matt b
Indexing all opinion
He keeps kids in a sealed box from birth?
I'd invent all sorts of rubbish if so.
The God / Dawkins Delusion
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He keeps kids in a sealed box from birth?
I'd invent all sorts of rubbish if so.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
Which reminds me of an old Simpsons episode:
Invented by Dr. Marvin Monroe, The Monroe Box is a special isolation chamber wherein the subject pulls levers to receive food and water; the floor can become electrified, and showers of icy water randomly fall on the subject. All that is missing is an infant to raise in the box until the age of thirty.
The theory is that the subject will be socially maladjusted and will harbor a deep resentment towards Dr. Monroe.
Monroe: It's a special isolation chamber. The subject pulls levers to receive
food and water. The floor can become electrified, and showers of
icy water randomly fall on the subject. I call it... The Monroe Box!
Grampa: Uh huh. Sounds interesting. How much will it cost to build?
Monroe: Oh, that's the beauty part! It's already built! I need the money
to buy a baby to raise in the box until the age of thirty.
Grampa: What are you trying to prove?
Monroe: Well, my theory is that the subject will be socially maladjusted and
will harbor a deep resentment towards me.
Grampa: Mm. Interesting.
Invented by Dr. Marvin Monroe, The Monroe Box is a special isolation chamber wherein the subject pulls levers to receive food and water; the floor can become electrified, and showers of icy water randomly fall on the subject. All that is missing is an infant to raise in the box until the age of thirty.
The theory is that the subject will be socially maladjusted and will harbor a deep resentment towards Dr. Monroe.
Monroe: It's a special isolation chamber. The subject pulls levers to receive
food and water. The floor can become electrified, and showers of
icy water randomly fall on the subject. I call it... The Monroe Box!
Grampa: Uh huh. Sounds interesting. How much will it cost to build?
Monroe: Oh, that's the beauty part! It's already built! I need the money
to buy a baby to raise in the box until the age of thirty.
Grampa: What are you trying to prove?
Monroe: Well, my theory is that the subject will be socially maladjusted and
will harbor a deep resentment towards me.
Grampa: Mm. Interesting.
mixed_biscuits
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matt b
Indexing all opinion
The point being, this is completely unproveable/unverifiable, unless the child IS kept in a sealed box from birth, then asked about the god concept at some point
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I've been an atheist for as long as I can remeber, pretty sure the same goes for my brother. Our parents never sat us down and said "God does not exist", AFAIR, we just weren't brought up in a religious (or even pomo-feelgood-vaguely-theist) household. Though it's not like we weren't exposed to Christianity at a young age, because we both went to a C of E primary school and had daily prayers and hymns, RE lessons about Christmas and Easter, all that jazz.
OK, so a sample of one (or two, even) isn't much of a sample, but I certainly don't think children spontaneously 'invent god' if they're brought up in an implicitly secular environment, even with some (mild) exposure to organised religion like I received.
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Vim, what do you have to say about China? I really don't know jack about people's religious beliefs over there, aside from a skim-reading of a couple of Wikipedia articles. I imagine religion was suppressed strongly during the Mao years, but didn't people just start 'worshipping' Mao instead? I know he's subject of some massive personality cult over there.
I should imagine the general situation is one of widespread atheism among urbanised populations with folk Taoism (or whatever you want to call it) still going strong in the more traditional rural/small-town communities - anyone got any input on this?
OK, so a sample of one (or two, even) isn't much of a sample, but I certainly don't think children spontaneously 'invent god' if they're brought up in an implicitly secular environment, even with some (mild) exposure to organised religion like I received.
............................................................................................
Vim, what do you have to say about China? I really don't know jack about people's religious beliefs over there, aside from a skim-reading of a couple of Wikipedia articles. I imagine religion was suppressed strongly during the Mao years, but didn't people just start 'worshipping' Mao instead? I know he's subject of some massive personality cult over there.
I should imagine the general situation is one of widespread atheism among urbanised populations with folk Taoism (or whatever you want to call it) still going strong in the more traditional rural/small-town communities - anyone got any input on this?
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mixed_biscuits
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What is unprovable here? What do you understand by 'Children will spontaneously invent the concept of god without adult intervention'? Can we feel certain that certainty is implied here?
Do you doubt his general thesis on the mind's inference of disembodied agency? 'God' or 'gods' is or are merely the disembodied agent/s produced by hyperactive agency detection. Do you doubt that hyperactive agency detection is hard-wired, or even common? What does a rejection of h.a.d. do to theories of the genesis and transmission of belief systems that are highly populated with inferred agents, such as animism?
Researchers should be able to distinguish between children's references to a disembodied figure who has agency in their world and references to an abstract representation or figure with no or very mechanical agency. Ultimately, one would have to take a look at the literature to rebut the original claim effectively.
mixed_biscuits
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I wonder if an environment that readily provides agency explanations might mollify hyperactive agency detection tendencies and instil rational thinking habits.
Or if early exposure to god-as-representation can take the place of or anticipate of the inferred god gained through h.a.d., to neutralising effect.
I also wonder what age the children he is referring to are. Adult self-reports may be of limited validity.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
I don't know of many children who have lived 'without adult intervention'. There are isolated examples (feral children etc), but as they have had no 'adult intervention', they have found it tough to communicate with adults, so are unable to articulate any concept of god.
Well, yes, just as I doubt the findings of most evolutionary biologists/psychologists/whatever. It is reductionist and speculative.
That's not to say that there is not such a strand in the evolutionary development of the brain, but it is not something we are able to untangle (yet, if ever), just as dogs, whilst intelligent would struggle to untangle quantum physics.
