Intelligence and Religiosity

[Jichard]

Jichard, you are missing and/or dodging my point. You have made the claim that Christianity is a "natural" product of the human mind and have presented references which supposedly support your claim. I do not see that your references do anything of the kind. I made the following statement:


There are two separate clauses in my statement:
1) Christian theology is at least as "unnatural" as science;
2) we would never come up with it apart from divine revelation.

The first clause is the one which disagrees directly with you and with your references. This is what I am trying to discuss with you,

False. That is not the only clause you've tried to discuss with me. You claimed you had evidence for clause 2, after I clearly said you had no evidence for clause 2. To recap, I said:

"So really, its absurd for you to cllaim that people would have never come up with Christian thelogy apart from divine revelation. It seems you simply made that claim up, without any supporting evidence."

So I made it extremely clear what claim I thought you had no evidence for: the claim was clause 2. You then responded by saying that you had evidence:

So really, its absurd for you to cllaim that people would have never come up with Christian thelogy apart from divine revelation. It seems you simply made that claim up, without any supporting evidence.

I've presented evidence. Please try to respond to my evidence directly, in detail, point by point (rather than indirectly through pseudo-scientific social science studies).

Yet you've avoided actually providing any evidence. Quite telling.

but which you repeatedly avoid.

I didn't avoid the first clause at all. I provided the evidence, and you responded by discarding it without bothering to read it, as I expected.

I have presented evidence for this, which you have not responded to.

No, you haven't provided any evidence for the claim for which I said you had no evidence and for which you said you had evidence.

You have not presented any good evidence for your claims (only other folks making the same unevidenced claims).

Sorry, but those were not "unevidence claims". they were peer-reviewed papers that cited research supporting their claims. You just ignore that research because you find it inconvenient for your position.

The second clause reflects my own belief and interpretation. It is a follow-on to the first clause.

Then why did you respond to my claim that you had no evidence ofr clause 2, by saying that you had evidence for clause 2? Once again, you said:

So really, its absurd for you to cllaim that people would have never come up with Christian thelogy apart from divine revelation. It seems you simply made that claim up, without any supporting evidence.

I've presented evidence. Please try to respond to my evidence directly, in detail, point by point (rather than indirectly through pseudo-scientific social science studies).

There is no point in considering or discussing this until we have discussed the first clause.

No, there's every point in discussing it, since that's the claim for which I said you had no evidence and the claim to which you responded to by saying that you had evidence.

I will not discuss this with you until we have thoroughly discussed the main question that you first raised and that we disagree on: Is Christianity "natural" or "unnatural"?.

Make any ultimatum you want. I'm still going to point out that you've still yet to provide any evidence for your claim.

I claim that "Christian theology is at least as "unnatural" as science." I have presented evidence for this. Where is your counter-evidence against this? (Not counter claims, not counter references, but counter evidence!)

Sorry, but as a scientist or someone who claims to be a scientist ) you should know that one can provide evidence by scientific scientific references that provide evidence or scientific references that cite the evidence. This is commonly done by scientists. And I've already cited the references providing the evidence for my claims. Deal with it. You just seem to want to ignore those references since they cite evidence inconvenient for your claims. You apparently think scientific references don't provide evidence, while your made-up claims count as evidence. Amazing.

Anyway, here's another summary for you. Hopefully it helps this time:

False. Christians take commonsense, human theory-of-mind and apply it to God. Hence, for example, God having human-like emotions, as opposed to simply saying God's mind is incomprehensible. Basically, Christian theology applies something like the intentional stance to God, where God's (supposed) behaviors are interpreted as rational actions, explained by various beliefs, desires, and other such mental states. The beliefs and desires are thought to connect together in various commonsensical ways. For example, when God believes that X and God desires that X, this results in God having the motivation to do X. And if God dislikes Y, then this is reflected in God's negative statements regarding Y.

This common-sensical psychology is in contrast to other ways one could interpret God. For example, one could interpret God as having a very weird, incredibly irrational mind, where when God likes X, this results in God willfully performing actions God knows will not bring about X. Or God believing that X and God desiring that X, could result in God forming a motivation for not-X. Or God could be a non-mental entity with no mind at all, even though God acted in ways that might suggest God had a mind (basically, God would be a philosophical zombie]. Or God could constantly/always form false beliefs, even about the information that's directly accessible to God. Or...

Of course, the vast majority of Christians don't interpret God in the above ways. And that's because these are non-commonsensical interpretations of minds. We don't even interpret humans in the above ways. Instead, we have a sort of folk / commonsensical psychology that we apply to humans. From quite a young age, humans start interpreting humans, animals, etc. using this folk psychology. And Christian theology tends to apply this same sort of folk psychology to God. Of course, this is the case for the branch of Christian theology that views God as a personal being with a mind, as opposed to the branch of Christian theology that does not view God as being a mind (much as there are branches of other religions, where these branches don't view their deities/forces as being minds).

[Jichard]

OK, Jichard, let's try to discuss your claims in a systematic, orderly fashion.
In this post, I wish to discuss only your claims about McCauley. Boyer and Barrett and can wait till a later post.

Here is what I said about McCauley:


Here is what you claim about McCauley:

1) you claim that "McCauley showed that his pointed extend to Christianity." But this is not true.
A) McCauley's quote does not explicitly address Christianity.
B) McCauley's quote does not address any of the central or unique tenets of Christianity.

