Exactly.
Hat tip to The New York Times, by way of SMS at Talk Rational.
25 thoughts on “The God Gene”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
The linked NYT article is good too.
A little unfair, but good.
I like John Cleese for historic humour but his ideas on this stuff is no more insightful then anyone else and that he thinks so is funny.
They move in small circles.
Historic humankind have all said the greatness before our eyes could only be created by a thinking being way beyond us. A God like being.
To dismiss all mankind is to dismiss the intelligence of mankind.
Nature is Gods clear fingerprints.
100 years from now the same great percentage of mankind will say God created the universe and all in it.
Its not fundamentalist but simply people who believe the bibles is Gods word .
In fact the British people did this more then anyone else and was the reason for a greater civilization. The reason the world speaks English.
At least it once again shows the powerful impact of ID/YEC creationism upon the modern times.
We are truly the talk of the town and a rising threat to the old order.
Either we will prevail or it become a newsworthy flop in our time.
Byers, let’s be real for a moment here. “Historic humankind” has assumed a great many erroneous and silly things from time immortal. From unicorns and gremlins to Atlantis, four essential humors, Elan Vital, and virgin sacrifices to appease the “gods”, humanity has imagined some incredible corkers. So there really isn’t any reason to presume humans got the whole “God being” right. However, I’m not seeing how this dismisses the intelligence of all mankind. Why? Because not all of mankind bought into such beliefs. Further, there have been some pretty smart fellows who actually pointed out how those and other wildly fantastic claims were just plain old wrong, so clearly pitching out the claim of some “god” designing everything doesn’t dismiss their wisdom.
Bottom line, your argument for a god-being is weak and insufficient.
Sorry I’ve been otherwise engaged for a bit.
The reason I liked the John Cleese sketch (how did he get so old, though?) was because it points out the absurdity the word “reductionist” for what scientists actually do.
Some scientists do make glib “reductionist” errors, but the idea that science is intrinsically “reductionist” (or that the word means what the sketch implies) is one of the biggest mistakes “anti-reductionists” make. More later, maybe.
This list you give misses such a great conviction through ages of mankind of beings being behind creation.
Unicorns ain’t the same thing.
Mankind, indeed smart or dumb as someone judges people, have insisted and been sure a being(s) created everything.
It seems so apparent.
to dismiss mankind on this conclusion is dismiss mankind on a great matter based on observation and thinking.
If what everyone concludes is not very worthy for considerationIon matters like this then who knows better?
Its a good point for the good guys!
Robert Byers,
The degree of conviction with which a position is held has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of that position.
If you have a rigorous, internally consistent, non-contradictory definition of “god” or “gods” and objective, empirical evidence for such an entity or entities, please present them.
Patrick.
Fine about degree but about numbers when numbers is fantastically dominant does give intellectual force to a position.
not that its true but thats its very likely very well evidenced amongst thinking mankind.
Powerful and punchy.
You can’t reject mankind out of hand on such a common conclusion based on observation etc.
I am evangelical christian and a tiny minority everywhere and so conclude others are wrong about that.
Yet that requires intimate understanding and acceptance of revealed religion.
Further it requires God himself opening ones eyes.
First things first.
The idea of creation being from a creator is very obvious and one must go a long way to discover other options for the complexity and interactingness of creation.
Seems that way from Canada.
Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I don’t see where you have provided any rigorous definitions of your terms nor any objective, empirical evidence for whatever it is you claim to exist.
As Christopher Hitchens succinctly put it, “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
Patrick.
It is mankind insistence and conclusion that creation is the evidence for a creator.
Thats the proof!
You must go along way to say it was not created and demonstrate mechanisms.
The bible says creation is the evidence for a creator.
Seeing other options for creation is just seeing and not proving against a apparent reality.
Robert Byers,
Your first sentence is not coherent.
Even the most generous reading I can give suggests that you are committing the logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum. You certainly have not provided any rigorous definitions nor objective, empirical evidence. If you come up with such, I will be happy to re-engage in the discussion.
