How Our Brains Create God

March 17, 2009 By 67 Comments

Hands in PrayerNew Scientist has an article on how our brains create God. It points out that while most organizations collapsed during the Great Depression, “the strictest, most authoritarian churches saw a surge in attendance.” People’s lives were a mess and they desperately wanted someone to tell them how to fix it.

Unfortunately, we’ll probably see the same through this recession as well. The article says:

It turns out that human beings have a natural inclination for religious belief, especially during hard times. Our brains effortlessly conjure up an imaginary world of spirits, gods and monsters, and the more insecure we feel, the harder it is to resist the pull of this supernatural world. It seems that our minds are finely tuned to believe in gods.

That’s not surprising. Life is tough to deal with, especially when you don’t understand what in the world is going on. Without science, you have to make crap up to deal with life.

Anyway, the article goes on to talk about how our brains conjure up deities and spirits to deal with our problems. Sounds about right.

Do you think that will ever change?

Filed Under: Atheism, Evolution, God, Psychology 67 Comments
  • http://www.slim-blondje.com/eng Pascalle

    This makes me think of an article in a Dutch paper i read some time ago.

    It states that the human mind needed to evolve to grasp the concept of religion.
    Ergo, you need a certain level of civilisation to think up religion (and supersticiou to explain the stuff happening around you).

    I found that quite interesting.

    On the note of your article, of course this will never change.

    The human species is flawed. The moment we can’t deal with something it takes a very strong mind to NOT look for reasons outside your own responsibility.

    Most people simply don’t see enough (or understand enough) of the big picture to not put their faith in the supernatural to fix it, explain it or please make it go away by prayer.

  • http://www.zeekeekee.wordpress.com isnessie

    I don’t know if it will ever change, but I understand why people turn to religion when times are tough. It’s the idea of having someone big and powerful on your side, who is in control. Even better, when things don’t work out to your benefit, the belief that that powerful being is still good and loves you and is doing everything for your best ‘There’s a reason’, ‘One cannot understand the bigger plans of God’, it provides a comfort and security. It’s not God that people really engage with – rather the hope that comes from believing someone who has your best interests at heart is in control of the uncontrollable things in life.
    Since leaving Christianity, I see how much that stunted me. At first it was hope that someone had control over all the confusing, difficult and painful times in life. Then, eventually I started depending completely on this hope to guide my life. Now I see that though I still can’t control everything in life, a lot more decisions are in my hands, and to me, that is the power and freedom of individual agency.

  • http://jruthkelly.com jruthkelly

    No, I don’t think it will ever change because in many people there is an innate resonance to frontiers and to the undefined, the unknown. Some cannot fathom how there could not be a god. If it is discovered the brain has an actual segment dedicated to god-belief, we’ll believe god made it while we laugh at the thought that anyone could actually think they had proven such a segment. But generally, people resonate to the existence of a creator. This is what keeps us pushing forward to know and to discover. We insist the earth is not flat. But some say …

    “Religious belief is the “path of least resistance”, says Boyer, while disbelief requires effort.”

    This is the typical boxed-perspective of the atheist fundie control junkie. Disbelief requires you use only one part of your brain. It’s easy stuff. You simply compartmentalize parts of yourself and move on. Total simplification. Drop all exploration and imagination in some specific directions and on distinct layers. That which can be measured, pinned down and observed is all that is real. Next?

    There are innumerable intelligent, mature people who believe there is a divine source. And those same people take full responsibility for their lives, their challenges and their duties. You’ll find them in laboratories, newsrooms, cancer wards giving the next dose, at the drawing board and in the street sweeping. They don’t foist their power off on a divine being. They embrace their intelligence, their power and their impact on the world. They act with discipline, awareness, strength and hope.

    Perhaps some (not all!) atheists are like those people described in your link as likely feeling a “loss of control” and they are finding patterns in the studies and landscape of “believers” they choose to view. It’s amazing the patterns they refuse to see and the ones they see that are really just the randomness of humanity unfolding into life. How rich and how easy…

  • Anon

    I have been pondering this topic lately as I have been experiencing (I think) what most would call “God’s presence”

    Before the ego steps in and marks this idea as ludicrous, try it for yourself as a scientific experiment. Try being still, alert and present. Don’t think forwards or backwards in time. Let your mind rest. Don’t even think about how this is just like “such and such” meditation or religious practice. Make no comparisons (for now at least). Just be in whatever present state you are in. It may take a while to let this happen.

