Hypothesis: the more educated you are the less likely you are to be religious - by SubJeff
jay pettitt on 6/2/2012 at 15:55
For shizzle.
Where I guess religions are kinda interesting though is that (unlike consumerism) they specifically claim moral authority.
I'm not trying to get at the idea that the religious people are bad people, rather that the idea of superior moral judgement from religion just doesn't seem apparent from reality. Religion doesn't seem (to me) to be a very successful vehicle for promoting good behaviour.
faetal on 6/2/2012 at 16:08
Yeah, the moral authority part sticks in a lot of people's craws.
It's the sanctimony that often comes with it too.
I still remember my ex kicking me under a table when I became embroiled in a "discussion" with her parents about my lack of religion and they claimed that I "may not be religious, but that's ok as you still live by very Christian morals", which, as well meant as it was intended, I took to be very condescending and which devalued the positive personality traits by ascribing them the origins of social programming. I then launched into a diatribe about whether they truly believed that all of humanity was some kind of mendacious, violent, looting, raping and killing free-for-all before some quasi-historical chap in the middle east decided to go round telling everyone to be nicer to each other and they all dutifully responded saying "ok then"? This is when the kicking started.
DDL has it spot on with the memetic selection. Christianity and its like did the best because it promoted exclusivity, fingers in ears, fecundity and indoctrination of children (my girlfriend and I have had interesting discussions about how our hypothetical kids might be raised, and I'm likely to have to defer, being the atheist and all that). There are many religious types who genuinely ask the question "but if you don't believe in god, what is to stop you from going out and killing a bunch of children?" etc.. without stopping to think about how this makes them look. Now I don't for a second think that the only thing holding these people back from such acts is their fear of god or hankering for rewards in the afterlife, but at face value, they seem to believe that. I realise this only represents some of the more hard line types though. I have issues with moderates to though, mainly that they clearly have the ability to inherently determine which parts of the bible they'll conveniently ignore due to the fact that it contains acts of prejudice and brutality, yet still insisting that morality is divine in origin. It's a tangled mess of a topic.
Beleg Cúthalion on 6/2/2012 at 22:18
Quote Posted by faetal
DDL has it spot on with the memetic selection.
Well, I don't think so (and it won't surprise you), because of a few points:
1. The dying out of religions is immensely closely linked to conquest, killed charismatic leaders and other forms of external forceful action with their respective ties to economics or survival in the broadest sense. The effect of memes, if existant at all, is at the most one of many. Plus, the idea is furthermore unsteady when you respect the religious ideas which survived a change of religion e.g. in a certain time and place. So either a single religion isn't a meme (which would be too selfish to allow for other dominant memes to survive) but a collection of single memes with a merciless competition for who belongs to the inner circle OR these memes were able to mutate (although I'd ask then why it would extinguish another meme first and then reproduce some of its traits) OR the idea of memes is unsustainable.
2. The imputation of religious memes forcing their hosts to reproduce rather often is
downright disgusting also ignoring the influence of a much more obvious aspect: That many children guarantee survival on the basic evolutionary level.
3. With reference to DDL's last paragraph I'd throw in that the tendency to drop the autarchy aspect of religions (which is IMHO clearly visible among religious people in modern states) would contradict the selfish meme idea as well. In general I think the weakness of this meme construction is that it suggests a congruence based merely on a few parallel aspects (like that better "things" win over worse "things"). Dawkins' method to bash religion with analogies to viruses is sub omni canonae, but probably only for those on the side of the river.
Quote Posted by Faetal
By "more balanced discussion" do you mean one which gives your ideas greater weighting?
No, by which I mean that we can focus on the actual discussion and not on finding new ways of describing one's own viewpoint. But still, I cannot help but assume that you try to shove away any discussion of how to deal with evolution from the outside, with decision-making (if it is based on biological reactions) and with the problem of how to justify and enforce a system of (law and) order. It always seems to me that everything ends with...
Quote Posted by faetal
we have just adapted to a changing environment using the same 80-100,000+ year old equipment we came with
...aka "that's it, no further thinking required". So evolution prepped us with what we have concerning mindsets and social rules and there's no need to have a superior look because it will always work out.
