in God is not natural.” What I said was that (using your words) “only opinion – not science – informs the original post and subsequent discussion here – and also Richard Dawkins’ discussions on children and belief”. That is a very different proposition. I went on to say that there are studies which show that children do find belief in God natural.
Now these are quite factual matters:
1. Either Jonny and his commenters referenced studies or they didn’t – and the record shows that they didn’t.
2. Either Richard Dawkins references scientific studies when he talks about children and belief, or he doesn’t – and I haven’t seen him do that, David Sloan Wilson makes that criticism, and you haven’t referenced any.
3. Either studies show that children find it natural or they don’t – and I referenced a whole set of studies and you have referenced one which doesn’t contradict these.
So, so far my three points stand. If you want to disagree with me, please disagree with these points that I have made, not with points I haven’t made. Thanks.
My first question would be: If faith in any god exists, why do so called believers need periodic gatherings to mold their beliefs and solidify their “Faith”? I’m so confused by this.
My appologies, i did mean to make a related comment.
Faith, (as defined), can’t possibly exist. Let me explain. Where does the initial idea for something to have faith in come from? If it’s a mere self-taught concept, doesn’t the thought process produce acceptance of the idea? Does this constitute “evidence” or “proof” to the believer? For a moment, think about how the mind conceptualizes, ratioinalizes and then justifies our own belief set. At what point can anyone believe in something without first having contact with information about it? Even if the initial contact is imagined, prior to having faith in it, one must first justify it.
What controlled study could possibly provide scientific evidence that virtually no contact with even the concept of a god has been conducted? Constructing such a study would imply that a child were conceived, carried to term, delivered, nurtured and raised in a box, absent from any contact with anyone with an opinion in the matter one way or another. This study could not take place as a study simply because the very idea that this study was being performed implies that the people interacting with the child would have to have knowledge of the concept of god or the study would not be taking place. Contact with someone with an opinion one way or another.
Nuff Said.
Tom, it’s not a “game”, it’s my earnest attempt to understand if you disagree with me about anything I actually said.
“If I didn’t agree I would have said so, and in fact did.”
Can I take it that you agree that statements 1.1 to 1.3 accurately describe what was said? I will take it that way until corrected.
“Take statement 1.4. “Your main objection seemed to be that the study I referred to didn’t prove the point you thought I was making..” Let’s play this game and say no to that one then.”
So you are saying that wasn’t your main objection? Can you please explain briefly what was your main objection?
And what about statements 2.1 & 2.2, do you think they are accurate or not?
Thanks.
Well, if it isn’t a game then it has every appearance of one. Indeed, in your response above your point is that I’m not playing by your rules. Do you seriously think that I would disagree over what the title of the post is, or some other such triviality? What would be gained by either of us if I did? Anyone here can read for themselves what was said, and seek clarification if desired. I know you say that that is what you’re doing, but if you think that dictating what I can or can’t write then think again.
And seeking clarification is what I’m attempting to do. At least twice I’ve asked you what, exactly, your view is. The reason I’ve done this is that you’ve given two distinct responses to the data presented by it. So it’s pointless, within the context of the thread, for me to respond in the fashion that you seem to desire.
Perhaps you will now clarify how you can reconcile “…the Christian is accepting the evidence” with “I do not think the fact that children find it natural to believe in God is significant evidence in support of the existence of God.”. This would seem to mean that you think that the evidence you provided is insignificant, so in what sense are you accepting of it? Merely providing a link on a blog comment doesn’t indicate that you are the only one that has ever given such research any thought. I recall introducing such a survey – maybe even that particular one – on a Christian forum a few years ago.
As far as the evidence for spontaneous belief goes, it is not so much insignificant as non-existent – rather like God, indeed.
To the point:
No, I would not believe in god, were I not first told about god.
Yes, “IF” it were natural for children to believe in god, it would seem to be a good argument for that god’s existence. However there is no possible way to conduct such a study for such a purpose, as I said in an earlier post.
“Well, if it isn’t a game then it has every appearance of one.”
Tom, I’m feeling very much the same way. I have summarised what I have said several times now (if you don’t believe me, just ask and I will quote and reference each time), and yet you can still make wrong assumptions about what I am saying and still say that you don’t understand. I cannot work out how that is happening.
