Spirituality is a base instinct, and most people -need- to believe something. What ever fills that need, whether it’s God, Allah, Buddha, Science or Spaghetti… They are all god if they fill that need for people.
I can appreciate spirituality.
People believing that they are the “true” believers is where the problem comes in, and unfortunately, most religions have that as a feature and not a bug.
To be so conceited… An omnipotent being would at least be smart enough to understand how regional culture works, and would present itself to everyone in ways that were culturally relevant. And a lot of religion started out very, very cool, but got changed and corrupted by whoever was ruling that part of the world.
We all believe in the same shit, just in different ways.
Also: There are far too many people in this world that are comfortable exploiting something so basic to being human.
/soapbox
This is pretty fluffy, and I guess that’s nice, but religion is actually harmful. And as much as religion and science may both satisfy a similar desire to belong to something greater, I think it is dangerously misleading to suggest that the two are equivalent - even in this limited context.
People believing that they are the “true” believers is where the problem comes in
This is incredibly divisive, you’re right, but … you might be due to rewatch the film if you think there aren’t foundational problems long before we get to sectarianism.
We all believe in the same shit, just in different ways.
Replace species with civilization and intelligence with knowledge, then it fits.
Yes. You can’t base it on the single species that actually made up religion
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Good to know that all of recorded human history has just been a phase. I mean, shit show that it has been.
I mean recorded history is like, what? 10,000 years? Meanwhile modern humans are about 160,000 years old.
A phase doesn’t have to be a small thing, just something we eventually move past
Pound sign deep
Octothorpe amazing.
Ampersand inciteful
Human intelligence has not materially changed since the Advent of religion.
Human intelligence has not progressed since the Advent of atheism.
Human understanding and human culture have changed.
I wouldn’t rule out that we’ve become smarter since then. Iirc the average IQ did increase over time. We may not have changed genetically, but many explanations think we can foster higher IQs in our modern environment compared to a 100 years ago.
You’re referring to the Flynn effect. But the Flynn effect is a 20th century (post-WWII) phenomenon that describes an increase in the average intelligence test performance (and similar abilities like memory span). There are a number of explanations that have been proposed for this effect, the most convincing ones being improved nutrition and schooling. Either way, this effect does not apply on an evolutionary scale (or even a larger historical one) and it also represents a fairly narrow, gradual change rather than the broad, drastic change suggested in the OP. Also, in recent years, the Flynn effect appears to have reached a ceiling and is even reversing in some countries.
IQ is a bad measure for intelligence, and is constantly rising year over year.
IQ is a bullshit measurement made up by eugenicists to prove that white men are the best and does little more than measure learning.
And most importantly, the tools we use today are nigh infinitely more powerful than before. Very little has done more for the collective intelligence on the planet than computers.
I don’t see how this could be true. It would be analogous to observing a species of bone-thin weaklings that becomes interested in body building over the course of a few hundred years, gaining more muscle mass on average with each passing year, and making the claim that the strength of this species has not changed. Maybe if one of the early weaklings decided to take up their own interest in body building, they may have reached a similar strength to that of their descendants (though even that is debatable since that specific individual wouldn’t have access to all the training techniques and diets developed over the course of its species’ future); however, it seems like an awkward interpretation to say therefore the strength of the species has not changed.
This is similar to the situation we find ourselves regarding intelligence in the human species. Humans gain intelligence by exercising their brains and engaging in mental activity, and humans today are far more occupied by these activities than our ancestors were. This, in my view, makes it accurate to claim that human intelligence has changed significantly since the advent of religion. Individual capacity for intelligence may not have changed much, but the intelligence of humans as a whole has changed.
Note that my argument does not conclude that human knowledge or understanding has changed over time. These attributes certainly have changed - I’m sure not many would doubt that. It also doesn’t conclude that every modern human is more intelligent than every ancient human. Instead, it concludes that human intelligence as a whole has changed as a result of changes in our culture that influence us to spend more time training our intelligence than our ancestors.
I don’t see how this could be true.
And even if it were possible, are we smart enough to meaningfully assess and quantify the differences? What if the blueprint is missing a layer?
If you haven’t already read it, I think you might really appreciate “Other Minds” by Peter Godfrey-Smith.
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I am struggling to understand what you are saying. If you don’t mind, let’s start with “mass psychology”, I think that might be the key for me.
more humans in one place tend to be dumber than humans as individuals. Think mass panics, but also fascism and other things where people lost their sensible minds in a large group of people. In the same styl more people mean more people to convince of new concepts that previously were rejected.
So the concept that humanity as a whole is more intelligent, while the individuals are not, does not hold well imo.
To use your analogy: intelligence is not the size of your muscles, it is the amount of muscle you can have. Just like intelligence the total amount of muscle your body can support is bounded maximally by your genetics. When you bulk up and become stronger you don’t increase your quantity of muscle, you change the quality of it. Body building does not create new muscle cells, it rearranges them into stronger configurations.