Quote Posted by faetal
because it promoted exclusivity, fingers in ears, fecundity and indoctrination of children
I already addressed some other parts above but... Fingers in ears? Do you have any idea of religious interaction during the last twothousand years? Well, the statement alone answers that already, plus, every child is indoctrinated, it learns thousands of things when it grows up. The big evil religious indoctrination didn't happen until the Protestant Reformation and its attempts to establish education for everyone. Wouldn't have hurt you to read something from the humanities...
faetal on 6/2/2012 at 23:24
Ok, maybe I'll attempt to pick this up again tomorrow, but I'm getting close to the point where the effort in replying to you isn't worth hearing your next response. It's late, I'm tired and...I just don't know where to begin with your response. Maybe I'll get to it tomorrow, maybe someone else will have a go. Either way, you've run out of anything which resembles (probably a few responses ago if I'm honest) a good contribution. IF I come back to this, please use the following flow chart as a guideline: (
http://bit.ly/gBtuOz)
(ignore the christian part, it pretty much applies to anyone)
Nicker on 7/2/2012 at 01:35
Quote Posted by DDL
So: TL R version: Altruism etc wholly evolutionarily - acquired for genes' own entirely selfish purposes, then piggybacked by memes for essentially their own entirely selfish purposes.
I wish I’d read that first.
Actually rest of it was an excellent examination and summary. I
could have put it better myself but I decided to let you have the glory instead, for the team.
I would like to clarify, with regards extreme, ideal, uber or ultra altruism, that while we can arrange altruistic acts on a continuum from instant gratification to abstract selflessness, if it does not return some benefit (personal or societal, real or ideal, immediate or distant) the sacrifice is not, by definition, an act of altruism.
Without bestowing a benefit, the sacrifice is just some sort of pathological death wish without even masochism to recommend it.
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
...we can focus on the actual discussion and not on finding new ways of describing one's own viewpoint.
Stop insisting that we play ball with platonic forms and we can get back to the game.
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
But still, I cannot help but assume that you try to shove away any discussion of how to deal with evolution from the outside, with decision-making (if it is based on biological reactions) and with the problem of how to justify and enforce a system of (law and) order. It always seems to me that everything ends with......aka "that's it, no further thinking required" So evolution prepped us with what we have concerning mindsets and social rules and there's no need to have a superior look because it will always work out.
From the "outside"? Outside what? Superior to what? From what external perspective? A satellite? A deity? You seem to keep insisting on external and idealised points of reference but you have yet to provide one we can use (if such a thing could possible exist). Throw us a non-platonic bone!
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
Do you have any idea of religious interaction during the last twothousand years? ... (
sorry but judging by this next sentence, you don't )... The big evil religious indoctrination didn't happen until the Protestant Reformation and its attempts to establish education for everyone. Wouldn't have hurt you to read something from the humanities...
Would you say that the Constantine hoax and the Nicean corporate restructuring, resulting in the universal church of Rome (325 A.D.), was just a naive prelude to Luther's real push for world domination through doctrinal uniformity?
Are you saying it required public schools to achieve wide scale indoctrination because a thousand plus years of Catholic doctrinal monopoly was ineffective?
Forget 2,000 years - try 20,000. Rulership and religion have been bedfellows since the dawn of humanity. That only began to change with the Renaissance and has been backsliding in some countries since WW2.
Beleg Cúthalion on 7/2/2012 at 09:21
Quote Posted by faetal
Ok, maybe I'll attempt to pick this up again tomorrow, but I'm getting close to the point where the effort in replying to you isn't worth hearing your next response.
This meme idea as presented is seriously flawed, it's presenting a theory and making the facts "fit" (or not) afterwards, which, as you surely know, is anything but scientific. If you call it "awesome" you're either not seeing its discrepancies with very simple worldly circumstances or you don't care because it goes along with your opinion.
Quote Posted by Nicker
From the "outside"? Outside what? Superior to what? From what external perspective? A satellite? A deity? You seem to keep insisting on external and idealised points of reference but you have yet to provide one we can use (if such a thing could possible exist). Throw us a non-platonic bone!
The very knowledge about evolution gives you the ability to mess with it, let it be or actively thwart it. The world by now is too complex to employ a simple survival-of-the-fittest(-community) measurement. To see what I have in mind we could tackle it from the other side: If religion and similar concepts with a seperation of body and mind approach are oldfashioned and unfit to survive (natural) scientific progress, how would you organize human life then (I'm thinking of aspects like abandoning the concept of guilt since it's biological nonsense and things like this)?
Quote Posted by Vasquez
And it doesn't mean we can "stop thinking", it means in general discussions we can exclude god-like creatures pulling our strings, until objective proof of the god(s) is provided.
That's what I'm after, how would you "think" about it?
PS: I just noticed that Dawkins indeed talks about coadapted meme complexes, so the idea of a single meme equalling one religion is indeed nonsense.
