Evolution Hates Atheists.

[Gnug215]

One of the first commandments God ever gave was to have a lot of sex and make children.

Atheists, will of course, be infatuated with every idea they can think of which might prevent this from happening.

Yet again you claim to know what atheists think and want.

You don't.

Not just because, well, you can't read minds, but also because you have shown to be in no way intelligent or insightful enough to be even close to discerning what other people are thinking.

Your reasoning is massively lacking, too.

Are you seriously suggesting that evolution is just some random idea?

And how exactly do you suggest that evolution (whether it's just some random idea, or if it's an established scientific fact - which it is) would prevent people from having children?
After all, evolution is about heredity, and if you wanted to be so misguded as to treat evolution as some kind of religion, then you'd probably want to churn out children by the dozen.

 

[Gnug215]

It is a fact that religious people are more likely to reproduce than atheist


and it is a fact that natural selection favors those that are better in reproducing,


whether if you find this ironic or not is a matter of personal opinion,

Yes, but what is not personal opinion is that evolution is some entity that has the capacity to feel anything.

And also, does this mean that you now accept that evolution is a scientific fact?

 

[Gnug215]

OK Atheists, SOUND OFF!

Who here was formerly religious, born to religious parents?

And doesn't this make the whole argument moot?

(Oh, I'm in the minority... never been religious.)

Formerly religious here.

My parents weren't wildly religious, but my surrounding society to a fairly large degree.

So yeah, I did Sunday school and all that jazz.

 

[Visaki]

Someone here seems to think that biological evolution has something to do with sociological memes like theism.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

@Gnug, he meant "true".

And I'm also a former theist who's become a humanist - see what I did there? Belief is still playing its part in procreation. Just that we don't believe in breeding like flies until we run out of food resources, and have to turn to cannibalism - or global war to reduce the population, leroy.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Laurens]

My parents are religious. They had 5 children, all of whom upon reaching adulthood have rejected Christianity if not all notions of theism. There are now 7 grandchildren being raised by non religious parents. So 2 christians produced 12 non religious people. Way to go...

People don't inherit the religious views of their parents. I'd say they are far more likely to inherit them off their peers. Unless they are extremely sheltered

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[leroy]

It is a fact that religious people are more likely to reproduce than atheist


and it is a fact that natural selection favors those that are better in reproducing,


whether if you find this ironic or not is a matter of personal opinion,

Yes, but what is not personal opinion is that evolution is some entity that has the capacity to feel anything.

And also, does this mean that you now accept that evolution is a scientific fact?

Sure, if we define evolution as the idea that organisms that are more likely to survive and reproduce are more likely to pass their genes. The yes evolution is an obvious and uncontroversial fact.

 

[leroy]

Greetings,

@Gnug, he meant "true".

And I'm also a former theist who's become a humanist - see what I did there? Belief is still playing its part in procreation. Just that we don't believe in breeding like flies until we run out of food resources, and have to turn to cannibalism - or global war to reduce the population, leroy.

Kindest regards,

James

Granted, I share the same point of view, one should not reproduce for the sake of reproducing (like flies)


the point is that evolution would favor humans that reproduce and have as many kids as possible, for evolution it is better to have 10 kids and only 3 survivors than 2 kids and 2 survivors. even if this causes war and cannibalism in the ling term

 

[leroy]

My parents are religious. They had 5 children, all of whom upon reaching adulthood have rejected Christianity if not all notions of theism. There are now 7 grandchildren being raised by non religious parents. So 2 christians produced 12 non religious people. Way to go...

People don't inherit the religious views of their parents. I'd say they are far more likely to inherit them off their peers. Unless they are extremely sheltered

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

I would say that there is strong evidence that humans are born with a natural predisposition to believe in God or some other sort of spiritual stuff. .....or at least that is what I say in some discovery channel type documentary

 

[WarK]

OK Atheists, SOUND OFF!

Who here was formerly religious, born to religious parents?

And doesn't this make the whole argument moot?

(Oh, I'm in the minority... never been religious.)

Pretty much my entire family are theist. I used to be a theist but I stopped believing stupid shit like that not long after I'd stopped believing in Santa.

 

[Nesslig20]

No it actually doesn't. The main point you are missing is that correlation doesn't mean causation.

granted, not necessarily, but atleast according to you and your comments, in this case we do have causation, not just correlation.

We do have a causation, but the causation isn't religiosity.

