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Why We Believe in Gods: Andy Thomson (Lecture)
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This great lecture summarizes scientific research that explains why humans have an inclination to create divinity.
It is not a defense of atheism, but rather shows what science says about the various modules & capabilities that humans have developed over thousands of years that lend themselves to the creation & acceptance of religious explanations.
Although the presenter made clear that he is not a man of faith, the conference is not an attack on the church as much as an explanation for why people might believe. Very current and a good intro for anyone who wants to learn more about this topic.
Why We Believe in Gods: Andy Thomson (Lecture),
opening was impressive given the ctsmucriances, others said solid, respectable opening; boxofficeprophets – not so.Time mag said Jolie’s Salt held well, finishing in fourth place; Boxofficeprophet said Salt was a “looming disaster.” Angelina Jolie’s Salt, meanwhile, is getting tossed over the shoulders of movie goers (I proudly accept this trophy for Most Forced Metaphor Involving a Movie’s Title. I’d like to thank Gene Shalit, without whom this category simply wouldn’t exist ), though it’s not a total disaster, with about a $120 million final total looming. Give it anothER $10 million this weekend @ #6. She was off by 2 places & 10%+ in earnings.
if you still suffer from [haad] certain drug therapies are available .MCI? YOU ARE NOW CREATING A RELIGION.Supernatural templates but you only offer one,these templates vary with each person and on mass are varied , take buddhism and christianity .How can belief of imagination be preinstalled ?Without belief there is no life,even the atheist believes in a greater structure whether it be real or imagined , most probably pray on impending death.
Mr. Thomson,why do you feel the need to push atheism ? Are you not a form of religion also?An accumulation of problem solving devices,give me break,how did we survive the first problem?If Religion is a byproduct,why does it consume our life?A byproduct is runoff.The psychology of a big mack is i can eat it,you’d starve on religion .Decoupled cognition,i will bet that most peoples cognition is trying to view not a conversation with Obama,but what your view is like.[HAAP]i have overcome this[cont]
HAHAHAHAHAHHA DAWKINS AND KRAUSSS AHAHHAHAHAHAAH. I dont share the same FAITH as Kruass (that nothing can cause nothing to yield anything with mass/energy let alone the entire observable UNIVERSE). I wasted my time reading 6 or so of Dawkins books, he lies to his readers, intentionally. My personal opinion-he knows NDM (neodarwinian myth) is impossible.
Here is a link with a BRIEF INTRODUCTION:/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIoAlthough I know that, in your ignorance, you will just assume that you know more than PhD physicists and will just dismiss the video making fun of it, but what the hell. I always find it funny when people without even a university degree think that they know more than the ones who are educated. I also see you like Kent Hovind; go Google the ‘university’ where he graduated from. It’s a good laugh.
Actually I find it interesting how they call scientific knowledge as believing in ‘God’. Essentially, people call God what is the final frontier of their knowledge. Before it used to be everything around the earth and the diseases, then it became the existence of life. Now ‘God’ is what caused the existence of all matter.Sure I believe in the fundamental, insanely complex, laws of physics which are responsible for all that exists. That is the real God, but Christians put human emotions on it.
Am amazed , but one small thing cant wrap my mind around that is : with us going to that moon with a sun that is there every day with billions of ppl breathing and thinking and counteracting ,some ppl will believe that the chimpanzees where here and not us , they believethat took them 100000000 of years to become us but take us 4000 to reach the moon, that we were and still dominant yet there is no other species on earth evolving into smarter being along with us !!!!