    I have found that when I do this, some sort of different feeling or awareness arises. If this is done enough, one can begin to notice that awareness or ‘baseline feeling’ of reality become more apparent in every day life.

    What is this different feeling?

    I think that through practice and being honest about it, you could see how someone could construe this naturally occurring feeling of consciousness to be easily labeled as something other worldly. God like even.

    What is this feeling specifically? Well, after a while of feeling that way you may not even care to find out :)

  • Confused

    …the more insecure we feel, the harder it is to resist the pull of this supernatural world.

    This is interesting, as I was having a debate with a christian friend the other day talking about how – at least from my perspective – christianity deliberately incites insecurity with impossible standards of purity before offering the solution in the form of Christ. I wonder how important that ritualised and regularily applied insecurity is in maintaining not only peoples need for Christs forgiveness, but a belief in the supernatural.

  • cello

    Tied to belief in the supernatural, I think we also have a need for ritual. (Though some Protestant Christians deny this, they have their rituals too. Following the Bible rules are rituals.) All cultures recognize various forms of holidays, stages of life, rites of passage, etc. I suspect it is all tied together in how we are wired to approach the world.

  • http://www.rationalitynow.com Dan Gilbert

    “Without science, you have to make crap up to deal with life.”

    Daniel, that’s my new favorite quote! :-)

  • Francesco Orsenigo

    Dunno.
    But I like to think that we’ll learn to take responsibility for our lives and our situations, to face our fears and let them away.
    We have just to learn to be less vulnerable, to some extent, to accept uncertaneity in our lives.
    Unfortunately our society teaches us only to collect power, money and external validations, and this eventually makes us very weak.

  • latsot

    “Anyway, the article goes on to talk about how our brains conjure up deities and spirits to deal with our problems. Sounds about right.

    Do you think that will ever change?”

    Perhaps, but not in the short term. It seems likely enough that it is due to a tangled set of consequences related to survivability of our ancestors, tuned by natural selection to some particular balance between the detection of false positives and false negatives and then thrust into a radically different environment to the one it all evolved in. In other words, a consequence of our mental abilities and psychology.

    The good news is that we don’t have to listen to our genes. As Stephen Pinker has said, “if my genes don’t like it, they can jump in the lake.” Our genes deal in tendencies rather than absolutes, with behaviour as much as with form, and the postulated battle between nature and nurture is imaginary: both are important in both physical and mental development.

    I remain optimistic that we can begin to create environments in which children can learn to overcome the tendencies that lead them in the wrong direction, recognise when their brains tell them the wrong thing and gradually eradicate the impulse toward religion.

    This optimism is easily knocked, but tends to bounce back eventually.

  • LRA

    I think we have an evolutionary pull/instinct to not be alone and to shelter the weaker members of the group– and that anxiety or fear heightens this pull. It would have helped us to survive. Think about it– the loner or the weak one is the one who gets picked off by the predator first, and dwindling numbers would have weakened the group as a whole. The instinct for social grouping helped us survive and build civilization. Now we live in vast societies which sometimes leave us socially isolated. Even so, the pull to not be alone or feel weak calls to us. So we make up a strong companion to carry around with us.

    This companion has many names and differing traits all over the world because we need him/her to be something we can relate to.

    So as long as people misunderstand their own urges, there will be religion.

  • latsot

    isnessie:

    “Even better, when things don’t work out to your benefit, the belief that that powerful being is still good and loves you and is doing everything for your best ‘There’s a reason’, ‘One cannot understand the bigger plans of God’, it provides a comfort and security”

    I think that’s right. It’s not just that there’s an invisible magic friend, it’s that by definition the IMF cannot let you down. If it does, that can always be justified, again by definition. I think *this* is the security blanket: not that some power is going to make everything alright, but that victims can continue to believe that it will even after a lifetime of failure to do so.

    Sorry to blind everyone with a flash of the obvious :)

  • J. Allen

    Or is it the opposite?

