Why are there more theists, in the world then atheists?

Originally posted by inimalist
then the onus would be on you to show some evidence of genetic change driven by pressure specifically relating to whether someone had a theistic view of nature.

You want me to prove that God influenced the outcome of evolution to a higher state of consciousness to eventually turn towards God?

K. My evidence is the same thing as the conclusion: it happened. Then I prayed and mediated on it to double check.

Next.

Originally posted by inimalist
except, if that were the case, we wouldn't see patterns in randomness.

This is a circular argument and one that has been done by others far smarter than you and I.

You say "random" I say that there is actually a pattern. You say there is a pattern, I say it is randomness.

There are even patterns in "true" randomness.

This is a circular and you must see that.

Originally posted by inimalist
whether or not some cases we think are randomness actually reflect some type of divine whatever, the bias evolutionarily is clearly toward agency in randomness, and in fact, goes back so far in evolutionary history that almost all complex animals have it to some degree.

I see this as a clear supporting argument for my position. You see it as the opposite. Interesting.

Originally posted by inimalist
LOL... you mean, excepting the fact that our eye is built backwards and all the visual processing errors that we experience?

You are joking, right? "vision" is in quotes for a reason. It is not supposed to be used as a direct reading.

Originally posted by dadudemon
You say "random" I say that there is actually a pattern. You say there is a pattern, I say it is randomness.

I'm talking about actual randomness

like, if you give people a random string of numbers they will tell you there is a pattern

unless I'm reading you wrong, God is really putting a pattern into our specifically developed strings of randomness?

EDIT: also, I love the theories that are so unfalsifiable there would be no perceivable difference in the world if they were true or not...

Originally posted by inimalist
I'm talking about actual randomness

So am I.

The longer a random number sequence, the more patterns you can find in it.

Same with patterns. You can find randomness in patterns. Take Pi. It is clearly an ordered number based on a very specific universal pattern. However, the number itself extends, randomly, for infinity with no solution in sight. Random and ordered at the same time.

Originally posted by inimalist
like, if you give people a random string of numbers they will tell you there is a pattern

A pattern can literally and objectively be there, though. Do you not see that? A pattern can also be subjectively applied to such a random number, too.

Originally posted by inimalist
unless I'm reading you wrong, God is really putting a pattern into our specifically developed strings of randomness?

I sort of think so...but I am not sure if I would quite phrase it like that. God created this rules of randomness with a conscious effort towards our multiuniverse's existence (and the ultimate goal of sentience). If that makes sense. They were created and then influenced within those bounds to result in us.

Originally posted by inimalist
EDIT: also, I love the theories that are so unfalsifiable there would be no perceivable difference in the world if they were true or not...

I know, right? You ain't got shit. uhuh

The same goes for your exact arguments, too, btw. "We can never know all of information about the universe/multiverse because it is potentially infinite so we could never truly know it. Therefore, we can say god does not exist because we can't prove God exists, ever, due to our limitations. The argument is meaningless." That's the same argument as, "We can never disprove God's existance because we can never know all of information about the universe/multiverse because it is potentially infinite so we could never truly know it. Therefore, we can say God does exists because we can't disprove God exists, ever, due to our limitations and understanding: thus we invoke a "super-consciousness" that CAN comprehend this infinity to solve the problem. The argument against God is meaningless."

Or did you already realize that you're just rehashing the same circular discussions had be people much smarter than you and I? Me thinks you did...which makes you a dastardly devil. I'm on to you. 😖hifty:

so, your argument boils down to: "there is no such thing as randomness"?

Originally posted by inimalist
so, your argument boils down to: "there is no such thing as randomness"?

No, it boils down to:

The longer a random number sequence, the more patterns you can find in it.

Same with patterns. You can find randomness in patterns. Take Pi. It is clearly an ordered number based on a very specific universal pattern. However, the number itself extends, randomly, for infinity with no solution in sight. Random and ordered at the same time.

and:

A pattern can literally and objectively be there, though. Do you not see that? A pattern can also be subjectively applied to such a random number, too.

and:

There would be a clear selection bias for a sapient species that could have a "god-complex" with which to cope. Along with brain power comes a much more problematic element: "thinking" about and analyzing bad stuff. The natural selection would be in favor of those that developed a way to cope with that.

and:

Theisms evolved out of man's natural evolution. It is a byproduct of evolution. You may paint it as "seeing order in randomness" I see it as "seeing order where order exists on a much higher conscious plane than ever before in evolution".

You could say one of my points is: "Randomness is a subjective conclusion to the max."

Originally posted by dadudemon
The longer a random number sequence, the more patterns you can find in it.

this actually is the literal basis of my point. Randomness is not subjective, but the patterns we see in it are, and our ability to see those patterns is what we evolved.

even in absolute randomness, human brains find patterns.

