He marshalls reasons why not, in response to a recent claim:
According to the authors, Edward Dutton et al., humans evolved to be religious and atheism is caused (in part) by mutational damage to our normal, religious DNA. Atheists, in other words, are genetic degenerates…
These arguments are unconvincing, to say the least. To take autism as an example, Dutton et al. cite a handful of small studies as suggesting that people with autism are more likely to be atheists. Even if this is true, it doesn’t mean that ‘mutational load’ is involved. It could just be that having autism makes you more likely to become an atheist – I don’t think this has ever been tested, but it seems plausible. Dutton et al. don’t consider this or any other non-genetic explanation for the correlation between atheism and autism. Neuroskeptic, “Are Atheists Genetically Damaged?” at Discover Magazine
Of course, the claim is nonsense but then those of us who have listened to rubbish about the God gene and such can’t help hiding a giggle. Hey, given that it’s Hate Your Local Atheist Week anyway, how about “Atheists have mutant genes, don’t live as long ” 😉
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See also: Atheists have mutant genes, don’t live as long
There’s a gene for that… or is there?
If naturalism can explain religion, why does it get so many basic facts wrong?
Evolutionary conundrum: is religion a useful, useless, or harmful adaptation?
and
Imagine a world of religions that naturalism might indeed be able to explain
I don’t believe in the concept of a God gene, or an atheist gene. If there is any genetic link I suspect that it is an “unintended consequence”. I have mentioned this before, but as far as I know, we are the only animal that “knows” with certainty that our lives are finite. I’m pretty sure my cat believes that he is the centre of the universe and immortal. Given that we are thinking, rational and intensely curious animals, animals that are also intensely communal, this knowledge must inevitably lead to the question “WHY?”. What is our purpose? What is the meaning of of our lives? Postulating the existence of deities, and seeing them in our daily lives, provides some of these answers, even if they are not true. Once deities are considered to be a very real possibility, organized religion can’t be far behind. The benefit organized religion brings to the table is continual reinforcement for the existence of our deities and mutual support within a community. All very positive things, for the most part.
First off Dutton is extremely intellectually dishonest !!! He says what he says to get attension a lot of his studies are handwaving, he ignores current studies that don’t support him. I looked up several studies in fact there are hundreds of studies that you can easily Google about religiosity and handedness! He ignores all of their results.
His sample size is small and from a very predominantly atheist a country and furthermore he equates atheism to having a mutational load that is the cause for left-handedness this is utterly ridiculous as there been multiple studies that have shown that handedness one way or the other makes you more religious or more extreme in your point of view. Those that were Ambidexterous Actually were the ones that had a tendency to be more atheistic and not only that but there was a correlation between schizophrenia and left-handedness and ambidexterity. These people were more skeptical of God but at the exact same time we’re prone to believe in magic mysticism and ghost
For the point of people that are autistic, The reason why is they are more attracted to things that are more concrete and there is a high probability that they do not have the facilities to actually think about an abstract concept like God and will not except it. this is been hypothesize for awhile. Furthermore just because the fact that you’re autistic did not guarantee that you would be an atheist
And asked for ambidextrous people my mother and I are both ambidexterous and we are both artists. We would be considered outliers as we are both very religious people and we also do not make sense because according to the culture of today artistic people that are ambidextrous should be atheistic or agnostic.
This whole debate which was initiated by anti theists first. it’s absolutely ludicrous. One side decided that it was instinctual to be religious and obviously the other side of promoted itself is being the only way to outdo it’s instincts. And of course if you turn the tables they’re going to fight back. Maybe if one side didn’t discredit the other side is being nothing more than a dumb animal and then being enlightened this type of argument wouldn’t happen
I’m sure it’s all nonsense but then so are a lot of studies about non-atheists. Interesting to see it turned around. 😉
Agreed, I’ve heard every single story about how religion is some evolutionary adaptation as long as religion is instinctual and not a choice it just means that we are following our program and only atheists are capable of standing above that instinctual program that we have that we are obviously not aware of
That has been the message of many genetic determinists who are incredibly atheistic and who loath religion. It’s them dictating a narrative and then using science to back up their narrative. What’s funny is it works both ways. The weapon that they used against the religious can be used against them with equal efficiency and can take their point of view and make it look just as defective as anything else.
