No god, and no "god gene", either

[Mersenne]

How nice you also read minds and hearts too. Not that I mind that in a site like this, where I expect it. How often do I go to Mass? Tell me oh mind reader.

How do I dismiss the conclusion of God, and yet still attend Mass and adoration?

You are the expert on my thoughts. Tell me.

I didn’t say anything about your thoughts. Care to address the subject or are you just going to keep giving me more evidence that you’re trying to evade reality?

 

[StrawberryJam]

I didn’t say anything about your thoughts. Care to address the subject or are you just going to keep giving me more evidence that you’re trying to evade reality?

I am offended you can make such a statement like this. In my reality, hypnosis sites are as credible as chiropractic sites.

 

[Mersenne]

I am offended you can make such a statement like this. In my reality, hypnosis sites are as credible as chiropractic sites.

I’ve already addressed your asinine objection to the credibility of the website, to repeat.

The facts themselves come from credible sources. They have been cited on the page if you are so inclined.

I don’t understand why you’re having such a hard time with this. Do you understand what a citation is?

If you are offended by me pointing out that you are evading, then stop evading.

 

[Mersenne]

I hear crickets

 

[Pons]

The link in the first post leads to the website of the guy who claimed to have desecrated a host. So there you go.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I hear crickets

Oh my aching back! Sorry, I had to go see a chiropractor about that. But, he sent me to a aromatherapist, and they sent me to a crystal person, and then finally I was told to go see some person who would hypnotize me.

Back still hurts just like it did before, but my wallet is hundreds lighter. Now I have to get my hearing checked because I can’t hear these imaginary crickets.

 

[Holly3278]

I don’t believe in the “God gene” theory. I believe that God gives us the grace to be able to believe and that He gives that grace to whoever He wishes. I believe that anyone can believe in God. God gave us all free will so that we can all choose to believe in Him if we want.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I don’t believe in the “God gene” theory. I believe that God gives us the grace to be able to believe and that He gives that grace to whoever He wishes. I believe that anyone can believe in God. God gave us all free will so that we can all choose to believe in Him if we want.

You believe this without any evidence.

I’m also guessing you were raised in a home with parents that believed, and this is a normal way of thinking and living and the whole tradition package that comes with it that becomes a part of you like breathing.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

The facts themselves come from credible sources. They have been cited on the page if you are so inclined. Lord forbid you actually take some time to find the truth, rather than just dismissing any conclusion you don’t like when the first excuse presents itself.

Ummmm… what makes you think the source is credible? Did you actually look into the credibility of the source? Richard Lynn’s methodology is pretty widely panned, for what seem to be some pretty good reasons. In another of his heavily criticized studies, he argued that blacks were genetically inferior to whites and the Chinese when it comes to intelligence. Are you equally eager to accept his conclusions in “Race Differences in Intelligence”, or would you try to dismiss his conclusions in that book “when the first excuse presents itself”? Lord forbid you actually take some time to find the truth.

 

[mark_brenneman]

You believe this without any evidence.

I’m also guessing you were raised in a home with parents that believed, and this is a normal way of thinking and living and the whole tradition package that comes with it that becomes a part of you like breathing.

• With this graceful modern theology and with the survival of this older idea we have a singular organic agenda, more graceful the truth no matter how conventional its your grace and His INRI (VS·NAZARENVS·REX·IVDÆORVM) always as it permits as always of Mercy. Perhaps we may ask why. It is not to believe.
• To assess empirical significance of propagandistic statement results with perceptual aberration and social and physical anhedonia [a key symptom] if they incorporate measures of the No god, and no “god gene”, either [schizotypy] in non-psychotic relatives. Differences in eating habits as symbols of collective identities [Max Planck Inst.] such as the semi-institutional environment Altruism and charitable giving. For a gene that’s undergone a recent selective sweep, everyone in the population will have an identical (or nearly identical) DNA sequence The [serine/threonine](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18497888?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_PMC&linkpos=1&log$=cited(name removed by moderator)mcarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed){SeqRef. protein kinase AKT (also known as PKB) signaling pathway when given into the paraventricular nucleus. The shuffling of the genes that occurs with sexual reproductions positive selective pressure. That means that a bunch of other useless changes (and possibly a few harmful ones) will also be taken along for the ride. This has lead to major advances in the neuroscience of reward including (implicit ‘liking’ and conscious pleasure) and motivation (implicit incentive salience ‘wanting’ and cognitive incentive goals.

