Derb makes an interesting point about the heritability of religious belief.

The two things—the heritability (or not) of susceptibility to religious feeling, and the reality (or not) of the things religions talk about—seem to me to be orthogonal. Neither one depends on the other.

Yes. There are obviously many people who have a sense of a god, and who am I to tell them they're wrong, just because I don't? I can't know whether God exists or not (and really, no one else can either--that's why they call it faith), but there's something they sense or feel that provides a foundation for their faith that I've just never had.

I do feel a need to believe in something, but the God thing, and particularly the Jesus thing, literally never made sense to me. So I go for a more vague teleology thing. That is, I do think that the universe has a purpose, and that we are helping fulfill it by going forth and multiplying into the cosmos. But that doesn't require an entity that keeps an eye on the process, or pays any attention to the details (e.g., every sparrow that falls). Or that listens to an individual's, or even a group of individuals', prayers.

But I could be wrong.

Doesn't a purpose imply a creator?

Rand, for some reason I thought you were a Catholic, which is why this post caught me off-guard. But no matter - faith is a journey, much like life is a journey.

I do feel a need to believe in something, but the God thing, and particularly the Jesus thing, literally never made sense to me.

Belief in something is as you stated, faith. The Jesus thing, is religion. Faith casts the higher power. Religion casts the story around it as a guideline to what your faith should be. Remember, its religion that tells you what faiths are wrong. Its faith that tells you what's right, simply because having faith is never wrong. Acting on religious teachings can be problematic.

Perhaps a purpose implies a creator, but it doesn't necessarily imply one that watches every detail, listens to prayers, or is even still around.

Russell, I've no idea why you thought I was Catholic. I've been areligious since childhood.

Mark: Only if we want to get literal about the meanings, and since the way language is used is often not literal, that can be a trap.

(Or perhaps more accurately, feeling that there's a purpose doesn't mean there "really is" one outside of the people feeling that, or outside of people in general... but that doesn't really matter, since people aren't outside of people in general.

A purpose that exists only because people think there is one, or that they believe is so simply because that's the nature of people, is still a purpose, for all intents and, well, purposes.)

God is a chemical reaction.

Sigh.

The subject of how belief systems propagate interests me. We adopt, variously, different philosophies that satisfy certain psychological needs. Adorno et. al's 1950 The Authoritarian Personality is a landmark in the field, and later work, such as Jost et. al's 2003 Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, support the idea that belief systems develop to answer psychological needs that we have. If you like an agricultural metaphor, our individual psychologies are the soil in which the seed of a belief system can germinate and flourish.

My religion is Reform Judaism. This is a variety of Judaism that tolerates ambiguity well and is very non-dogmatic, with a committment to learning and service that appeals to my personal psychological quirks. Plus, it was a faith that I was raised in, and my childhood experiences of religion were very positive.

My belief system, differently, is that we understand very little of the complexity around us and within us, but we learn a little more all the time and the trend is in a good direction. I like to keep an open mind, but to be skeptical too, and I don't see those two ideas as especially antithetical to each other.

Finally, Rand, you might like a coinage I ran across a few years ago for your own religious POV - I think you're an apatheist. Maybe I am too.. despite my religion it's certainly nothing that I'd ever want to get all worked up over. I like it because it isn't just a negation - it actually says something about the particular belief system. My father loathes the term "wireless" for similar reasons - "How could something so marvelous be named for what it isn't instead of what it is?"

I consider the issue of a creator to be orthogonal to purpose. The universe could be created but not have a purpose. Or it could just exist and have a purpose or perhaps have a purpose grafted on after the fact. Ie, there's four combinations possible (assuming generously that the universe can only be in one of these four states).

My take is that the existence of a creator or some absolute purpose (or "telos") of the universe is unnecessary. The universe exists regardless of how it may have come about. And purpose strikes me as highly subjective. Suppose you were able to determine the telos of the universe and well, you didn't like it or your role in that? Then there seems no reason that you couldn't come up with your own rival purpose. Then the telos is no longer absolute which would be a contradiction. The only way to prevent such a contradiction is either that the telos is unknowable or it's so ambiguous that there's no way to contradict it (except possibly by ceasing to exist).

My take is that it's better to not rely on the existence or nonexistence of a creator and an absolute purpose. We can create our own environment, purposes, rules, and morals. That seems sufficient to me.

Why can't we create our own purpose in life? Why does the concept of "purpose" necessarly have to mean "a purpose created by an external agency that you have no control over"?