Wrong, once again. For example, take the following quote I already presented:

"Contrary to first impressions, religious accounts of things differ little from everyday accounts. Religious systems import all of our familiar, commonsense psychology about agents' intentions, beliefs, desires, and actions for the explanation of phenomena throughout the natural and social worlds. Whether applied to other drivers on the road or to the rulers of the cosmos, this system performs quite nicely most of the time for understanding and anticipating agents' actions and states of mind. "

That applies to Christianity as religious system, since Christians (and especially the Bible) interpre God as being an agent with intentions, beliefs, desires, etc., where these are interpreted using conventional, folk psychology of mind. I've explained this multiple times. Here it is again:

False. Christians take commonsense, human theory-of-mind and apply it to God. Hence, for example, God having human-like emotions, as opposed to simply saying God's mind is incomprehensible. Basically, Christian theology applies something like the intentional stance to God, where God's (supposed) behaviors are interpreted as rational actions, explained by various beliefs, desires, and other such mental states. The beliefs and desires are thought to connect together in various commonsensical ways. For example, when God believes that X and God desires that X, this results in God having the motivation to do X. And if God dislikes Y, then this is reflected in God's negative statements regarding Y.

This common-sensical psychology is in contrast to other ways one could interpret God. For example, one could interpret God as having a very weird, incredibly irrational mind, where when God likes X, this results in God willfully performing actions God knows will not bring about X. Or God believing that X and God desiring that X, could result in God forming a motivation for not-X. Or God could be a non-mental entity with no mind at all, even though God acted in ways that might suggest God had a mind (basically, God would be a philosophical zombie]. Or God could constantly/always form false beliefs, even about the information that's directly accessible to God. Or...

Of course, the vast majority of Christians don't interpret God in the above ways. And that's because these are non-commonsensical interpretations of minds. We don't even interpret humans in the above ways. Instead, we have a sort of folk / commonsensical psychology that we apply to humans. From quite a young age, humans start interpreting humans, animals, etc. using this folk psychology. And Christian theology tends to apply this same sort of folk psychology to God. Of course, this is the case for the branch of Christian theology that views God as a personal being with a mind, as opposed to the branch of Christian theology that does not view God as being a mind (much as there are branches of other religions, where these branches don't view their deities/forces as being minds).

Try again. Please present a quote from McCauley's paper where he shows that the central, unique tenets of Christianity are "natural".

Now you're moving the goalposts to the claim that these must be the "the central, unique tenets of Christianity". How telling.

Anyway, I've alread provided the requisite quote.

2) you claim that Christianity attributes to God "intentions beliefs, desires, and so on, where those states are similar to those had by humans". I agree, and I agree that this is "natural". But these ideas are not central or unique to Christianity; they are shared by virtually all religions. You might as well claim that "Christianity claims that humans exist."

First, you didn't previously claim that the statements needed to be unique to Christianity. You just included that now to move the goalposts. Furthermore, one would not expect "natural" concepts to be unique to Christianity; one would instead those concepts to show up in a number of religions, including Christianity. So in your haste to move the goal-posts, you've asked me to support a claim that would actually argue against my position. The natural concepts might be applied/implemented in unique ways due to unique cultural circumstaces. This would be analogous to how humans can have a Chomskian universal gramma, even if specific cultural circumstances result in some cultures having unique words lacked by other cultures. The overall conceptual architecture in the same, but it's implementation is influences by culture. So, for example, even if various religions apply the same folk psychology to their deities, the religons many differ in the specific beliefs they attribute to those deities, since culture can influence the beliefs attributed

Second, I've already shown that McCauley's point applies to a central aspect of Christianity. This central aspect is: treating God as a mind to which folk psychology applies, as seen in the Bible.

Third, not all religions treat all their deities / divine forces as being minds. Sometimes, they are instead treated as non-mental powers, akin to forces of nature. Nor do all religions treat all their deities as having comprehensible minds similar to those had by humans. For example, some religions have some deities who's minds are said to be utterly incomprehensibl to humans and not something we should be in the business of discussing. So no, my claim is not as trivial as "Christianity claims that humans exist."

3) you claim that Christianity "has a tradition of rituals for appeasing God". Again, this is true of virtually all religions and is "natural". But it is not quite accurate regarding Christianity; Christianity does not hold to rituals for appeasing God, but to one single historical event; the crucifixion of Christ.

Same goalpost move where you demand something unique to Christianity, even though that would actually contradict my position.

Also, there are many other actions humans do to appease God, such as prayer, tithing, and so on. They are appeasement, insofar as many Christians think God wants them to do these things, God will be upset with them if they don't do these things, and so Christians do these things.

4) as you rightly observe, "many Christians take Jesus' ritual sacrifice to be the final sacrifice for appeasing God's judgment, such that the Old Testament animal sacrifices no longer need to be done." Good; finally you have identified a central tenet of Christianity! I claim that this tenet is unnatural.

A claim for which you have utterly no evidence. Plenty of religions have had notions of sacrifice, where one thing takes on the punishment in place of something else or one thin is given up to a deity so that humans can get something. This often involved animal sacrifice, but has been instead to sacrifice of humans as well. Even deities have offered themseles as sacrifices on behalf of humans.

I know of no other religion where the adherent can do nothing to appease God,

Many Christians take actions to appease God, as noted above.

but God sacrifices Himself to appease the adherent, while the adherent is still at enmity with Him. Can you explain how this is a "natural" perspective?

