Whether Wathey’s hypothesis turns out to be the exact mechanism or not, it’s a good read for helping understand how it could have come about biologically.
[amazon.com]

@skado I looked at the description of the book in the link. I certainly think that whatever it is which has given rise to and continues to support god belief is entirely natural. It's onboard, not out there and it doesn't plug into anything centralized but rather arises as we do at birth and finishes when we do when we die.

@MarkWD
Yes, exactly.

Information abounds in this day and age. Unfortunately, prejudice, willful ignorance, willful stupidity, malice and arrogance also abound.

@anglophone
SWOT, brainbox (hurls wet toilet rolls at the nerd)
Hurhurhurhur, hyuk, raspberry!

@anglophone yeah willful ignorance explains a lot. I fear in the future historians will conclude this race has amused itself to death...

Someone told them ignorance is bliss and they took the blue pill.

there is no “religion”

It's ironic they could feed the fear of not knowing by teaching how not to know anything at all.

@prometheus Which of course it does by, making people think that they know everything.

@Fernapple too true. Never met such a bunch of empty headed know nothing know it alls...

The anthropic principle applies quite a bit here. But then you have to figure out what it is about the rules that supports conscious life so that we are here pondering the rules...

As for existence... I think of the infinite complexity and beauty of the Mandelbrot Set (et al) which existed in plain sight for millennia before humans figured out how to see it. So maybe there is a similar situation with the universe as a whole?

@prometheus Yes, our perception is very limited—limited by our imaginary reality model and by sensory input which is very sparse and selective in the first place and in addition gets filtered down to bare necessities needed for survival by our subconscious.

Even if physicists figure out a few simple rules for modeling reality mathematically, I don’t see how those models would explain anything on a deep level. The deep questions would remain.

What is behind it all?

I've thought about that before apparently without even knowing there is a name for it. I think living with mammals that aren't humans gives you the idea that clearly we are not the only conscious creatures (or things) in the world. Which begs the question what is consciousness like for mammals like your cat or dog? And what about for an ape or a cow or a mouse or a fly? Is there a binary point around consciousness or does it made to black? If the former what causes that transition - sufficient memory, ability to recognise self... And if the latter how do we measure it from dumb rock to smart human and what controls how much you get - number of braincells, training, vocal cords, brain composition, or ???

@prometheus Take a dog, the closest to humans emotionally. Same blood, heart, lungs, etc. Similar memory, five senses, intelligent...what's different?
Scientists identified the 'inferior frontal gyrus' as what gives us the ability to think abstractly, be self-aware, etc., which is our evolutionary leap. It allows us an additional level of consciousness, makes us unique. (It's what extraterrestials bred into us, arguably.)
If it's true the universe is eternal, having no beginning or end (Big Bounce v. Big Bang), IT is 'god,' then. WHAT is the universe? Indestructible matter and energy, right, two forms of the same thing, which cannot be created or destroyed?
But is it self-aware? Maybe not, in and of itself. THAT WE KNOW OF.
Did the universe (matter/energy) EVOLVE self-awareness? Did it have it intrinsically or did it need a place to 'reside?'
Am I saying the universe "caused" self-awareness deliberately? No. It IS beholden to it's own self-contained laws, and so self-awareness must be contained WITHIN those physical laws.

@Storm1752 do we actually know dogs and other mammals aren't self aware?