Why does evolution select against atheists?

The irony of the thread title with the mentioning of evolution and selection, is the only thing that gives me hope that an adaptation is in progress. Creationists won't be happy.

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I've looked at that progression. The tendency of certain factions of Christianity to lie about dead people who can't defend themselves is repellent. Russell's most famous essay on theistic belief, "Why I Am Not A Christian", was revamped a bit from an earlier speech and published under his direction and approval in a well known book of essays in 1957. He was 85 years old at that time, getting frail, and had survived severe pneumonia, plane crashes, two major wars, imprisonment for his apcifist views, and other threats to life and limb, long before.

As your example of Bertrand Russell shows clearly, even the occasional cases of increasing respect for religion do not necessarily involve becoming more theistic, and certainly not "closer to God" in the standard Western Christian sense of the entity.

These numbers are easy to determine. In Minneapolis, MN, say, the stats on the immigrant Somali population are not at all hard to compare with the stats on populations long resident in the State. Surveys of hospital and courtroom data are available in summarized form. People can and do investigate these matters.

In Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, etc, they don't.

You are welcome to enlighten me. I have checked most of the Middle Eastern and Northern African countries, Indonesia, and a couple of others - but perhaps you know of some Islamic country that defies the norm?

 

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What makes you think "atheism" is something that could be selected for or against?

 

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Is there religion in such a society?

 

I'm not so sure about the influence of Roman law, but Greek philosophy had a profound effect on the Arab world, as well as northern Africa.

Are you really so blind, Sam?

Let me put it to you this way to reinforce what Tiassa said: If you were living in the year 100 AD the title of this thread would be "Why does evolution select against monotheistic religions?" and you would be talking about how all the great and lasting societies were not monotheistic.

Get it?

 

Then we can dismiss your claims as unsupported rhetoric.

No I wouldn't. But I'm not going into that now.

Greek philosophy had some effect on parts of the Arab world, but not more than Islam or the philosophy of the Indus. I'd say Indian philosophy had a much greater impact. But few westerners have studied Indian philosophy as well as the Arabs did at the time.

Observation?

If there is, the religious will have some sort of order. One example is that of Jewish ghettos sustaining the philosophy of Judaism even within foreign communities.

 

Huh ? LOL
And even if that was correct, what does it have to do with evolution ???

 

What does anything have to do with evolution? Its a marker of survival.

 

Really ?

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Why not? It seems fairly relevant.

Yes. But Greek philosophy did have a wide affect on Christianity which in turn had a huge affect on Islam. The Hindu cultures were certainly less affected, but India today is more or less a democracy, and the modern tradition of democracy began (as far as one could say it has a beginning) in Greek political thought. One could easily argue that China (1/6th of the world's people, and a very large portion of the not-western-world) runs on a legal and political system derived mostly from Greek political thought, though certainly containing some aspects (ridiculous corruption, rigid secrecy and group-think) of traditional Chinese governance.

I don't think it's unfair to say that the political state of the modern world - for better or worse - can trace it's roots largely to Greece and Rome. If you don't agree, find out how many countries have something called a "Senate". (Hint: 48) Or how many have a "Parliament".

N.B. While India had democratic institutions long ago, the birth of it's modern political system has a lot to do with Britain.

 

Evolution isn't guided & it doesn't always "select" for what we'd see as better or fitter.

 

Because I have a theory on all religions moving from monotheism to other isms.

The effect of Greek philosophy on Islam was to stagnate the development of Islamic philosophy. Except for the few Jewish scholars who kept it alive through Hebrew discourses [like Ibn Tibbun], much of the development in Islamic philosophy or ilm al Kalam became static after Ghazali and Judah ha-Levi wrote their discourses against all philosophy and Averroes and Maimonedes combated it with their Greek based Falsafa. Before that the development of ijtihad, ie the use of the method of confirmation through testing had been developed and was superior to the ultra empirical rationalism of the Greeks.

The jirga has been in Afghanistan for thousands of years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jirga

Yeah, we still have laws against homosexuality from Victorian times.

Because you know better what survives, other than what does survive. Doh!

 

And you're incapable of admitting that if you'd lived 2000 years ago your thoughts might be different?

And somehow this implies that Islam did not take a very large chunk of it's form, structure, characters and values from Christianity?

How many countries did it spread to? Compared to the parliamentarian system of Britain, or the Roman-based Senatorial system? I may be wrong, but I can't remember reading about many political systems and hearing "this country based it's political structure on Afghani jirga."

Like I said; for better or worse.

 

I don't know what my thoughts would be, I'm not known for following the trodden path.

It didn't. Much of what we consider as true Islam was formulated before the Abbasids. The Abbasids formulated the more secular institutions and introduced what we can call as heretical concepts into the society.

How many western scholars do you know who actually give credit to the origins of their theses? The loya jirga is one of the oldest systems of governance in the world. And its not on an island, but in the heart of central Asia. The Afghans have always been known for their expertise as cavalry men and are known to have fought along with the Greek and Romans. For all you know, the Greeks came across their parliamentary system and formulated the senate.

 

Well if you applied the same logic you use today to that time, you would have called monotheism something 'evolution' (do you know what evolution means?) selects against.

I would need to take your word on that. I find it hard to believe that an Abrahamic religion following Christianity did not have a large influence from Christianity.

In a sense, it could all be traced back to middle eastern or african origins. Or, if you really want to take it as far as possible, there were probably tribal elders and councils long before there were cities.

But I don't see many countries with a jirga. The Greek and Roman slant on the whole affair seems to have had a more lasting and widespread influence.

 

Evolution?? :bugeye: Where?

 

what???

 

Selection pressure works against atheism.

Which Christianity? Christianity itself evolved from Syrian Nestorian Gnostic to the divinity of Christ and idols.

From People of the Book, they diverged further and further away to become the infidels of the crusades.

Possibly

And I see all countries with jirga or shura as Muslims call it . So its perspective that matters here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shura

 

Exactly, belief that there is no tooth fairy or giant teapot or reason for the universe creates nothing.