So the New Scientist theorizes that God is an evolutionary construct. No, they’re serious. One of the lines from this “scientific” article concerns the difficulty of “exorcising the ghost of God.” That doesn’t seem very scientific to me but what do I know, I’m just an idiot blogger. But it does seem to me these atheist types are contradicting each other a wee bit:
WHILE many institutions collapsed during the Great Depression that began in 1929, one kind did rather well. During this leanest of times, the strictest, most authoritarian churches saw a surge in attendance.
This anomaly was documented in the early 1970s, but only now is science beginning to tell us why. It turns out that human beings have a natural inclination for religious belief, especially during hard times. Our brains effortlessly conjure up an imaginary world of spirits, gods and monsters, and the more insecure we feel, the harder it is to resist the pull of this supernatural world. It seems that our minds are finely tuned to believe in gods…
The origin of religious belief is something of a mystery, but in recent years scientists have started to make suggestions. One leading idea is that religion is an evolutionary adaptation that makes people more likely to survive and pass their genes onto the next generation.
So God was created through evolution? So doesn’t that make atheists anti-evolution? Wait, I’m getting confused.
So the idea of God helps us survive, say the atheistic scientists, but then the ads from the British Humanist Association insist: “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Well how can we enjoy our life if we don’t survive? Are these atheists against life…oh wait…never mind. We know the answer to that already.
In summation, I just ask, what is passing for science these days?
February 5, 2009 at 6:50 pm
"scientists have started to make suggestions." -wow. suggestions! Maybe they should write an article about me because yesterday I made a suggestion. Why is this news… I thought that you had to prove your hypothesis before you made news. "some guy in Egypt suggest that chickens may really be avalanches…" what? nonsense!>@*?
February 5, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Don’t they trot out this cheesy theory every 5 years or so. Each time they act as though it is so bright and shiny and new that Christians will suddenly “come to their senses.”
Someone, please give these athiests a life so they will stop fretting so much over ours.
February 5, 2009 at 7:12 pm
This is typical of New Scientist science reporting. So many of their articles and blog posts are about one of two topics, religion (with an emphasis on how religion is anti-science), and ‘the birds and the bees’ (with an emphasis stories like how research is being done on scents and pheromones or that women are more attracted to ‘bad guys’ but want the ‘good guys’ to raise their children. Of course if you look at the comments, there’s a business reason for that: those articles get the most attention. They select the science stories which get attention.
I wonder though, if those who report science and those who populate the comment boards don’t hold a much greater animosity toward faith than your average scientist.
Not all scientists are bad!
February 5, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Tomorrow, scientists start to make suggestions on the best values in lawn mowers, and why we prefer eating food instead of simply chewing rocks.
Then next week, they argue that scientifically, we all ought never to mow our lawns, and that rocks are a far superior chewing option (they don’t wear down with repeated chewing the way food does).
February 5, 2009 at 7:38 pm
For sake of correction, the comment boards in reference are not those on this page but those on theirs…if you have blood pressure problems avoid those boards like the plague.
February 5, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Matthew,
“Are these atheists against life…oh wait…never mind. We know the answer to that already.”
You paint with far too broad a brush. You owe pro-life atheists (of which there are quite a few) an apology.
http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html
~cmpt
February 6, 2009 at 5:21 am
Oh, pop science.
Make up some story about how some random behavior helped a caveman to survive and OH WOW, you are unlocking the secrets of genetics!
February 6, 2009 at 2:45 pm
As I was once a pro-life atheist I can say I apologize to Nat Hentoff and the six or seven other pro-life atheists in America today.
It was a bit of a broad brush.