Is God a silverback?: Mind of God (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, April 02, 2017, 00:50 (2580 days ago) @ David Turell

A scientist's approach as to why humans have Gods:

https://aeon.co/essays/why-god-knows-more-about-misbehaviour-than-anything-else?utm_sou...

"The anthropologist Pascal Boyer of Washington University in St Louis has observed that people primarily fixate on what gods know and care about. Those following the Abrahamic traditions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – focus on God’s mind. They rationalise their behaviour whenever they claim that God wants them to do something. They invoke God to influence others, as in: ‘God sees through your cheap tricks.’ From Moses on Sinai to ecstatic, modern-day Evangelicals, many claim to have gone directly to The Man Himself for a chat, even reporting their conversations in bestselling books.

"Ask a random stranger what God knows, and chances are he’ll say: ‘Everything.’ But ask what God cares about, and he’ll say murder, theft and deceit; generosity, kindness and love. Amid God’s infinite knowledge, His concerns are quite narrow: He knows everything but cares only about the moral stuff. Where do these beliefs come from, and what impacts do they have on our lives?

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"There appears to be a rule, then, deep in our mental programming that tells us: minds without bodies know more than those with bodies.

"This early, intuitive rule is much easier to follow than the tricky effort of wrapping our own limited minds around omniscient, unlimited ones. Indeed, theologians and philosophers continue to argue over the implications of omniscience. It might be intuitive for us to assume that gods know more than humans, but to consciously and consistently think that gods know everything isn’t quite as easy.

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"What these studies suggest is that we intuitively attach moral information to disembodied minds.

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"Globally, belief in moralistic gods appears to be more common in complex societies. The evolutionary ecologist Carlos Botero at the North Carolina State University and colleagues found that ‘moralistic’ gods crop up in societies facing similar ecological stresses. That group and another from the University of Oxford found that social complexity in general meant that belief in a moralistic god was likely to be high. It pays to have an all-knowing, morally concerned Big Brother God in places with greater anonymity and less accountability.

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"Gods appear to care about the things that, on average, curb locally specific risks and costly engagements. Religious systems predictably conform to local problems, and the gods steer our attention toward ways that address those problems. More poignantly, appeals to gods’ minds steer other people’s attention toward ways of minimising the effects of those problems.

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"The gods appear to be the workings of an organism trying to influence other people also negotiating the costs and benefits of being alive at a specific place and time. They are important forces in human mobilisation and organisation.

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"Viewing gods as kinds of organisational strategies helps to explain the relatively benign aspects of the traditions I’ve focused on in this essay, but it also helps us explain the ludicrous racist, sexist, homophobic and war-mongering appeals that get shrouded in religious rhetoric: find a vulnerable or outsider group, demonise them by declaring that the gods hate them, cite authoritative sources, appeal to vague and mysterious concepts (immortality, freedom, martyrdom, jihad) and the bonds between your constituents will strengthen.

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"Gods stick around in part because they engage deep-seated and intuitive psychological systems that subtly alter our thoughts and behaviours. And our fascination with gods’ minds also stems from their contributions to our survival. When social and ecological threats to survival change, the gods often do too.

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"Considering how effective gods are, can we do away with them? In one sense, the answer is quite clear: of course we can do without them. We always have. Our challenge in the days ahead is to create a more sustainable and equitable world where more have the luxury of not only admitting that, but also – and more importantly – coming to terms with how to go about living together responsibly and harmoniously with that admission."

Comment: An atheistic professor tells us we don't need God, who is a tool of societies. Whew!