    I just read this article:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/opinion/15rich.html?_r=2

    People tend to leave the faith during recessions, have no time or money for frivolous things like religion.

  • toddyenglish

    I believe we’ll have to evolve away from it. Back then there was a need to believe. During our most primitive stages we had to find a way to cope and explain the world around us. Unfortunately, that has carried over into modern times. But, as you can see from recent poll results, more and more people are trending towards reason and rationality.

    Human beings are a young species. We just have to grow out of this phase.

  • reckoner71

    We will eventually move away from belief in gods.

    Even the most popular monotheistic religions are well on their way to cult status all by themselves, and seeing as their kooky leaders have done us the service of linking religion and gods over the millennia, one should fall soon after the other.

  • http://blog.elliottcallahan.com Elliott

    One thing that drives me nuts is when people say “we need religion because it gives life purpose. Science is a cold bedfellow,” or similar.

    Why do you need someone to tell you what your purpose is? How boring.

    You don’t know what it is to be a person until you have weathered the existential mindfuck of realizing there is no set purpose, and until you have come out on the other side having found your own.

  • John C

    This is the “logical” outcome of living long enough with a divided mind outside of the One mind. We end up with birthing false assumptions like we made (up) God rather than He made us, just the opposite of the Truth.

    He has no greater joy than to know we are walking in truth. Since Truth is a Person, let us abide in Him.

    He says…how can two walk together unless they be in agreement? Independence, while romanticized by the likes of Hollywood, the Marlboro man, James Bond, etc is a weakened and undesirable condition.

    Or have you not heard? In God’s math 1+1 =…1. One is a majority with Him, ahh the paradoxical paternity, the wonder of it all. Get in the One.

    Come to me and I will show you great and mighty things that you do not know…Jer 33:3.

    God made us silly boys and girls.

  • http://www.moonstonewolf.com Crystal

    Hm. perhaps I’m a little hyper self-aware (or self-conscious), but I’d have to disagree with the part of the article that says that believing in the supernatural is the “path of least resistance”. I actually find it far more difficult to believe in the supernatural. I simply cannot justify it. As fun as the idea of fairies or magic powers or even sometimes a god of some sort might be, my mind can never find a good reason to hold onto those kinds of beliefs, so it drops them.

    Maybe I’ve just seen too much of the fallout of religion and spirituality and have trained my mind to see reality for what it is. And hopefully that’s a good argument for the idea that people will eventually drop religion like it’s hot and start thinking for themselves.

    It’s a nice theory, anyway. ;)

  • http://www.vidlord.com VidLord

    Daniel – thanks for posting this. It really is a great and important article. The most fascinating part is when they talk about a hypothetical experiment where a group of children are allowed to grow up without any interference from adults and how, eventually, they will conjure up their own god or gods to worship. Simply amazing! The more we are aware of how our brain works, the more the supernatural will disappear into obscurity.

    One other note, this article shows how young children are especially impressionable – their brains are sponges designed to soak up what their parents teach them with unquestionable devotion. This happened to me.

    Children are like wet cement. The parents mold and shape them, and then the cement hardens around age 7 or 8. It is very hard to break the mold, once it has hardened.

  • http://billpost.blogspot.com/ Bill

    Here’s what I find odd about increased religion in tough times:

    If you believe god is all powerful, he must be responsible for the recession/depression etc… Either he directly caused it or he allowed it to exist, either way he’s responsible. Why worship that which is responsible for your misery?

    (I suspect the believer’s answer to this may be along the lines of: “we’ve angered him and need to make it right through worship, so he stops the punishment.” If that’s the case God is a sadistic meglomaniac and not worthy of worship anyway.)

    If he didn’t cause it, he’s not all powerful and obviously wasn’t able to stop the recession/depression etc… from happening anyway. If he can’t help you, what’s the point of worhipping him?

    It’s so confusing!

  • Dan L.

    Of course it will change. Eventually the inaptly named species homo sapiens will become extinct. We seem to be working pretty hard on that, actually.

  • lookadistraction

    I agree with you when you say that “Without science, you have to make crap up to deal with life.”
    This is a very valid point, I would say.
    Whether it will ever change or not remains to be seen, though.