Similarly learning and intelligence. Intelligence is not changed by learning, learning is your ability to exercise your intelligence. Learning is the strength to intelligence’s muscle cell number.
Genetically very little has changed for humans since the Advent of organized religion, which was only 11000 years ago. There have been no major selective pressures and while humans are not in a steady state (obviously) they are still very slow to change.
Humans from 11k years ago would be most likely indistinguishable from the rest of us today genetically.
You’re taking my analogy too far. Learning isn’t your ability to exercise intelligence. It’s simply the acquisition of knowledge or skills usually through study or training. You’re going to have to provide an argument or a source to back up the claim that intelligence is innate and that it can’t be changed by adjusting our behavior. You’re going to have to show that intelligence is nearly 100% determined by genetics. Those are the types of claims that eugenicists make regarding intelligence by the way, and I’m pretty sure that would make you uncomfortable given your other comment on IQ tests.
In discussions about intelligence we’re always talking about the ability to acquire knowledge, not knowledge itself. Sure colloquially those might be conflated but having knowledge is not the same as being intelligent. There are brilliant minds that have very little knowledge, that doesn’t make them less intelligent: it makes them less educated.
We know that intelligence is genetic at some level. We share 98.8% of our genome with Chimps. Somewhere in that 1.2% lies a vast gulf of intellectual capacity that isn’t there for a chimp, regardless of the heights to which a chimp might climb intellectually. In order for them to have greater intelligence than they currently possess as a species they must change.
I’m not saying that there is some way to breed for an ubermensch, I’m saying that 99.9% of all humans have the same DNA and that in that encoding there is a maximum level of brain performance possible for any person.
Humans with intellectual handicaps have a lower maximum level of learning than some. Neurodivergent humans (doing some massive hand-waving and generalization here as a member of that community) have some higher possible maximums in some forms of intelligence and lower in others, and we’re pretty damn sure Autism has strong genetic components.
What’s absurd about the concept of IQ tests is the attempt to boil down a complex and multifaceted topic into a single number that they can tell in a 200 question multiple choice quiz, not that Intelligence (in all its various hues) has nothing to do with genetics.
All of which is to say that Learning is the application of intelligence.
As for saying Intelligence is 100% determined by genetics? I expect there’s a lot of external factors that come into it: We know a lot of genetic expression changes through quick reacting epigenetic factors. We also know that brain development can be stunted by nutritional issues.
But we also know that ancient humans had incredibly rich and diverse lives and the more you research about them the more you see the echoes of our same sharp minds reaching out across the gulf of the centuries. They weren’t less intelligent than us. Anthropologists classify “fully modern humans” as 30000 years ago.
In discussions about intelligence we’re always talking about the ability to acquire knowledge, not knowledge itself.
I’m not talking about either of these things. I have already stated that I’m not referring to knowledge. Additionally, I do not agree that intelligence is merely the ability to acquire knowledge. Intelligence is famously difficult to define - but I’m working with a definition akin to a capacity for problem solving and pattern recognition. If we can’t see eye to eye there, then we’re clearly talking past each other.
Thanks for the interesting conversation. I wish you well.
I’m curious how pattern recognition and problem solving are not just applied knowledge? They’re skills you can train up. You can learn to do it better.
Pattern recognition is part of learning and part of intelligence, but it’s worthwhile to distinguish between your current ability to recognize patterns and your maximum capacity to recognize patterns right? The maximum capacity would be bounded by your intelligence while the current ability is your knowledge.
So… This is based on all the species we know, who practice religion right?
Right.
When your idea is so good you gotta bring in the big ghost to sell it
Sadly, the only way I can imagine to obtain experimental confirmation of this hypothesis would be unworkable.
It would be necessary to take a population of infants, raise them in strict isolation and teach them nothing of religion, carefully excluding anything that even hints at the concept, while giving them the scientific method and lots of understanding of reality otherwise. Then allow them to develop their own civilization and monitor them for several centuries to see if the concept ever emerges.
What other guy said, there could be biological predisposition to religion. Many experts believe that it is a natural anti-depressant.
This is pure conjecture, but to me religion has always felt like an extension of parentage and hierarchy. You start off with your parents as your “ultimate superiors” (they decide for you, teach you etc.). At some point you learn that they are also part of a similar framework, with society and the state as their “ultimate superiors”. Gods and so on would then be the next step, the superior to all superiors.
This would explain the “natural anti-depressant” - an intact family gives us feelings of safety, protection, and other positive things. An intact society does the same. It seems logical that religion would do the same on an even larger level.
Does anyone know of counter-examples? E.g. religions with gods viewed as below the individual, or religions that don’t claim to be the framework in which everything else lives?
Religion doesn’t just provide social safety net which elicits comfort; on the personal level, the act of praying and meditating provides some comfort to the individual.
I wasn’t talking about social safety nets. My point is that, for example, children usually feel better when their parents are around than when they are not. If religion is an extension of this hierarchy and “parentage” in a broader sense, praying is essentially the same - seeking closeness to the “parent” role, i.e. gods.