Even so, I don't think an acceptance that a belief in god is hardwired in the brain means that a god exists, it just shows that our belief in god does.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Well it goes without saying I was brought up in a technologically and scientifically developed society, just as you and everyone else here (I assume) were. My mother in particular has a scientific background and my parents never filled my head with rubbish about storks delivering babies or whathaveyou, and I don't remember having any mad tealeaf-reading aunts. In short, I was brought up in an environment that was unsuperstitious as well as secular, I suppose: I learnt that things happened for natural, not supernatural, reasons.
mixed_biscuits
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I suppose there may be ways to see whether children have a concept of a disembodied, godlike agent without asking them directly - by seeing whether they act as if there were a god, for instance.
Oh yeah, it definitely doesn't prove that god exists. But what I think might be important is that if people will often tend to intuit god/s, a society that wishes to become wholly atheist/materialist will need to put in constant work to suppress these hard-wired tendencies.
Mere awareness of these biases' negative influence doesn't suffice, as they are active processes, part of our physical endowment and cannot be simply discarded. Individuals will need diligently to monitor and correct their own thinking, including thinking that may be misleading but still pleasurable (belief as consolation).
Further to the consolation point, individuals will need to feel that the extra effort required in order to maximise the proportion of rational thoughts is worth it. For this, atheist societies will need to prove that they enable human flourishing above and beyond religious ones. Doggedly tracking the truth may be the raison d'etre of science but it need not necessarily be the best guiding principle for the good life.
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matt b
Indexing all opinion
ahh, lock 'em in a box and film them 25/7...
^ all speculation.
Dr Awesome
Techsteppin'
Talking about the concept of God(s) over the lifetime of one feral child, or other such human iteration for example, makes no sense.
The very notion of spirits and mysticism would (and does) takes many many generations to evolve.
The very notion of spirits and mysticism would (and does) takes many many generations to evolve.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
Yeah, but isn't the point that IF notions of god are hardwired through thousands of years of evolutionary change, you should be able to observe said notions in any individual of the species?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't think anyone would argue that regimes that have tried to ban or supress religion have tended to be brutal dictatorships, but if you look instead at a secular society like the UK there has been no active 'programme of atheisation'; just a gradual decoupling of Church and State and the leaking away of religion from most people's lives for all sorts of reasons. There's never been a National Atheism Act passed in Parliament, has there? In fact the Queen is still the official head of the Church of England, which is nominally the state religious body.
Well let's forget about 'atheist societies' as such and consider the weaker condition of generally secular societies. I'd be surprised if there are many secular societies that are less developed (in terms of wealth, wealth distribution, life expectancy, female education, anything you like) than even most highly developed theocracies. Theocracies are almost by definition reactionary and backwards-looking, which aren't great for general social or economic development.
Of course, there are societies that aren't theocratic in the strict sense, but in which the religious establishment nonetheless holds a huge amount of political clout and social influence. I suppose these are in between secular societies and true theocracies; Latin American countries where the Church is still very strong, Ireland a couple of decades ago? Israel?
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mixed_biscuits
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Oh, we're secular in some respects (that public bodies are secular need not mean that they deny religion's claim per se, they may be secular in order fairly to negotiate between religions, for instance) but not atheist by majority. From wikipedia:
There is also the issue that, even if a state is exclusively atheist, its lifeways may still be inherently religious. For instance, the values enshrined in law here owe a great deal to Christian values (equality, inherent worth of man etc). Many atheists' belief in moral absolutes (see upthread) is also a religious hangover. But anyway, if the UK were largely atheist, can it be said that this shift has been generally beneficial - has led to greater 'human flourishing'?
I reckon that atheism, as a social phenomenon of moderate influence, cannot be supported by a state that is not already stable: secularism succeeds stability. Note, my definition of flourishing focuses on comparative success through competition (spreading genes and culture) rather than distributive 'justice' within a state. I would also propose that a state of advanced distributive justice is a consequence of the balance of power (stable societies benefit from virtuous feedback) rather than especial rational maturity.
I've got to go do some work.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
How does 'equality' stem from Christian values? The Bible makes it quite clear that women are subordinate to men. That's without even starting on trad Christian views of heathens, Saracens, Jews (they killed Jesus, you know!)...or gays...or, indeed, legislation that discriminated against the wrong kind of Christians, which I think was still in force in the 19th century. Or still is today, if you include the Act of Settlement.
Whatever good you want to attribute to religion - social cohesion, sense of purpose, blah blah - equality is certainly not on that list.
Whatever good you want to attribute to religion - social cohesion, sense of purpose, blah blah - equality is certainly not on that list.
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mixed_biscuits
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I can concede that as my point didn't rely on it. That said, a) I do think your characterisation is not wholly fair and b) the idea of inherent moral equality between any two people (this can then be upscaled) probably has a religious basis. Well, in fact, most traditional practices probably have a religious basis or connection, come to think of it, given religion's historical scope.
I think I should probably emphasise my original use of 'human flourishing' as being roughly equivalent to the maximisation of opportunities for cultural transmission of the concept of atheism - by maximising the number of people who are atheistic and maximising their influence on surrounding cultures. This definition gets at the question of atheism's robustness.
Whether individual people are happier in an atheistic society can be treated as a separate issue, I guess. Though if atheism tends to be unrobust, the spread of this satisfaction may be inevitably tightly limited in time and space.
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nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Fwiw, my parents tried to make me believe there was a god when I was a kid, but it didn't work. So I think there are some children who don't spontaneously create the god concept. I think Thompson was just remarking on a general tendency of young, discontinuous minds.
mixed_biscuits
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Out of interest, have you got any theories as to why?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Nomad was already on Beyond Good And Evil while you and I were getting to grips with The Very Hungry Caterpillar.