HUMAN BELIEF IN GOD IS ESSENTIAL FOR EVOLUTIONARY SURVIVAL.pdf

Religions, 2020

This study presents a review about what great figures of history thought about the existence of God and a worldwide comparison between religious believers and non-believers using the World Social Survey (WSS) database, comprising a sample of 90,350 respondents. Results reveal that most people believe in the existence of God and consider that God is important and very important in their lives. Believers are mainly women; younger than non-believers; mostly married; less educated than non-believers; most of whom work, though fewer hours than non-believers; and perceive themselves as belonging to the middle class. There are more believers with no formal education than non-believers. The diversity of religious believers and non-believers, visible in the perspectives of humanity’s important personalities, mirrors the diversity of ordinary people towards the relevance of God. The results obtained point to a correlation between the belief in God and the studied sociodemographic variables bu...

No matter that 84% of world population believes. No matter the intensity of belief, because the strong of belief, only proves its strength, not the truth of what is believed. On the long run people tend to reduce religious beliefs?

My concern in this essay, is firstly, to raise some doubts regarding some of the unnecessary consequences that Craig attaches to moral relativism, and secondly, to outline some of the potential consequences of holding an absolutist conception of morality. Showing how moral relativism might be less problematic than moral absolutism will not in itself be sufficient for the achievement of my overall aim; namely, to show that (a) it is not clear whether immortality would in fact be beneficial to leading a purposeful and meaningful life, and (b) that meaning need not be lost if one accepts a weaker, yet, perfectly plausible conception of objective meaning.

Ars Disputandi

A number of biologists maintain that the recent developments in evolutionary biology have profound implications for religion, morality and our self-understanding. The author focuses on the issue whether evolutionary biology has any relevance for a religious understanding of the meaning of life. First, the question about the meaning of life is clari ed. Second, the argument of biologists such as Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould and Edward O. Wilson, that evolutionary theory undermines the religious belief that there is a purpose or meaning to the existence of the universe and to human life in particular, is evaluated. The author maintains that this argument has some merit, but that it nevertheless fails both to be a purely scienti c argument and to establish the intended conclusion.

Basic views of Mr George V. Coyne SJ on origins and creation are recalled. Our views on the origin of laws of physics are outlined. Pointed out are the similarities and differences between our views and Mr Coyne's.

In this article we analyze religion from the perspective of a stage necessary in the evolution of humanity, contributing to the birth of society, to the creation of specific dimensions of the human mind prior to the emergence of philosophy and then of science. We explore the possibility that mental religious resorts have facilitated the transition from group to society: the existence of a set of mental instruments that can be called the "religious package" has provided integrative meanings and goals, mediating the transition from small groups to large societies, from hunters-gatherers to agriculture and sedentariness. We bring some arguments for the state of religion of social survival strategy: through the cooperation it establishes in the multiple plans of human existence it favours the groups with the highest degree of coherence Several evolutionary advantages of religion: generates predictability through the systems of human classification and ordering of the possible relationships among the peers (social context stabilization), namely of ordering reality (cosmos), shaping existential models. Religion is an explanatory system of reality and normative for human existence, while ensuring the social framework necessary for outsourcing, thereby facilitating the development of the mind. Religion is an integrative meta-narrative: it is a reference framework for integrative narratives (contexts that make the meaning possible) that reduce the pile of information that invades the mind to some schemes of understanding. Religion could be the most appropriate example of geno-cultural co-evolution, clarifying this assumption being attempted through an appeal to anthropological and neuro-science research.

2024

Organisms are comprised of living cells, specialized for various functions within the organs and tissues of the body. Each cell is a living entity capable of sense and response. The earth's biosphere can similarly be viewed as a living entity (“Gaia”) comprised of species which are analogous to organ and tissue cells. They are specialized for various functions within the biological network. Species are comprised of individual members just as an organism’s organs are comprised of individual member cells. Organisms are cell collectives managed by a neural communication network. Similarly, each species is managed by various types of communication methods (sound, chemical, electronic, etc.). Organelles within each living cell are coordinated by a molecular communication method. Unless life is unique to planet Earth the universe is populated with an unknown number of other living worlds. If the reasonable hypothesis that life will be found throughout the universe turns out to be true, each living world might be seen as a cell within the living body of the cosmos. Just as a living body of cells has a unifying resident consciousness, it’s entirely plausible for a living cosmos to likewise have a unifying organizing consciousness. When we look at the structure of the galaxies which make up the universe we see a cosmos characterized by an unmistakable degree of order. This cosmic unifying consciousness has been given many names — in the English language “God” is the word reserved for this supreme being.

Contemporary religious epistemology often neglects offering a substantial defense of a particular conception of God, relying instead on appeals to tradition and the great theologians. I aim to correct this deficiency by offering a defensible concept of God grounded in the predicament faced by all human inquirers. My account of this human predicament will focus on three key features that are salient to religious inquiry: death, moral failure, and suffering and severity. I will then argue that we ought to define our concept of God in terms of what it would take to rescue humanity from its predicament, thus allowing our conception of God to capture what matters most to us.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD, 1897

THE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD, 1897 Plus: THE HAND OF GOD AND OTHER POSTHUMOUS ESSAYS, 1909 By Grant Allen There were four additional chapters to be included in “The Evolution of the Idea of God” book when Grant Allen died, and the book was published without these chapters. These four chapters, were later published as part of another book “The Hand of God” along with other important essays and papers by Grant Allen. So, we have added the second book after ‘The Evolution of the Idea of God’ to complete the first book as it would have been published if Grant Allen had lived. These Scholarly books published in 1897 and 1909 are more of the irrefutable books that had the Christian religion, and other Supernatural religion of disproved nonsense, on the brink of joining the ever-growing list of bygone religious beliefs that Humankind, once-upon-a-time, believed in; but now all those old “Almighty Gods” are just pages in the long, long, History of dead religions. That Christianity survived this great Era of Reason is a study in the art of pious propaganda and mind control. Let us consider how this miracle of Christian survival was achieved. CENSORSHIP: First of all, it was necessary to remove all scholarly books of historic facts and real truth from public view. HATE AND SLANDER: Poison the mind of the believing public against all fact and argument that exposes the lies of the deceivers, slander against Atheists as being evil, ignorant, un-American, etc., hade all books revealing religious atrocities and facts of science that would free the public mind from the tyranny of superstitious control. FEAR: Superstitious control requires the mind of the believer to be locked into an enormous fear that prevents investigation into the facts necessary to free the mind from the control of priests and clergy – HELL, Atheistic Communism, and the Public Schools free of superstition, will head the list. PROMISE OF REWARD: Install into the believing mind that there will be an eternal reward for those who blindly follow the demands of their priests – HEAVEN, the pleasure of seeing their Atheist children burning in an eternal Hell, etc. The Good News is that it is all false, there is nothing to fear. Emmett F. Fields