Vasquez on 7/2/2012 at 10:22
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
(I'm thinking of aspects like abandoning the concept of guilt since it's biological nonsense and things like this)
I'm thinking here is the gist of where you go wrong. Saying something is based on biology and evolution doesn't mean it's useless nonsense - quite the contrary. If you look around, for a functioning human world "moral" things like the sense of shame (or the so-called conscience), empathy, mercy, kindness etc. are necessary, and that's why they are not "nonsense" even though they are also biological. They not only make sense but are easily observable in everyday life, which makes them quite the opposite of god(s).
In other words, human life organizes itself like everything else in nature, it's not based on any big scheme by the fluffy grandaddy in the sky.
(I know you've been told this over and over again, but what the hell.)
Even though at some point [cultural] evolution took us to the point where we're back to the good old days, where winner takes it all and the winner is whoever can beat the crap out of everybody else - that's a natural turn of things, too, despite the fact it would seem more like regress than progress. And it wouldn't probably be terribly pleasant for most people, but the world would still keep turning.
Muzman on 7/2/2012 at 10:41
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
Still you are in your own understanding able to decide between A and B, measure things and even change your decision shortly after. You can be manipulated in this moment in time and you can deliberate long afterwards. Since making decisions affects almost everything on this planet, what would be the new way to deal with it if the current perspective was oldfashioned? It surely isn't to simply ignore it only because it's a product of natural processes.
No, but it's inevitably retro applied, as you said yourself. The idea of what A and B were and that they were any sort of dichotomy of options is retro applied, to some extent even when you are making the decision.
The way I like to phrase it is that we have Will, but it's not, in any true sense of the word, Free.
I don't now exactly how we're going to deal with this. I think mostly our post hoc conceptualisation of things (post post hoc even) will stand, because that's what we do and there's nothing very wrong with it. It will just fold in new concepts that deal with the problem of concepts I suppose.
This probably isn't the track to go down anyway. I'm only on it to try and tease out what your objection actually is, since I don't really understand it. I think that's generally what's going on around here at the moment. I still don't see what the problem is exactly, except to say you are trying to apply criticisms to evolution that merely misunderstand it. But I'm not sure.
Evolutionary concepts and principles usually describe generative forces, not specific constructions. You can use them to theorise how such things might have arisen but they're always somewhat fuzzy since evolution works at every level. It's not even strictly genetic. Check out Epigenetics; the environment alters gene expression in ways that aren't always present. So traits can be theoretically advantageous, passed on and then not appear.
I only throw that in to try and describe just how complicated this stuff is. Evolution can't be "beaten" or "thwarted" because it says "survival of the fittest, Selfish genes" and whatever else but we can't figure out how some person's suicide or something helps them or the species.
Things we can't figure out we can't figure out, just yet anyway. Acknowledging the biological origin of things isn't as scary as it seems provided you don't fall back on declarative generalised versions of the way it works. The social darwinists do this and it is unsettling. But when you think about it has little to say about things like guilt and responsibility (the usual problematic areas). We know humans influence one another's behaviour for the benefit of the individual and the group. We can identify justice and fairness as very human traits. It would make no sense to stop just because we couldn't come up with an absolute theory of everything.
This is where I think religion's great lie is; its leap to an answer takes the fact that we have been making our way in a varied and complicated fashion and masks it with this illusiory absolute framework. Removing it actually changes nothing, regardless of any lingering difficulty conceptualising this.
faetal on 7/2/2012 at 10:52
I probably shouldn't as I feel like I am essentially wrangling with cognitive dissonance rather than points, but here goes (it's amazing how you'll let anything distract you when you have to write a thesis)...
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
Well, I don't think so (and it won't surprise you), because of a few points:
1. The dying out of religions is immensely closely linked to conquest, killed charismatic leaders and other forms of external forceful action with their respective ties to economics or survival in the broadest sense. The effect of memes, if existant at all, is at the most one of many. Plus, the idea is furthermore unsteady when you respect the religious ideas which survived a change of religion e.g. in a certain time and place. So either a single religion isn't a meme (which would be too selfish to allow for other dominant memes to survive) but a collection of single memes with a merciless competition for who belongs to the inner circle OR these memes were able to mutate (although I'd ask then why it would extinguish another meme first and then reproduce some of its traits) OR the idea of memes is unsustainable.
The dying out of religions is linked to their stickiness as ideas. Do you think missionaries travel the world killing tribal leaders? No. Also, many religions have survived conquest too, albeit some have had to carry on in secret despite threat of death. It is ALL about the strength of the idea rather than any old idea being transmitted by force. Also, it goes without saying that a single religion is a collection of memes, just like behaviour is a collection a genes. Stop splitting hairs. The idea of memes has been around since the '70s and has only become stronger as it is more intensely researched. Even from a basic mechanistic viewpoint, it is very sound, as DDL aptly showed (and you failed to grasp).
