The evolution of thought - how religion came to be.

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The evolution of thought - how religion came to be.



Hi all, I am making this thread for both atheists and the religious in an exercise to promote understanding. Hopefully, the atheists will see what is the nature of faith, and why people accept faith as an important part of their life (no folks, religious people are not always stupid), and for theists to understand how a mechanism to explain why religion could exist, in an evolutionary context.

I will be examining -

Belief as an evolutionary concept, why we believe.
Morality as an evolutionary concept, and how it mattered.
Why religious ideas became so powerful.
Pre-existing evolutionary pathways. How we may have come to pray.
The evolution of spirits, dead men and the gods.
Why morality became a religious concept.
Sex!
The origins of ritual and doctrine.
Changing beliefs - why religion evolved and became more complex.


As you can see, it is a large subject to cover, so I will split the post into several parts over several days.
What I will say, for you to understand, requires a few concepts, both I hope are uncontentious,

1. Nature favours the selfish - now to a casual view from christians, this may seem hard to accept as a valid concept, but instead of nature, if you substitute man, we get

Man favours the selfish - which I believe you should recognize as a doctrine of the abrahamic religions - Original sin.

2. We have inherent instincts - we do things without thought, or due process of our concious minds, such as love, hate, have sex or breathe.
Without those instincts, we cannot survive as human beings. In fact I will attempt to show the evolutionary roots of those concepts.


I also hope to keep you entertained, (a picture of a woman with naked breasts will be included), and more importantly, make you think and discuss.

As a theory, I will supply both scientific and ancedotal evidence (testing the ancedotal evidence in a scientific way would be deemed cruel, meaning we have to rely on ancedotal evidence), and supplying questions to debate where veiws may be contentious.


Part 1 later.

Wannabe
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As to the first questions for debate...


For atheists

Is selfishness the origin of original sin?

For abrahamic theists

Is selfishness the original sin?

The Alpha and The Omega
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I’ve actually been raising this question myself, not necessarily even from a religious standpoint.

It seems things such as hatred, revenge, and greed seem to have some sort of trace to selfishness. But, I’m not completely sure about this yet.

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First you will have to define 'sin'.

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(moved)

Last edited 13 Jun 2009 08:58 am by Shaun of the Living

Wannabe
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Gplex, you claim to be an atheist, why do you not answer the question I aimed for the atheists.

It was a simple question for you to acknowledge that their may be a case that someone noticed that most of mankind did do some things for their own selfish benefit, and used the term original sin to describe this behaviour in religious texts. Nothing more.

The question to abrahamic theists was crouched in terms a theist would understand, and have their own definitions. This was merely a mechanism for them to acknowledge that point which will be under further discussions later.

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In that context, I would say, murder is the original sin.
As a single cell destroys another single cell (one of our oldest ancestors killing another single cell) in order to survive.

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Kind of a difference in “murder” and self defense...I would say, in the context of thiesm that selfishness is the original sin.. but a thiest would have to realize that selfishness is a god given trait... from an athiestic point of view i would speculate that selfishness is a trait to help us survive...i honestly dont believe in the idea of “sin”...rather a set of standards and common sense rules...Is it a sin to have premarital sex?...yes...do i believe its wrong?...of course not...something that feels so good cant be all that bad...

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I would like to add to my statement that if selfishness is a sin, doesn’t that make god a sinner?...I know I know...God is not capable of “sin”...The underlying point is that all of our emotions are god given and originated from god...Yes even hate...God invented everything, even our capabilities do be depraved and nihilistic...You can either thank God for being here today or you can blame god for being here today....Either way,(according to thiests) it’s because of God...

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Self defense isn’t mention in the 10 commandments.
“something that feels so good cant be all that bad”, some people take pleasure in causing pain to others. This is not a logical argument.
You are right. If I wasn’t selfish, I would kill myself, and donate my organs to someone who needs it.

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Of course it isn’t..The only thing I tried to point out was that your example of the single cell was a defense mechanism rather than murder. thats all. plain and simple. as for the something that feels so good was something I just added on jokingly but it was in reference to sex(nothing else)...As for saying I’m right about the defense mechanism, I’m not sure if its sarcasm or not...But if it is, I would appreciate it if you would expound upon it further. I honestly don’t think selfishness is just a human trait.

Edit:...We could also say that “murder” is, in and of itsself, a selfish act.

Last edited 14 Jun 2009 08:14 pm by Sleazy P. Martini

sotl nli

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All acts are selfish at heart, but some help ourselves by helping others and some help ourselves by hurting others.

sotl nli

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...Or at least they ATTEMPT to help ourselves in the end.

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Well yes, I guess it is. You can see acts of selfishness all throughout the animal kingdom.
Without selfishness, our ancestors would have never survived long enough to evolve into us.

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I was thinking about this for a bit and I came to the conclusion that selfishness is just part of “original sin”...What would be a better statement is “emotion is the original sin”(according to thiests). Emotions are neutral...It’s how we mentally handle and what we do with those emotions that count. So in essence it’s a lose, lose situation...Therefore, according to thiests we are constantly in original sin because we constantly are feeling emotions...

A theist

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Actually based on what Christianity teaches selfishness can be (and technically is) the original sin. Ergo you have a lot of verses that teach giving to the poor etc.

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Selfishness, the original sin...Masterminded by the king of selfishness...God...

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But even “giving to the poor” is, at it’s roots, based in selfishness. You only give to the poor to get something in return, whether that be pleasure or salvation.

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disobedience, greediness and selfishness are. Eve and Adam disobeyed God in the garden of eden by eating out of the fruit of life. they wanted to be more powerful than God cuz the serpent told them that the reason God had forbidden them from eating from that tree was because they would be as powerful as God

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I don’t think their motives went that far. God said don’t eat from the tree because it will kill you. The serpent told them that it will, in fact, not kill you, but instead give you the knowledge of good and evil which will therefore make you like God.

Never said anything about being more or even as powerful as God.

Ironic that God lied and the serpent told the truth. It wasn’t the fruit or anything gained from it that cursed Adam and Eve with death, but it was God himself who decidedly did it.

3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.

Last edited 01 Jul 2009 01:22 pm by Khorib