Atheists and Evolutionists, Line Up for Some "New Light!" (page 2)

Caedes

Remember, nature selects AGAINST waste and extravagance.

Oh really? You had better let the peacocks know. They'll be gutted.

Qcmbr

I can postulate a simple explanation for it:

Larger brains require increasing resources to keep them working. Brain power spent on understanding lightning or death is utterly wasted within the short term survival of a single species - it is enough to know one must avoid them. The brain works on heuristics, small mental shortened to extract maximum perception from minimum input. An obvious heuristic to avoid wasting time trying to perceive reality from overwhelming sensory input is to accept supernatural forces ( anything not understood defaults to the magic bin.) Valuable brain power would now be diverted to acquiring food and avoiding lightning without needing to understand electricity or evolution.

We would then suggest that a test for this would be the relationship between religious belief and well being ( measured in time available per person to engage in art, philosophy, education, experimentation, meditation and so on.) Societies with low prosperity and relative poverty ( time spent mainly in manual labour) could then be expected to spawn more religious devotion per person than a prosperous one.

DarioKehl

@ OTWO: Nah, I just came across a very interesting point in Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion" that I'd never thought of before and was just trying to build some anticipation. I'm not claiming to have "the answers" but I just wanted to see how many people shared my thoughts on this question before I read what he had to say. I think the subject of evolution is fascinating because, when things don't make sense upon initial observation, it takes a little bass-ackwards thinking to get the full understanding of the mechanisms driving strange behaviors. And I was on my 3rd Sailor Jerry-n-Coke so pardon the spelling error.

Anyway, I'm not looking for right or wrong answers, just curious about everyones' replies.

Rather than type a chapter from his book verbatim, I'll sum it up, paraphrasing the main points. I'm interested to see if anyone else thinks this is the koolest idea they've seen in awhile:

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Dawkins uses the example of the moth and how they frequently appear to kamikaze themselves into candle flames and die--WHY? Why would a creature repeatedly perform a deadly ritual like that, and if they do it so often, why hasn't this tendency been removed from their gene pool long ago?

Dawkin's answer: Their compound eyes. Hundreds little hollow tubes connect at a central optic nerve to their brain. Moths use light from the moon, stars or distant light (a city maybe?) for navigation. Light radiates in all directions, but if it's far enough away, it's basically at optical infinity. By the time the light reaches the collective tubes in their compound eyes, it's traveling in parallel waves. However, if a light is nearby, it radiates out in all directions. So if a moth uses these tubes to collect light, it can keep distant, parallel light waves "lined up" at a certain angle to guide itself thru a dark flight. Let's say they wanna keep the light oriented at 30-degrees from their horizon (which is oriented by their sense of gravity). Parallel light is their best reference. As long as the tubes on their compound eyes at 30-degrees from the horizontal plane are the ONLY TUBES collecting the light, they can stay on course. But if they approach a nearby light, each light wave they encounter will effect their steering. They'll cross a light wave, adjust 30-degrees, then cross another, and adjust 30 more, and so on. What you observe is a spiral flight pattern that directs them right into the heart of the light source. If it's a flame or a bug zapper, they die. You can draw this on paper and see the spiral.

According to fossil records, some moths have been around for approx 190 million years. man-made, artificial light (the earliest form being fire has only been around for about 500,000 years or so) is still relatively new to moths. So, when they encounter nearby, artificial light, it simply screws up their navigation and they fly to their death. However, countless MILLIONS of moths fly in forests and wilderness areas every night around the world far away from man-made light and therefore still heavily rely on that proven navigation method. Simply put, not enough of them die from accidental burning to get rid of the gene for that compound eye/navigation system. It works best where they use it most. Moths near man-made destructive light are simply martyrs for the greater good. We sit on our decks outside observe their strange, self-destructive behavior, assume they're all stupid and wonder, "WTF?!?"

Dawkins ties this in to humans and their strange, often self-destructive behavior of practicing religion. BUT, I'm tired, lazy, a little tipsy on the Tanqueray and I have several episodes of GLEE to catch up on, so I'll end this with a question (and if you have the book, don't CHEAT!!!):

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What ADAPTIVELY BENEFICIAL behavior do YOU think humans must perform for their survival that allows for the nonsensical, destructive practice of religion to eventually take over? Hint: Think early in life. Opinions are fine, no right or wrong.

Time to "ROLE" out...

Satanus

One fair sized difference though. The proportion of the world's moths that fly without being distracted by candles or zappers is vastly higher than the proportion of humans who are religion free, compared to the proportion who are religious. Let's say that 90% of the world's humans are religious. Perhaps, the percentage of the world's moths who get toasted are less than 1%. I guess you could say that getting toasted is practically 100% lethal, whereas religion is generally nonlethal, merely debilitating. Just a thought on the comparative illustration.

S

DanaBug

Marking.

I just read that a week ago so I'm not gonna cheat, lol! It's your thread. But come on-- just say it already! It made sense to me at first glance but I haven't really thought it out. I want to hear the problems with it.

mkr32208

The rise of religion was because of ignorance and fear. Read the 4 ages of sand by douglas adams. As to why it stuck around, it continues to prey on that same ignroance and fear. Also it allows evil men to do evil things. Why do you think that the republican party embraces fear and ignorance? Those traits allow them to do whatever they want!

Any talisman that allows those who posses it to rape, kill, steal and destory will survive in some form.

Caedes

Obedience to authority figures in childhood may confer increased fitness for survival if, for instance, the authority figure was giving instructions and guidance to help ensure the welfare of the group or society. A by-product of such obedience may be a tendency to believe anything as long as it from an authority figure. It isn't difficult to imagine that a leader advising his tribe to stay away from the pointy end of a mammoth, may increase the odds of his tribe surviving a hunt. It isn't much of a leap to imagine the same leader advising a sacrifice before the hunt to appease the gods as well. Suddenly the tribe believes both instructions are equally valid if there is a successful hunt.

I'm not sure how you would test such a conjecture though.

Tuesday

" If evolution is true, what roll does religion play in human adaptation and natural selection and why would humans fight, kill, invest, deprive themselves and expend vast amounts of material and energy into building giant cathedrals and embarking on lengthy missions throughout our history??? Remember, nature selects AGAINST waste and extravagance. Environmental pressures should have weeded out the "god gene" long ago, or so it would seem..."

Actually that's a pretty easy one, what is the ongoing goal of evolution? Survival, right? What portrays itself as the ultimate means of survival by living forever either here on Earth or in Heaven? Religion.

ziddina

Hee hee hee heee!! glass jar bump

Farkel

I solve these kinds of problems the way a fattie eats candy! The solution is so obvious, I'm surprised no one got it:

A big bag of Cheetos! There is NOTHING a big bag of cheetos cannot explain.

There. Next question?

Farkel

Atheists and Evolutionists, Line Up for Some "New Light!"

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