God didn't sacrifice himself; God the Father was not sacrificed. Instead, another divine entity (Jesus) was sacrificed by God on behalf of humans. God the Father is not identical to Jesus. How Trinitarians decide to work out the sacrifice is their own issue, though it will likely be the same way Hindu polytheists work things out (where those Hindu have a God made up a non-identical divine entities that can communicate with one another, refer to one anotherusing different deisgnations, etc.). Plenty of other religions have deities who sacrifice themselves on behlaf of humans, regardless of whether or not those humans like the deity (Prometheus' sacrifice springs to mind).

[Jichard]

This progression is not accurate for the Abrahamic religions. Adam was a monotheist. I believe Abraham moved directly from animism to monotheism, without an anthropomorphic polytheism phase. Throughout the history of OT Israel, there was a complex series of back-and-forth moves between monotheism and polytheism/animism. The "natural" concept was polytheism/animism; the moves back to monotheism were due to divine revelation through the prophets.

Noah was involved with animal sacrifice. Abraham was involved with animal sacrifice (and nearly a human sacrifice). We don't see human sacrifice again till late in the OT, when Israel began to follow the "natural" concepts of its pagan neighbors. In Christianity, we go back to human sacrifice, but in a unique and "unnatural" form (one single human sacrifice, sufficient for all mankind, never again to be repeated).

And not a single piece for evidence for these claims, in sight. It seems you're accepting these claims as a matter of faith, as opposed to their being any evidence for them.

[Kbertsche]

OK, Jichard, let's examine your claims regarding Boyer and Barrett. I have claimed that:

2) You did not present any additional evidence that McCauley's arguments apply to anything more sophisticated than folk religions. You claim to have done so, but you have not. Yes, the papers that you recommended by Boyer and Barrett make claims similar to McCauley. But claims are not evidence.

Like McCauley, Boyer's and Barrett's arguments seem to be restricted to simplistic concepts as found in folk religions. Like McCauley, I do not see any discussion in their papers of more sophisticated religious concepts in general or of the central doctrines of Christianity in particular. Again, if I've missed something here, please present page numbers and quotes from their papers.

To which you responded:

Incorrect. Boyer and Barrett cite studies that provide evidence in support of their claims. That's why, for example, Boyer's and Barrett's papers have in-text citations and a reference list. That's how scientific papers typically work: one other presents data in support of one's claims, or one cites previous sources/studies that provide evidence for one's claims. For someone who claims to be a scientist, I thought you would know this. And as someone who's written scientific papers and done scientific research, I do know this.
...
Incorrect, once again. The papers discuss the concepts used in Christianity, including an omniscient deity, a deity as a concerned with morality, omnipresence without a physical presence, doctrines of purity and impurity (inherited from Judaism), and supernatural intentionality / supernatural agency in general.

For example, see pages 29-31 of: http://religionandcognition.com/cour...df?ckattempt=1
And pages 120-122 of: http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/religi...Boyer_2003.pdf

Let's look at Boyer:

On pages 120-122, he discusses very general concepts which are true of nearly all religions: concepts of gods and ancestors, moral intuition, misfortune, death, and rare events. In his Table 2 on page 122, he lays out a number of general, universal religious concepts. He seems to view these general concepts as "natural", and he may well be correct. I have no problem with this claim.

But as I've said repeatedly, these simple, universal concepts are not the same as "more sophisticated religious concepts in general or of the central doctrines of Christianity in particular". Boyer makes no claims and presents no evidence that the central concepts of Christianity are "natural". Boyer does not make the logical fallacy that you seem to be making. Even if it is true that some religious concepts that are found in Christianity are "natural", this does not imply that all concepts found in Christianity are "natural".

Now let's look at Barrett:

His paper is a review paper of the work done by McCauley, Boyer, and others. He presents no new research of his own. As such, my comments about McCauley and Boyer apply equally well to Barrett.

Barrett says that "Religion is, in some ways, quite natural. However, the current story is not complete in either its coverage of issues or in its empirical support." He further says that "Research in this area is also extending what is known about conceptual systems in general to include non-natural concepts and intentional explanations of natural events." (p. 33-34). He does not further explain the "non-natural concepts" that he sees in the cognitive study of religion, but I suspect that he may be referring to some of the same unique, central Christian concepts that I've been mentioning.

Perhaps you didn't notice, but when Barrett wrote this article he was affiliated with Calvin College, an evangelical Christian institution. If he was a full faculty member, he was required to sign their statement of faith. If an adjunct faculty member, he was required to support it though not to sign it.

Anyway, let me know when you finally have some evidence for you claim that humans could not have come up with Christian theology without divine intervention. Or you can just finally admit you have none, as opposed to continually dodging the topic.

Perhaps I was unclear, or perhaps you are intentionally misunderstanding me. I intend to discuss these things in a logical order.

The first evidence for my claim that the central concepts of Christianity are divinely inspired is that they are "unnatural". Only after we agree that they are "unnatural" can we discuss what sort of "unnatural" concepts they happen to be.

The logical progression is: unnatural -> supernatural -> divinely inspired. There is no point discussing divine inspiration before discussing whether these concepts are natural or supernatural.

[oxmixmudd]

God didn't sacrifice himself; God the Father was not sacrificed. Instead, another divine entity (Jesus) was sacrificed by God on behalf of humans. God the Father is not identical to Jesus. How Trinitarians decide to work out the sacrifice is their own issue, though it will likely be the same way Hindu polytheists work things out (where those Hindu have a God made up a non-identical divine entities that can communicate with one another, refer to one anotherusing different deisgnations, etc.). Plenty of other religions have deities who sacrifice themselves on behlaf of humans, regardless of whether or not those humans like the deity (Prometheus' sacrifice springs to mind).

