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I listed several articles covering a few different aspects of what I was saying. They were mostly about showing how humans had a natural belief in religious concepts. This is related to how some say there is no such thing as a true atheist because if we all have a natural belief in us about religious concepts which include divine agents then it would be harder to be a complete atheist. But I cant remember using the site you are talking about to only support us not being true atheists. So that link would have also been used to show that humans have a natural belief in religious ideas as well.
Thats what I was saying to begin with. The articles dont say anything about whether God is real. They just go into how we have these natural ways of believing in divine concepts. I used that site as one of many and to show a cross section views. The author is an atheists so he is going to believe those things. But he still stats that we have a natural ability to believe these concepts. He just happens to have a different reason why we do. He does state that the evidence is not clear as to whether we form religious concepts through evolutionary processes. The point I was using from this article was that humans have a natural belief in religious ideas deeply ingrained in them and not how they got it or whether it meant they should go off and become believers and join a church or to say that God is real.
Thats because I am quoting from more than one article.
Well no, there's nothing wrong with including some opinion that doesn't agree with what I say with my opinion but still agrees with the basic idea that humans have a natural belief in them about religious concepts. Its just the views on how that came about that differs. But there's nothing wrong with including some links that dont totally go along with what I am say. Like I said I was including a cross section of views but basically agreeing on the fact that humans believe in religious ideas naturally and was a part of us. I may not have understood some parts of what he was saying as well and interpreted it as something else. But that OK because you have to look at all the evidence involved and assess what is correct.
Thats because I wasn't aiming to prove all that. This was my personal opinion and I stated that. I only wanted to establish that belief in religious concepts was something that came natural to humans. Then I wanted to add my personal views as to why this may be the case for which is a different things and this would be harder to prove. So I am using the evidence for humans naturally believing which has support to support my personal views.
I am not sure about this attraction and would have to check out the evidence. I would have thought that people trust others based on other things apart from looks. It also may not relate to the same kind of natural ability that belief in religious concepts represents. You haven't linked any support for this so I am having to take your word for it.
I think you have found some aspects of one link that may not agree with what I am saying and are focusing on just this. But within that link were aspects that also supported what I was saying as well that humans believe in divine concepts naturally and these are a part of being human. Its only the view of how this occurs that is disputed and this is still a matter of debate and opinion. You call the rest of the links I posted rubbish because they are not agreeing with you. They include other supports and views about how and why humans naturally believe and you need to consider all that evidence and not just some of what you choose.
2. Because of the way the human mind works, it's easy for humans to believe in religious concepts...in other words, it comes naturally to them.
Not really. One scientists explains our natural ability to think along the lines of religious ideas is to compare it to someone who can play music naturally or be good at art or maths. They find it comes naturally and suits them. It fits in with how they think and are as a person. Where as another person will have to learn and practice more to do it and even then they wont be able to be as good naturally.
Read the quote again, on p1039: "Some form of religious thinking seems to be the path of least resistance for our cognitive systems. By contrast, disbelief is generally the result of deliberate, effortful work against our natural cognitive dispositions — hardly the easiest ideology to propagate." This seems to be a very subtle way of saying that religion is the result of lazy thinking.
So do various cognitive biases. It doesn't follow that we should accept whatever they lead us to believe.
Thats your interpretation and you will see things that way. Thats the point with this research has a fair amount of interpretation that goes into it as no one can confidently say why people think like this. This is one persons take on it. From how I have understood it many say that the thinking is a default type thinking that just sits easy with the way humans are meant to think rather than lazy thinking. A couple of the links I posted just previously touch on this in the language they use.
Boyer contrasts religion, "the path of least resistance," to deliberate and effortful thought, which he says tends to result in disbelief. That's not a flattering depiction of religion at all.
I've addressed this already, noting that our childhood inclinations are not necessarily immutable lifelong traits. If they were, it would be considered normal for an adult to throw a temper-tantrum like a toddler.
This has already been addressed. Many inclinations come "naturally" to us. It doesn't follow that we should accept whatever our inclinations lead us to believe. We know our inclinations are not infallible. We know that we are prone to error and cognitive biases. That alone is enough to give us pause to reflect.
This has also already been addressed.
What point are you trying to make here?
Cognitive biases are also "a natural form of thinking that sits well with us" and "fits in with what we intuitively know." It doesn't follow that they are not "lazy." Overcoming such biases requires effort. "Natural" and "lazy" are not mutually exclusive.
First of all Boyer is an atheist so his view is not going to promote religious belief as being anything positive. But I am not sure the evidence he uses actually points to this. He uses evolution as a means to how humans developed religious beliefs. It was based on understanding unknowns that may have threatened survival. So if that the case it is a product of evolution that has become dominate in humans as we have seen with the majority of people being believers at one point or another. Other researchers have used this understanding as well and state that religion also would have served as a way of helping humans get along and behave good so that societies could grow and survive. So in that sense religious belief is regarded as a benefit.