 

[Lizziebel]

They exist whether or not we ever find it, but saying “we haven’t found it yet” is a lot different from saying “it’s impossible to find it” If it’s impossible to find, that means it doesn’t ever affect anything from our world ever, which is what it means not to exist. If it does, then I see no reason why it would be impossible to test scientifically.

Yes, they exist whether or not we ever find it. To say, “It’s impossible to find it,” means essentially that it can’t be found given the current state of our ability to detect whatever it is. So we may not yet be able to find it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we can say now for sure that we never will.

There are parts of our universe now that have long gone past the edge of the visible universe. They’ll probably never again affect us here on earth. We’ll probably never again see their light, and they will likely be impossible to find again.

At least, we can say they’re impossible to find with our current technology. One day, though, who knows? It may very well be a case of “we can’t find it yet.” Technology advances, and scientists may one day discover a way to detect somehow what’s beyond the visible edge of the universe. Or maybe not.

But whatever’s there continues to exist whether or not it affects us.

 

[Mersenne]

Ummmm… what makes you think the source is credible? Did you actually look into the credibility of the source? Richard Lynn’s methodology is pretty widely panned, for what seem to be some pretty good reasons. In another of his heavily criticized studies, he argued that blacks were genetically inferior to whites and the Chinese when it comes to intelligence. Are you equally eager to accept his conclusions in “Race Differences in Intelligence”, or would you try to dismiss his conclusions in that book “when the first excuse presents itself”? Lord forbid you actually take some time to find the truth.

I got the impression that the conclusions did not come from Richard Lynn, just the IQ data. The religiosity data come from a different source. Were Richard Lynn’s methodology panned in terms of his reasoning and conclusions or his data gathering?

Besides, I don’t really need either Richard Lynn’s or that website’s conclusions, I’d rather argue the case myself. And the only thing I was pointing out was that there was evidence for a connection, which is all correlation shows. It does leave us with one of three conclusions, religion causes a lack of IQ, a lack of IQ causes people to be religious, or some third thing causes people to both be religious and to not have high IQ. I don’t think this really bodes well for religion either way but I will admit it is not terribly meaningful.

 

[Mersenne]

Yes, they exist whether or not we ever find it. To say, “It’s impossible to find it,” means essentially that it can’t be found given the current state of our ability to detect whatever it is. So we may not yet be able to find it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we can say now for sure that we never will.

There are parts of our universe now that have long gone past the edge of the visible universe. They’ll probably never again affect us here on earth. We’ll probably never again see their light, and they will likely be impossible to find again.

At least, we can say they’re impossible to find with our current technology. One day, though, who knows? It may very well be a case of “we can’t find it yet.” Technology advances, and scientists may one day discover a way to detect somehow what’s beyond the visible edge of the universe. Or maybe not.

But whatever’s there continues to exist whether or not it affects us.

No, that’s not what impossible means. Impossible does not mean hard.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I got the impression that the conclusions did not come from Richard Lynn, just the IQ data. The religiosity data come from a different source. Were Richard Lynn’s methodology panned in terms of his reasoning and conclusions or his data gathering?.

Both. For some countries, he calculates the IQ based on a survey of less than 100 young children. These surveys were not representative and were not of large enough groups to draw real conclusions. And for other countries he had no data and merely guessed based on how other countries of the same “racial group” as that country scored. His reasoning is also deeply flawed because he omits other crucial variables. IQ scores are not purely a measure of some kind of innate intelligence and people in wealthier countries with better educational systems tend to score higher. By leaving out crucial variables like this, it’s unclear whether there is any kind of causal relationship at all between IQ and religion.

