to be surprised that a scientist with a doctorate is religious

[Margaritapracataz]

I assumed she was joking, but no she's a very intelligent woman (double first) but she has deeply religious beliefs.

Aibu to think this is a bit strange and to think less of her professionally?

BTW, as a scientist I don't believe in evolution.
Evolution is the best explanation for the available data, and hasn't been refuted so far. What I believe is that it won't be refuted ever. :)

I don't think the only qualitative difference between us and other apes is the ability to have religion. I'm not sure that other apes have developed the theory of mind to the same degree (to a point where it's s different thing altogether really), language etc.

I'm not sure that other apes have developed the theory of mind to the same degree (to a point where it's s different thing altogether really), language etc.
Those are quantitative differences. Chimps have language and communicate with each other and if I remember correctly they do have a theory of mind.

riverboat - stops me from being an atheist and forces me to be agnostic

A note.

These two terms - agnosicism and atheism - are not mutually exclusive, nor are they part of a linear spectrum of belief. You do not move between theistic belief positions via agnosticism.

I am an agnostic athiest. I do not believe that god exists (atheism) but I do not know this to be an absolute truth, nor can it ever be knowable (agnosticism). I have seen some posters here express faith positions based on what they think is absolute knowledge - they would be described as gnostic (regardless of which faith position they express).

Gnostic theist - God exists, I know this to be true.
Agnostic theist - I believe God exists, but I can never know for sure.
Agnostic atheist - I don't believe God exists, but I can never know for sure.
Gnostic athiest - The lovechild of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (joking, not even Dawkins claims to 'know')

Will there be Neanderthal people in heaven? Australopithicines? Do these early humans have souls? When did souls get inserted?

Epicurean Paradox.

Off the top of my head: what would the universe be like if I were God?

First, remove Evil. OK, done. Let's not worry about the obvious (and not convincing in some ways) point that without Evil we have nothing to compare Good with and so won't be able to appreciate it.

But now we only have Good people. Within that massive population of Good People, there will be some who are More Good than others. Those who are More Good will regard the Less Good as Bad.

And within the smaller population of More Good people, there will be some who are Even More Good than the others. Those Even More Good people will regard the (only) More Good and Bad - Less Bad than the others though.

And those divisions will continue within each section of Good People. But they are all Good in relation to our Universe as it is My Universe, from which I have banished Evil.

The people in My Universe, don't know that though. They just think that Bad or Evil exists. For my Universe to be Good and without Evil, it has to be compared with another Universe which is Less Good than mine.

Or I could just not banish Evil because it's going to exist in the way people compare themselves to each other, whether actual Evil exists in a Universe or not.

So maybe our Universe, this one we're in right now, is less evil than another one and God is comparing this Universe with another God's Universe which is much more Evil than this one. Maybe we are really lucky that there is so little Evil in ours.

Or maybe there is no Creator, and the bad that occurs is just stuff that happens.

Sorry, typo -

...And within the smaller population ....... Regard the (only) Less Good as Bad - Less Bad than the others though.

[sorry]

I would argue that it's in a different league enough to be consisted qualitative.

Lweji: "You are making several wrong guesses there.
First I don't think we have complete free will. We are still quite a lot driven by our biology - see the urge some women have to have babies
Then, we ARE apes.
And other apes aren't by any means unthinking. If you read about apes you'll see that they are not that different from us, they just don't have the technical brain and are not as intelligent and certainly don't have opposable thumbs. The differences are basically quantitative.
The main qualitative difference is in us having the capacity for religion."

OK. You don't think humans have complete free will. Have you thought through the implications of that? The idea that we have free will is fundamental to Christian theology.

Second, you think other apes aren't by any means unthinking. I'd agree (but I'm an atheist). Again, what are the implications of that? Only humans (in the theology of the monotheistic religions) are promised eternal life. Why should that be? And at what point did humans acquire the ability to achieve eternal life?

Sorry, I've thought about it some more. Maybe you're right about the qualitative traits thing from my examples, although I think it's open to debate.

But I still don't think that the claim that only qualatative difference is religion is a given. You don't know that there isn't the germ of whatever precedes believing in God is there in apes' cognition (the equivalent of them having what precedes our level of consciousness and sophistication of theory of mind).

Also, if humans' ability to have faith is an emergent property of cognitive capability then so are things like sophisticated mathematical ability, writing, degree of imagination and being able to sustain complex trains of thought etc.

It seems to me as though you are giving ability to believe in god a special status that is not really merited.

