[quote]Alrightmiami19c wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Let’s find out. Answer the questions and let’s see if belief in Claus is, in fact, equivalent to atheism.
[/quote]
I feel like your premise is that children would not know of Santa Claus or any of the stories associated had they not been brought up to believe. That is a usual argument against religion.
Take specific religion out of it for a moment. Take a clean slate child with no outside views being introduced. Is the default setting for God or no God? If religion is taught, isn’t atheism also taught?
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Well, the nature vs. nurture argument always depends on several variables, and it’s impossible to say which is the case in this instance. There can be no completely clean slate. Has there ever been a society in history in which there was no multi-generational supernatural beliefs in gods, fairies, gnomes, trolls, devils, ghosts, or aliens? Of course not.
Had there ever been, it would be easier to formulate this experiment, because a belief in a god, rising up spontaneously in a child despite his atheistic societal environment, would be a strong point in favour of a “default setting” for “god”.
Conversely, in every society which believes in such things, which is to say, every society ever, there is a certain percentage which does not believe in them. Whether this disbelief is innate, or whether it is cultivated, cannot be said with any certainty.
On a certain level, most people who believe in the supernatural must force themselves to do so, in the absence of evidence for, and despite the evidence against, their beliefs. If you have to make yourself believe in things which do not apparently exist, or attempt to make others believe them, then we are quite literally talking about “make-believe”. Which admittedly doesn’t sound as nice as the word “faith”.
It takes far less effort, and certainly no amount of “faith”, to not believe in things which do not apparently exist.
Now, back to the question of a “default position”: a number of interesting studies have suggested that our brains (along with apes and other primates) have an area of the frontal lobe of the cortex that seems to be responsible for processing feelings of “religiousness”. When this area is stimulated (either artificially using electrical impulses, or endogenously, through prayer or religious contemplation), the area acts to produce in the body a feeling of bliss and satisfaction.
Notably, Richard Dawkins said he felt nothing when this area in his own brain was stimulated. Although this is not by any means conclusive evidence, it would indicate that some people are “wired for God” and others are not. It would be interesting indeed if one could study the brains of self-proclaimed “religious” and “irreligious” people, and see if their brain activity in this area is consistent with their professed belief or unbelief.
It would also be interesting to temporarily inhibit all activity in these areas and see how religious and credulous the subject remains.