Besides, I don’t really need either Richard Lynn’s or that website’s conclusions, I’d rather argue the case myself. And the only thing I was pointing out was that there was evidence for a connection, which is all correlation shows. It does leave us with one of three conclusions, religion causes a lack of IQ, a lack of IQ causes people to be religious, or some third thing causes people to both be religious and to not have high IQ. I don’t think this really bodes well for religion either way but I will admit it is not terribly meaningful.

First of all, I wouldn’t try to draw any reliable conclusions from such a poorly assembled data set. However, let’s assume there remains some sort of correlation, as seems likely. I don’t see how this necessarily shows anything bad for religion. I think that even most religious people would say that religion is most important to them when times are tough. Pretty much Lynn’s entire correlation is based on very poor countries where the average IQ is significantly lower than average. This could be interpreted in several ways, some of which look bad for religion, but it could just be that those who have to struggle to feed and clothe their families value their faith more highly. I mean the survey was of “percent who say religion is very important”, so leaving aside some of the other problems with this study, this would not show that more intelligent people are less likely to believe, just that people who have to constantly struggle just to get by value their faith more highly than those who have it relatively easy.

Epiphenom also did a couple interesting posts relating to this which you’ll find if you Google Richard Lynn Epiphenom.

If you’ll permit me to press you a little bit, I wonder what your initial thoughts were when I mentioned his study (using the same IQ data) which claimed to show that blacks are genetically far inferior to whites when it comes to intelligence. Did you just accept it, or did you figure there was probably a flaw in his methodology? I think we all have some degree of bias where we embrace studies agreeing with our preconceived notions, but assume that those differing with our preconceived notions must be flawed.

 

[Mersenne]

Both. For some countries, he calculates the IQ based on a survey of less than 100 young children. These surveys were not representative and were not of large enough groups to draw real conclusions. And for other countries he had no data and merely guessed based on how other countries of the same “racial group” as that country scored. His reasoning is also deeply flawed because he omits other crucial variables. IQ scores are not purely a measure of some kind of innate intelligence and people in wealthier countries with better educational systems tend to score higher. By leaving out crucial variables like this, it’s unclear whether there is any kind of causal relationship at all between IQ and religion.

Fair enough then. It’s still not unreliable due to the website the data was posted on, but I will take your word that the source data it refers to is flawed.

First of all, I wouldn’t try to draw any reliable conclusions from such a poorly assembled data set. However, let’s assume there remains some sort of correlation, as seems likely. I don’t see how this necessarily shows anything bad for religion. I think that even most religious people would say that religion is most important to them when times are tough. Pretty much Lynn’s entire correlation is based on very poor countries where the average IQ is significantly lower than average. This could be interpreted in several ways, some of which look bad for religion, but it could just be that those who have to struggle to feed and clothe their families value their faith more highly. I mean the survey was of “percent who say religion is very important”, so leaving aside some of the other problems with this study, this would not show that more intelligent people are less likely to believe, just that people who have to constantly struggle just to get by value their faith more highly than those who have it relatively easy.

Well, it does show (assuming the data were valid) that people with more IQ are less likely to believe, it just doesn’t show that IQ is the cause. Even if poverty causes both low IQ and religious belief, it would still be a valid conclusion that if you grab someone with high IQ, they are likely to not value religion. But yes, as I said, you can’t necessarily say that low IQ causes people to be religious.

If you’ll permit me to press you a little bit, I wonder what your initial thoughts were when I mentioned his study (using the same IQ data) which claimed to show that blacks are genetically far inferior to whites when it comes to intelligence. Did you just accept it, or did you figure there was probably a flaw in his methodology? I think we all have some degree of bias where we embrace studies agreeing with our preconceived notions, but assume that those differing with our preconceived notions must be flawed.

I assumed there was a flaw. That is why I asked if there was a flaw in his reasoning or his data.