Yes, that’s what I mean by social safety net. You have someone to rely on when things aren’t going well for you. Be it parents, partner, community, or someone imaginary like a god.
I always figured that religion arose from the natural inclination of the human brain to look for order in chaos (and it’s then exploited by those with power as a means of controlling people). Since there will always be circumstances outside our control, I would expect people to at the very least have superstitions, if not full-blown religion, no matter how much scientific knowledge they have. Until the fundamental nature of the human brain changes, at least.
It wouldn’t rule out biological predisposition to religion.
I like to think that, in a world before law enforcement, religion is a way clever people trick strong people into not killing them and taking all their stuff.
It was actually the other way, religion was the ideological superstructure for the first class societies and state forming. Originally, as observed in the ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia religion gain power as communities were formed around common work and consumption. The first organised cults were the fertility and agriculture gods, first temples were granaries and the priestly class started as granary managers, and that position allowed them to gather and increase their power. Especially visible in case of Mesopotamia where those origins stayed visible way into the written history period.
That is, religion was justification for the strong to become stronger and rule over weaker, and a way for rich to trick poor into not killing them and not taking stuff that was stolen back. Note that even thousands years later even nominally secular state power still had supernatural justification, divine right, mandate of heavens and so on.
What is law enforcement and when has it ever not been a threat to have someone come knock your teeth in if you piss off enough or the wrong person?
I think the more likely answer is indeed in the picture: baby’s first philosophy. There is a lot of wisdom and behavior grooming in it, but I’d argue the reason is the other way around: It was to try and tell leaders and fathers (in patriarchy, anyways) how to not get their teeth kicked in and how to teach and deal with bad people.
It’s an instruction set that has been combined with simple history telling, and then corrupted by thousands of years of dogma and constant revision from the selfish and rich.
It’s silly to anchor your moral axioms in systems that require obedience to authority or belief without evidence, and that is the only true difference between philosophy and religion.
I’m talking more than just getting your teeth knocked in. I’m talking getting murdered, your wife getting raped, and your property getting stolen. With no state protection, what is to prevent that from happening?
In the same way that the threat of future punishment by getting thrown in jail stops people from doing those things now, the threat of punishment by God or Gods would serve the same purpose.
“With no state protection-”
Basic human decency.
That works fine in small groups, but not so well with those outside that group.
You are thinking wrong tho. Religion started out as a benign thing that has been twisted by authorities later on to justify their actions.
Don’t be an edgelord giving us a bad name
I’m not saying it wasn’t benign. It was a way to protect the average person from raiders.
There is no proof that humanity will ever transition out of that phase. Just because science advances doesn’t mean that religious people will stop existing. There is a sucker born every minute. Unless we start enforcing eugenics in the future and breed out stupidity, people will keep searching for answers trough religion.
Unless we start enforcing eugenics
cool cool let’s start with you
I’m not for eugenics, I just worded it wrongly
Smart people aren’t immune to stupid ideas. Eugenics is always a bad idea.
Religion is the best way to propagate ideas over a long span of time. It’s not a great way, but nothing beats it yet.
Ah yes, this man has EVOLVED beyond the intelligence of past species. He is not just educated, evolution has gained him superior intelligence!
Praise evolution! Glory to the Homo Atheismus! They might look the same as every religious human but they are actually a different species!
Does this sub come with bandages?
this man has EVOLVED beyond the intelligence of past species. He is not just educated, evolution has gained him superior intelligence!
Yes, exactly. This is exactly what’s happened. Humans are far more intelligent than any other species on earth.
They might look the same as every religious human but they are actually a different species!
You’ve missed the entire point of the post. Religion is a symptom of not being intelligent enough as a species to get past simple answers to hard questions. Atheists aren’t more enlightened like you’re implying, just that atheism is the next step in human intelligence that not everyone has made or will make for a thousand years. As a whole, humans are still an incredibly young species.
This post implies that to move past religion into atheism a species must evolve to gain so much intelligence that they can now answer all the unknown questions.
Thus directly saying that atheists are a different more intelligent human species than religious people.
You’re right that “evolves intelligence” is poorly worded, as humans have not appreciably changed in intelligence in the last 40,000 years or so. “Acquires knowledge” would be a more accurate way to put it.
What if the intelligent species have gone extinct because they were so socially good and giving, that they sacrificed themselves when they reached the epitome of religious intelligence… ?
And whatever’s leftover from those that are still surviving are the ones that are yet to go over that phase, and they are all but sheeps at the moment (ones that pray to false idols, or follow other religious figures to guide them, without much critical thinking)?
Those are the ones that were leftover, are the ones that hunted the mammoths to extinction, and have driven other animals and plants species to extinction due selfishness.
What if good, intelligent, and sensible people are becoming more and more scarce due to their new profound knowledge that they have acquired.
Maybe I’m biased because I liked certain people so much (Mr. Rogers, RIP) 😅