And thus Jichard is faced with the fact that Christian theology is unnatural and not based on 'human common sense or anthroporphisms'. It is in fact so far outside those realms that He simply can't even conceive of how it could possibly make sense!

But Jichard, even in Physics we have entities that are both a single thing (light) but which 'exist' in two different 'states' simultaneously (particle/wave). Amazing that you can claim to except the physics concept as valid, yet demand the Christian concept of the Trinity is invalid! Would you be so stupid as to claim that when light is observed as a wave it is not light anymore? Or that when light is observed as a photon it is not light anymore? Then why should you be so bold as to proclaim that God can not be God (the single one God) and also the Father (creator/ruler) and the Son (incarnation and full sacrifice for mankind). Or that the Son is not fully God based on some non duality aware 'folk' intelligence? How can you claim you understand and accept duality in nature, yet can't comprehend how such could apply to the God of creation!

?

Jim

[Jichard]

And thus Jichard is faced with the fact that Christian theology is unnatural and not based on 'human common sense or anthroporphisms'.

Why are you placing words in quotation marks, when they actually aren't what I said? Rather misleading, isn't it?

If you were accurate in your use of quotation marks, then you would have said "our familiar, commonsense psychology". In any event, I already explained to you how Christian theology applies human, commonsense psychology to God. You had no response to this, which leads me to believe that you did not actually understand the background on this topic nor what I said. I suggest you look up the relevant terms such as folk psychology, the intentional stance, and theory of mind, so you have some background on what's under discussion. Or you can read the sources I provided on this topic.

False. Christians take commonsense, human theory-of-mind and apply it to God. Hence, for example, God having human-like emotions, as opposed to simply saying God's mind is incomprehensible. Basically, Christian theology applies something like the intentional stance to God, where God's (supposed) behaviors are interpreted as rational actions, explained by various beliefs, desires, and other such mental states. The beliefs and desires are thought to connect together in various commonsensical ways. For example, when God believes that X and God desires that X, this results in God having the motivation to do X. And if God dislikes Y, then this is reflected in God's negative statements regarding Y.

This common-sensical psychology is in contrast to other ways one could interpret God. For example, one could interpret God as having a very weird, incredibly irrational mind, where when God likes X, this results in God willfully performing actions God knows will not bring about X. Or God believing that X and God desiring that X, could result in God forming a motivation for not-X. Or God could be a non-mental entity with no mind at all, even though God acted in ways that might suggest God had a mind (basically, God would be a philosophical zombie]. Or God could constantly/always form false beliefs, even about the information that's directly accessible to God. Or...

Of course, the vast majority of Christians don't interpret God in the above ways. And that's because these are non-commonsensical interpretations of minds. We don't even interpret humans in the above ways. Instead, we have a sort of folk / commonsensical psychology that we apply to humans. From quite a young age, humans start interpreting humans, animals, etc. using this folk psychology. And Christian theology tends to apply this same sort of folk psychology to God. Of course, this is the case for the branch of Christian theology that views God as a personal being with a mind, as opposed to the branch of Christian theology that does not view God as being a mind (much as there are branches of other religions, where these branches don't view their deities/forces as being minds).

It is in fact so far outside those realms that He simply can't even conceive of how it could possibly make sense!

Now you're just making stuff up, that has nothing to do with what I wrote.

But Jichard, even in Physics we have entities that are both a single thing (light) but which 'exist' in two different 'states' simultaneously (particle/wave). Amazing that you can claim to except the physics concept as valid, yet demand the Christian concept of the Trinity is invalid!

So you're claiming God the Father is identical to Jesus? Because that's what you'd need to claim in order for your analogy for light to work.

But, last I checked, on Christian trinitarian theology, God the Father is not identical to Jesus.

Would you be so stupid as to claim that when light is observed as a wave it is not light anymore?

I would not be so stupid to claim as something that a spatial and temporal human is identical to a non-spatial and non-temporal deity.

Or that when light is observed as a photon it is not light anymore?

Um, are you familiar with Christian trinitarian theology? The claim of said theology is not that humans happens to view the same deity in different ways; i.e. the difference in not some difference just in the observer's perspective. Instead, Christian trinitarian theology holds that the distinction is actually an aspect of God's being.

Also would not be so stupid as to claim:

that light spoke to itself, where "itself" was located somewhere apart from the light
the same lightwave was non-spatial and spatial at the same time, while also being non-temporal and temporal a the same time

Then why should you be so bold as to proclaim that God can not be God (the single one God) and also the Father (creator/ruler) and the Son (incarnation and full sacrifice for mankind).

Because I do not believe obvious contradictions supported by no evidence. Unlike wave/particle duality, your theology has no evidence in support of it. If you think otherwise, then feel free to cite the evidence.

Or that the Son is not fully God based on some non duality aware 'folk' intelligence?

Your use of "folk" here suggests that you don't actually know what I meant when I used the term "folk psychology".

How can you claim you understand and accept duality in nature, yet can't comprehend how such could apply to the God of creation!

Duality is not the same thing as a contradiction. Your position is a contradiction; you claim that X is identical to Y, while Y is different from X. That makes no sense. It even violates ideas accepted by many Christian philosopher's, such as Leibniz's point about the indiscernability of identicals.

[Jichard]

OK, Jichard, let's examine your claims regarding Boyer and Barrett. I have claimed that:

To which you responded:


Let's look at Boyer:

On pages 120-122, he discusses very general concepts which are true of nearly all religions: concepts of gods and ancestors, moral intuition, misfortune, death, and rare events. In his Table 2 on page 122, he lays out a number of general, universal religious concepts. He seems to view these general concepts as "natural", and he may well be correct. I have no problem with this claim.

