Timeline for Is it possible to develop early society without developing religion as a side effect?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
27 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 17, 2018 at 0:13 | comment | added | Samuel | @EvilSnack It is a religion, by my definition. | |
| Jun 17, 2018 at 0:06 | comment | added | EvilSnack | By your definition then, Christianity is not a religion. | |
| Apr 30, 2018 at 15:32 | comment | added | Samuel | @EvilSnack That's called a reasonable inference. Faith isn't a reasonable inference. | |
| Apr 30, 2018 at 4:18 | comment | added | EvilSnack | Faith is merely believing something for which the evidence is not present. It does not mean, and never did mean, belief in something for which there was never any evidence. | |
| Apr 20, 2018 at 2:22 | comment | added | Samuel | @EvilSnack Pretty easy to believe when it doesn't require faith! | |
| Apr 20, 2018 at 2:18 | comment | added | EvilSnack | Science is also based on the belief that it is factual. | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 19:14 | comment | added | Samuel | @EvilSnack That's a valid assumption. If there are facts to support it, then it is evidence based and not faith based, ergo not a religion. That is, if whatever system develops values evidence over conviction of faith, then it will not be a religion as they exist today. No religion today is based on facts, they are based on a belief that they are factual, and those aren't always the same thing. It's the difference between believing a fact is factual and having something you believe is factual being a fact. See the difference? | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 12:54 | comment | added | EvilSnack | Your answer assumes that no religion has a factual basis. | |
| Apr 10, 2017 at 21:30 | comment | added | Maja Piechotka | (cont) for example believe of Mongols that you need to boil water to appease the spirits before drinking it can have pretty solid evidence - it is just that with modern medicine we have a better, simpler explanation for it. In similar way without proper statistics the dowsing can have a solid evidence too. The same can go for other pseudosciences too. | |
| Apr 10, 2017 at 21:24 | comment | added | Maja Piechotka | The missing point seems to be that superstitions are meme and meme propagate. In the end you are likely end up with set of memes/superstitions which is sort of coherent - we observe it nowadays when we see people fearing cold as you may get it. This seems to be only a small step from folk religions. Also the truth is that most of my knowledge is kind of, sort of taken on faith. I don't have evidence that Newton laws of motion are upheld or that laws of thermodynamics are upheld - I trusted my teachers/lecturers. And some of the religion superstitions can be taken by evidence (...) | |
| Dec 22, 2015 at 21:33 | vote | accept | Tim B | ||
| Jul 17, 2015 at 22:48 | comment | added | Samuel | @VakusDrake Your understanding is limited. But your opinion is noted, there is no need for further discussion. | |
| Jul 17, 2015 at 22:44 | comment | added | Vakus Drake | @Samuel I'm not sure you can say we evolved a trait if it is a learned behavior, instead we have general intelligence that can be used to overcome the mental flaws we did evolve | |
| Jul 17, 2015 at 21:49 | comment | added | Samuel | @VakusDrake We did evolve the capacity for skepticism. We're not talking about new brain structures here, we're talking about priority. There are lots of ways to win at the game of life. That we aren't one of the alternates does not mean it would not have worked. It doesn't even mean it wouldn't have worked better. Evolution works with local maximums, it's highly unlikely that we're at an absolute maximum. | |
| Jul 17, 2015 at 21:42 | comment | added | Vakus Drake | @Samuel But even talking about different intelligent species, the fact we didn't evolve it is strongly suggestive that it at the very least wouldn't be advantages enough to evolve, if they evolved in a environment anything like ours. Skepticism also seems like it would be far more useful post-agriculture and the only species I can think of that evolved for agriculture are some species of ants and termites. | |
| Jul 17, 2015 at 21:32 | comment | added | Samuel | @VakusDrake This question is about what could have happened differently, not what did happen. Skepticism wasn't the best fit in our evolution, that doesn't mean it would have been difficult or even unlikely to have been a successful dominant trait. In fact it's quite clear that, though we have to work to learn it, skepticism is a trait which has helped humanity advance significantly. So having it innately might have been a significant advantage for human early on in our history. | |
| Jul 17, 2015 at 21:24 | comment | added | Vakus Drake | @Samuel My point is mainly that even social ability is vastly more useful as a trait than any other type of intelligence. However I think the best thing that supports skepticism not being a huge easy to evolve advantage is that it didn't, if it could have easily evolved I suspect it would have. Instead we got brains riddled with ingrained fallacy wherein education and effort is required to function rationally. | |
| Jul 17, 2015 at 21:13 | comment | added | Samuel | @VakusDrake That's a pretty silly argument. If the more skeptical individual is telling others what to do and what not to do then they have, as a leader, a reproductive advantage. They are also more likely to survive when operating on their own for periods away from the group. If even one comes back from foraging and Bob ate bad fish but Bill didn't, then when Bob dies of dysentery, Bill gets his mate. There are several advantages, I'm not really sure why you're arguing against it. | |
| Jul 17, 2015 at 21:04 | comment | added | Vakus Drake | @Samuel A more skeptical individual wouldn't actually have a reproductive advantage, the more clever individual can just tell the others what not to do. Same thing goes for lots of types of intelligence, the benefits it grants, benefits the whole group just as much as the as that individual. When it comes to human intelligence at least, it seems that much of it evolved to give us a social advantage over other humans and the other advantages may have just been side effects, effectively we re-purposed much of our intelligence. | |
| Jul 17, 2015 at 17:49 | comment | added | Samuel | @VakusDrake I would think a skeptical hunter/gatherer is less likely to eat spoiled food or eat the red berries again. That's seems valuable. | |
| Jul 17, 2015 at 17:33 | comment | added | Vakus Drake | @Samuel While certain neurological differences might make religion rare, I'm not sure they would be likely to evolve. Skepticism isn't massively valuable to hunter gatherer's, and more importantly it doesn't increase their reproductive success. | |
| Jul 16, 2015 at 1:52 | comment | added | Samuel | Sigh... These religious questions attract so many anonymous down votes. I suppose it's difficult to comment that an answer poked one's insecurity, but I'd hope that's not the only reason. | |
| Jul 10, 2015 at 23:39 | comment | added | Samuel | @CortAmmon Possibly. I would view valid evidence as something that can lead people to the same conclusions without them needing to believe in those conclusions first. | |
| Jul 10, 2015 at 23:32 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | Is it possible that you are using a very narrow definition of "evidence?" When I talk with religious individuals about their religious beliefs, tribal individuals over their tribal beliefs, or even fighters regarding their beliefs about fighting, they always talk of evidence. The only issue is that not everything one believes is evidence is accepted by others. As a specific example, whether there is evidence for "Chi," as defined in Chinese martial arts, is intensely debated because nobody can agree on a communal definition of "evidence." | |
| Jul 10, 2015 at 23:31 | history | edited | Samuel | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 466 characters in body
|
| Jul 10, 2015 at 23:11 | comment | added | BrettFromLA | Although I'm not certain about your definition of religion, I agree 100% with your distinction between that and superstitions. upvote | |
| Jul 10, 2015 at 22:55 | history | answered | Samuel | CC BY-SA 3.0 |