Conundrum 101Christians ‘believe’, but God demands ‘faith’. By ‘believing’, ‘faith’ is overshadowed by dogma. By wanting ‘proof’, they who seek it negate ‘faith’, instead requiring ‘science’, ‘logic’, ‘facts’!… to believe deeper. THAT’S not, ‘faith’.Atheists are pretty dang! sure there is no God, so ANY doubt, even the smallest tiniest amount, proves their ‘faith’.If there is a God, he will choose those who disbelieved in him, and yet, way in the back, had ”faith’… atheists.hehe
BS! This guy believes in his own version of God!”Adaptation – that were shaped by natural selection over evolutionary time to promote, in some specific way, the survival of the genes that directed their construction”I am just AMAZED he said this CRAP!! And at it’s center, the rational flaw that converts his entire premise to just ANOTHER FORM OF RELIGION! Evolution, does not ‘PROMOTE’… it is random, either you live, or you die. Something that ‘works’ one generation may fail another!
Do you believe by blind ignorant faith that man/plants/animals came from rock ~3.5 billion years ago?Wiki abiogenesis.Abiogenesis or biopoiesis is the study of how biological life could arise from inorganic matter through natural processes. Inorganic=rock.
STUPID WORD LIMIT.Anyways, you tell us to believe”my story they take it by faith that it happened=religious belief.”FAITH. I have faith that the flying spaghetti monster exists. Does it exist? Probably not. Your argument is invalid. Faith is nothing.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION, I have never read any Richard Dawkins books and never even saw any of his talks. If you think that everyone just looks into books and goes on the internet ranting then YOU should read more. The theory is the same. You haven’t seen it therefore it isn’t true. On the other hand, we can find fossils and evidence and track progress on evolution. There IS evidence.
So, where does he criticize selection? If you imply that selection is not just selection and it has creative power as well, then yes, he does criticize that. Shapiro’s view of evolution differs from neo-Darwinian one only in the source of evolutionary novelties. neo-Darwinism = random mutations + natural selection; Shapiro’s view = natural genetic engineering + natural selection.
I suspect most of the work you are referring to is in microorganisms. What is required is evidence in mammals (or higher animals) that environmental changes can effect the germ cells in a purposeful way. Has he ever suggested a mechanism for this?
Here’s Shapiro’s full quote where he criticises selection. “The first problem with selection as the source of diversity is that selection by humans, the subject of Darwin’s opening chapter, modifies existing traits but does not produce new traits or new species. Dogs may vary widely as a result of selective breeding, but they always remain dogs”. This seems a silly statement and could have come straight from a creationist.
Creationists believe every gap in scientific theory is where they can insert god (but only the bible god – the others are just myths). It would be like arguing (prior to relativity) that Newtonian theory couldn’t get the orbit of Mercury exactly right so god must still be guiding the planets around the sun.
Ok, I’ll add just one word to make it non-dogmatic: “the only known source of evolutionary innovations”.”He’s criticizing selection” ??? Where did you see that?All the answers are in his book. It has 1162 references (most of them to peer reviewed papers).
Another of his claims sounds decidedly creationist. He’s criticizing selection:- “Dogs may vary widely as a result of selective breeding, but they always remain dogs.” That’s true (so far) but what could be seen over half a million years? Dogs are already very different from the ancestral grey wolf. A remarkable trait in dogs that’s absent in wolves is the way they ‘read’ human expressions and understand our voice. An astounding result for selection over a few thousand years.
To say “Genome restructuring mechanisms….and they are the only source of evolutionary innovations” is very dogmatic. The modern synthesis has long accepted genome restructuring (chromosome splitting, duplication etc) as a major source of variation. I’m happy to go with the science however it resolves. Shapiro extends his observations from microbes to higher animals. That may not be valid for very good reasons (lack of a plausible feedback path to sperm cells and eggs).
Dawkins isn’t the pope of evolutionary biology. Whether you trust him or not is irrelevant. Shapiro may have his own built in dogmas resulting from his work as a microbiologist. It’s conceivable that Lamarckian type process exist in bacteria but difficult to see how this would translate to mammals. Virtually all mammalian female eggs are produced before birth. It’s unlikely that any mechanism exists to alter the DNA of eggs (beneficially) in response to the environment.