Children are born believers in God, academic claims

[Hollie]

Yeah, you moron. It's called religious freedom. If someone wants to twist the head off a chicken and sprinkle blood around the room, I could give a shit.

Do you eat chicken?

The religiously insane - lovely, lovely folks.

Are you an ethical vegitarian?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpbtBgLfl90"]Live Fast Die Young - the life of a meat chicken - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfVBsTBNsg0"]Tortured By Tyson - YouTube[/ame]

How is it any more cruel to cut their neck with a knife for religious reasons?

I’m not a vegetarian but I don’t see the need for slaughtering animals in furtherance of garish, silly rituals. I will note that animal slaughter for human consumption has regulations to prohibit the worst cruelties and for proper disposal of remains.

The idea of animals (dogs, sheep, poultry, livestock, etc.,) being disemboweled, tortured or inhumanely killed is unnecessary and cruel.

Ultimately, what purpose is served by ritual slaughter?

 

[varelse]

You don't get to protest one and not the other. Many of those chickens aren't eaten, anyway (look how much food people waste in America), so what's the difference? If you're going to protest what you feel is a cruel death, then you must apply that standard equally, whether someone actually eats that particular bird or not and regardless of the person's religious beliefs.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Sigh. M.D. Rawlings, thank you for a thought provoking and interesting thread. I wish more had been interested in the topic. But for now, I simply am not in the mood for yet another food fight/insult fest and will unsubscribe.

Ya'll have fun and a good weekend.

Actually not.

As any reasonable person would realize that the premise is nonsense and an example of faulty ‘research,’

 

[jadeX]

I am the LORD thy God
Thou shalt have no other gods

Love one another as I have loved you.

 

[varelse]

'...before me'

Whose sock are you, jade?

 

[blackcherry]

When you are a child, your parents are GOD. I think that a supreme being becomes a surrogate parental figure, and religion like a surrogate family. One day you outgrow your family and your parents no longer seem godlike. Children are true believers. They then grow up to be rational independent thinkers.

If that is true , you could have told me in a softer and kinder way .
i'm really pissed off now .

 

[Derideo_Te]

MD Rawlings: "Atheism is sheer irrationality and spiritual suicide."

Spoken like someone who is afraid of ideas that are not 2000+ years old.

I think that we can all agree that ultimately all of us will die sooner or later since none of us are immortal, right? So what is "irrational" about facing that reality?

You are taking Pascal's Gamble and assuming that it is a "rational" choice. However your choice presumes a "loving deity" that is willing to grant you an "afterlife" even whilst you break the commandment to love your fellow man by denigrating 70% of the human race who don't share your personal beliefs.

If, as you claim, you must obey your deity in order to achieve your "reward" aren't you being "irrational" by exposing yourself to a "judgment day" when your posts railing against those who choose to follow a different path are placed on the scales?

Are you not the one who is committing "sheer irrational spiritual suicide"?

 

[Derideo_Te]

God’s existence cannot be rationally denied outright.

The concept on omnipotence is a paradox unto itself.

Furthermore assuming the existence of the universe as evidence of a "creator" for which there is no evidence whatsoever is yet another paradox.

There is nothing reasonable, rational or enlightened about atheism whatsoever!

That sounds more like a description of religion to me.

I find it odd that those who are "saved" are so afraid of those who don't share their beliefs. Surely if your faith is strong enough you should "fear no evil" from those who have the "god given free will" to choose their own destiny.

So why the tirades against those who don't really care what you choose to believe? Are you scared that they might be right?

 

[Derideo_Te]

Listen, guys, get real, get out! Stop listening the father of lies. That house is burning down. The tribulation of the end times is near. Jesus loves you. He died for you. The day of salvation is now!

Ok...backing away very slowly now!

 

[Derideo_Te]

We are made in the image of God

So god is a left handed, muslim, commie, budhist, trangendered, hispanic, red haired, polynesian, redneck, norwegian, cannibal, balding, overweight valley girl with PMT, astigmatism, bad teeth and gout?

 

[Derideo_Te]

Nice argument.

 

[Derideo_Te]

Rather than just name dropping how about looking at both sides of the debate?