But as I've said repeatedly, these simple, universal concepts are not the same as "more sophisticated religious concepts in general or of the central doctrines of Christianity in particular". Boyer makes no claims and presents no evidence that the central concepts of Christianity are "natural".

Incorrect

Boyer's provides quite a lot of evidence on this, just as McCauley does. For example, as I've repeatedly told you, Christianity involves applying commonsense folk psychology to God. This is central to how Christians interpret God as an an agent. Mcauley made much the same point, as does Boyer. This pint has been emphasized to you over and over and... For example:

""

False. Christians take commonsense, human theory-of-mind and apply it to God. Hence, for example, God having human-like emotions, as opposed to simply saying God's mind is incomprehensible. Basically, Christian theology applies something like the intentional stance to God, where God's (supposed) behaviors are interpreted as rational actions, explained by various beliefs, desires, and other such mental states. The beliefs and desires are thought to connect together in various commonsensical ways. For example, when God believes that X and God desires that X, this results in God having the motivation to do X. And if God dislikes Y, then this is reflected in God's negative statements regarding Y.

This common-sensical psychology is in contrast to other ways one could interpret God. For example, one could interpret God as having a very weird, incredibly irrational mind, where when God likes X, this results in God willfully performing actions God knows will not bring about X. Or God believing that X and God desiring that X, could result in God forming a motivation for not-X. Or God could be a non-mental entity with no mind at all, even though God acted in ways that might suggest God had a mind (basically, God would be a philosophical zombie]. Or God could constantly/always form false beliefs, even about the information that's directly accessible to God. Or...

Of course, the vast majority of Christians don't interpret God in the above ways. And that's because these are non-commonsensical interpretations of minds. We don't even interpret humans in the above ways. Instead, we have a sort of folk / commonsensical psychology that we apply to humans. From quite a young age, humans start interpreting humans, animals, etc. using this folk psychology. And Christian theology tends to apply this same sort of folk psychology to God. Of course, this is the case for the branch of Christian theology that views God as a personal being with a mind, as opposed to the branch of Christian theology that does not view God as being a mind (much as there are branches of other religions, where these branches don't view their deities/forces as being minds).

"The Naturalness of Religion and the Unnaturalness of Science"
https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...of-science.pdf

"Compared with scientific categories, those in religion lack theoretical depth. Contrary to first impressions, religious accounts of things differ little from everyday accounts. Religious systems import all of our familiar, commonsense psychology about agents' intentions, beliefs, desires, and actions for the explanation of phenomena throughout the natural and social worlds. Whether applied to other drivers on the road or to the rulers of the cosmos, this system performs quite nicely most of the time for understanding and anticipating agents' actions and states of mind. The rationale underlying an explanation of someone's illness as the result of an ancestor's interventions based on that ancestor's displeasure with the victim's conduct is as readily comprehensible to a child as it is to the most experienced religious official.

In the absence of cultural forms that foster the collective growth of humans' critical and imaginative capacities, human beings rely upon their natural cognitive dispositions, which often appear to be domain specific and comparatively inflexible in their application. CPS agents, stories about them, and rituals for controlling and appeasing them are the inevitable outcomes of a cognitive system that simultaneously seeks explanations, possesses an overactive agent detector, and, perhaps, most importantly, lacks scientific traditions. As Daniel Dennett (1998, p. 122) has remarked, " . . . until science came along, one had to settle for personifying the unpredictable--adopting the intentional stance toward it--and trying various desperate measures of control and
appeasement." (26-27)"

Boyer does not make the logical fallacy that you seem to be making. Even if it is true that some religious concepts that are found in Christianity are "natural", this does not imply that all concepts found in Christianity are "natural".

Please don't misrepresent my position for your convenience.

Now let's look at Barrett:

His paper is a review paper of the work done by McCauley, Boyer, and others. He presents no new research of his own.

Nonsense. By your logic, scientific reviews papers present no evidence, even though they cite evidence from all across the field, from different labs. Sorry, but that makes no sense. The paper cites evidence from multiple sources. Feel free to address that evidence, as opposed to dodging it. by trying to claim that you only need to address the evidence if the evidence is original to the paper.

As such, my comments about McCauley and Boyer apply equally well to Barrett.

Barrett says that "Religion is, in some ways, quite natural. However, the current story is not complete in either its coverage of issues or in its empirical support."

So what? There's virtually no scientific topic on which the story is complete. That doesn't change the fact that evidence had been provided and that evidence supports various claims.

He further says that "Research in this area is also extending what is known about conceptual systems in general to include non-natural concepts and intentional explanations of natural events." (p. 33-34).

If you are a scientists (as you claim to be), then you should no better then to try and twist a claim like further research should be done into the claim that we aren't sure of the evidence that has already been provided.

He does not further explain the "non-natural concepts" that he sees in the cognitive study of religion, but I suspect that he may be referring to some of the same unique, central Christian concepts that I've been mentioning.

I put little stock in your interpretation of him.

Perhaps you didn't notice, but when Barrett wrote this article he was affiliated with Calvin College, an evangelical Christian institution. If he was a full faculty member, he was required to sign their statement of faith. If an adjunct faculty member, he was required to support it though not to sign it.

Which means nothing when Barrett is presenting scientific evidence, without applying his theology to that evidence. Barrett doesn't seem to operate in the way you do; he does not seem to let his theology lead to to claim that the scientific evidence provides evidence on divine revelation.

