Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > The Academy > Tilted Paranoia


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 02-08-2007, 07:26 PM   #1 (permalink)
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
 
Willravel's Avatar
 
Theism/Atheism leading to the divergence of the species?

I've been exploring my recent exit from theism and entry in atheism on many different levels lately. While the simple science and philosophy are well covered elsewhere on the gap between theism and atheism, I'm beginning to realize as I discuss the theism gap that there is a massive fundamental difference between the very thought processes of atheists and theists, and the gap is growing.

After discussing atheism and theism with others who are theists, often the concept of evolution, something I firmly believe in, comes up. Something serious theists will bring up as a failing in evolution is the proof of divergence of species. While this is an outdated argument to be sure, it really got me thinking. What could lead to a true divergence of the homo sapien species? Could it be the atheism/thesim gap?

Could a gap between atheists and theists eventually lead to a divergence of two groups of the same species to the extent that eventually the groups can no longer interbreed? Could the middleground of agnostics begin to finally choose once side or the other and thus dissapear?

I'm sure that marriages between serious atheists and serious theists are extremely rare. Atheistm has, in the past 50 years, grown from roughly .01% of the population in the US to roughly 10-14% (depending on who you ask). Leadership from each camp often demonizes the other, as the philosophies of each are fundamentally opposed. This leads to widespread demoization among each group. The seperation of church and state in Western government have blurred recently, espically in the past 7 years.

Thoughts?
Willravel is offline  
Old 02-08-2007, 11:53 PM   #2 (permalink)
mr e
Guest
 
Interesting topic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by willravel
Something serious theists will bring up as a failing in evolution is the proof of divergence of species.
This is the first thing that caught my attention. I like that you chose to differentiate between evolution and speciation. While I have not heard this counter argument in person, I too like to believe that "serious" theists would pretty much accept evolution and debate the evidence for speciation in a logical manner.

Regarding the divergence of homo sapiens, that would be a crazy, crazy world. It's entertaining to imagine and the possibility can't be completely ruled out. However, it's probably more likely that we would kill ourselves, run out of resources, or even be destroyed by a natural disaster before something like that happened based on time requirements alone.

More importantly, the creation of a new species is not spontaneous and would require more than a simple isolation of communities. A driving force of selection for the alteration of gene frequencies would be needed just to begin the process. That means certain traits in each group would need to cause an increase or decrease in the ability to produce children.

Maybe if we started killing each other based on our beliefs, we could get this process started. Wait, we would also need to prevent any blending of groups. Haha, it would actually be detrimental to kill opposers from the opposite group as that would only decrease the differences between the two groups.

Ok, so we have to divide into two isolated groups and then each group would continually "purify" itself of the other side's beliefs and then hope that these beliefs have a genetic basis or are correlated with one. Then, cross your fingers and hope that this evolution would eventually lead to differing species. There.
 
Old 02-09-2007, 12:08 AM   #3 (permalink)
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
 
Willravel's Avatar
 
This is partially tongue in cheek, but the divergence of homo sapiens is something of a taboo in the scientific community because it's unlikely (to say the least). I'm not 100% sure that the traits present in either or both groups would need to increase or decrease the ability to reproduce children. I think that as each group fills a niche, they may find that adaptation to that niche is inevitable. For example, from a psychological/philosophical standpoint, I see a fundamental difference between the thought processes of atheists and theists. When that is put into a situation where breeding involves the favorable trait, you might see atheists in a theist community not getting the nookie and visa versa. In other words, atheism and theism would see a separation that was aided by favorable traits.

The real question to this: is there a genetic predisposition to faith vs. skepticism? If so, then it's within the realm of possibility. If not, then it's so unlikely it should be dropped immediatally, and I should be sacked.