  • cello

    ITA and people report similar experiences across cultures and across religions and lack of religions. Which is one of the reasons I reject the premise of anyone who says *their* god is the one true god. Because if that is god, god obviously doesn’t work that way.

  • http://jruthkelly.com jruthkelly

    “What is this feeling specifically? Well, after a while of feeling that way you may not even care to find out :) ”

    Well said. I’ve found this to be true too. It doesn’t matter. It feels wonderful (and it’s not an emotion-based reality). It occurs in the lives of people who believe there is a divine source and in those who do not. I can see how one could easily project a god-notion onto this experience and call it “god’s presence.” It’s not an experience that “comes to you.” It’s one you give yourself to in rest and awareness. Always available.

    As to god…I just stick with what is the gut belief in my own life. and god/dess doesn’t much care to be restricted by any religion.

    it all requires the courage to accept what life is: uncertain but a beautiful feast.

  • Roger

    Sounds like a self-induced euphoria to me. Also, what you’ve described is basically Buddhist meditation–and if you read Buddhist texts on meditation, a lot of them argue that this peace/feeling/whatever isn’t any sort of “god,” but a person coming close to realizing the truth of this world.

  • latsot

    On a related note: I often have difficulty sleeping and have done for as long as I can remember. Without intending to, I’ve developed a response to cope with this: I can relax to the stage where I dream, but can more or less control those dreams, without actually being asleep. By ‘more or less’, I mean that I feel I can pick a path through the dream, but I can’t really change the rules of the dream or the world it occurs in. Or at least that I seem to have limited choice in the matter.

    It usually takes some time to get into this state. As it is happening, it’s not unusual for me to have audio hallucinations. I very convincingly hear sounds that cannot possibly have occurred and sometimes don’t know whether I have cried out or said things. My wife sleeps like the dead so can rarely confirm or deny any of this.

    For me, these sounds are usually things like dogs barking or similar and they don’t last more than what seems like a second or so. But they are *very* convincing and sometimes wake me up completely.

    I can imagine that if someone’s brain worked slightly differently to mine, entering such a state might be an intensely religious experience. Such a person might hear all kinds of things, I guess, and yet in fully waking life be perfectly rational.

  • claidheamh mor

    I believe (the action of accepting something as real, subject to change with input of further information, and with a high degree of uncertainty without measurable, testable verification) in soul, something surviving beyond the body, and some kind of intelligence or mind in life.

    I call myself an atheist in terms of Christianity, because the Christian God is not only unverified, but well, you know, vicious, self-contradictory, cruel, punitive, sexist, male (though no Christian has pulled up his robe and looked), nonsensical, a lousy writer, conducive to severe cognitive dissonance, etc.

    It really chaps my ass that people ASSume their feelings or experiences are “God”, just because Christianity is most prevalent in our culture, and that particular religion has plenty of people ready to proselytize and obnoxiously push that very explanation on you, with you ready to buy it and eat it up.

    How do you know your “feeling” isn’t Thor, Zues, Osiris, Ahuramazda, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the devil, or your own relaxation and imagination?

    Guess what? YOUR belief is your action of accepting something as real.

    If YOURS isn’t subject to change with input of further information, with a high degree of uncertainty without measurable, testable verification, that’s merely pathetic and begging for ridicule.

  • Question-I-Thority

    Anyone can cultivate and strengthen the bliss range of emotions. From my many years as a pentecostalist I can enter into bliss at will. We can assume its physiological unless someone has evidence that this is actually being manipulated in some unique way that other emotions are not. Instead of putting non-naturalistic definitions on things, show the evidence.

  • LRA

    And I might add that as long as one culture’s conception of their strong companion threatens another culture’s conception of their strong companion, there will be war (not to say that war doesn’t happen for other reasons, but this is a relevant reason for the “war on terror” today).

  • latsot

    Well, I can and will not remember about the reply button until it’s too late :(

  • latsot

    The near universality of this is too obvious to ignore, isn’t it?

    The unfortunate end of the spectrum might be people with OCD or with intensely strong superstitions that adversely control their behaviour. Less extreme cases might include people who take solace in ritual or feel that it helps them to organise their lives.