Perhaps I was unclear, or perhaps you are intentionally misunderstanding me. I intend to discuss these things in a logical order.

The first evidence for my claim that the central concepts of Christianity are divinely inspired is that they are "unnatural". Only after we agree that they are "unnatural" can we discuss what sort of "unnatural" concepts they happen to be.

The logical progression is: unnatural -> supernatural -> divinely inspired. There is no point discussing divine inspiration before discussing whether these concepts are natural or supernatural.

Or, you simply don't have any evidence on divine inspiration.

By the way, your reasoning is fallacious on this point. By your logic, humans could not have come up with quantum mechanics (or other counter-intuitive ideas) apart from divine revelation. Utterly ridiculous

[shunyadragon]

And thus Jichard is faced with the fact that Christian theology is unnatural and not based on 'human common sense or anthroporphisms'. It is in fact so far outside those realms that He simply can't even conceive of how it could possibly make sense!

Jichard is not faced with the fact that. . . , because this claim is not based on any facts. It is based on an anecdotal claim of the supposed uniqueness of Christianity is 'so far outside those realms that He simply can't even conceive of how it could possibly make sense!' The reality is that this claim can be made by any one of the many diverse religions that the cases where there beliefs are unique could not come about by natural 'human common sense or anthroporphisms.' The reality is that these Christian beliefs could the product of human efforts as well as the beliefs that are unique or held in common with other religions of the many diverse divisions of these religions.

But Jichard, even in Physics we have entities that are both a single thing (light) but which 'exist' in two different 'states' simultaneously (particle/wave). Amazing that you can claim to except the physics concept as valid, yet demand the Christian concept of the Trinity is invalid! Would you be so stupid as to claim that when light is observed as a wave it is not light anymore? Or that when light is observed as a photon it is not light anymore? Then why should you be so bold as to proclaim that God can not be God (the single one God) and also the Father (creator/ruler) and the Son (incarnation and full sacrifice for mankind). Or that the Son is not fully God based on some non duality aware 'folk' intelligence? How can you claim you understand and accept duality in nature, yet can't comprehend how such could apply to the God of creation!

This parallel is not meaningful between science and religious beliefs of Christianity. These properties of light or other observed physical properties of the nature of our existence cannot be compared remotely to theological claims such as the nature of God as a Trinity. The nature of our physical existence is based on objective observations and the scientific methods of falsification. Theological claims of the existence of God nor the nature of God as the Trinity have no objective observations from the human perspective to justify them. They are questions of faith, belief, and the trust in one or more particular interpretations of scripture.

[Kbertsche]

Now let's look at Barrett:

His paper is a review paper of the work done by McCauley, Boyer, and others. He presents no new research of his own.

Nonsense. By your logic, scientific reviews papers present no evidence, even though they cite evidence from all across the field, from different labs. Sorry, but that makes no sense. The paper cites evidence from multiple sources. Feel free to address that evidence, as opposed to dodging it. by trying to claim that you only need to address the evidence if the evidence is original to the paper.

Jichard, once again you exhibit a lack of basic reading comprehension! But I'm not sure if it is my words or Barrett's that you miscomprehend.

1) I noted that Barrett's paper is a review paper, and that he presents no new research of his own. This is a fact, like it or not. Barrett makes this fact undeniably clear in the fifth and sixth paragraphs of his paper:


2) I never said nor implied that "scientific reviews (sic) papers present no evidence". The fact that review papers do not present any new information does not make them worthless. In my field of the hard sciences, I find review papers very helpful when I need to learn something about a new subfield.

3) But since I have already addressed the claims of McCauley and Boyer, why do you expect me to re-address the identical claims when their work is reviewed by Barrett?!? My response would be identical.

This is what I was trying to explain to you, but maybe you misunderstood. I have already addressed the claims of the original authors, so there is no point in addressing the identical claims through a filter of a reviewer. If you want to see my response to Barrett, look at my response to McCauley and Boyer.

[Kbertsche]

Boyer does not make the logical fallacy that you seem to be making. Even if it is true that some religious concepts that are found in Christianity are "natural", this does not imply that all concepts found in Christianity are "natural".

Please don't misrepresent my position for your convenience.

?!? If this is not your position, then why are you arguing so vehemently? I have repeatedly agreed that some of the God-concepts found in Christianity are "natural". If this is all that you are saying, then we agree!

But you seem to be saying much more. You seem to be claiming that Christianity in its entirety is a purely natural product of the human mind. You cannot prove this by showing that only a few concepts are "natural"; you must show that all concepts (or at least those that seem most "unnatural") are indeed "natural".

You have repeatedly reminded us (especially Jim) of something you said earlier:

"Christianity (especially through inheritance from Judaism) applies our familiar, commonsense psychology to God. Hence it attributing to God intentions beliefs, desires, and so on, where those states are similar to those had by humans (ex: jealousy, anger)."

In this quote, you are basically saying that the biblical God is personal, with all of the traits of personality. I agree that God shares these traits with humans. But there is more than one possible explanation for this commonality. Here are two possibilities among many:
1) Jichard's explanation(?): the biblical God is purely a projection of the human mind, so God shares some characteristics of human personality
2) the biblical explanation: God created man in His own image, giving man some characteristics of God's personality

I have no problem with the claim that some aspects of God are "natural." This is exactly what we should expect if we have been created by God in His own image.