Its logical on.
Mankind insists that creation, the universe before our eyes, is the evidence of a creator as it otherwise can not be explained as to its origin.
George Washington said “A reasoning being would lose his reason , in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature , had he not a supreme being to refer to:and well has it been said, that if there had been no God , mankind would have been obligated to imagine one”.
Happy fourth to America.
Robert Byers,
Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.
I’ll be dropping out of this discussion unless and until you choose to provide rigorous definitions and objective, empirical evidence. Please do not take my lack of reply as agreement or concession.
The universe before our eyes is evidence of the universe before our eyes. Let’s not jump to unwarranted conclusions.
That assertion requires a decent reference and context.
A nice take on ultra-reductionism.
More seriously, though, and going beyond god genes, what about a condition like epilepsy giving someone an experience of talking to God? One that seems so real that it is hard to deny to the person concerned?
I ask because someone claiming just that has turned up at SC, and I’d rather appreciate some input into that from you, Lizzie.
David
I have a schizophrenic nephew who insists that his perceptions are just as valid as anyone else’s.
I personally have had a few memories from childhood which have been exposed as somewhere between unlikely and impossible.
For a person who thinks the mid is somewhere other than embodied in neurons, these things are difficult to explain.
I don’t know much about epilepsy. It does seem that schizophrenia can have that effect.
Well, firstly, I’d say that the perception, qua perception, is just as “valid” as anyone else’s. All our perceptions, as I keep saying, are models of reality. The issue is: is this perception a useful model?
And the model that there is an “I” that makes the decisions I call “mine” is an extremely useful model, as is the model that there is a “you” that makes the decisions I (and you) call “yours”.
It’s not an illusion any more (or less) than any model is an illusion. Models are the only access we have to reality.
However, some models are much better predictors than others, and, as there is a feedback loop between our models and our actions, some models can be deeply harmful, both to ourselves, and sometimes to others. And schizophrenia is typified by a “fractured” sense of self – lack of clarity about “who” or “what” is the agent of his/her thoughts, decisions, and actions.
The trouble with the kind of “reductionism” that John Cleese is lampooning (more often found, in my experience, in critics of “reductionism” than in actual “reductionists”) is that it interprets “reductionism” as reducing the whole to its parts.
But if we reduce a whole to its parts, we lose a lot, just as reducing a jigsaw puzzle to its parts destroys the picture, even if we haven’t taken anything actually away. It’s not that the picture is some ineffable essence or anything, it’s just that it inheres in the pattern/organisation of the parts, not in the parts themselves.
The quote I read in ‘Acts and facts’ by ICR (july) and its good to go.
The universe is real and we see it.
it demands explanation for its origin and structure and complexity.
It demands a thinking being behind such a thing of complexity that mortals who figure out some point here or there get big acclamation for being smart folks advancing science.
Therefore , historically, mankind has concluded there is a creator(s) of such intelligence and power(God) otherwise there is not possibly any other option.
Yes. creation is excellent evidence for a first and sure conclusion of a creator who thinks things through.
Thats okay.
For a forum with a picture of a dolphin on it there is no need for such rigour in the discussion to the point of rigor- mortis.
it was a a good point I though I made.
Why does it demand an explanation? Why would an explanation be useful, when we cannot do anything about it?
A sand dune has a very complex structure, yet it is created by the wind blowing sand.
There are thousands of explanations. What is the desirability of false explanations?
Also Robert – those creatures are chinstrap penguins, not dolphins 🙂
Its odd but i did at first think they were penguins but wrote dolphins without looking twice. A odd thing in my perception reflection.
Even a creationist can be wrong!
The sand dune isn’t that complex!. Its just shapely sand.
Even then it requires mechanism of wind acting upon a substance and variation from physics that interfere with the wind.
Its quite orderly from established processes.
Perhaps they are the same ‘kind’, Robert? 😉