    Perhaps in between are those who build improbable fiction on the framework of ritual and then come to rely more on the fiction than the ritual.

    I suspect that the ritual is a consequence of the need for something else and that things like religious belief feed off ritual.

    Pure speculation, of course.

  • LRA

    I went back into religion (I broke away from my parent’s church the first time) because some difficult things had happened to me and I wanted to know why. Religion had a shiny veneer back then. It seemed really true that god/Jesus would solve all my problems. But as I matured, inevitably bad stuff happened again and I started to lose faith in my faith. I started to really look at what I was that I supposedly believed. I re-engaged my logic and found myself in a place that almost worse than before I went back in.

    As per human nature (if there is such a thing), my “out” group is now anti-intellectual fundies who sling hope/certainty that their bible can’t back up. My “in” group is now believers, agnostics, and atheists who take the time to educate themselves and think about things in the most logical way possible. People who are open to listening to various arguments and responding rationally.

    (Of course, I’m not looking to start any wars. Just want to see people think for themselves as I see unthinking religion/ blind faith as damaging).

  • latsot

    “Human beings are a young species.”

    By what criteria? In relation to what?

  • http://wmute.livejournal.com wintermute

    Modern humans have existed for 200,000 years. I believe the median lifespan for a species is 1,000,000 years.

    I think the statement is true, but meaningless. Cheetahs, for example, are a younger species; what does this say about them?

  • aproustian

    I’m confused about your point. I’m a physicist, and it’s certainly not “resonating at the existence of a creator” that drives me towards discovery. Also, that “which can be measured, pinned down and observed” is quite interesting enough–and tricky enough in many circumstances to do–that I really don’t understand why it would be “drop[ping] all exploration and imagination”.

  • http://blog.elliottcallahan.com Elliott

    Where to begin…

    This is the typical boxed-perspective of the atheist fundie control junkie.

    I hate this criticism from believers. Freethinkers are by definition non-fundamentalist. We have no dogma, we are open to any perspective, as long as you can demonstrate there is a good reason to believe it. We don’t have a defined list of fundamentals to follow, so we can’t be fundamentalists.

    You simply compartmentalize parts of yourself and move on. Total simplification. Drop all exploration…

    Atheists do explore, I would argue much more than believers. Believers start off with a set of ideas that they consider it virtuous to maintain in spite of absent or contradicting evidence. When is it considered being a ‘good Christian’ to question the existence of a creator? Answer: never.

    I personally explore the creator hypothesis all the time. But every time I do, I find it unsatisfactory by use of reason.

    …and imagination in some specific directions and on distinct layers.

    Yes. Drop non-creative imagination. That’s part of becoming an adult. The process of maturation involves jettisoning silly ideas about the world. First to go are the stork, the tooth fairy, and Santa Claus, probably because they blatantly violate laws of the natural world. But Yahweh exists in this untouchable zone where you can’t disprove him, so people keep believing.

    Grow up.

  • http://jruthkelly.com jruthkelly

    it’s not euphoria. also, no one said it is god.

  • Ty

    Exactly, aproustian.

    Your post made me think of something I’m always telling my friend who’s a nuclear physicist.

    “Man, if I were you, I’d being every single sentence with, ‘well, as a nuclear physicist…’”

  • http://jruthkelly.com jruthkelly

    Where did I specifically say physicists were “resonating…” etc? That line was about people who believe there is a divine source (NO that does NOT automatically mean they are Christian). Some physicists believe there is a creator. Some do not. Where is the confusion?

    I couldn’t agree with you more that that “which can be measured …” is quite interesting. Enough? No. We’re different.

    As to the “drop[ping] all…” reference you make, you didn’t actually read the sentence or perhaps you didn’t comprehend it. I referred to the ease with which one can drop all exploration that goes in the direction of divinity or the existence of a god or or or. It was in reference to a comment on “the path of least resistance.” But I’ll not draw a flow chart for you.

    I was actually responding to a blog post and the related link. But maybe no one caught that. Did anyone read the link?

  • latsot

    That’s kind of what I meant.

  • DarkMatter

    Like Marjoe, maybe.