[Jichard]

?!? If this is not your position, then why are you arguing so vehemently? I have repeatedly agreed that some of the God-concepts found in Christianity are "natural". If this is all that you are saying, then we agree!

I'm simply asking you not to mispresent my position into something else you find it easier to argue against. You've repeatedly done this. For example: acting as if I need to argue that just the concepts that are unique to Christianity are natural concepts

But you seem to be saying much more. You seem to be claiming that Christianity in its entirety is a purely natural product of the human mind.

You're confusing:

1 : Christianity in its entirety is a purely natural product of the human mind

with:

2 : All the concepts used in Christianity are natural concepts

The two are not the same, since 1 can be true even if 2 is false. For example, dialetheism is a non-natural idea, but it's a natural product of the mind insofar as it can be naturalistically explained and one does not need to resort to divine intervention to explain how humans came up with it. So 1 would be true of dialetheism, even if 2 is false of dialetheism.

You cannot prove this by showing that only a few concepts are "natural"; you must show that all concepts (or at least those that seem most "unnatural") are indeed "natural".

Please don't attack that strawman. My original claim, as quoted from McCauley, was that the concepts employed by religions are more natural than the concepts employes employed by science. You disagreed with this by claiming that Christian theology is just as unnatural as science. In order to rebut your claim, I don't need to show that every religious concept is non-natural. That's just a strawman you erected.

You have repeatedly reminded us (especially Jim) of something you said earlier:

In this quote, you are basically saying that the biblical God is personal, with all of the traits of personality.

That's not the central claim I'm making. I'm not just claiming that "the biblical God is personal, with all of the traits of personality". I'm claiming that Christianity (in the form of the Bible) applies our familiar, commonsense psychology to God. Notice that Christianity need not do this, in order for Christianity to claim that God is personal and that God has the traits of personality. After all, God could be a personal agent with a mind, even if human commonsense psychology did not apply to God. God could instead be a personal agent, who's psychologically radically differed from that of human, commonsense folk psychology. I've previously gone over some examples of how this could be the case:

False. Christians take commonsense, human theory-of-mind and apply it to God. Hence, for example, God having human-like emotions, as opposed to simply saying God's mind is incomprehensible. Basically, Christian theology applies something like the intentional stance to God, where God's (supposed) behaviors are interpreted as rational actions, explained by various beliefs, desires, and other such mental states. The beliefs and desires are thought to connect together in various commonsensical ways. For example, when God believes that X and God desires that X, this results in God having the motivation to do X. And if God dislikes Y, then this is reflected in God's negative statements regarding Y.

This common-sensical psychology is in contrast to other ways one could interpret God. For example, one could interpret God as having a very weird, incredibly irrational mind, where when God likes X, this results in God willfully performing actions God knows will not bring about X. Or God believing that X and God desiring that X, could result in God forming a motivation for not-X. Or God could be a non-mental entity with no mind at all, even though God acted in ways that might suggest God had a mind (basically, God would be a philosophical zombie]. Or God could constantly/always form false beliefs, even about the information that's directly accessible to God. Or...

Of course, the vast majority of Christians don't interpret God in the above ways. And that's because these are non-commonsensical interpretations of minds. We don't even interpret humans in the above ways. Instead, we have a sort of folk / commonsensical psychology that we apply to humans. From quite a young age, humans start interpreting humans, animals, etc. using this folk psychology. And Christian theology tends to apply this same sort of folk psychology to God. Of course, this is the case for the branch of Christian theology that views God as a personal being with a mind, as opposed to the branch of Christian theology that does not view God as being a mind (much as there are branches of other religions, where these branches don't view their deities/forces as being minds).

I agree that God shares these traits with humans. But there is more than one possible explanation for this commonality. Here are two possibilities among many:
1) Jichard's explanation(?): the biblical God is purely a projection of the human mind, so God shares some characteristics of human personality
2) the biblical explanation: God created man in His own image, giving man some characteristics of God's personality[/QUOTE]

Explanation 1 is better than explanation 2, on the criteria of inference to the best explanation. 2 is just God-of-the-gaps reasoning, where one tries to introduce God into some gap in one's knowledge. That reasoning is akin to responding to the claim that:

3 : some humans thought that unicorns existed since some humans reasoned irrationally or went off of insufficient evidence

by saying that:

4 : unicorns made humans, and placed in some humans the thought that unicorns exist; this explains why some humans believed that unicorns exist

4 is actually a better explanation than 2. For example, 4 is more ontologically parsimonious (and less ontologically obscure) than 2, since unicorns are not non-natural entities with weird (possibly impossible) properties such as omnipotence, omniscience, and so on. Inclusion of unicorns does not change our ontology as radically as does including God. This also means the prior probability of 4 is likely higher than the prior probability of 2, since every non-tautological, weird claim one needs to mae about God in order to setup 2, further reduces the prior probability of 2.

Anyway, 1 is a better explanation than 2 for a number of reasons. For example, 1 is more ontologically parsimonious than 2. 1 has more borne out predictions. 1 has more explanatory power, since 1 can offer a more detailed explanation of the phenomena, beyond the obscurantism of God did it. So 1 can, for instance, provide psychological details on the mechanisms behind the projection, the brain regions involved in the projection, and so on. In contrast, 2 has no such relevant detail, and instead follows in the religious traditions of stealing explanatory power from naturalistic explanations (by saying things like God did X via natural means Y), or by having no real explanatory detail at all, beyond saying God-did-it [which has about as much explanatorily detail as saying the drug induced sleep due to the drug's dormative virtue]. 2 also runs into the problem that: there isn't actually any scientific evidence for the biblical account of creation, let alone the idea that God stepped in at some point to make humans.

