Study finds religious belief is 'not linked to intuition or rational thinking'

Started by Jason78, November 09, 2017, 12:31:01 PM

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Baruch

Quote from: Telesio on November 15, 2017, 10:37:38 AM
I think children are naturally atheistic.  They don't have to be told to grow out of believing in Santa Claus.  They do it once they reach an age where their natural skepticism kicks in.  But when their parents keep on believing in God, it interferes with natural rationality because children learn by imitation.

Children learn by imitation.  From adults.  All adults are former children.  The original adults were savage cave men.  It still shows.  If they don't learn everything from their parents now, they are learning all the rest from other adults.

Man in their natural environment, have very little culture, they can't afford it.  It takes leisure, and even better, inequality concentrate the leisure, so that culture forms.  Religion is a cultural item.  So yes, I think that cave men had very little religion.  But as best as evidence can show, we have been minimally religious for a long time.  Religion didn't get really going until the Neolithic, provided enough leisure.

Like your old style avatar.  Gotta be pre Win 95, right? ;-)  Is it Montaigne?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Telesio

Quote from: Baruch on November 15, 2017, 07:39:41 PM
Like your old style avatar.  Gotta be pre Win 95, right? ;-)  Is it Montaigne?

No, it's Bernardino Telesio, one of the early pioneers of the scientific method.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardino_Telesio

Baruch

Quote from: Telesio on November 15, 2017, 11:58:07 PM
No, it's Bernardino Telesio, one of the early pioneers of the scientific method.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardino_Telesio

Thanks.  The obvious usually trips me up.  So ... after Buridan, Tartaglia, but before Galileo.  There was a lot of ferment in the 1500s, and it wasn't all in wine vats ;-)  And exciting historical period, 1450-1550, then on to the 1550-1650 period.

It would seem he continued the work of Pliny the Elder and John Philoponus ;-)  It took a lot of brass to oppose Aristotelianism.  For a time, Aristotelianism was opposed in the Church (and other Abrahamic religions).  "The Theology of Aristotle" was mistakenly ascribed to Aristotle, but was actually neo-Platonic.  Church theology was neo-Platonic from early times, so Aristotle the Platonist got his nose into the Western Church in particular, thanks to translations in Spain.  It was later discovered that "The Theology of Aristotle" was not by Aristotle, and Aristotle became properly studied on his own.  This caused a quick reaction to expel Aristotelianism from the universities (including even Aquinas).  The anti-Aristotelian reaction was successful in Islam ... but failed in Judaism and Western Christianity.  Moses Maimonides was fought by the Kabbalists (neo-Platonists) but kept his reputation as the father of Jewish medicine.  There was no Western doctor like him until Paracelsus.  Dominicans and Jesuits accepted Aristotelianism, and their dominance helped Aristotelianism survive attack as a heresy.

However ... in context, early criticism of Scholasticism aka Aristotelianism ... probably was tinged with neo-Platonism.  The idea of physical law that exists outside of G-d's arbitrary will ... is neo-Platonic.  And in a way, this Telesio preceded Stevin more than Galileo.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

QuoteThe author claimed the reason people continue to be believe it because 'they haven't thought that hard about it'.
Christians claim to have thought about their religion to a great extent, but mostly this is based on not knowing the difference between stewing, taking offense, delighting in being loved or punished depending on whether it's you or the other guy.  Such mental wheel-spinning should not be confused with rational thought.  It occupies mental "space", but it's not really thinking.  I suppose you could argue that such mindless ruminations are thinking since they are a form of thought, but there is an ocean of difference between these two forms of "thought."

Telesio


What they call intuition is probably more accurately characterized as hypnotism, indoctrination, or just learning by imitation.   If you  are in a Pentecostal church, you see people babbling and receiving positive feedback for it.  You get the hang of it and then try it yourself.  Now you are talking in tongues and getting pats on the back for being spiritual.  You observe people all simultaneously falling down when Benny Hinn points his finger at them.  You simply do the same.  People learn by imitating other people.

Unbeliever

Quote from: Baruch on November 11, 2017, 02:24:19 AM
Extreme psychology examples, do not the norm prove.  Beat a kid everyday ... and that proves what?
This seems to me to be a non sequitur - what does it have to do with my post?
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on November 16, 2017, 08:25:09 AM
Christians claim to have thought about their religion to a great extent, but mostly this is based on not knowing the difference between stewing, taking offense, delighting in being loved or punished depending on whether it's you or the other guy.  Such mental wheel-spinning should not be confused with rational thought.  It occupies mental "space", but it's not really thinking.  I suppose you could argue that such mindless ruminations are thinking since they are a form of thought, but there is an ocean of difference between these two forms of "thought."

You are describing the difference between Plato and Aristotle.  This is why, when Christians etc really wanted to think, in the Middle Ages, they thought of Aristotle.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Telesio on November 16, 2017, 10:43:40 AM
What they call intuition is probably more accurately characterized as hypnotism, indoctrination, or just learning by imitation.   If you  are in a Pentecostal church, you see people babbling and receiving positive feedback for it.  You get the hang of it and then try it yourself.  Now you are talking in tongues and getting pats on the back for being spiritual.  You observe people all simultaneously falling down when Benny Hinn points his finger at them.  You simply do the same.  People learn by imitating other people.

Two interesting points ... the Church was originally Jewish Charismatic ... and "intellectus" meant intuition.  It is the Enlightenment rewrite of the dictionary, that has confused things.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on November 16, 2017, 01:13:16 PM
This seems to me to be a non sequitur - what does it have to do with my post?

You said ... "From some of my reading about feral children ..." ... that is like the folk tales of wild boys in the woods (see Peter Pan also) ... or the stories of Pharaoh trying to raise a child without any human contact, to see what language it would speak ... extreme indeed.  Tell me about normal children, how they develop ...
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on November 16, 2017, 07:13:56 PM
Normal children are all born non-believers in deities, too.

That would be an acceptable claim.  I think you meant it that way the first time, but misused "feral".  But children, as they develop, often have invisible friends.  Is this due to adults or other children?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Neither - it's due to the fact that they're still connected to the spirit world...
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on November 16, 2017, 07:23:20 PM
Neither - it's due to the fact that they're still connected to the spirit world...

May you never lose your inner child ... or you will be like pr126.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Unbeliever on November 16, 2017, 07:23:20 PM
Neither - it's due to the fact that they're still connected to the spirit world...

And "The Spirit World" is just one step up from simple superstition.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on November 18, 2017, 03:51:06 AM
And "The Spirit World" is just one step up from simple superstition.

Babies are too young for superstition.  And you aren't an ubermensch either.

I suppose superstition (black cats) doesn't require spirits though ... one could view "luck" as impersonal.  Or you could view black cats as familiars of witches.  Is an impersonal view of irrational ... less developed than the more personal kind?  I would think the other way around, from the atheist POV.  First Goddess Luck, then just "luck".  The third stage is "broke".
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.