"We've evolved to be creationists"

[Kilroy_x]

Re: "We've evolved to be creationists"

I read the article when it first came out. I think it is probably to a large extent correct. To respond to half the respondees to this topic, who clearly didn't read the article, it is a natural predisposition towards supernatural thought which is cognitively ingrained. Left alone, people would invent their own supernatural explanations for things. When society is factored in, however, supernatural concepts can gain longevity as existing ones are passed on, and passed on easily due to predispositions.

Whether or not religion has benefits is another issue entirely. Some say that even if it is false, it helps foster social cohesion both through the values it teaches and simply by being a social institution. Personally I think there are many religious values which are very poor, and that religion is at best balanced between creating "good" things and creating "bad" things. Then again, its not really sensible to say "the Sistine chapel cancels out the Spanish inquisition".

Essentially, if there's another way to get good things that doesn't have the same obscene cost, it would be better to go with it than with religion.

[devonin]

Re: "We've evolved to be creationists"

a natural predisposition towards supernatural thought which is cognitively ingrained. Left alone, people would invent their own supernatural explanations for things.

It is, if nothing else, a way to justify being ignorant of how something works or why something occurs in a way that makes it be 'not your fault' that you don't actually know. "A wizard did it" solves all -kinds- of problems.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: "We've evolved to be creationists"

Including problems that could have been solved in a way that forwarded the development of useful tools, medicines, methods of thought...

Not to mention, of course, what they do when they find the wizard.

[devonin]

Re: "We've evolved to be creationists"

Well, clearly they choose between a) Paying no attention to the man behind the curtain or b) learning that they actually possessed all the gifts they thought they were missing.

[Afrobean]

Re: "We've evolved to be creationists"

Cavernio, what you're getting at with your response to my post seems more like the nature of the "soul" (rather than the concept of God), which probably is an innate characteristic of self-aware, intelligent beings. Whether or not the soul truly "exists" isn't exactly important, but what matters is the feeling that there is something at the core of us that makes us more than what we would be without it. I personally don't see any sort of thing like that to be related to the concept of God, but I suppose it's not a terribly large stretch for someone to make.