I heard a theory recently that stated the ability to believe in religion is a part of evolution itself. As humans, our brains are capable of much thought. They decend into spirals of unanswerable questions. To believe and have faith is how we deal with these questions and our brains have created a god concept to stop the spirals and allow us to exist in peace with our own brain. I don't know how much I agree with this idea, but it does make me think.
Absolutely. Our brains work on abstract assumptions about the world - patterns, categories, and systems all help us to make sense of phenomena, but these same assumptions lead to mistakes. It's like when you draw a cube - in reality, it's a two dimensional array of intersecting lines, but your mind works in the third dimension, so it makes sense of it by seeing a cube. We talk about the sun "setting" and "rising" though we now know that that's inaccurate. Further, we anthropomorphize the sun as a powerful being, because all we know is how to be human. It's only common sense to extend that to other moving things. But common sense is flawed.
Religious people always think I believe in the Big Bang Theory
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I heard a theory recently that stated the ability to believe in religion is a part of evolution itself. As humans, our brains are capable of much thought. They decend into spirals of unanswerable questions. To believe and have faith is how we deal with these questions and our brains have created a god concept to stop the spirals and allow us to exist in peace with our own brain. I don't know how much I agree with this idea, but it does make me think.
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flutterhigh
11 years ago
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Absolutely. Our brains work on abstract assumptions about the world - patterns, categories, and systems all help us to make sense of phenomena, but these same assumptions lead to mistakes. It's like when you draw a cube - in reality, it's a two dimensional array of intersecting lines, but your mind works in the third dimension, so it makes sense of it by seeing a cube. We talk about the sun "setting" and "rising" though we now know that that's inaccurate. Further, we anthropomorphize the sun as a powerful being, because all we know is how to be human. It's only common sense to extend that to other moving things. But common sense is flawed.