I agree but I think the evidence also points to adults having this ingrained belief in them even if they dont admit it. Its like a default thinking as some say. Our actions speak louder than our words. So this thinking gives us dimension and meaning to life more than we realize. Like I said with anything placing to much emphasis on believing in everything is out of balance with being human. We have to filter things through our minds and the physical world we live in. But some throw the baby out with the bath water and reject belief in supernatural possibilities altogether. Whereas some evidence says that the spiritual realm is a part of our existence and being human and rejecting this is rejecting being human.
I agree but as I stated there is a balance. We have also been wrong about the material evidence we base things on. We also see that the physics that we judge our reality with can be contradicted by other things at work. Our reality may just be one part of a bigger picture in which we havnt understood. So by only allowing to see things in one dimension is being closed minded and not being open to the possibilities of something beyond what we see. So maybe this default abilty to be open to believe in something beyond our reality is meant to be there because there is something beyond our reality and we are only just putting ourselves in line with that and thats why its sits so well with us.
conceptual development does not always move in the direction of greater empirical truth, as described within naturalistic domains. Our natural understanding/conclusions including what we develop as we grow dont always tell us that the truth has to be based on what we see or what all the evidence may point to. We can have evidence for something that tells us that it should be a certain way but we still dont believe that its the case. Now this can be because we are deluded but I think the evidence is also saying that there maybe a reason behind things that is causing us to think this way by default. So we dont just stumble along believing everything supernatural with lazy thinking. We still assess things and and filter it through our logic and test it against the evidence. That works a lot of the time but there seems to be evidence that it doesn't some of the time or maybe even more of the time than we realize.
We can fall into believing anything without checking out everything. But this can apply to things like investments and love as well as a belief in the supernatural. This form of thinking is not particularity lazy but will stem from a number of things such as a predisposition towards certain situations which will cause us to react that way. Denial for various reasons will also cause us to avoid reality. But I believe the evidence is saying that even when we can use all our ability to reason and see the evidence about the world around us we still have this inclination to believe and in something beyond this reality. And we intuitively know that something about it sits right and makes sense even though it doesn't compared to the logic and evidence we see.
You have an awful penchant for rambling. It is tiresome.
Isn't questioning and investigation also part of being human?
A balance of what?
Yes. So why place so much epistemic weight on superstitious inclinations?
I will repeat this only one more time, and then I'm done with this conversation: Many inclinations come "naturally" to us. It doesn't follow that we should accept whatever our inclinations lead us to believe. We know our inclinations are not infallible. We know that we are prone to error and cognitive biases. That's why we do science.
More rambling.
I reject the premise that we are incomplete unless we give in to superstitious inclinations.
There's a difference between acknowledging that the supernatural is a possibility and accepting it as a probable reality. The former need not entail the latter.
You may call it rambling but I like to go into some detail rather than just make a statement without an explanation. I find short statements without any support dismissive.
Yes and that is what I have said all along. You seem to be seeing things as just black or white. That belief is always associated with delusion. As I said belief is OK so long as we also use our minds to reason about where it can fit in with everything. But we can also question and investigate to much without allowing the possibility that some things are beyond our understanding that can play a role in things.
A balance of the mental, physical and spiritual. One without the other is out of balance. We are multi dimension beings and so is life.
I am not saying that so that we should then put extra weight on the supernatural. I am saying that we need a balance with equal parts of all these aspects in our lives. I could say why put so much weight on material things all the time as well.
I agree as I said before. But what I am trying to get at is that many people end up rejecting our natural ability to believe altogether as being totally unreal. So are you saying that all beliefs are just a delusion that we humans have formulated and there's absolutely nothing to them. The majority of humans on this planet have deluded themselves into believing something totally unreal.
This is the point of this debate that we will have differing views on this. I believe that we are incomplete without taking into account our spiritual side. Whether you call it superstition or not is up to you. But there is more and more evidence that there is other dimensions to our existence. The evidence has also shown that belief has also added a tangible benefit to peoples lives. So whether its imagined or real belief is a powerful and important aspect we need to consider and not dismiss.
Yes and thats most of the problem. Many are not even open to the possibility because they completely reject any notion of the possibility. They go to the other extreme of positioning themselves in one camp where they wont even consider anything possibility of anything beyond what they see. Just as you may accuse people of taking what is a natural inclination to believe to an extreme of believing anything.
Fair enough but I guess thats the way you see things and I see it differently. You see I can understand and get what you are saying and I agree. But you dont seem to get what I am saying. I have the benefit of accepting and therefor knowing all aspects of life and existence with the possibility of things beyond what we see.