I have no problem with the claim that some aspects of God are "natural." This is exactly what we should expect if we have been created by God in His own image.

Then why did you agree with McCauley when McCauley made the claim that religious concepts were natural since, for example, they borrowed from commonsense folk psychology?
[INDENT]

"The Naturalness of Religion and the Unnaturalness of Science"
https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...of-science.pdf

"Compared with scientific categories, those in religion lack theoretical depth. Contrary to first impressions, religious accounts of things differ little from everyday accounts. Religious systems import all of our familiar, commonsense psychology about agents' intentions, beliefs, desires, and actions for the explanation of phenomena throughout the natural and social worlds. Whether applied to other drivers on the road or to the rulers of the cosmos, this system performs quite nicely most of the time for understanding and anticipating agents' actions and states of mind. The rationale underlying an explanation of someone's illness as the result of an ancestor's interventions based on that ancestor's displeasure with the victim's conduct is as readily comprehensible to a child as it is to the most experienced religious official.

In the absence of cultural forms that foster the collective growth of humans' critical and imaginative capacities, human beings rely upon their natural cognitive dispositions, which often appear to be domain specific and comparatively inflexible in their application. CPS agents, stories about them, and rituals for controlling and appeasing them are the inevitable outcomes of a cognitive system that simultaneously seeks explanations, possesses an overactive agent detector, and, perhaps, most importantly, lacks scientific traditions. As Daniel Dennett (1998, p. 122) has remarked, " . . . until science came along, one had to settle for personifying the unpredictable--adopting the intentional stance toward it--and trying various desperate measures of control and
appeasement." (26-27)"

[...]

(McCauley makes some good points regarding simplistic folk religions. I agree with him that these are natural human constructs. But his discussion does not engage Christian theology, which is much more sophisticated. Christian theology is at least as "unnatural" as science; we would never come up with it apart from divine revelation.)

[Jichard]

Jichard, once again you exhibit a lack of basic reading comprehension! But I'm not sure if it is my words or Barrett's that you miscomprehend.

1) I noted that Barrett's paper is a review paper, and that he presents no new research of his own. This is a fact, like it or not. Barrett makes this fact undeniably clear in the fifth and sixth paragraphs of his paper:

Which is utterly irrelevant to the fact that Barrett's papers discusses evidence in support of it's claims, so you need to address the evidence, as opposed to trying to dodge the evidence by claiming the evidence is not original to the paper.

2) I never said nor implied that "scientific reviews (sic) papers present no evidence". The fact that review papers do not present any new information does not make them worthless. In my field of the hard sciences, I find review papers very helpful when I need to learn something about a new subfield.

Then don't make comments like this in your attempt to dodge the evidence discussed in the review paper:

Now let's look at Barrett:

His paper is a review paper of the work done by McCauley, Boyer, and others. He presents no new research of his own. As such, my comments about McCauley and Boyer apply equally well to Barrett.

3) But since I have already addressed the claims of McCauley and Boyer, why do you expect me to re-address the identical claims when their work is reviewed by Barrett?!? My response would be identical.

First, are you seriously claiming that Barrett cites only the work of McCauley and Boyer? Really? Are you really suggesting that Barrett discusses no other evidence?

Second, you didn't adequately address the claims of McCauley and Boyer. Instead, you claimed they presented no evidence (even though they clearl did) and you made false claims about what they show (false claims that I addressed).

This is what I was trying to explain to you, but maybe you misunderstood. I have already addressed the claims of the original authors, so there is no point in addressing the identical claims through a filter of a reviewer. If you want to see my response to Barrett, look at my response to McCauley and Boyer.

First, if you want to see the problem with your response to McCauley and Boyer, look at what I said in response to your comments on them.

Second, I already explained why your response to McCauley and Boyer is inapplicable to Barrett. For example, you overlook the fact that Barrett cites evidence from sources other than Boyer and McCauley.

[Jichard]

In this quote, you are basically saying that the biblical God is personal, with all of the traits of personality. I agree that God shares these traits with humans. But there is more than one possible explanation for this commonality. Here are two possibilities among many:
1) Jichard's explanation(?): the biblical God is purely a projection of the human mind, so God shares some characteristics of human personality
2) the biblical explanation: God created man in His own image, giving man some characteristics of God's personality

I have no problem with the claim that some aspects of God are "natural." This is exactly what we should expect if we have been created by God in His own image.

By the way: please let me know when you have evidence forthe God-did-it / God-of-the-gaps explanation that is explanation 2. Because I've already provided evidence on projection.

[shunyadragon]

?!? If this is not your position, then why are you arguing so vehemently? I have repeatedly agreed that some of the God-concepts found in Christianity are "natural". If this is all that you are saying, then we agree!

I believe that the God concepts, dogma, doctrine and beliefs 'can possibly' be explained naturally as being a product of the human mind, and not that they are always or necessarily a product of the human mind. I do not believe that there is a good argument for the 'uniqueness of 'some' Christian beliefs as indicating that the only possible source is revelation from God.

[Roy]

But you seem to be saying much more. You seem to be claiming that Christianity in its entirety is a purely natural product of the human mind. You cannot prove this by showing that only a few concepts are "natural"; you must show that all concepts (or at least those that seem most "unnatural") are indeed "natural".

Aren't you implicitly making the same claim for all other religions? Yet you haven't shown that the concepts of Islam/Scientology/Shinto/Rapa-Nui are "natural".