Would You Still Believe If You Knew God Were A Byproduct Of Your Evolved Mental Architecture?

[chefranden]

Is Religion Adaptive? It's Complicated

 

...Given the world’s political climate, it is hardly necessary to point out why having a better scientific understanding of religious behavior is worthwhile. In fact, while we were meeting in this overly decadent tearoom, a large group protesting Israel’s recent Gaza strikes against Hamas was marching outside the hotel, demonstrating against yet another conflict at least partially fueled by head-scratching religious ideologies. Fortunately, the past decade has seen tremendous and quite rapid developments in the naturalistic study of religion. Topics such as God, souls and sin are no longer being treated as “outside science” but rather as biologically based emanations of the evolved human mind, subject to psychological scrutiny like any other aspect of human nature. And I can only hope that soon these scientific discoveries will translate to real world intervention strategies in the reconciliation of spiritually based social conflicts....

 

 

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[florduh]

That was an interesting article.

 

As far as your question, I think the answer would be that God built into us a desire to seek Him. Anything else you might come up with is from Satan.

[HelloWorld]

That was an interesting article.

 

As far as your question, I think the answer would be that God built into us a desire to seek Him. Anything else you might come up with is from Satan.

 

I agree with that.

 

When I was in high school, I was friends with a boy who was the son of a Baptist missionary and pastor. This boy was always thinking he was on the forefront of "science" (how he loved AIG conferences) and "knowledge" and how it relates to God.

 

Anyway, in grade 12, he left copies of this essay he had written all around school. It was about how scientists had shown that there is a certain area in the brain that gets activated when people pray or seek god or something. He figured that was great proof of the existence of a god and the Christian one at that.

 

I remember laughing to myself about the whole thing. I didn't think it was the proof he thought it was, even though I too was a devout xtian. Plus, I always got embarrassed by his really evangelical tendencies. He was a little over zealous. Can't believe I had a crush on him.