Determinism is very dangerous and it does not play a favorite. It will consume anyone it’s pointed at and it doesn’t matter how smart you are, in fact that’s what’s really funny about it, everybody is stupid in the eyes of determinism because intelligence doesn’t really exist, you’re just doing what you were going to do no matter what because that’s what you were program to do from your environment to your genetics to chance
No amount of intellect can surpass this. It is its own trap and it is equally effective against everyone, so I do not understand certain points of view because it literally shoots them in the foot just as much as it shoots us.
And as per Dutton he is nothing but nonsense I’m not saying that genetics can’t play any role in your decision, they canard do, that’s that feeling you get when making decisions, but also that feeling can completely be changed by your environment and yourself. And alcohol ha! Kidding bad joke.
Perhaps I read too many comics as a kid, but I became a left-handed atheist because I wanted to be a mutant.
Atheism has nothing to offer. It is basically just a life-style of denial.
As to this claim from the article,
The claim that atheists suffer from more ill-health, both mentally and physically, than Theists suffer is a true claim.
As Professor Andrew Sims, former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, states, “The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally.”,,, “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life;,,”
In fact, in the following study it was found that, “those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%.”
And the following study found that the religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the nonreligiously affiliated.
As to genetics in particular, it is interesting to note that since unguided Darwinian processes have never shown the origination of a single gene/protein,,,
,,,since unguided Darwinian processes have never shown the origination of a single gene/protein, then it is very interesting to note that the genetic responses of humans are designed in a very sophisticated way so as to differentiate between hedonic and ‘noble’ moral happiness:
Apparently, the forsaking of God in general, and the forsaking of objective morality in particular, via ‘hedonic moral happiness’, does indeed have a dramatic negative impact on the genetic responses of humans.
In the article they further noted that
Whether the atheistic author realizes it or not, this “hundreds of genes’ fact undermines his Darwinian worldview from within. Dawkins’ ‘selfish gene’ concept, via the modern synthesis of neo-Darwinism, is more of less directly based on Darwin’s own ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking about competition. Yet genes are now found to be anything but selfish. Instead of genes being ‘selfish’, genes are now found to be existing in a holistic web of mutual interdependence and cooperation (the antithesis of selfishness).
Such ‘holistic cooperation’ of genes is, needless to say, the exact polar opposite of being ‘selfish’. (And should, if Darwinism were a normal science instead of being basically a religion for atheists, count as a direct falsification of the theory).
As to this claim from the article,
The claim from atheists that they are more, of all things, INTELLIGENT than everybody else is a wildly ironic claim for atheists to make since, as every Intelligent Design advocate knows all too well, Darwinian Atheists are completely blind to the prior activity of Intelligence. And if atheists cannot recognize the prior activity of Intelligence, then it certainly does not follow that they will be reliable judges as to who is more intelligent than whom.
In fact, it is now found that Atheists suffer from the mental illness of ‘denialism’ when it comes to recognizing the prior activity of Intelligence.
Studies establish that the design inference is ‘knee jerk’ inference that is built into everyone, especially including atheists, and that atheists have to mentally work suppressing their “knee jerk” design inference!
Perhaps the two most famous quotes of atheists suppressing their innate ‘design inference’ are the following two quotes:
i.e. It is not that Atheists do not see purpose and/or Design in nature, it is that Atheists, for whatever severely misguided reason, live in denial of the purpose and/or Design that they themselves see in nature. And yes, denialism is considered a mental illness.
I hold the preceding studies to be confirming evidence for Romans1:19-23
And although atheists often self proclaim that they are wise and “Bright”, much more so than those supposed rubes who gullibly believe in God, there is much evidence to suggest that our supposedly intellectual superiors are not being forthright in their self promoting measure of intelligence.
In fact, “the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.”
Also of related note:
The following expert holds that the IQ difference that Atheists often taught to prove they are much smarter than Theists, is, in reality, statistically insignificant
Thus in conclusion, all in all whilst Atheists can boast a few statistically insignificant IQ points advantage over the Theist, yet when looking at the whole picture, it becomes clear that the atheists is actually living his overall life much in a more unintelligent fashion than Theists,
Verse:
Bob O’H
March 19, 2019 at 2:52 am
Perhaps I read too many comics as a kid, but I became a left-handed atheist because I wanted to be a mutant.
Not to worry I’m working on an anti-mutant program, That will be able to single out the mutant gene.
I have in place thousands of robotic nuns with giant rulers that will smack the left handed out of you.
Resistance is futile my sentinels cannot fail
“I once thought I was too smart to believe in God. Now I know I was an arrogant fool who snubbed the greatest Mind in the cosmos—the Author of all science, mathematics, art, and everything else there is to know.”