Let's say, hypothetically, that there is a genetic predisposition to theism, or leaps of faith, and atheism, or skepticism. Let us also say, hypothetically, that one cannot be socially compatable with the other because the traits are socially in opposition. Let us say that leads to theists only breeding and living in communities of theists, and atheists only breeding with and living in communities of atheists. I think that 1) we could very well see that things like stem cell research (something generally accepted by atheists and generally frowned upon by theists) and other morally questionable scientific research could create a gap between the two divirging societies. That gap could lead the atheist society into more biomechanical directions, man + machine. The thesim society, on the other hand, is more likely to slow in it's development of technology (as was proven by the dark ages, thesim can often lead to a cautiousness of development and progressive thought, as the doctrines are based on ancient law and society). Who knows? Maybe the athiest sociey eventually decides to artificially evolve with the use of their own technology.

This is all flights of fancy, of course, but it's sure fun.
Willravel is offline  
Old 02-09-2007, 06:07 AM   #4 (permalink)
“Wrong is right.”
 
aberkok's Avatar
 
Location: toronto
I think the time scale is too short. In the other thread (about the CNN nonsense) I linked to a story speculating that it'll just be too silly to be religious by the end of the century. I feel that's the way things are going. Divergence of a species takes thousands of years.

One very disturbing theory is that psychopathic behavior is a sign of the next evolutionary step. Remember....evolution goes with what works, not what is right. I found out about this when listening to the awesome Quirks & Quarks podcast on CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/06-07/sep30.html

Quote:
As a society, we’re both captivated and repelled by psychopaths and their seemingly endless potential to commit murder and mayhem. There’s no end to the number of movies made about them, not to mention true-crime novels and news stories that focus on such notorious psychopaths as Ted Bundy and Paul Bernardo. However, the popular portrayal of psychopaths is a little misleading. Since many of them do commit horrendous crimes, it’s easy to chalk them up as evil monsters. But there’s more to them than that. In fact, there’s a lot of new scientific research looking into the nature of psychopaths that suggests there’s a biological basis for their so-called evil behaviour....

Dr. Marnie Rice is a psychologist with the Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene, in Penetanguishene, Ontario. She studies criminal psychopaths who are incarcerated there. She views psychopathic behaviour as an evolved survival strategy. She says that there’s not a lot of evidence to suggest that psychopaths are mentally ill but there’s good reason to believe that their disturbing behaviour is an evolved trait. She says psychopaths have evolved to capitalize in a particular environmental niche -- namely preying on the rest of society.
Scary.
__________________
!check out my new blog! http://arkanamusic.wordpress.com

Warden Gentiles: "It? Perfectly innocent. But I can see how, if our roles were reversed, I might have you beaten with a pillowcase full of batteries."
aberkok is offline  
Old 02-11-2007, 12:58 PM   #5 (permalink)
mr e
Guest
 
I will point out the same quote as my last post.

"Something serious theists will bring up as a failing in evolution is the proof of divergence of species."

As before, I would like to believe this. There is something else though. There is skepticism and logical reasoning in the "serious" theist thought. If this statement is true, then I would argue that the psychological differences between the groups are minimal.

While not all theist members would make this skeptical arguement on their own based on their faith, many of the skeptics may similarly be putting faith in their peers who just happen to be skeptical. Is faith a trait of a follower?

aberkok, I read something similar to that. In a community of trusting individuals, all individuals are benefited equally. However, an individual that decides to lie, cheat, or steal can give themself an unfair advantage over the rest. On the other side, in a community of all untrusting individuals, an individual can benefit themself by being trustworthy. There exists a balance between trusting and untrusting behaviors that does not necessarily relate to biology. Rather, it is a fluid behavioral survival strategy that changes with circumstance. Most all individuals are capable of some sort of selfish behavior. Psychopathic behavior may be a little extreme to fit here but hey, maybe not. Hehe. Psychopathy may indeed have a biological basis.
 
Old 02-11-2007, 01:10 PM   #6 (permalink)
Junkie
 
filtherton's Avatar
 
Location: In the land of ice and snow.
I doesn't matter.

Last edited by filtherton; 02-11-2007 at 01:31 PM..
filtherton is offline  
 

Tags
divergence, leading, species, theism or atheism

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 02:05 AM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360