Can religion spread culturally by promoting its followers to breed like rabbits? Sure. Although the most likely explanation that the religious are less likely to use something called "contraception" and have "sex-education" compared to the non-religious. Thus the non-religious are more likely to use counter measures that prevent unwanted pregnancies and only have kids when they want to, typically when they have planned to have kids and are thus prepared to give them a high quality upbringing

here yo go, you already provided a causal explanation for it.

But it isn't religiosity though. The causation I provided is a tendency to not use any contraception and having a lack of sex education, which isn't synonymous with religious, but is more often found among the extremely religious.

So having kids between the religious and the non-religious is a matter of quantity vs quality. I favor quality.

sure, but evolution and natural selection prefer quantity over what you would call quality, don't get me wrong, I am not a religious person, and I am personally pro quality (as you call it) ...........I just find it ironic that evolution prefers religious people rather than atheist

Not always. There are animals that spawn millions of offspring each generation, only a fraction will survive. Those animals tend to not take care of their offspring. So their reproductive strategy is quantity. Species like us have less offspring but put a more qualitative effort in raising their offspring.
and you have animals in between that have lots of offspring but also take care of them to a degree.

But once more, religious belief aren't inherited as genes, thus offspring are sometimes more likely to not hold the same religious beliefs as their parents (under certain conditions). The only sort of "inheritance" it could possibly have is like Richard Dawkins concept of memes that spread culturally across a population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
Which isn't subject to natural selection.

Secondly, bear in mind that religious belief isn't passed on genetically, thus natural selection cannot have an affect on it. Nor is belief in God (with a capital G) either, which is evident by the existence of independent religions, whose followers also have lots of babies, include completely different gods or no gods at all.

well many scholars believe that we are born with a religious instinct.

Not that I am aware of, at least not among the biologists. I have heard that people have a tendency to be superstitious (look up superstitious pigeon experiment) and be obedient towards authority figures and also be hyper agency detectors (hearing a sound in the grass and unconsciously assuming it is a lion rather than just the wind), however none of these are any religious instinct.

besides religious experiences are suppose to be delusions caused by chemicals in our brain ..........the point is that these chemicals have a positive effect in terms or natural selection< therefore any genetic material that promotes this delusory experiences would be selected by natural selection.

Which is not supported by any evidence whatsoever.

 

[Nesslig20]

My parents are religious. They had 5 children, all of whom upon reaching adulthood have rejected Christianity if not all notions of theism. There are now 7 grandchildren being raised by non religious parents. So 2 christians produced 12 non religious people. Way to go...
People don't inherit the religious views of their parents. I'd say they are far more likely to inherit them off their peers. Unless they are extremely sheltered

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

I would say that there is strong evidence that humans are born with a natural predisposition to believe in God or some other sort of spiritual stuff. .....or at least that is what I say in some discovery channel type documentary

Those channels more often promote complete crap.

 

[Grumpy Santa]

My parents are religious. They had 5 children, all of whom upon reaching adulthood have rejected Christianity if not all notions of theism. There are now 7 grandchildren being raised by non religious parents. So 2 christians produced 12 non religious people. Way to go...

People don't inherit the religious views of their parents. I'd say they are far more likely to inherit them off their peers. Unless they are extremely sheltered

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

I would say that there is strong evidence that humans are born with a natural predisposition to believe in God or some other sort of spiritual stuff. .....or at least that is what I say in some discovery channel type documentary

The flaw with your statement there is singling it to "God" rather than "something". Kids believe whatever their parents tell them at really young ages, it actually helps them survive longer when their parents don't tell them to wander off because of the things that are going to eat them. Religion began as an offshoot of a basic evolutionary survival skill... learning from your parents. The problem is, however, that it grew to more than seeing your parents run away from a rustle in the hedgerow, when humans started making shit up to explain what they didn't know the kids believed that too.

 

[Grumpy Santa]

So Leroy. You've been ignoring this fact, now it's time to incorporate it into your argument. More atheists are the result of religious parents than not. If Christians, for example, are supplementing the atheist population by also producing atheists, and when you include the fact that atheism is the fastest growing "religious group" (the "nones", so to speak) in the U.S. right now, do you agree that the reproductive rates of Christians and atheists are ultimately irrelevant to the growth of the atheist population?

 

[leroy]

So Leroy. You've been ignoring this fact, now it's time to incorporate it into your argument. More atheists are the result of religious parents than not.?

that is simply a confirmation of the point that I am trying to make, most atheist (in this forum) are first generation atheists, their parents where not atheists,


this confirms the point that atheists genes and/or atheist memes are not inherited as easily as their theist counterparts.