I see no reason for your God complex thing... unless you phrased it maybe in terms of secondary control, but then distinguishing it as "god" instead of any other type of compensatory construct is meaningless. Our "God" spot in the brain is actually not exclusively associated with God, and it is much more probable that God is a concept we later discovered and were attracted to that activated that spot (the same way a car mechanic will see activation in the facial area when they see a car, the area isn't specifically about faces but rather expert level ability to distinguish). Like, you are speaking as if the superior temporal lobe is only active when dealing with the divine (I know it isn't you specifically who called it the God spot, but that is not a term neuroscience uses, unless trying to get eyeballs to paper. In theory, STL also activates during forms of epilepsy where people feel as if they ARE god, or when people have feelings of a presence in the room).

coping and belongingness (also called secondary control sometimes) are certainly things we, and other species, evolved. The connection of the divine to those is almost certainly not related to God, as the construct has only existed for ~50 000 years, and would therefore not have had the time to cause a major change in our genotype, and there is no evidence from history that such a god or theist based selection was ever a pressure humans underwent. This position is stuck in one of two lines of argument:

1. You can show evidence that there were selective pressures specifically related to the divine on humans (so, roughly in the past 100 000 - 1 000 000 years).

2. Arguing that when things like seeing agency in randomness or drives for belongingness evolved, in some of the earliest social animals, there was a God component to it, in such a way that all animals are tied to the divine.

1 is totally out of line with the historical record, and 2 is unfalsifiable and also not really evidenced.

I don't see why you are resistant to theism and God as being products of culture rather than evolution. If you can do mental cartwheels to see God in evolution, surely you can see him at work in culture....

Originally posted by Digi
Quote where I've ever said this. Heck, I specifically stated in an earlier post that trying to determine which is "better" is silly. So please, quote me. I'm interested to see where I've said either of these things, when I know for a fact that I've said the opposite. In fact, here's the quote, from page 4:

So again, don't put words in my mouth.

Also a point I never made. I only said religion and spirituality aren't the only ways to find fulfilling answers to life. I never said they didn't offer fulfilling answers. You're making things up, or grossly misunderstanding my words.

True, but it's one I've backed with what I believe to be reasonable justifications. More freedom doesn't = better, though, nor does it mean religion can't be fulfilling. It means only what I said, that there's more freedom.

Again, please quote me on this. In a technical sense, we can do without it, since many people live happy lives without religion. But it's also fact that many people don't live without religion, or don't want to.

Atheism doesn't hold that nothing exists that isn't apparent to our senses. There's tons of stuff that we know to exist that we would never perceive with our senses, and probably more yet to be found. Atheism just rejects a divine being behind everything.

I'm not upset, I'm confused. It's like we're having two different conversations.

You're right, there are two different conversations because you insisting on preaching to me about atheism, which frankly, I don't care about.
You know very well what your approach is to theism in this forum - it is redundant for me to quote it here, because you're going off on a tangent and is beside the point. I merely mentioned my allegory as this is what you appear to me every time I read your posts here (and I read them, I just don't comment on all of them).

You quoted my original post and said there are other ways are fulfilling except philosophy and religion, i asked what other ones are you talking about and I STILL haven't gotten an answer.

I wish you'd just say what it is? Is it atheism? Is it spirituality? Is it science?

I think atheism, spirituality and science all fall under certain definitions of philosophy.

Originally posted by inimalist
this actually is the literal basis of my point. Randomness is not subjective, but the patterns we see in it are, and our ability to see those patterns is what we evolved.

And therein lies your problem:

It's still not randomness because the ordered fashion is labeled as "randomness".

We still find a pattern and label that pattern as an ordered form: randomness. I am guessing that you will never agree on that point.

And the patterns you see in it are not subjective, at times, either. Like I pointed out, the random sequence of the numbers in PI are objectively not random. However, they are objectively random, as well (because we can never know the exact number). It depends upon the objective measure used.

That decision is the "subjectiveness".

Originally posted by inimalist
1. You can show evidence that there were selective pressures specifically related to the divine on humans (so, roughly in the past 100 000 - 1 000 000 years).

No, the last 13.7 billion years and possibly before that. As fact, I believe it HAD to occur before the beginning of the universe. 🙂

BTW, I also believe your soul, as well as mine, is older than the universe. I also believe our intelligence (consciousness) is eternal and without time. It has existed for eternity by all of our mortal abilities to comprehend.

Originally posted by inimalist
I don't see why you are resistant to theism and God as being products of culture rather than evolution. If you can do mental cartwheels to see God in evolution, surely you can see him at work in culture....

I don't see why you think those two are mutually exclusive and that I believe as such. I think they are both necessary for each other. God could not be loved if culture did not exist. God could not genuinely love if culture did not exist (it would be like loving an inanimate object...not what I am describing. I'm talking about reciprocated love).

Of course, I'm just using your words. I would choose different words.

Originally posted by inimalist
shakey/mindship/ddm:

I sort of think you guys are talking past the point when you are getting into evolution here. Humans, as in, animals that have theism, are not very old at all. Genetically, we have had little time, at all, to change and little survival pressure has been applied to our genotype. Changes in human behaviour from, say, 100 000 years ago until today are almost exclusively cultural (some changes, sure).

