Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The Rebuttal, Part Two

For this to make sense, please check out my post exchange with Dr. Luke Conway here and here. You might as well check my Rebuttal, Part One too.

"Religious Instincts."

Dr. Conway says that one of the few things atheists and theists agree on is that we have religious instincts. Judging from the original post’s comments, this certainly doesn’t seem the case, but I’d be willing to let the professor’s cited studies do the talking...if he only cited any. He merely mentioned that studies have been done. Dr. Conway should know that an audience of skeptics won’t take his word for it. As it is, there is nothing for me to address here. I have no studies, no interpretations of studies, nor specifics on what said studies were studying. Eventually, even the professor states he doesn’t care about this alleged research, nor will I.

It seems that an unjust jump must be made to say that the instincts and tendencies we may have are religious in nature--although it’s impossible to say not knowing exactly what specific instincts are in question. To fill out this post, I’ll guess.

Most of us have an innate barrier to sexual attraction toward those with which grow up, especially siblings. Looking at this tendency from the perspective of our culture, it appears like a moral instinct. Apologists claim moral instincts are evidence of God. Is this one of the religious instincts to which Dr. Conway refers? If so, I can explain this example without be pointing out the clear evolutionary benefit to incest aversion--seeing how it usually doesn’t bear offspring or increases the risk of birth defects. I’ll explore other seemingly moral instincts in my Rebuttal. Part Three dealing with morality.

I mentioned in my post to The Apologetic Professor that some people are naturally more trusting than others. We could call this a trusting instinct, which is highest in children. Parents know, kids will believe all kinds of crap. This is why I am opposed to religious indoctrination. It’s not fair to the kids. Their cognitive faculties aren’t completely online and will accept any answer to whatever basic inquires they may think up. Dr. Conway mentioned Santa, which largely works against his argument. Kids believe Santa not because they have a Christmas instinct, rather because they have a trusting instinct. A near defenseless youngster believing his or her world-wise parent is a survival trait that would be continuously selected from an evolutionary standpoint. Most people think Darwin set back apologetics only in regards to the Argument from Design, but evolutionary biology acts as a valid hurdle for many a theist assumption.

Finally, Dr. Conway states that he thinks probabilistically. As a poker player, I approve, although I wonder where faith comes in when one thinks God is only probable and not certain. I also question the probabilities the professor assigns to the variables. Just because two things are possible, doesn’t make them equally likely. This, again, will be a common thread as the rebuttal continues.

8 comments:

  1. "Kids believe Santa not because they have a Christmas instinct, rather because they have a trusting instinct."

    I love this line. I might have to tuck it away for future use, I do come across this type of argument from time to time

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    1. Thanks, Haus, I was proud of that one too.

      (deserving of a Carolla sniff?)

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  2. "Parents know...kids will believe all kinds of crap."...and I tend to believe it's the way kids are taught to believe that form their adult ways of thinking.

    If a child has parents that allow them to question and the freedom to make up their own minds about what they will or won't accept...that child has a much better chance of growing up and being in control of their own mind rather than relying on what others "think" they should think.

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    1. Yes, I agree that critical thinking can and should be taught. It just takes a while before they are going to come up with the right questions.

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  3. Some scholars have argued that religion is "natural" in some sense because we have certain cognitive predispositions to believe things that lend themselves to religious interpretations. As one example, it has been argued that humans have a bias to detect agency in events, e.g. that events are caused by someone's deliberate intention rather than being mindless. This could be adaptive in an evolutionary sense, for example if one hears an unexplained noise it might be a safer assumption to think that it was caused by a living being (human or animal) rather than, say, by the wind. If one is correct then one may be alerted to possible danger. If it's a false alarm, no real harm is done. Scholars argue that due to our bias to sense agency, people have a tendency to attribute events in general to the agency of intentional beings, and that this supports belief in supernatural entities with disembodied minds. This might qualify as a (quasi) "religious instinct" (or not) but is hardly reason to believe in religious claims. On the contrary, it provides a naturalistic explanation of why people may be prone to believe in things that are not real.

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    1. Great point, Scott. I have read that before somewhere, even that example with the grass--very useful to the topic at hand, thanks.

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  4. The whole religious instincts argument I have heard before, and I agree with you I can believe this is true. But the fact that we have these instincts does not mean that a god exists, it just means that as people we have a predisposition to search for meaning in life.

    And surely a probable god means you are agnostic?

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