[======epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2009/01/childish-beliefs-of-dr-justin-barret.html ======]

The childish beliefs of Dr Justin Barrett

Justin Barrett is a Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind and a lecturer in the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology. He's also a devout Christian who believes that we have an inbuilt predisposition to believe not just in superstitious stuff, but also in a monotheistic god. And he takes this as evidence that god is real, and not invented. - See more at:

Tania Lombrozo, Professor of Psychology at the Concepts and Cognition lab at Berkeley, has done similar experiments to those described by Barrett, but in Alzheimer's patients rather than young kids. And it turns out that, just like kids, Alzheimer's patients tend to see design everywhere. -

In her study, subjects were asked to identify the most appropriate answers to a series of "why" questions. For example, for the question "Why does the earth have trees?" they could choose between "because they grow from tree seeds," or "so that animals can have shade." Lombrozo found that like young children, Alzheimer's patients were much more likely than age-matched control subjects to prefer teleological explanations, picking the teleological choice about twice as often as their healthy counterparts.
So kids are like adults but with an important bit of their brain missing. And that's why they 'get god right'! -

 

[Derideo_Te]

Atheism is the gravest depravity.

Oh dear...I seem to have stumbled into the wrong place. I was hoping for an intelligent debate on the merits of each position.

Instead all we have here from "the side of the angels" is just another rendition of Monty Python's Gainsaying Argument skit.

Oh well, better luck next time.

 

[jadeX]

'...before me'

Whose sock are you, jade?

before meaning instead

 

[JoeB131]

The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
2:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2008


Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.


Naturally, the default position has always been theism given the atheist's logically indefensible ontology and pathological intellectual dishonesty. Atheism truly is the gravest depravity.

Children are born beilevers in Santa Claus. Everything a child doesn't understand is some kind of magic.

Now, some retain this child like stupidity into adulthood.

And some of us realize there are no Magic Pixies, and things have rational explanations.

Sorry, your parents put those presents under the tree. Deal with it.

Sorry, we evovled from Monkeys. Deal with it.

 

[PratchettFan]

I know it's legal.

It's not complicated- you simply made a reductio ad absurdum. Nothing in the discussion suggested KG supported homicide in the name of her faith.

You know you're out there when I'm defending someone named koshergirl against your asinine ridiculousness in a thread where she basically claimed science proved all babies were born Jews

I never said she supported homicide in the name of her faith. I assumed she did not. You are the one who brought that into the discussion. I was responding to her flat statement that the government should keep its hands off of religious practices. I was questioning her sincerity on that. Or perhaps just pointing out the lack of rational thought behind the statement.

Every example I gave was an actual, current religious practice. I made up none of it. So how exactly does that reduce her statement to the absurd? I'll agree it took it to its logical conclusion. But absurd? I think not.

You implied she was okay with witch burnings and sexual slavery in the name of religion. It was a reductio ad absurdum that simply made you look like a shill.

No. I did not. Not even a little bit. You are mistaken.

 

[varelse]

Or you can lie and backpedal :shrug:

 

[Bill Angel]

Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.
Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

There is an idea from psychology that might support this assertion. It is the idea of Jung's Collective Unconscious

For Jung, “My thesis then, is as follows: in addition to our immediate consciousness... there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”.

In other words, if young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being, irrespective of their personal experiences, it is because the human "collective unconscious" which they inherited predisposes them to organize their thoughts and experiences so as to view their world as having been created for some purpose.

 

[PratchettFan]

Or you can lie and backpedal :shrug:

True. You can.

 

[MaryL]

The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
2:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2008


Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.


Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

_______________________

Naturally, the default position has always been theism given the atheist's logically indefensible ontology and pathological intellectual dishonesty. Atheism truly is the gravest depravity.

Well ok, I was with you up until that last statement. Actually, children ( I was once a child), have an innate need for their parents love and guidance. We love our parents. We infer that, there must be a God because it's part of human nature. IF god exist or not, is irrelevant. We WANT God to exist. We want order and reason to win out over chaos. We want to have an immortal life. Unfortunately, when we grow up, we see life isn’t like that. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do we suffer? Well, kiddo, Your parents couldn’t stop you from hurting, no matter how much they loved you, and religion isn’t going to stop evil and random suffering no matter how much they love. We all want god to be real, but what difference does it make? If you are a atheist or are devout, the universe doesn't seem to need human beings to believe in IT. That cold indifferent world doesn't care if we strap people on crosses or strap bombs on ourselves, it seems unimpressed with our weak human endeavors.