Scientists discover that atheists might not exist

[Bunyip]

Nah, the writer is just making a very retarded leap that any kind of metaphysical or magical thinking or behaviour is "theism", whether or not it has anything to do with god/s.

Indeed. A not-fully-thought-through idea.

 

[Alceste]

Indeed. A not-fully-thought-through idea.

Yeah, it's basic blog fodder, as is the rest of this site. Somebody's got the job of churning out X number of words for this website every week in order to keep the content fresh and sell our eyeballs to the website's advertisers. I recognize the style because I used it when that was my job. Brainstorm some topics with your web team, do some sloppy and rushed research, and start pounding out words until you get to 500, or whatever it is. Then take your money and run.

 

[Quagmire]

They may have a point: I just looked under a microscope and I didn't see any atheists.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I don't know I just came across it while looking for something that might support the idea that an Atheist doesn't choose to be an Atheist. It's just the way their brain is wired.

This is not really new, but does (rather ironically, perhaps) have a lot to do with the use of evolutionary theory within the cognitive, behavioral, and social sciences (and interdisciplinary fields like neuroscience, biological anthropology, etc.)

"the data show that while believers strengthened their beliefs, non-believers wavered from their disbelief. This pattern is more consistent with a “distinct cognitive inclination” account of supernatural belief (Norenzayan & Hansen, 2006, p. 183), in which human beings are naturally and uniquely attracted to belief in supernatural agents."

Jong, J., Halberstadt, J., & Bluemke, M. (2012). Foxhole atheism, revisited: The effects of mortality salience on explicit and implicit religious belief. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 983-989.

"Cognitive and evolutionary theories of religious belief highlight the evolved cognitive biases that predispose people towards religion. Although there is considerable and lively scientific debate, one widely discussed view holds that disbelief, when it arises, results from significant cognitive effort against these powerful biases. According to this view, if the mind-perceiving and purpose-seeking brains of human beings effortlessly infer the existence of invisible agents with intentions, beliefs, and wishes, then disbelief lacks intuitive support. Therefore, atheism is possible, but requires some hard cognitive work to reject or override the intuitions that nourish religious beliefs"

Norenzayan, A., & Gervais, W. M. (2012). The origins of religious disbelief. Trends in cognitive sciences.

"Despite these uncertainties (or perhaps because of them), the one apparent consensus among the commentators is that atheists are best accounted for by Hypothesis 2 (Natural Variation): atheists are simply one end of a continuum of belief. On the face of it, this is unsurprising, even an anti-climax. Like numerous other traits in nature, beliefs vary - so what? However, if this is true, then there are in fact several striking implications. First, it implies that the mean of the distribution is some positive level of religious belief (that is, there is a consensus that natural selection has favored cognitive mechanisms underlying belief, and/or religion itself). Second, it implies that atheism is (or was) a suboptimal strategy for human beings. Third, it implies that atheists - given their status at the tail end of the distribution - are (or were) selected against."

Johnson, D. (2012). What are atheists for? Hypotheses on the functions of non-belief in the evolution of religion. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 2(1), 48-70.



"Our findings demonstrate that dogmatism is evident amongst non-religious groups and show that the relationship between openness to experience and dogmatism is dependent on the individual’s particular belief system as well their identification with their group...Atheists have emerged as a social group that displays a unique type of dogmatism with a non-traditional relationship with openness; a distinction which can be explained in terms of social identity."

Gurney, D. J., McKeown, S., Churchyard, J., & Howlett, N. (2013). Believe it or not: Exploring the relationship between dogmatism and openness within non-religious samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 55(8), 936-940.



...


"One does not need to stray far on the internet to find debates on religion between New Atheists and apologists of religion. In such debates one may read such proclamations as ‘children are born without religion’ (implying that non-religiosity is their natural state) or, from apologists of religion, that ‘religion is an existential necessity for humans’. The problem with debating with New Atheists and religious apologists is that the discussion quickly gets bogged down in polemical crossfire. There’s little room for more nuanced positions. If you haven’t dug your own trench, one will be dug for you. But do these opposite positions make sense, and is the cognitive science of religion with its naturalness hypothesis on the side of religious apologists, as Zuckerman seems to suggest? The answer to both questions is ‘No’."

Geertz, A. W., & Markússon, G. I. (2010). Religion is natural, atheism is not: On why everybody is both right and wrong. Religion, 40(3), 152-165.

There is also considerable literature on the emergence of atheism (and, conversely, the emergence of our concept of "religion") in recent years.

Also, nobody's brain is "wired" for much. After several decades of debate, scientists are still divided over whether language (a universal and distinctly human phenomenon) is somehow "hardwired" in e.g., the "language faculty" or a language "module". There does seem to be evidence that certain possibly innate cognitive dynamics may be used as predictors of atheism or religious beliefs and lack thereof in general. However, the centrality of culture to fundamentally basic cognition makes even such tendencies rather meaningless in the face of the brain's overwhelming plasticity and complexity.