That is why I wrote out my six statements and asked you where you agreed and disagreed – because they outline what I am saying and what I understand you to have said in response. Making clear where you disagree would help stop all this misunderstanding.
“Do you seriously think that I would disagree over what the title of the post is, or some other such triviality? “
Tom, my first statement didn’t just mention the title of the post. It said: “1.1 This is the title of this post. People made comments about it. None of them mentioned any scientific study on this subject.”</i. The key sentence is the last one, not the first. I wanted to know if you disputed that no-one mentioned any science in the discussion.
“Perhaps you will now clarify how you can reconcile “…the Christian is accepting the evidence” with “I do not think the fact that children find it natural to believe in God is significant evidence in support of the existence of God.”.”
Tom, this question further illustrates that you haven’t understood what I have been saying, and if you did, you would see the answer here.
Let me say again what I have said all along. I have been making 2 points. 1. The major one was the first comment I made: that Jonny’s post, and the comments following, had not referred to any science on the subject, and had merely expressed opinions. I further suggested that Richard Dawkins’ comments on children & belief had done the same. 2. In said that a comment of yours (already based on a misunderstanding) that thinking children’s ease of belief constituted an argument for God was “derisory”, was an overstatement, and that I thought this finding gave small but not significant support for the existence of God.
So the reason why there are two differing statements is because I was commenting on two different matters. No-one was accepting the evidence on point #1 except me, but the second statement referred to point #2.
Please, is that clear now?
I hope it is clear by now that you (and I think Tildeb too) have assumed I was saying more and different to what I actually have said. I suspect you identified me as a christian apologist and expected me to offer christian apologetics, when in fact I didn’t.
So again I say, that is why we need to clarify if we are to continue this discussion any further. If you think it is worth continuing, can you please go back to my 6 statements. Specifically:
Can you confirm please that you agree that 1.1 – 1.3 accurately represent the discussion.
You have said 1.4 does not – can you then please answer my question as to why it does not.
Can you respond also to 2.1 – 2.2 – do they accurately report the discussion?
Thank you.
Forget it. You have reminded me why I stopped debating Christians.
I was going to say it was time to stop too. Best wishes.
It took me quite a while to fully reject the idea of God/s, until i was 13-14 i think. It seems Proverbs 22:6 is what is keeping religion going.
I think there’s kind of two questions going on here:
1) Would I believe in God if nobody told me?
2) Would humanity as a whole believe in God if nobody told us.
The answer to 1) is yes. How do I know this? Because I was raised religious, then I lost the faith and was an athiest for a while, then religious again, then athiest again, then other faiths, and eventually I came back ’round the bend to Christianity. Atheism was a bad match for me. I am wired to believe, and I think we simply have to accept the fact that some people are wired for faith, some people aren’t, some people are wired to be good at math, some aren’t, some people are wired to be gay, some straight. Me, personally, I’m wired to believe in God. Had I never been told about God, I would have eventually tracked Him down because that’s just sorta’ what I’m built for.
Now, it’s an easy argument to say that if I hadn’t grown up Christian, the faith I ultimately settled on might be Islam or Judaism or Sikhism or Baha’i or whatever, I can’t say I would have ended up Christian. I can say with a fair degree of certainty that I would have ended up praying to someone, though.
2) The implication of the question is “Religion is stupid, and it’s just social conditioning that makes you believe in it.” ergo: Would humanity believe in God if somehow this chain were broken? Again, I’d have to say, “Yes.” While some individual are not wired like I am, most of us are wired to believe in something in the early stages of our development. We can choose to expand on this, or we can learn to discard it. Again, it comes down to wiring and social programming. But it’s worth mentioning that EVERY society in the world has come up with some form of supernatural belief, even groups that have had no contact with each other.
To take a completely cynical, non-religious view of this I’d say the reasoning is very simple: we can not conceive of ourselves not being. Not really. Since we know we’ll die, but we can’t conceive of not existing, it follows that there must be some kind of afterlife, and everything else follows on from there. We are neurologically predisposed to have difficulty conceiving of our own nonexistence.
I’m not sure why people seem to think that’s a bad thing….