  • Anon

    This raises a good point. If I may paraphrase: Why do people bother putting non-naturalistic definitions on phenomena that are perceived by the senses if we cannot externally prove that these phenomena originate outside of our senses?

    I suspect that the very nature of our consciousness and existence is intertwined with things of a highly subtle nature, beyond our senses’ full grasp. If one were to accept this position, then it could be theorized that our personal interrelatedness with this subtle nature could be detected in such a way that would appear mundane to anyone else but oneself.

    In addition, if one were to entertain this notion of subjective experience with reality, it can easily be seen how bias it is to say “You are not experiencing anything supernatural.”

    What is normal? What is supernormal? Couldn’t putting a harsh limit on the language others use to describe their personal relationship with the unknowable be limiting to those of a more analytical nature?

    I think this would make a very good topic for Daniel’s blog!

  • aproustian

    Ha, yes, although unfortunately “Well, as a condensed matter physicist…” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

  • aproustian

    Wait, god sucks at arithmetic? If he can’t handle a simple number line, how’d he create the universe?

  • Francesco Orsenigo

    Wow!!
    Also in boolean algebra 1+1 = 1.. this means George Boole is God!!! O_O

    But also, allow me to point out that if we remove God from the equation:

    1 = 1

    Which obviously means that you can be one and whole even without God!

  • Ty

    Yes, he’s terrible at math. Remember, Pi=3 in the bible. He’s also really bad at zoology. Bats being birds, and rabbits chewing cud, and all that nonsense. That’s why he made us ‘silly’, as John says. He’s just really bad at almost everything he tries.

    Poor god.

  • John C

    Is a Physicist your vocation of your identity? Or do you make a distinction?

    You said in an earlier post “I’m a physicist”…really? Is that you, or are you who you…always were? And what would that be exactly? Can you tell me Aproustian? Cuz honestly with all due respect I dont think you know.

    I’m a _______ fill in the blank. Where does all that wonder, that intrigue and fascination come from? Where did you get that Aproustian? Hmm

    Ahh the root, the stem of Jesse, now there is an ancient tree.

  • Ty

    “Can you tell me Aproustian? Cuz honestly with all due respect I dont think you know. ”

    Ah, so now in addition to speaking for god, you also speak for the other posters.

    You’re branching out.

  • John C

    I mean no harm…just a fun little exercise that gets one thinking, thats all.

  • aproustian

    Damn straight I’m a physicist. I’m not who I always was; I have, for instance, grown up from being a child and believing in god nonsense to being an adult who is capable of searching for real truth in how the universe works.

  • http://blog.elliottcallahan.com Elliott

    I like your new avatar, John C.

  • Ty

    Really? What exactly are you trying to get him to think?

  • Roger

    So, you’re trying to mind-fuck people into believing in “God”? Excellent!

  • John C

    Thx Elliott…

  • spence-bob

    Crystal, I think for most people it’s the path of least resistance because it’s what they were taught to believe from a very young age, so *not* believing it takes a lot of strength and effort. The things we learn about the world at a young age can be difficult to jettison, especially if we see our parents continue to believe the same things well into old age.

  • http://www.moonstonewolf.com Crystal

    Wow. At a very young age I realized that both of my parents were emotionally and neuorologically unbalanced, and that they made better examples of what NOT to do than of how to live.

    So I suppose perhaps I should thank the obviousness of my parents’ neurosese for the fact that I don’t feel particularly compelled to believe.

    Kindof ironic.

  • aproustian

    Oh! And thanks for stepping in, Ty. I was busy elsewhere.

    But I wanted to point out that I’m actually a “she”. Hard to tell over the internets, I know :)

  • Ty

    Oh, sorry for the mistaken ‘he’ there. As you say, hard to know on the intarwebs.

  • John C

    I’ve got news for ya…Truth is a Person.

    Quite a concept huh? Also, “childlikeness” is the gateway into the wonder of the kingdom here and now…

    There is more, there is a life.

  • Ty

    Well, John, at the very least you’ve convinced me that nonsense is a person.

