Children are born with a belief in God, academic states - Printable Version +- (wL) Forums (https://war-lords.net/forum) +-- Forum: Discussions (https://war-lords.net/forum/forum-23.html) +--- Forum: General Chat (https://war-lords.net/forum/forum-24.html) +--- Thread: Children are born with a belief in God, academic states (/thread-6356.html) |
Children are born with a belief in God, academic states - Spartacus - Feb 24 2012 Quote:Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/3512686/Children-are-born-believers-in-God-academic-claims.html#.T0SAaF1eXhc.facebook Edit: made it easier to read. I uploaded the original content from my phone while i was at work. RE: Children are born with a belief in God, academic states - naive - Feb 24 2012 I reject this study, it seems heavily biased. 12 month year olds reacting to a fancy ball means they believe god? Yeah right. Six year olds aren't already indoctrinated in religion? Yeah right. To top it off, the questions are loaded. Asking a six year old "Why did the first bird exist" implies that there is in fact a known reason, and they want to get it "right" so they make one up. If they are creative and simply list a reason that they like birds, you can't say that it is proof of their belief in intelligent design because they listed a positive trait about something. All it means is they like birds singing, and have said the reason in which they like birds presuming that if birds had a reason to exist (implied in the question), it would be a positive one they enjoy. Also, presuming the infant ball trick wasn't just a bullshit study, lets think about what it would really mean. It has shown that if you create a complex man made system, and show it to an ignorant enough subject, they will believe it was god. If I were to agree to the results of this part of the study even, it seems like it would be giving even more credibility to the argument that people falsely believe in "creationism" and simply revert to such an argument once any system becomes sufficiently complex. RE: Children are born with a belief in God, academic states - silly - Feb 24 2012 The way kids attribute purpose and usefulness to inanimate objects/other animals might also have something to do with the idea that children below a certain age are not able to imagine/view things from a perspective other than their own, or in other words: they can't truly put themselves "in someone else's shoes". So from their perspective things like rocks, or birds, have to have a purpose/usefulness that is directly/personally connected to them in some way. Those are my own thoughts though. I think naive rightly pointed out some problems with the method of questioning, and also some issues with the conclusions of the study. But I also think there is in fact something of worth when it comes to the overall topic addressed in the study. After reading Spartacus' article, I was reminded of a section contained within Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion. The following quotations are taken from his book, and will likely be a good read for those interested: Quote:Bloom suggests that we are innately predisposed to be creationists. Natural selection 'makes no intuitive sense'. Children are especially likely to assign purpose to everything, as the psychologist Deborah Keleman tells us in her article 'Are children "intuitive theists"? Clouds are 'for raining'. Pointy rocks are 'so that animals could scratch on them when they get itchy'. The assignment of purpose to everything is called teleology. Children are native teleologists, and many never grow out of it. Quote:The philosopher Daniel Dennett has offered a helpful three-way classification of the 'stances' that we adopt in trying to understand and hence predict the behaviour of entities such as animals, machines or each other. They are 1. The physical stance, 2. The design stance and 3. The intentional stance. Quote:the intentional stance, like the design stance, saves time that might be vital to survival. Consequently, natural selection shaped brains to deploy the intentional stance as a short cut. We are biologically programmed to impute intentions to entities whose behaviour matters to us. Once again, Paul Bloom quotes experimental evidence that children are especially likely to adopt the intentional stance. When small babies see an object apparently following another object (for example, on a computer screen), they assume that they are witnessing an active chase by an intentional agent, and they demonstrate the fact by registering surprise when the putative agent fails to pursue the chase. The design stance and the intentional stance are useful brain mechanisms, important for speeding up the second-guessing of entities that really matter for survival, such as predators or potential mates. But, like other brain mechanisms, these stances can misfire. RE: Children are born with a belief in God, academic states - Spartacus - Feb 24 2012 Wiki-ed the guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_L._Barrett" I'd still like to read his study if anyone manages to find it though. I don't think it is as simple as they way it was portrayed. RE: Children are born with a belief in God, academic states - pTK - Feb 24 2012 God is mighty. RE: Children are born with a belief in God, academic states - naive - Feb 25 2012 I will give him that the human mind may be wired to believe in "intelligent design", but that is a side effect of possessing the intellect to use tools, build things, etc. Once you posses the intellect to apply and adapt purpose to some things, it's pretty easy to extrapolate such systems onto literally anything. To me it is more readily explainable by evolution than intelligent design. If we were intelligently designed to intuitively believe in god, there would be little debate about the subject. To have such diversity in opinion seems like a pretty poor intelligently designed system if gods intent is "intuitive knowledge of god" like the study claims. If we were "intelligently designed", why would god have chosen such a poor design? Humans are pretty evil, fragile, and violent beings. Most of religion is about denying basic primal instinct, why would god have intelligently designed us in a manner that would simply piss him off? |