Willravel

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 While this is an outdated argument to be sure, it really got me thinking.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?

mr e

Interesting topic.
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.

Willravel

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.

aberkok

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

Scary.

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mr e

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.

filtherton

I doesn't matter.