  • http://jruthkelly.com jruthkelly

    With over 40 years here I am growing up and up and up. But thanks for the encouragement. I like to sink the roots deep too. Do I have your permission sir? Ah, it really doesn’t matter. Funny how some atheists go on and on about how they don’t need the stamp of approval of the church and yet they attack it repeatedly (and badly) and see it under every rock and then shout out the imperative directive to “grow up!” as if they are now the new big kids on the block. I’ll huff and I’ll puff!

    Tell me this…where did I speak as a Christian? Hello? I am speaking as one who left Christianity. I sometimes have arguments with the part of myself that will always exist as the internal agnostic. At the same time, I am unable to do anything but believe there is a divine source. The good news is that I have a creative internal mediator! Do I ascribe or assign any religious attributes to that divine source and did I do so in my comment? No. Do I use “god” to justify anything or explain away death or difficulty? Hell no.

    You haul out your own dogma about things I’ve not even brought up. Who mentioned virtue? You did. You think I agree with the “virtue” born of fear and condemnation? Or belief under duress of damnation? I’d rather declare sex the utmost redemption of all mankind and declare it sinful to feel condemned for being simply human and alive. Where the hell did the whole “believer” thing come into my post? Nowhere. To believe there is a divine source is to be a “Christian believer?” I was responding to and pointing out the holes in the dogma of Daniel’s post and especially his link. Some of us former Christians still manage to believe there is a divine source (OUTSIDE OF CHRISTIANITY and its TENETS) but it doesn’t make us stupid or unable to discern the difference between making choices based on rational and loving comprehension of value versus trying to “be good” so we are “saved” from some imaginary “hell.”

    “..as long as you can demonstrate there is a good reason to believe it” Who will we bring along to judge what is a good reason to believe anything at all? Will we certify him and list his credentials? Because something is not proven, it must not be believed? Are you the faith nazi? Is the world according to an atheist the only world (unless it can be proven otherwise by the bonafide approval of the atheist? Round we go loop!)? This is the essence of fundamentalism. I’ve nothing against atheists. It’s the fixation on attacking belief in a divine source I find nauseating. As a former Christian, I found this blog out of sheer curiosity. What I discovered is a surreal “anti” version of what I encountered in some (thankfully not all) circles of christianity.

    “Yes. Drop non-creative imagination. That’s part of becoming an adult. The process of maturation involves jettisoning silly ideas about the world.”

    Wow, the Borg have landed and now define “creativity.” I’m gone. Somebody mentioned a lush rain forest in a previous thread. Get me hence!

  • http://progressatallcost.blogspot.com/ markbey

    … Funny how some atheists go on and on about how they don’t need the stamp of approval of the church and yet they attack it repeatedly (and badly) and see it under every rock and then shout out the imperative directive to “grow up!” as if they are now the new big kids on the block. I’ll huff and I’ll puff! …..

    at jruthkelly

    mark…. has an aitheist ever

    1. knocked on your door early in the morning to convert you to disbelief.
    2. told your kids they were going to burn in hell for choosing the wrong religion.
    3 tried to get the thier religious views installed into the public schools system.

  • http://blog.elliottcallahan.com Elliott

    I accept my duly deserved pwnage.

    However, I would like to point out that when you come in accusing rationalists of being ‘fundies,’ who use only ‘one part of [their] brains,’ who are ‘compartmentalized…simplifi[ed],’ and who ‘drop all exploration and imagination,’ and you subsequently claim there are ‘innumerable intelligent, mature people who believe there is a divine source,’ you are (pragmatically) whittling out a little nook for some kind of new-age, formless, pan-theistic version of a creator. It’s for this reason that I labeled you a believer — on the spectrum you are closer to ‘believer’ than I am. I apologize for assuming that entailed any kind of structured belief.

    I’m glad you have more than for decades of experience on this planet. Please note, I didn’t say “attain a larger age number,” I said “grow up.”

  • http://blog.elliottcallahan.com Elliott

    *four

  • claidheamh mor

    Please note, I didn’t say “attain a larger age number,” I said “grow up.”

    Elliot, I agree with and second your suggestion.

  • boomSLANG

    @Elliott,

    You handled that one very well, sir.

  • spence-bob

    Yup, that would certainly explain your perspective on this question. ;)

  • http://www.vidlord.com VidLord

    an omnipotent being would not feel anger – or any other petty human emotion.