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2. The imputation of religious memes forcing their hosts to reproduce rather often is
downright disgusting also ignoring the influence of a much more obvious aspect: That many children guarantee survival on the basic evolutionary level.
Not necessarily. Each extra child also costs energy and resources. There is a stable point at which the child:cost ratio is optimal. It tends to be far lower in more stable living conditions, hence in industrialised nations, we tend to have the average 2.4 children (though I'm sure that has changed since it was coined in the '70s or whenever) and in areas of extreme poverty, families tend to have upwards of 5, due to the higher possibility of losing children to disease, starvation, infection etc.. The memetic tendency to encourage larger families in religious teaching is more about trying to increase the number of The Faithful.
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3. With reference to DDL's last paragraph I'd throw in that the tendency to drop the autarchy aspect of religions (which is IMHO clearly visible among religious people in modern states) would contradict the selfish meme idea as well. In general I think the weakness of this meme construction is that it suggests a congruence based merely on a few parallel aspects (like that better "things" win over worse "things"). Dawkins' method to bash religion with analogies to viruses is sub omni canonae, but probably only for those on the side of the river.
Sorry, what? This sounds like pure wafflle. I don't understand what it's getting at and there is nothing within which indicates a weakness in meme theory.
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No, by which I mean that we can focus on the actual discussion and not on finding new ways of describing one's own viewpoint.
The actual discussion in other words, took some turns which you didn't much like, so now you want to talk about something else. Got it.
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But still, I cannot help but assume that you try to shove away any discussion of how to deal with evolution from the outside, with decision-making (if it is based on biological reactions) and with the problem of how to justify and enforce a system of (law and) order.
Deal with evolution from the outside? What do you mean? I know English isn't your first language, but try to re-frame this to make sense. We justify a system of law and order primarily based on what we as humans find to be wrong, based on our basic evolved morals and ethics. Surely it can't be ignored that most basic laws (the obvious ones) are very well superimposed onto the dove-hawk game dynamics. The more complex stuff, such as copyright law, litigation etc.. are based primarily on frequent occurrences of trends which law makers, businesses and occasionally the public decided needed dealing with. Religion and the supernatural has nothing to do with, and should never have anything to do with the writing of laws (though that doesn't stop religious idiots trying to ban abortion, gay marriage etc...).
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It always seems to me that everything ends with......aka "that's it, no further thinking required".
If that's how you interpret it, then maybe it is you who wishes to think no further. I would never say such a thing. I am just saying that in order to add in the supernatural onto an already very elegant mechanism which explains a phenomenon or set of phenomena, probably requires a personal need for there to be such a thing, rather than there actually being a good justification for adding in such a thing. Rationalists are happy enough to view the gaps as being things we don't know yet, it is those who crave supernatural entities who lack the humility to say "it is unknown" and instead say "ah, this is god".
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So evolution prepped us with what we have concerning mindsets and social rules and there's no need to have a superior look because it will always work out.
Straw man again. You're going to make Christopher Lee jealous you know. No, we have a set of tendencies to know right from wrong and to act in order to preserve this, because in general, this has worked for us over millennia as social animals. However, as social animals, we are also capable of organisation and evolution of IDEAS (memes), and hence from a caste of animals which favour separation of right from wrong, the accumulation of ideas in this area has resulted in the creation of social and legal systems. I'm starting to think that you just don't seem able to appreciate the complexity of biology, as most of your arguments seem to be arguments from incredulity.
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I already addressed some other parts above but... Fingers in ears? Do you have any idea of religious interaction during the last twothousand years? Well, the statement alone answers that already, plus, every child is indoctrinated, it learns thousands of things when it grows up. The big evil religious indoctrination didn't happen until the Protestant Reformation and its attempts to establish education for everyone. Wouldn't have hurt you to read something from the humanities...
Right, so prior to formal indoctrination of children, you are saying that religious parents just let their children go their own existential way? You're saying that there is no inherent expectation in Christianity to teach children the religion as an accepted set of truths? Were you raised to believe in god? With regards to fingers in ears, it should be worth noting that many successful religions pretty much teach that scripture should not be questioned and place HUGE importance on FAITH, i.e. the acceptance of truths in the absence of evidence. In fact, the stronger the faith, the better the acolyte. If you question the word of god, you are seen as being weak of faith.