If Christians, for example, are supplementing the atheist population by also producing atheists

so what ?.....legless humans usually come from legged parents, the point is that both legless individuals and atheist are less likely to reproduce than legged and theist individuals.

, and when you include the fact that atheism is the fastest growing "religious group"

this simply proves that atheism is currently on fashion ancient alien believers are also growing at very fast rates?


but this is not relevant, the point is that there are selective pressures against atheism ...........evolution favors theists, ...................you can always argue that other factors unrelated to evolution and natural selection might favor atheism ............but that doesn't change the fact that evolution favor theists. and I personally fin d it ironic.




with atheist genes I mean> all the genetic material that would produce the emotional, psychological, intelectual .....state that would produce a bias towards preferring atheism rather than theism. I am not implying that there are actual genes that code for atheism.

 

[leroy]

But it isn't religiosity though. The causation I provided is a tendency to not use any contraception and having a lack of sex education, which isn't synonymous with religious, but is more often found among the extremely religious.

but that doesn't change the fact that evolution favors theism

But once more, religious belief aren't inherited as genes, thus offspring are sometimes more likely to not hold the same religious beliefs as their parents (under certain conditions). The only sort of "inheritance" it could possibly have is like Richard Dawkins concept of memes that spread culturally across a population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
Which isn't subject to natural selection.

It is a widely uncontroversial fact religious believe is determined by both genetic factors and memes, the only controversial thing is the relevance that each of this has.

Nevertheless science has shown us clearly that one level of belief in God and overall spirituality is shaped not only by a mix of family environment and upbringing--which is not surprising--but also by our genes. Twin studies conducted around the world in the U.S., the Netherlands and Australia as well as ours in the U.K. show a 40 to 50 percent genetic component to belief in God

[/quote]
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/what-twins-reveal-about-god-gene#page-2



but we both know that you are going to reject the argument and the source by default, so please feel free to do research in any source that you consider reliable and prove that genetic material doesn't play a role in determining religious believe.

 

[surreptitious57]

The title of this thread Evolution Hates Atheists is completely ridiculous because it is not capable of conveying emotion. Now you no
doubt intended it to be metaphorical rather than literal but it is still equally ridiculous. Also there is absolutely no reason why atheists
cannot have as many children as theists. The fact they do have children invalidates your claim that God belief is favoured by natural
selection. Since they are still passing on their genes regardless. Also it is a non sequitur for one has got nothing to do with the other

An atheist is like a slow Zebra sure it can reproduce and have kids but they are less likely to do it than a fast zebra
that can scape from predators in evolution anything that makes you more likely to reproduce should be interpreted
as something beneficial and something that limits reproduction should be interpreted as a something bad

Atheists might have fewer children than theists. But those children are not going to be indoctrinated into the belief system of their parents
So will therefore as a consequence be better critical thinkers and sceptics. In evolution it is not so much how many offspring an organism
has [ though this matters ] that is most important. But rather how effectively genes can be passed on. In other words quality over quantity

 

[leroy]

[
Atheists might have fewer children than theists. But those children are not going to be indoctrinated into the belief system of their parents
So will therefore as a consequence be better critical thinkers and sceptics.

where can I find atheist that are critical thinkers?

In evolution it is not so much how many offspring an organism
has [ though this matters ] that is most important. But rather how effectively genes can be passed on. In other words quality over quantity

however natural selection doesn't care if offspring's are going to be indoctrinated or not, for evolution quality means that the offspring will be survive and reproduce, it has nothing to do with your (our) notion of quality.

 

[MarsCydonia]

where can I find atheist that are critical thinkers?

How would you recognize critical thinking when you desperately avoid it?

Seriously Leroy, what are you doing here? People indulge you but I no longer see reason to as it has become clear that as far as trolls go, you're not one of the brightest.

 

[Nesslig20]

But it isn't religiosity though. The causation I provided is a tendency to not use any contraception and having a lack of sex education, which isn't synonymous with religious, but is more often found among the extremely religious.

but that doesn't change the fact that evolution favors theism

Which isn't a fact since religiosity isn't inherited genetically, thus isn't subject to evolutionary processes.

But once more, religious belief aren't inherited as genes, thus offspring are sometimes more likely to not hold the same religious beliefs as their parents (under certain conditions). The only sort of "inheritance" it could possibly have is like Richard Dawkins concept of memes that spread culturally across a population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
Which isn't subject to natural selection.