 

[Skwim]

Well, this splash of cold water. Hmmm, I'm going to have dig deeper into this now. Thank you for that tid-bit.

I've always felt free-will was the best proposition for everyone, well mostly for myself at least. One, I can't blame my unhappiness on anyone else or concepts. It is up to me to make myself happy. To say that I have no choice is saying I have no choice to be sad and have a miserable life if that were to happen. Two, who do you blame then when someone like Hitler comes along? Some one or thing was pulling his strings so you can't blame him but that other some one or thing?

Yeah, there are a lot of consequences to think about when giving up the notion of free will. But the logic is so strong and affirming that to hold on to freewill in the face of reason becomes a fool's escape. Without doubt freewill is an illusion; however, it's one we all operate within, even me, a hard determinist. Reason? I can't help it.

 

[suncowiam]

Yeah, there are a lot of new consequences to think about when giving up the notion of free will. But the logic is so strong and affirming that to hold on to freewill in the face of reason becomes a fool's escape. Without doubt freewill is an illusion; however, it's one we all operate within, even me, a hard determinist. Reason? I can't help it.

Well, the context you've given me meant that free-will shouldn't be explained by quantum probability. It didn't conclude on the existence of free-will. But that's been my reasoning so I have to keep on researching.

At this moment, I still believe in free-will, because I have to believe that my happiness is in my hands if I don't believe in a higher being. Unless you got something else up your sleeve? =P

 

[Sapiens]

Yeah, it's basic blog fodder, as is the rest of this site. Somebody's got the job of churning out X number of words for this website every week in order to keep the content fresh and sell our eyeballs to the website's advertisers. I recognize the style because I used it when that was my job. Brainstorm some topics with your web team, do some sloppy and rushed research, and start pounding out words until you get to 500, or whatever it is. Then take your money and run.

It is rather poor writing.

They may have a point: I just looked under a microscope and I didn't see any atheists.

Look in the foxholes ... there where you find atheists.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

If you're talking about the lack of determinism at the quantum level and how it impacts free will, please consider the following by Erik Tegmark:*

"Quantum mind and free will

"The main argument against the quantum mind proposition is that quantum states in the brain would decohere before they reached a spatial or temporal scale, at which they could be useful for neural processing. Michael Price, for example, says that quantum effects rarely or never affect human decisions and that classical physics determines the behaviour of neurons."
source
​

*Max Erik Tegmark is a Swedish-American cosmologist. Tegmark is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is the scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute.

I don't wish to support the "quantum consciousness" model that I believe is just using a mechanics we know we can't understand to describe how a concept we can't really scientifically formulate depends upon it. That said, Tegmark's dismissal is little better than the few well investigated QM theories of mind/consciousness in the literature:

"The question has been raised whether quantum states can survive long enough in the thermal environment of the brain to affect neurocognition. Tegmark estimated that decoherence caused by the noisy environment typical of the brain is likely to disrupt tubulin superpositions in under 10^( −12) s. Microtubule protein functions take on the order of nanoseconds; moreover, neurophysiologycial events range in the order of milliseconds. Hence, it was Tegmark’s contention that tubulin superpositions are much too short to significantly contribute to neurophysiological processes in the brain. Hagan et al. argue that Tegmark’s criticism is misplaced and that the calculations he did were on a reformulation of the Hameroff–Penrose model of his own making. After adjusting to account for that error made by Tegmark, revised calculations produce decoherence times between 10 and 100 μs, which can be extended up to the neurophysiologically relevant range of 10 to 100 ms given that the particular physical mechanisms discussed earlier come into play."

Tuszynski, J. A. & Woolf, N. (2006). "The Path Ahead" in J. A. Tuszynski's The Emerging Physics of Consciousness (The Frontiers Collection). Springer.

from the "Hagan et al." critique mentioned above
"We also wish to point out that Mavromatos and Nanopoulos estimated decoherence times for dipolar excitations in microtubules...Given the sizeable discrepancy between these estimates and those of Tegmark, it seems reasonable to reevaluate whether the assumptions and conclusions of his calculations are valid."

Hagan, S., Hameroff, S. R., & Tuszyński, J. A. (2002). Quantum computation in brain microtubules: Decoherence and biological feasibility. Physical Review E, 65(6), 061901.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Well, the context you've given me meant that free-will shouldn't be explained by quantum probability. It didn't conclude on the existence of free-will. But that's been my reasoning so I have to keep on researching.

Some subset of the following may interest you:

Baer, J. E., Kaufman, J. C., & Baumeister, R. F. (2008). Are we free? Psychology and free will. Oxford University Press.

Balaguer, M. (2010). Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Baumeister, R., Mele, A., & Vohs, K. (Eds.). (2010). Free Will and Consciousness: How Might They Work?. Oxford University Press.

