(by Dennis Kunkel)
Posted on 01/25/2006 11:00:41 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
For a long time now, secularists have been trying to come up with reasons why people believe in God. If you take a strictly naturalistic view of the world, after all, it can be pretty difficult to understand how anyone would put their faith in an invisible supernatural being. And yet, generation after generation continues to hold to do just that. It’s a question that has puzzled and fascinated some of the most prominent minds of our time.
Now there’s an intriguing new explanation for religious faith. Paul Bloom, a Yale professor of psychology and linguistics, argues in the Atlantic Monthly that belief in God is a biological accident.
Basically, Bloom’s theory goes like this: Human beings are naturally dualistic. Studies show that from a very young age, we can tell the difference between the physical world and the psychological world. That is, we understand that rocks and trees do not have thoughts and feelings, but that humans do. Our brains use one system to understand the physical world, and another to understand the psychological world.
As Bloom sees it, “Both these systems are biological adaptations that give human beings a badly needed head start in dealing with objects and people. But these systems go awry in two important ways that are the foundations of religion. First, we perceive the world of objects as essentially separate from the world of minds, making it possible for us to envision soulless bodies and bodiless souls.” And Bloom continues, “This helps explain why we believe in gods and an afterlife. Second, as we will see, our system of social understanding overshoots, inferring goals and desires where none exist. This makes us animists and creationists.”
In other words, we humans look at inanimate objects and tend to see evidence of design and purpose in them—evidence that Bloom says just isn’t there. Essentially, we are using the wrong part of our brain to interpret them. And we make the same mistake when we assume that human bodies have souls that live on after death. Because we have powers of reasoning, thinking, and feeling, we naturally tend to think of ourselves as something more than just bodies. But, Bloom says, it is all the result of a mistaken way of thinking—as I said, he calls it a biological accident.
Well, all this may impress some scholars, but I think there are a few big holes in his argument. For example, I would submit to Professor Bloom that even if human brains have a tendency to infer design, that is not evidence that design does not exist. Maybe we infer it because it is so. It would be a biological accident only if you accept Bloom’s premise that the universe is a closed system with no possibility of supernatural intervention. And Bloom, like many scientists, does not attempt to prove this very important point—he just takes it for granted, just like evolutionists do, which makes science hostage to their philosophy.
So Bloom’s scientific studies, carefully conducted as they seem to be, prove only what he wants them to prove if one starts from a materialist point of view—the same materialist point of view that has tried and failed to disprove religion for so many years. When it comes to tempting “new” theories to explain away religion, it looks like there really is nothing new under the sun after all.
(by Dennis Kunkel)
I think you have that wrong way around. If the existence of the universe suggests a designer, then the existence of a designer implies the existence of a meta-designer and so on infinitely like the layers of an onion of Russian dolls.
Occams razor would suggest a simpler universe that arose randomly without the need for an infinite overlay of designers. IMHO
Muleteam1
Respectfully disagree. The complexity, elegance and symmetry of forms in the microcosm suggests an Intelligence that exceeds our paradigms. Such an Intelligence cannot be assumed to have a CAD system and laborious human development methods. These forms are not mechanical; the Intelligence knows how to grow them organically. I do not think creation happened once and now it's over. It is ongoing and unfolding.
Thanks for the pictures. Very impressive.
The pioneer and master of the technique is the Swedish microphotographer Lennart Nilsson, who gave us the first live fetus pictures in the early 1970s. His electron microscopy work is magnificent and looks like fine art.
Unfortunately, his imagery came along too late to prevent Roe v. Wade, which was based on the ignorant assumption that life isn't present at conception. A look at all stages of conception in Nilsson's photo books will testify otherwise.
Rather simplistic. That particular experience doesn't follow in all NDE's. Others have been documented, so how does the doctor account for that?
the infowarrior
The "Big Bang" and other mechanistic theories of the universe require the same extension. God solves it -- albeit via circular reasoning -- by saying that He "has always been and will always be."
Occams razor would suggest a simpler universe that arose randomly without the need for an infinite overlay of designers.
Laying aside the question of infinite designers, the assertion that random variables combined to create the unfathomable complexities of the universe is every bit as hard to believe as the existence of a Being capable of the same feat. In fact, by removing the element of randomness, you have necessarily decreased the complexity. Thus, Occam's Razor holds.
Better check with Al Gore on that.
Studies show that from a very young age, we can tell the difference between the physical world and the psychological world. That is, we understand that rocks and trees do not have thoughts and feelings, but that humans do.
Rocks and trees don't have thoughts and feelings? Thats a new revelation to some people.............
If the complexity of creation necessitates a Creator, then the correspondingly greater complexity of the Creator necessitates an even greater Creator and so on ad infinitum. If one applies the logic in the first case one is bound to do so in the necessary subsequent cases.
Not until you can show how it shows who designed the designer. Without that, infinite complexity arises in your model
8When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt[a] in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me;
I respectfully disagree with the second part of your assertion. There is no necessity for a creator of the Creator. Mere human logic will not answer mysteries posed by an infinitely superior Intelligence on a scale beyond human imagining. You might try meditation to get a "picture" of the ultimate reality, but it can only be a snapshot.
If the essence of Occam's Razor is simplicity, you need only accept that the Creator has communicated to us that he simply is, has always been, and always will be. The need to search for a creator of the Creator is your complex, not his. The nature of God is not like the nature of temporal life. Simple. Thus, Occam's Razor holds.
If it is "mere human logic" that looks at complexity in nature and says such complexity demands a creator, than the same logic must look upon the vastly more complex nature of the creator and demand to know who created the creator. Not to follow that is to be intellectually dishonest. If one wishes to retreat from that position, then one must accept that a complex nature might well have arisen without a creator.
One cannot have it both ways.
You have not proven your point and to illustrate your point you have had to abandon logic for a literal deus ex machina position. To have abandoned logic in such a fashion is your right, I suppose, but please don't suggest that you have done in accordance with logical parsimony. It is another layer of inconsistency added to your already strained "logic"
It also arises in yours.
Beautiful, fantastic images. A believing scientist once said that the more we magnify God's creation, the finer and more intricate it is but the more we magnify something that man created, the cruder it is. He said it better but this is the gist of his statement.
He also said that it was this point that caused him to turn to his creator and eschew the lie of evolution.
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