The kind of pseudoscience you’re talking about certainly does exist, and “intelligent design” for example, is a prime example of religious ideology masquerading as science.

This article is not about that. There is a growing academic interest in understanding the evolutionary roots of behaviors that may have been adaptive in our ancestral environment but could become maladaptive in modern societies. These researchers are typically die-hard atheists, doing the highest quality science possible, given the subject. Nothing should be out of bounds for legitimate scientific inquiry.

Yes, lots of competing hypotheses out there. It’s definitely not a “settled” field.

That’s not indicated in the article.

Skado is right.

Depending upon how one defines religion, but could be more about how we choose to manifest/practice what is essentially a “feeling” right?

Filling a hole or whatever iow

Thanks. Looks interesting. After a cursory scan, the part on religion wasn’t readily apparent. Could you tell me which page/pages it’s on? I’d like to read it, but don’t feel motivated to wade through the entire paper.

@skado Here's a link. I need to add this to my listing as I recommend it often. [thehumanist.com]

@JackPedigo

Thanks.

Would you like to read the full article?

@skado No don't need to, to understand it's basis to religion.

@xenoview
That was my guess.

I am one person who is sooo anti-religion, from childhood, but you miss the point of its having some value as a cohesiveness medium. Granted that this has been used to hurt the "Other," but it may have served a useful purpose way, way, back in the day.

@BirdMan1
If it was, as I suspect, a counterbalance to evolutionary mismatch, it may still be serving that vital purpose, because I don’t see any other system doing that job. In that case, it’s abandonment would send us immediately back to pre-neolithic times, if not farther. Possibly to extinction.

@skado You could have a point there!

Ideally, science would never be for sale.

@skado In it's dependence on govt to supply it with cash science already is for sale. I think that's what 45's response to the science of COVID-19 demonstrated. Like our minds, science retains an independence from its need for money, however.

@rainmanjr
Right, that’s why I say, “ideally”. There are certainly places where human behavior veers from the ideals of science.

@rainmanjr “ Like our minds, science retains an independence from its need for money, however”
hmm
“ In it's dependence on govt to supply it with cash science already is for sale”
im having trouble reconciling the two i guess

Good thought. May well be.

I think the answer is not to push for abolition of religion but for a new story which is science based but allows for spiritual experience. The idea of a God would not be part of such a story but connection to the natural elements of Universe would. I have conceived of such a story and posted it.

@rainmanjr
Where? Did I read it? I’d like to.
A literal god wouldn’t fit in that story, but a metaphorical one would fit nicely. The less you have to change, the closer to consonance with existing momentum you come.

@skado

I’m not aware of having quoted anyone specifically expressing otherwise. As you and I have discussed often, that word religion has many different understandings. I have never believed genes create specific doctrine, but very likely do afford a propensity for behaviors that humans in general have come to regard as specifically religious, rather than only a general capacity for belief.

@skado Your video person was certainly propounding that. Do not forget that it is a point where it is very needful to avoid misinterpretation by the literalists, which they will do at the drop of a hat, even a failing to propound the difference between belief and religion as the main point is dangerous.

The only other objections which I still have to all of these is as said the misrepresentation of atheists, and the usual fake revissionist claim that the science is new, when even I can trace the hypothesis back to the seventies.

@Fernapple
Have you revived an interest in continuing that conversation?

@skado Ok, I will go further on your video and say that. Deceit by omission even partial omission or under emphasis is no better morally than deceit by misrepresentation.

@Fernapple I disagree with your assessment of omission. Sometimes, maybe often, people omit a truth about themselves for the fine justification that it isn't major and, therefore, unimportant to the bigger goal. Just because that often bites a person in the ass is not justification for it being as evil as misrepresentation (but I have skin in that game).

@Fernapple
Well there is no way I can aggregate everything Dr. Ritchie has said about the subject just for a post on AgDotCom. I didn’t even post the entire video. It’s just a conversation starter, not a master thesis.

If you are interested in getting to the bottom of the issue I would be willing to explore it with you. You may have a point that I haven’t seen yet. But so far, it appears to me you are reading your personal interpretations into her words in a way that is out of step with current scholarship. Who do you think is being deceitful, me or her?

your comment minds me (for whatever reason) that up until about 100 years ago, even going to the doctor was a “religious” experience, and i guess is still fairly quasi-religious

politics is also pretty easily compared to a religion, even how we eat can easily become one i think

Yes, there are still a lot of particulars as yet untested by science, and some that may never lend themselves to scientific scrutiny. Often things are more complicated and messy than we tend to think at first.

@skado That's why, I think, the next step in the evolution of spirituality isn't atheism. That denies too much of what religion soothes.

@rainmanjr
Exactly! As long as scientists feel religion is beneath them we may not know the full extent to which our species depends on it for survival. If everything were obvious to the amateur, we wouldn’t need science. I’m with Dan Dennett on this - we should understand religion better than we currently do scientifically, before we go sawing off the limb we may be sitting on.

@skado I just replied to another post that philosophical inquiry should be a yearly aspect of education's curriculum and religious doctrines part of that inquiry.

@rainmanjr
I agree wholeheartedly. And if I recall correctly, Dennett himself has suggested something similar.