The idea behind stuff like libertarianism and transhumanism is that we create our own purpose, our own dreams and goals in life.

I have never felt the need to believe in anything else.

The notion that the propensity for believing in religion being an inheritable trait has always made sense to me. I have never felt the need to subscribe to any of these religious memes running around here and none of them have ever made a lick of sense to me. At the same time, religion is clearly something that appeals to many people.

Perhaps religion is like the arts and the Symphony. Some people have no need for it at all, others cannot live without it. This is a prefectly reasonable attitude to take towards religion and religious people. If the the religous people object to this notion, it surely exposes their desire to impose their beliefs on others. For if they are free to believe and to practice their religion, where is the sweat off of their backs because they are other people who choose not to partake in their religion?

Clearly the rejection of the notion that religous belief is an inheritable trait exposes the intellectual insecurity of those who reject it.

Just to play devil's advocate (or perhaps God's advocate?):

Kurt9:

Clearly the acceptance of the notion that religous belief is an inheritable trait exposes the intellectual insecurity of those who reject religion.

See - neither way you say it has any particular power... it just exposes your precondition. Acceptance/Rejection should be made based on evidence, not bias.

Personally, I think it would have to be a pretty silly God to make a universe and not give the occupants a predilection to believe in him. On the other hand, it probably can be described as a survival-enhancing trait too. There are too sides to every coin...

People believe in God because they cannot accept that moral law can exist without a moral lawmaker - that humans are obligated to behave in a certain manner but no transcendent authority is holding humanity under said obligation.

"People believe in God because they cannot accept that moral law can exist without a moral lawmaker - that humans are obligated to behave in a certain manner but no transcendent authority is holding humanity under said obligation."

'Zactly. Harken C.S. Lewis, who argues that because there IS a moral law, there MUST be a moral lawmaker, and that lawmaker MUST be God (and since all these things MUST be true, God is real!). All kinds of logical problems with that argument (as with so many of his arguments).

I don't believe the universe has a purpose. The universe just is.

"God is a chemical reaction."

In the case of Jesus, that point might have some merit.

Otherwise you might be correct in saying belief in God is a chemical reation.

Rand, my apologies, I guess I haven't been reading your blog long enough to know!

I think many people commenting here would benefit from reading a book by a world-famous astronomer (and die-hard agnostic, even on his death bed just a few years ago): "God and the Astronomers" Dr. Robert Jastrow

Some quotes (1st one from Dr. Jastrow's book, the rest random):

"The ultimate cause of the Big Bang is not a matter of another year, another decade of work, another measurement, or another theory; at this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." - Dr. Robert Jastrow

"Today, the concrete data point strongly in the direction of the God hypothesis. Those who wish to oppose it have no testable theory to marshal, only speculations about unseen universes spun from fertile imaginations... Ironically, the picture of the universe given to us by the most advanced science is closer in spirit to the vision presented in the Book of Genesis than anything offered by science since Copernicus." - Former Atheist, Harvard Grad, Patrick Glynn

"The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine." -MIT Physicist, Vera Kistiakowski

"My conclusion can be summed up in a single word: design. I say that based on science. I believe that irreducibly complex systems are strong evidence of a purposeful, intentional design by an intelligent agent." - Biochemist Michael Behe.

Russell, another thing you'd know if you were a long-time reader is that I don't give much credence to Behe, or any other ID advocate, until I see them doing something that actually resembles science (instead of simply critiquing evolution, and throwing up their hands, saying "I can't figure it out, so God must have done it.").

I don't believe that ID belongs in a science classroom, except as an example of what science isn't. That's not to say that I think it's wrong (though I do, but can't know for sure), but its not science.

I'm not a fan of Behe much either, actually. I just had a list of quotes that I liked, and pasted them all perhaps hastily. I'm agnostic when it comes to ID, and we probably agree significantly on that issue.

This thread is more or less dead, but I would also recommend the book "Rare Earth" (or just research the Rare Earth Hypthosis - which I believe is extremely plausible). We're just mincing words here on several very large topics, so perhaps in the future there will be a medium to discuss many of these topics individually in much more detail and adequacy.

I much prefer the understanding of Real God and the origins of the religious impulse communicated in these essays.
1. www.dabase.net/dht7.htm
2. www.dabase.net/noface.htm
3. www.dabase.net/christmc2.htm
4. www.dabase.net/dualsens.htm

Please also check out this essay on the self serving childishness of the "creator" god idea.

www.aboutadidam.org/readings/parental_deity/index.html