The problem is, you are taking the concept of "theism" as it exists in the modern context and trying to explain where it came from. A similarly problematic question would be like saying, "soccer is a sport of widespread popularity, therefore, it must serve some adaptive advantage evolutionarily", when its popularity is far better explained by cultural factors. "Theism" did not evolve into humans. There was never an evolutionary pressure on humans to be "theists". What would have evolved are the mental biases in terms of information processing that are congruent with theistic explanations for events.

So, "theism" did not evolve, in terms of biological evolution. What evolved were biases to see agency in randomness. There is a genetic advantage for such cognitive biases, not for theism. Appealing to biology, theism has nothing to do with it, for, among other reasons, it hasn't existed for long enough to really apply a selection pressure to the human genetic code. Theism is a product of our biased brains working together and developing stories and explanations for events that are congruent with experiences. This may seem like a small point, but these are vastly different things. Without making this distinction, we can literally ask why anything that is popular at any moment might be biologically advantageous, which is extremely silly.

No, a gun is a thing. To use your analogy, theism would be war, not a gun.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
No, a gun is a thing. To use your analogy, theism would be war, not a gun.

Theism is a thing, too. It's even an invention.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Theism is a thing, too. It's even an invention.

I don't buy that.

uugh whats a theist? (=======================ponders and looks around to see what other people wrote?

Originally posted by inimalist
I don't see why you are resistant to theism and God as being products of culture rather than evolution. If you can do mental cartwheels to see God in evolution, surely you can see him at work in culture....

Wait, so are you saying culture is not a by product of evolution and that it should be considered as something entirely different? (God being a cultural concept wouldn't stop it from being an evolutionary concept either, but who cares, my question is more relevant)

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
No, a gun is a thing. To use your analogy, theism would be war, not a gun.

its not a perfect analogy, but it certainly works better than theism as war. The soccer analogy I used earlier works too.

even then, war isn't evolutionary unless you call any intergroup conflict war (some people do, though I think there are better definitions). Though, the data of chimp intergroup conflict comes more from studies on chimps in habitats where humans are threatening their resources, meaning that war itself might be a cultural construct based on evolutionary pressures in low resource contexts.

Originally posted by Bentley
Wait, so are you saying culture is not a by product of evolution and that it should be considered as something entirely different? (God being a cultural concept wouldn't stop it from being an evolutionary concept either, but who cares, my question is more relevant)

there is a difference between something coming from what evolution selected and something being selected through evolution. A massive difference.

Think about the language you speak. Evolution selected for you to have the ability to learn language, but the phonemes, grammar, and all that of the language you learn is entirely cultural.

Originally posted by dadudemon
No, the last 13.7 billion years and possibly before that. As fact, I believe it HAD to occur before the beginning of the universe. 🙂

BTW, I also believe your soul, as well as mine, is older than the universe. I also believe our intelligence (consciousness) is eternal and without time. It has existed for eternity by all of our mortal abilities to comprehend.

so, in that case, you aren't arguing that theism is a consequence of evolution in any way, but rather has to do with creation.

my point, literally, has been that evolution did not select for theism, which, according to this, you agree with.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
You're right, there are two different conversations because you insisting on preaching to me about atheism, which frankly, I don't care about.
You know very well what your approach is to theism in this forum - it is redundant for me to quote it here, because you're going off on a tangent and is beside the point. I merely mentioned my allegory as this is what you appear to me every time I read your posts here (and I read them, I just don't comment on all of them).

You quoted my original post and said there are other ways are fulfilling except philosophy and religion, i asked what other ones are you talking about and I STILL haven't gotten an answer.

I wish you'd just say what it is? Is it atheism? Is it spirituality? Is it science?

Wow, holy crap. So I prove that you were making things up, misquoting me, and claiming the exact opposite of me than I was, and yet you continue attacking me.

Forget it lil. You're being far too angry toward me to have a discussion here. Frankly, I'm surprised at this coming from you. We've never so much as disagreed, and now I'm taking heat like I've been attacking you for years. I honestly don't know where this is coming from. If there was some perceived slight, in this thread or any other, it was not intended, nor was my tone or words intended to offend. There's not much more I can say.

Originally posted by inimalist
so, in that case, you aren't arguing that theism is a consequence of evolution in any way, but rather has to do with creation.

my point, literally, has been that evolution did not select for theism, which, according to this, you agree with.

I'm saying that the outcome of evolution on some planets does select for "theism" because that's God's goal. I am definitely not an expert on everything God has done or will do, so I cannot say for sure that every planet that can support life as we know it, will lead to sapient beings.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I'm saying that the outcome of evolution on some planets does select for "theism" because that's God's goal. I am definitely not an expert on everything God has done or will do, so I cannot say for sure that every planet that can support life as we know it, will lead to sapient beings.

so there would have never been a specific environmental pressure selecting for it, as it was already there before the creation of the universe.

God selected for it, not nature.

Originally posted by inimalist
so there would have never been a specific environmental pressure selecting for it, as it was already there before the creation of the universe.

You see random selection.

I see what superficially looks like random selection but is an extremely complex series of events that had a conscious goal.

therefore you would agree with the statement that evolution did not select for theism, yes?