But I'm very rusty at this so happy to be corrected/educated by someone that knows more :)

Hackmum, regarding your example of child abuse: most child abusers were themselves abused as children, but it doesn't follow that therefore all abused children will become abusers, or even to want to abuse children. Those that do have the free will to go on and abuse or to seek help. They choose whether or not to abuse.

hackmum
We can choose how to behave but we are still driven by our biology (temptations?) and fighting that biology can be hard. Which is perfectly recognised by Christianity and for which there is the concept of forgiving each other and not condemning each other because we are all capable of making bad choices or just to follow that drive without thinking it through.

Or they are born with the inate capabilities to cope, or the support around them that allows them not to abuse. Just to play devil's advocate.

For me it makes perfect sense to say
- Love exists
- This table exists
- God exists

I didn't see this. there is no dispute about 2.

As for the other two, it depends on what you mean by those, and your conviction should scale with the evidence.

Love certainly exists, and depending on what you mean, it can exist like a table. Love is more than just an abstract concept (like concepts in mathematics), but it is detectable.

with the third, that statement can be more or less likely to be true depending on what you mean. hindus and christians disagree on what "god exists" means.

Assuming there is no evidence for god, the less you claim about him, the more likely your god is likely to exist. if your god is just "something out there" and that's all you know about it (remove gender, as that's giving it properties you can't prove), well then that's more likely to exist than the christian god, which has definite properties.

But back to your religious language, language has meaning. it's meant to communicate. you seem to be calling something your god, describe it as some rather abstract entity, but then ascribe it a number of properties. well, that's a claim about the world, unless your god only exists for you.

The lovechild of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens wink (joking, not even Dawkins claims to 'know')

neither dawkins nor hitchens claim to know. I don't know of a single atheist that claims to know god doesn't exist.

Those who are very literal and have to 'see' everything with the 't's crossed and the i's dotted' are never going to have faith- does it matter?

yes of course it matters. people of religious faith want others to follow their religion and they use government force to make sure that happens. This happens to a great extent in some supposedly secular nations like the UK, forget what's going on in the middle east.

if faith was personal, that would be different.

Binky: there are many repeat offenders who have accessed counselling or have been offered counselling and rejected that offer. They have free will and make their choices.

That is a different sort of faith- you know your DH, friends and doctor.

So the word "faith" means something different when applied to a god? Why? Frankly, it sounds like a cop-out to say you base any other type of faith on evidence but you don't need it for something which, for many people, is the central tenet of their lives. If faith is the answer to all questions about the existence of a god, why don't people equally believe that there are invisible pink elephants floating around the sky?

Tanith: "Hackmum, regarding your example of child abuse: most child abusers were themselves abused as children, but it doesn't follow that therefore all abused children will become abusers, or even to want to abuse children. Those that do have the free will to go on and abuse or to seek help. They choose whether or not to abuse."

No, not all abused children do go on to become abusers. But it seems to me that the odds are not in their favour. We now know that early traumatic experiences have an impact on the way the brain works, so it makes no sense to say that free will exists above and beyond what goes on in our brains. To put it in layperson's terms: many of these people could be diagnosed as mentally ill. Once a person is mentally ill, how much free will do they have?

Let's take another example. About 95% of violent crime is committed by men. Why is this? Are women more moral? Are they better at exercising their free will in the appropriate manner? Or is it that men - either for biological or environmental reasons, or a combination of the two - are simply more aggressive than women?

Or another example. Many men who normally behave in a "moral" way can be persuaded to go and fight in wars and kill others because they are persuaded it is the right thing to do. The bible says: Thou shalt not kill. Does context make a difference? When is it OK to kill and when isn't it? How does having free will help us reach the right decision - and how do we know it's the right decision?

capsium my lack of capability to believe has at least as much evidence for it as anyone has for belief in God.

In other words it is entirely based on my own experience. I know that I never believed in Santa and was shocked to discover anyone else did...I know I never believed in the Tooth Fairy and was shocked others did . I spent over a decade listening to 'the word of God/Christ' with absolutely no impact on my belief in God and some significant impact on my self esteem.

A genetic component to spiritual belief has been found so it makes perfect sense to me that some people will no more be able to 'open their mind/heart to God' than will be able to spontaneously stop being gay.

Believe in a sort of 'god' if you want to ... if it helps you in some way. Like an imaginary friend who is always with you and always on your side, who always will love you and who can help you through tricky times, as you can talk to him/her anytime. (A sort of self-help tool?) Or to explain things which perplex you, and/or for which there is no current scientific explanation.

