The religious mind and evolution

by Half banana 3 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Half banana
    Half banana
    The greatest impediment to clear thinking by people who chose faith above all else is their unsubstantiated belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God.

    Believers well know about  the feeling of certainty when it comes to their religious vision, they love to announce it but they cannot verify it. It is the cart before the horse.

    Over the centuries, since Roman law mandated its own brand of worship through the religious organ of the Catholic Church, the idea had been established by universal reckoning... and punishment if denied... that the Bible always told the truth.

    We, all of us here, would not be taking sides on this issue were it not for this grotesque distortion of reality courtesy of the Church of the Dark Ages.

    Instead if we had taken evidence from the natural world, all would recognize the plain, coherent and evidential logic of Darwin's explanation of how life diversified from a common stock. One hundred and fifty seven years later after intense scrutiny by hundreds of thousands of scientists, no one has spotted a damning conflict in the theorum nor can they because it is factual. All subsequent major discoveries in the field have confirmed and further illuminated its truthfulness.

    Not to believe this demonstrates a wilful ignorance of the facts of life as geology reveals.

    To believe in creation demonstrates a person places a blind conviction in a spirit world and the thousand consequential and idiotic beliefs which follow from this primary error...none of which can be proved. The foundation of religious thought is whimsical, unprovable and therefore logically cannot be built further upon.

    Humans are of course more than logical machines, we are far more... we are sentient; we feel for others and often want to be like them and be accepted by them. Perhaps unlike animals we greatly enjoy using emotion and imagination but what is the point of enjoying the emotional pay-back which comes from the certainty of belief in the unknowable... when contrary evidence within our grasp is testable like evolution is?

    Surely we are observing a grave flaw in the human psyche?

  • Mephis
    Mephis

    There is evidence to support that some aspects of creationism are a result of how our thinking processes evolved.

    eg. an article on this by a lecturer in developmental psychology

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2016/mar/31/intelligent-design-popular-evolution-creationism

    "Developmental psychologists have identified two cognitive biases in very young children that help to explain the popularity of intelligent design. The first is a belief that species are defined by an internal quality that cannot be changed (psychological essentialism). The second is that all things are designed for a purpose (promiscuous teleology). These biases interact with cultural beliefs such as religion but are just as prevalent in children raised in secular societies. Importantly, these beliefs become increasingly entrenched, making formal scientific instruction more and more difficult as children get older."

    We're wired to try and make sense of our environment within a comfortable frame of reference and we automatically look for ways to interpret data based upon prior experience. Exceptionally useful a lot of the time, bit of a hindrance at others.

  • cofty
    cofty
    The first is a belief that species are defined by an internal quality that cannot be changed (psychological essentialism)....We're wired to try and make sense of our environment within a comfortable frame of reference and we automatically look for ways to interpret data based upon prior experience. Exceptionally useful a lot of the time, bit of a hindrance at others.

    The dead hand of Plato.

    When my daughter was very young she identified every wild animal as "cow" or "duck". We live on a farm.

    We took her to Edinburgh zoo and as we pushed her buggy up Corstorphine Hill she continued to point at all the enclosures and pronounce them to be either a cow or a duck. At last we reached the giraffe enclosure. She gazed silently up at these giants with a look of confusion.

    Her simple essentialism needed a revision.

  • Half banana
    Half banana

    Excellent article Mephis. It's little wonder that Jesus' words are put in the Bible to say that the kingdom belongs to those who are like children i.e. naive. Hardly surprising that the WTBTS want only those individuals stuck in the same limited, undeveloped and uncritical mode like a child who still believes an invisible man must have made everything.

    It's endearing to see our kids making category mistakes, we know they will develop but quite appalling when adults force others to believe that the child's approach is best.

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