@rainmanjr, @skado problem there might be that it would almost inevitably be taught by a believer

@bbyrd009
It’s a subject, unlike physics for example, which almost everyone has an emotional investment in, one way or the other. So it would be difficult to find an impartial teacher for sure. But they wouldn’t be just teaching their own religion; they would be required to teach all of them. And it wouldn’t be focused on how to be a good religious person, as would be taught in a church, but more from an analytical, philosophical, and scientific perspective. Who knows - the teachers might be required to learn something about that subject they didn’t know. I have an idea the teaching profession has ways to monitor and regulate the content taught. If not, it would need to be developed. Maybe some teachers here can tell us how course materials are regulated.

@skado ya…i have a thing about teachers in general, and try to seek natural analogs, though; but of course any prof on this subject would necessarily be a student too i guess. You’d think this would be addressed in comparative religion?

@bbyrd009

" any proof on this subject would necessarily be a student too"

not sure I catch your meaning here. could you unpack that a bit

@skado ah sorry, autocorrected to proof from "prof," professor

@bbyrd009
ah, yes. Comparative Religion would surely be the domain it would be modeled on I’d think. And yes, there’d be a lot of learning going on in all quarters.

@skado I wouldn't limit philosophy to religion. Over grades 6-12 schools can cover lots of various ideas. More if we start an interest in philosophy from grade 3.

@rainmanjr but that would surely engender thoughtful ppl, something i doubt public indoc would be amenable to?

@skado I was a philosophy professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Mississippi State University for 30+ years (Department head for seven) and taught the course, Philosophy OF Religion, every other year throughout my tenure there. I do believe I was even-handed as I believe are most other professors of Philosophy OF Religion in state supported institutions (and many private ones, too). My agnosticism may have served me well in this capacity but in philosophy courses generally the standard procedure is to present/criticize both sides as forcefully as possible--: proselytizing for one's personal beliefs is always a professional no-no and is also strictly forbidden in state schools.

@rainmanjr
Total agreement here.

@Wallace
Thanks. That's sort of what I would have assumed or hoped. Glad to hear it..

Exactly that.

Possibly the next stage of evolution needs to connect both, then?

@rainmanjr true religion is taking care of widows and orphans in their time of need paraphrased

...or worse. It can easily metastasize if we aren’t paying attention and understanding its true nature.

Useless yet highly schooled professionals still advocate for leaving it in place until a problem develops.

@skado, @rainmanjr might be the repository for probiotics? I read somewhere…

@skado It's removal is compulsory if you are going to Antarctica for its winter. There is no help available for appendicitis during those winter months.

I respectively disagree until you can then tell us where consciousness comes from.

@rainmanjr medium…i think it is, just had an article claiming that scientists just figured that out i didn’t bother though, but it might be pertinent, dunno

@bbyrd009 It's a raging debate. My answer is an electro-magnetic neural network being a parasite that anchors into a cerebral cortex and provides consciousness. This is biology but with that spiritual connection.

@rainmanjr hmm
i suspect frontal lobes, and doubt a disconnect of mind/body myself, but that we are essentially "two" people has been theorized before, plus our disconnect from...everything else, and our proclivity for selfishness and perceiving our "selves" as separate also speaks to that i guess?

remember when you did not recognize your"self" in a mirror?
there's a native american thing for that, took me a while though

@bbyrd009 when you look for your self and pay attention to the “looker”, what happens?

@Mvtt hmm, the observer's observer...i give up, what?

@bbyrd009 one would hope, you transcend the illusory concept of duality.

@Mvtt a similar to that has worked well for like re-centering sometimes, for me; but id say that one still must meet their monster so to speak, via sensory deprivation or whatever, otherwise youre just playing at it. But ya, good way to shift perspective, if you can exercise that in the moment

@rainmanjr If I could answer this, I'd be a Nobel prize winner. Alas, I can't.

Having said that, I stand by my comment. Your "explain to me" is akin to the god-of-the-gaps argument used by the religious. I could just as easily say, prove to me that consciousness isn't just another manifestation of our mental processes.

@Mitch07102 So, since I do explain where consciousness comes from but can not prove a thing which would exist in quantum mechanics (scientists can not explain most of the quantum arena but we know it's there), I expect a nomination. It is not quite like the God of the gaps because we know consciousness exists. It's just explaining it that is difficult. Nothing supernatural about my explanation because we also know that:
1: Parasites commonly exist
2: Parasites commonly exist in the human body. Gut bacteria, which might play a major role to mental process, is an excellent example of some.
3: Electro-magnetic energy is timeless and has no end. So, when the brain dies, what happens to that energy in our brain? My theory explains that question.
4: There is no consequence for not accepting this explanation. However, by doing so we have a better idea of why limiting sensory perception connects us to a strong voice within. A more accurate voice, if I may venture that, because senses are limited or rely on instruments for truth. All biological creatures also share the same ability for such a parasite so it would explain their consciousness.
5: Acceptance of a biological/spiritual idea would eliminate ALL division over soul and God. We become our own God because consciousness is the ultimate personal connection to natural fabric.

Well said indeed!

Solomon said where there is no vision, the people perish, which is usually interpreted to mean “have a vision,” but i suspect now might be more a condemnation of it, dunno