Bunge, M. (2010). Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquirty (Vol. 287 of Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science). Springer.

Clayton, P. (2004). Mind and emergence: From quantum to consciousness. Oxford University Press.

Globus, G. G. (2003). Quantum closures and disclosures: Thinking-together postphenomenology and quantum brain dynamics (Vol. 50 of Advances in Consciousness Research). John Benjamins Publishing.

Horst, S. W. (2007). Beyond Reduction: Philosophy of Mind and Post-Reductionist Philosophy of Science. Oxford University Press.

Murphy, N. & Brown, W. S. (2007). Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will Oxford University Press.

Murphy, N., Ellis, G. F., & O'Connor, T. (Eds.). (2009). Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will. Springer.

Pockett, S., Banks, W. P., & Gallagher, S. (Eds.). (2009). Does consciousness cause behavior? MIT Press.

Pollack, R. (2009). (Ed.) Neurosciences and Free Will. Columbia University.

Stapp, H. P. (2009). Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics (3rd Ed.). Springer.

Tse, P. (2013). The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation. Mit Press.

Tuszynski, J. A. & Woolf, N. (2006). "The Path Ahead" in J. A. Tuszynski's The Emerging Physics of Consciousness (The Frontiers Collection). Springer.


Zoltan, T. (1999). The Crucible of Consciousness: An Integrated Theory of Mind and Brain

...and I'm sick of typing.

 

[samosasauce]

What of the countless millions who follow philosophies that do not posit a god? Shinto, Tao, Buddhis, Confuscianism?
So Buddists don't exist either?

Shinto does have gods though, in fact they're kinda important, considering the Japanese emperor is considered a decedent of their sun goddess and this is kept having an empirical position out of respect

 

[idav]

I don't wish to support the "quantum consciousness" model that I believe is just using a mechanics we know we can't understand to describe how a concept we can't really scientifically formulate depends upon it.

This may be true but in our reality the quantum realm is the only way out of hard determinism as far as I can tell, or hard determinism is true and the micro seconds the brain can produce a decision would become a moot point. So it would behoove us to further understand the mechanics of quantum objects.

Thanks for the reference, thats interesting.

 

[LuisDantas]

Shinto does have gods though, in fact they're kinda important, considering the Japanese emperor is considered a decedent of their sun goddess and this is kept having an empirical position out of respect

And still... the Kami fulfill a very different role than that many Christians and Muslims think of a "God".

And they are actually among the closest deity conceptions in comparison to that of Abraham.

The concept is just so twisted.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

This may be true but in our reality the quantum realm is the only way out of hard determinism as far as I can tell

Classical determinism is quite simply wrong. At the subatomic and (in controlled experiments) the molecular it fails. As a theory of mechanics there is no support for it as a basis underlying all of classical physics is gravity, which doesn't exist as a singular "force" in relativity. Time itself faces serious challenges in relativity and thus any conception of causality is potentially nonsensical and/or moot.

In other words, to appeal to quantum physics as the "only way out" is an option which assumes that a flawed understanding of physics that both relativity and QM (and extensions thereof) hold to be wrong is somehow defensible.

So it would behoove us to further understand the mechanics of quantum objects.

I couldn't agree more. Decades were wasted ignoring this vital question.

 

[idav]

Classical determinism is quite simply wrong.

That fact right there is the only thing that makes choice in this reality even a possibility or else hard determinism is true. I see quantum physics as the only thing I can think of to cast reasonable doubt on hard determinism. Our brains may not be capable of that freedom but the freedom must be possible at some levels.

Aside from that we need to find out where our biology might harness what it can do at the micro levels.

 

[Nakosis]

So Buddists don't exist either?

Ask a Buddhist that question, they might agree.

 

[Thief]

Ok....so two people claim they don't exist as they look each other in the eye!

(what's wrong with that picture?)

 

[Revoltingest]

Photo of 2 atheists talking to each other.....

I'm sure get'n a lotta mileage out of that picture.

 

[metis]

Ask a Buddhist that question, they might agree.

Actually some Buddhists refuse to call themselves "Buddhists" as it may imply something that fixed.

 

[Nakosis]

This article is probably every Calvinist's wet dream.

Point noted.

I'm just wondering if there is a genetic component to whether one becomes/remains religious.

I suspect that the personality one is born with effect their outlook on life and how they deal with life. Kind of a butterfly effect. If one has a "spiritual" personality, how they perceive life and information is likely to re-enforce that personality.

I suppose my main argument is I don't think you can educate religion/belief out of certain personality types.

Say there is a genetic component, perhaps the middle-east is a gene pool of religious belief and violent personality.

I think obviously there are genetic variances. That's why some "educated" people seek out groups like ISIS to join from other parts of the world.

 

[Nakosis]

Ok....so two people claim they don't exist as they look each other in the eye!

(what's wrong with that picture?)

It's just a mirage...
A "divine" trick of physics.