I am generally very skeptical of drawing strong conclusions off of correlational data, which is why I avoided making any. The original person I responded to simply asked “is there any evidence for a connection between the two” and correlational data is fair evidence for a connection, it just can’t be very specific about that connection.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Fair enough then. It’s still not unreliable due to the website the data was posted on, but I will take your word that the source data it refers to is flawed.

You don’t need to just take my word for it. Lynn and Vanhanen’s IQ data is heavily criticized in the review in Nature that I linked to earlier.

Well, it does show (assuming the data were valid) that people with more IQ are less likely to believe, it just doesn’t show that IQ is the cause. Even if poverty causes both low IQ and religious belief, it would still be a valid conclusion that if you grab someone with high IQ, they are likely to not value religion. But yes, as I said, you can’t necessarily say that low IQ causes people to be religious.

Just be careful about treating “percent who say religion is very important” as the same thing as “percent who believe”.

I assumed there was a flaw. That is why I asked if there was a flaw in his reasoning or his data.

I am generally very skeptical of drawing strong conclusions off of correlational data, which is why I avoided making any. The original person I responded to simply asked “is there any evidence for a connection between the two” and correlational data is fair evidence for a connection, it just can’t be very specific about that connection.

True, but I think the word ‘connection’ typically implies a meaningful relationship. If I said that there’s a connection between the number of churches a city has and the number of bars a city has, I think most people would assume that I’m trying to imply some sort of a relationship beyond the mere fact that heavily populated cities will have more of each.

 

[Lizziebel]

No, that’s not what impossible means. Impossible does not mean hard.

I’m not saying that impossible means hard.

It seems to be that you’re using the word in the sense that if something is impossible to find, it means we’ll never, ever figure out a way.

I’m saying that all we can really say is what’s possible or not for us now. Maybe we can’t detect something now, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never figure out how. Now is all we can speak to because we don’t know what the future will bring in terms of advancement in human knowledge and technology. To say we never will seems to be a pretty significant prediction about the future…one about which we can be mistaken.

 

[Mersenne]

I’m not saying that impossible means hard.

It seems to be that you’re using the word in the sense that if something is impossible to find, it means we’ll never, ever figure out a way.

Yes, that’s what impossible means. Impossible is like creating a triangle with 17 sides.

I’m saying that all we can really say is what’s possible or not for us now.

But that is not what was being claimed. What was being claimed is that there are certain classes of objects “the supernatural” the will forever fall outside the realm of science. They are impossible to know. God’s existence outside of science, as defined by most people, isn’t just a matter of getting a big enough ruler, testing him scientifically, so they claim, is impossible, like drawing a triangle with 17 sides. The trick such people use to try to get this claim to stick is that they switch definitions. First they start by using the real definition o impossible, then they switch to the way you are using it.

But it has to be one or the other. If it’s impossible by the real meaning of the word impossible, then supernatural things just don’t exist, including god, for the reasons I previously stated. If it’s impossible by your definition, that is, just not possible at the moment, but potentially possible in the future, then the claim is meaningless. There are plenty of things in science that we suspect might be true but don’t have the capacity to prove it yet. That hardly puts something outside science’s reach.

 

[Lizziebel]

I see a bit better now where you’re coming from.

I don’t pretend to make any claims as to what will or won’t be possible for us to study and measure. Certain things in the supernatural world are being studied scientifically. Some things may or may not ever be able to be.

Which brings us back to the original reason I posted on this thread. Just because we can’t prove it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Or, as in the case of God’s existence, that it doesn’t affect us in tangible or intangible ways.

It only means that we can’t *scientifically prove * for certain that it does.

 

[Mersenne]

I see a bit better now where you’re coming from.

I don’t pretend to make any claims as to what will or won’t be possible for us to study and measure. Certain things in the supernatural world are being studied scientifically. Some things may or may not ever be able to be.

Which brings us back to the original reason I posted on this thread. Just because we can’t prove it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Or, as in the case of God’s existence, that it doesn’t affect us in tangible or intangible ways.

It only means that we can’t *scientifically prove * for certain that it does.

Well, in the context of what you originally responded to, that was the claim being discussed.