It is a widely uncontroversial fact religious believe is determined by both genetic factors and memes, the only controversial thing is the relevance that each of this has.

Really? What are these factors then if they are so uncontroversial?

Nevertheless science has shown us clearly that one level of belief in God and overall spirituality is shaped not only by a mix of family environment and upbringing--which is not surprising--but also by our genes. Twin studies conducted around the world in the U.S., the Netherlands and Australia as well as ours in the U.K. show a 40 to 50 percent genetic component to belief in God

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/what-twins-reveal-about-god-gene#page-2
but we both know that you are going to reject the argument and the source by default, so please feel free to do research in any source that you consider reliable and prove that genetic material doesn't play a role in determining religious believe.

I don't reject arguments by default, but the source is relevant. I won't take things seriously from tabloid journals like the daily mail, and neither should you. I read the site and it does look promising at first, a twin study is something you can do to find out whether something is more nature or more nurture. However, it doesn't go into the specifics, like how was the research performed, what questions did they asked to the test subjects? I tried to find the original articles but I couldn't find them. The only link the post cited was a book by an author who also cited the same examples, but the citations to those examples are not there.

And the method is really important like if you asked "do you believe in a higher power" is so vague that even those that are otherwise not religious will answer yes to it. Or other questions that are not specific enough will give you a result that is not relevant to religion.

The article also cited this example:

In an attempt to separate the '3 Bs'--belonging, behaving, and believing, the three elements that make up religiosity--they asked a range of questions attempting to get a handle on individual differences in spirituality. They defined this as "the capacity to reach out beyond oneself and discover or make meaning of experience through broadened perspectives and behavior." The scale is based on three main factors: self-forgetfulness, transpersonal identification and mysticism. Questions in the test they designed included:
"I believe that all life depends on some spiritual order or power that cannot be completely explained"--true or false?
"Often when I look at an ordinary thing, something wonderful happens--I get the feeling that I am seeing it fresh for the first time"--true or false?

This made me raise my eyebrows. Notice that sentence, that is so vague it could apply to me and other non-religous people. And also the three main factors among them is mysticism, which isn't unique to religion. There are atheists or more specifically non-religious people who fall prey to all kinds of mystic woo like homeopathy and astrology. And look at the questions, the second in particular, I would have said yes I do get that feeling sometimes, but I am not religious by any stretch.

The site also ended with a single anecdotal account, which you cannot rely on frankly.

So based on this alone, I don't think it is particular helpful in determining whether religiosity is inheritable. At best (as I said before) the tendency to be obedient to authority, superstitious and hyper agency detectors (which is common across humanity, not just the religious) could be factors that make religiosity as a by product, a spandrel. But even this is not very certain. My tentative position is that the human cognitive behavior is very complex and ascribing certain behaviors as genetically determined does not reflect the underlying process as a whole. A better way of looking at the evolution of human cognition is what Steven J. Gould has said about it:

...markedly increased brain size in human evolution may have had the most profound allometric consequences of all-for it added enough neural connections to convert an inflexible and rather rigidly programmed device into a labile organ, endowed with sufficient logic and memory to substitute non-
programmed learning for direct specification as the ground ofsocial behavior. Flexibility may well be the most important determinant of human consciousness (see essay 7); the direct programming of behavior has probably become inadaptive. Why imagine that specific genes for aggression, dominance, or spite have any importance when we know that the brain's enormous flexibility permits us to be aggressive or peaceful, dominant or submissive, spiteful or generous? Violence, sexism, and general nastiness are biological since they represent one subset of a possible range of behaviors. But peacefulness, equality, and kindness are just as biological- and we may see their influence increase ifwe can create social structures that permit them to flourish. Thus, my criticism of Wilson does not invoke a nonbiological "environmentalism"; it merely pits the concept of biological potentiality a brain capable of the full range of human behaviors and rigidly predisposed toward none-against the idea of biological determinism-specific genes for specific behavioral traits.
https://cbs.asu.edu/sites/default/files/PDFS/Gould%20Potentiality%20v%20Determinism.pdf

Viewing human cognition this way makes sense in light of that humans can change their minds wildly over their life time. Many atheists being former believes.

Also this part

please feel free to do research in any source that you consider reliable and prove that genetic material doesn't play a role in determining religious believe

Is shifting the burden of proof, because I didn't start a post making any of such claims. Although here is one thing I found:
https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/86/4/1621/2235070/Social-and-Genetic-Influences-on-Adolescent?redirectedFrom=PDF