I'd recommend reading Paul Bloom's Descartes' Baby. Bloom is a cognitive scientist and he made some tests with babies to study the conception of soul/body dualism and the data he collected suggests that babies are naturally predisposed to believe in the existence of souls, and also Creationism, in an intellectual design giving order to things. Therefore, Bloom concludes, one learns to become an atheist.
Originally Posted by Heteronym
That's the first time I've ever heard anyone suggest that something might be true because two-year-olds tend to believe it.
It's more complicated than that. It's not what children believe. Bloom wasn't asking them questions, some weren't even old enough to speak. He studied their reactions in tests and concluded from their behavior that children are prone to see a design in things, expect things to work in a certain way and follow an order.
Good point but I think spirituality could be a more precise word than religion: spirituality is an individual thing, the quest for meaning in life could be an innate feeling, religion is only one of the possible answers to this common human need but so is atheism.
Quite. There's no reason why the search for meaning in life - if it's an imperative at all - should necessarily be conducted in the realm of the spiritual.
So, this bloke subjectively interprets what he sees, then uses it to come to a conclusion that children are innately disposed to believe in creationism?
Having read some of his findings, I think someone ought to remind him that Lamarckism has been completely refuted.
Still, he's a great example of why psychologists and philosophers should get a science degree first.
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
I don't know what you've read by him or why the hostility towards him, but as a psychologist he is a a man of science and deserves benefit of the doubt. Plus his findings are shared by other people. This article is a quick sum of his ideas:
http://www.condition.org/nh95.htm
I would like to point out that I suggested this very same idea in the Children's Letters to God thread!
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
If there's one thing from which science should never derive benefit, it's doubt.
Books are a dangerous source to get scientific information from, often "science" books are published through small presses with agendas and aren't peer reviewed.
In the case of Bloom's book it is published by Basic Books, a publisher that specializes in popular science, and doesn't seem agenda driven. However, it is not an academic press and it's not likely Bloom's findings are anything more than his subjective views about psychology. Although, Bloom is also a respected cognitive scientist working out of Yale.
Anyway, from what I can glean from summaries is that Bloom is proposing that babies have inborn expectations about the physical world, as well as inborn expectations about intention and "the mind" so to speak. He then proposes that this gives rise to beliefs like creationism, because we expect intent in all things. This isn't the same as a belief in God being innate, like I said in my first post in this thread, the notion of a God like being is complex and requires a cultural foundation to exist. There's a reason why vague notions of fate are nearly universal across human cultures, but anthropomorphic deities are not.
I remain unconvinced that psychology is a science, but I have no hostility towards Bloom at all. (Funnily enough, that's my mother's maiden surname - I might even be related to him.)
Why should I give him (or anyone) a free pass? If he wanted to have a scientifically correct position, he would have published his findings for review.
My problem is best summed up - as usual - by an actual scientist:
The alleged results aren't peer-reviewed and can only ever be subjective. Having spent most of my life around kids, I find Bloom's ideas laughable, but I'll keep an open mind on the subject until further, and proper, research is conducted. That's as far as my benefit of doubt extends.
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
Interesting. I'm trying to think back to when I was a child and what I thought about God before I was biased by Christians to believe what they believe because, apparently, that's what is right. (Sarcasm.) And to tell you the truth, I never really put much thought into such matters when I was little (and by little, I mean before age...9 or so). But even when I went to Christian churches, I didn't fully understand why I went or who God was. It was just kind of a mindless routine to me. I'm pretty sure I thought, at the time, that most people in the world did the same sort of thing. Never understood why.
Actually I never was much of a philosopher in my childhood. But by the age of...10 or 11, I began to put thought into what God is and became an atheist by the age of 12. Nonetheless, I have always had a sort of innate feeling that something supernatural is out there, even though I do not believe it. I think everyone feels such a thing simply because we are curious human beings and we know so little about the grand scale of the cosmos. It is not necessarily an innate feeling because we believe in it, but because we are curious about its existence. I've been an atheist for a long time, but I think I will always have the innate feeling that something supernatural is out there.
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Last edited by LMK; 07-28-2010 at 11:33 PM.
I'd rather have questions that I can't answer than answers that I can't question.
Yes, very much so.
I do enjoy discussing the topic , and don't agree with some comments shared and do agree with other comments shared.
The difficulty that I have had in the discussion is the word 'God'. It seems to bring about such passion that discussion seems hindered.
I don't know if the idea of God is innate; perhaps the suggestion that the idea of something larger than one's self is true; be it a higher power, God, a series of Gods, the all encompassing energy of the universe, nirvana (a plane beyond life and death), whatever.
Do I know? No.
Does it matter? Not really, to me.
I think I would prefer the discussion without "God" and the assumed "Christianity" that seems to have attached itself to it, but it is not my thread.
Those are my thoughts as of now. Who knows if I will have an epiphany and have something new and insightful to share?
I'd rather have questions that I can't answer than answers that I can't question.
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