And I think most people who believe in 'god' do so as it serves some sort of a 'purpose' in their life, whether it was their choice to believe or whether it was 'forced' upon them in childhood. Cos either it really helps them through hard times or else it is easier to keep believing than to face the fact that there is no god ... like suspension of disbelief/pretending to still believe in Father Christmas to keep getting presents etc. (Or maybe in their family/community, being a non-believer would have some very unpleasant consequences for them, so they dodge any inconvenient doubts?)

Therefore, believing in 'god' is fine with me... in a private/non-intrusive way .... right up to the point where people start to 'explain' things to others as "god did it", (rather than looking for a rational/scientific answer), or "god exists" (without any testable proof), and/or they start to make up arbitary rules like "god wants me, (and you), to do this/that and god doesn't allow us to do this/that", and/or "everyone must respect my belief and practices as this is my religion". Because this it the point where is starts to be annoying/illogical.

Morality is fine. And pragmatism is normal. So please explain any points of view/suggested society rules from a moral/practical point of view. But please do not bring your god into it! Cos it's the way people 'worship' and the random man-made (made-up) rules/law in the name of religion, (and associated traditions), which can be most disturbing to anyone, (more rational), who does not share the same views/ideas.

If I say I like instant coffee and you say you hate instant coffee, no problem. No-one is correct. We just each have different taste buds/needs.

But if a believer says to me "I know that there is a (loving/judging) god", and I say "no your are wrong", I can legitimately ask for proof that your god exists. (Of which there is none.)

Whereas I do not have to prove the non-existence of god to you. (Can you prove a negative, such as "there are no faires living at the bottom of my garden"?)

There is no actual evidence for god whatever any believer says. (It's just their personal hunch/feelings which count for them.) Apart from various accounts, (written or in passed down orally, sometime thousands of yrs old), and more recent personal accounts of things which 'happened' to someone.

So the best we can say is ... no-one knows if there is a god or not, but there probably isn't. (Apart from the imaginary one in your head). And if there really was one, what sort of a god is he to play with us the way he does?" (Not a nice one!)

The humans of the world who wish to believe in a higher being, obviously cannot even unite/agree on which 'god' to believe in, and even those who believe in the same god, cannot agree on what he wants from us and how to make him happy. So there will always be multi-opinions/arguments. (And a LOT of room for doubt?!)

For a rational person, does this not tend to point to the conclusion that it is all imagined/made up/invented by man as a 'crutch'? (As no-one can prove anything?) And that 'god' only exists in each person's imagination? (Like the feeling of love for someone we might have? Just a sort of chemical thing going on and not a universal truth?)

Even if there was a 'god', why or why would we need to 'worship' him/her or have certain customs which can change dramatically over time as we learn things and see the error of our previous ways? (That's the bit I really fail to understand.)

So, for me, thinking about religion in detail, (ie why people need it and how religions come and go/change over the centuries), it seems obvious that god it is a figment of our imaginations and that religion just a way to control what people think/do and give them something to believe in.

And this is why I agree with the OP that professing a religious belief is always much more surprising in a person who has experienced a higher education, who lives in a free society and who is obviously more than capable of thinking about things in a very rational way.

But I'm very rusty at this so happy to be corrected/educated by someone that knows more
I certainly don't "know" more. I have given these issues some thought and have read about it, although some of it is probably outdated.

I like these threads because they make me think about it again.

Sometimes I find possible answers that better satisfy my questions. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes it just leads to more questions.
This is true of religion and science.

The problem of when we got a "soul" for example is not that different from when we did become human. Not sure there's an answer to either. At least one that would satisfy our need to put things in boxes and have boundaries.

And this is why I agree with the OP that professing a religious belief is always much more surprising in a person who has experienced a higher education

there's an american pew poll about religiosity in the general public and amongst scientists. link here. basically, it seems that being a scientist more than halves the likelihood of being religious, but increases the likelihood of being an atheist by about 10x (the difference is made up in two grey area categories). so, while in the general public religious people by far make up the majority, people who don't believe in either god or a higher spirit form the largest group at nearly a majority.

neither dawkins nor hitchens claim to know. I don't know of a single atheist that claims to know god doesn't exist

It was a joke.

While I don't personally know any, I've seen the position expressed. It baffles me, but that's through my own lens of what 'knowing' means.

It was a joke.

it's hard to detect sarcasm, especially when the point has been made by many.