Children are born believers in God, academic claims

[جوري]

The level of condescension and silliness that atheists often stoop when challenged on their basic beliefs is worthy of notice.

between it is childish to believe or monsters in the closet and God knows what else is coming next.. pls if you can't keep your comments within the contents and to a level, there is no point in commenting at all.. This is the health and science section so keep it the level of science and research and not your personal feelings or beliefs!

all the best

 

[Azy]

Then what in your opinion is the purpose?

As you say, my opinion doesn't matter, but there are other alternatives. Everything might be a free agent with it's own purpose.

You can't fess up to disliking the subject matter and admitting flexibility at the same time, obviously your former point will issue some bias.

Disliking a thing doesn't mean I can't accept it.

Again, I don't see how you can comment on that, not having been there to see if there were detrimental confounders.

And I suppose you don't get suspicious when the dairy industry 'donates' money to policy makers.

some atheist fellow produced a report... would that report be deemed more satisfactory and believable because it embraces your own personal bias, or because it is conducted by an atheist rather than for its scientific approach and integrity of the research?

Yeah, personal bias every time baby. Bulldoze the churches, Nick Griffin for PM.

but there is no solid grounding in atheism just the same.

You don't really need a solid grounding not to believe a thing...

almost a stab at the very citadel of their worship..

Scientific study proves science is flawed?

 

[Hejazy .]

Asalam alaikum warahmatulah Wabarakatuh

Really it`s a very nice topic

May Allah bless u .

 

[جوري]

As you say, my opinion doesn't matter, but there are other alternatives. Everything might be a free agent with it's own purpose.
Disliking a thing doesn't mean I can't accept it.

Your opinion can only matter if you are able to parley it into some verifiable data, until such a time, it stands on equal grounds as every other opinion.. yes some opinions are more absurd than others, that is why folks develop criteria.. as an aside..
how do you judge someone is an alcoholic?
17 year old kid, brought in by his parents because he drinks alcohol, and the kid boasts, I can drink even more now to get the same effects..
does the above mean this kid is an alcoholic?
well it seems he is, observation from parents, and he needs more to get a buzz.. in fact only one criteria is met out of eight which is that of drinking more, not even direct observation by his parents of his behavior qualifies as evidence here. In scientific studies with no palpable data you can only set stringent criteria.. feelings and opinions still wouldn't count!

And I suppose you don't get suspicious when the dairy industry 'donates' money to policy makers.

Irrelevant to this study-- & irrelevant to the study of atheists being more altruistic. I can only judge based on individual merits!

Yeah, personal bias every time baby. Bulldoze the churches, Nick Griffin for PM.

No clue what this means?

You don't really need a solid grounding not to believe a thing...
Scientific study proves science is flawed?

It depends on your integrity of the research you are conducting and indeed many trials have proven alot of 'science' flawed...
treating syphilis by introducing Malaria might have been very scientific at some point, with the logic and science that spirochetes didn't survive high temperature of a body in fever, but is rather hilarious by our modern standards .. science is ever correcting and changing, 200 year old science might have been very avant-garde for its time, but holds no relevance in face of newer advances or acquisition of new information!

all the best

 

[Trumble]

What you said has no bearing on the research, it is your own opinion, what we can safely conclude from the report is that it is instinctive to believe in God...

I don't see how you can 'safely conclude' any more than that children have a tendency at an early age to assign teleological explanations to what they experience rather than natural ones? Even 'instinctive' seems questionable; I'll accept that this preference hasn't been learned from adults but I see no reason it wouldn't follow (by analogy) from childrens' direct experience of themselves as causative agents?

 

[جوري]

I don't see how you can 'safely conclude' any more than that children have a tendency at an early age to assign teleological explanations to what they experience rather than natural ones? Even 'instinctive' seems questionable; I'll accept that this preference hasn't been learned from adults but I see no reason it wouldn't follow (by analogy) from childrens' direct experience of themselves as causative agents?

what do you mean by 'tendency at an early age to assign teleological explanations to what they experience rather than natural ones'??

all the best

 

[Trumble]

what do you mean by 'tendency at an early age to assign teleological explanations to what they experience rather than natural ones'??

On that assumption that children are seeking (intuitively, presumably) to create a coherent picture of the world around them in order that they may successfully interact with it, they will presumably seek to assign reasons for things. According to the research, they seem to assume the events they experience are caused by an active causal agent with a design or purpose rather than by natural physical processes - such as those occurring in meteorological phenomena, for example - that do not involve such an agent. Presumably the nature of the agent, and hence the explanation assigned, depends on the phenomena experienced. Mundane events would be assigned to other human beings, should any be present. In the case though of, say, a thunderstorm, the child could not relate it to anything they themselves could cause, and hence that a human being could cause, and will therefore need to come up with an alternative such as God, gods or nature spirits.

I am simply floating the suggestion that this behaviour could be, in fact, learned by children from their own experience (in the best empiricist tradition!) rather than being 'instinctive'. They know they can make things happen when they want, and therefore assume that whenever anything happens it is because something or someone wants it to. Obviously, as children grow older teleological explanations are discarded in many cases as they become more familiar with the physical processes going on in the world around them.

 

[جوري]

On that assumption that children are seeking (intuitively, presumably) to create a coherent picture of the world around them in order that they may successfully interact with it, they will presumably seek to assign reasons for things. According to the research, they seem to assume the events they experience are caused by an active causal agent with a design or purpose rather than by natural physical processes - such as those occurring in meteorological phenomena, for example - that do not involve such an agent. Presumably the nature of the agent, and hence the explanation assigned, depends on the phenomena experienced. Mundane events would be assigned to other human beings, should any be present. In the case though of, say, a thunderstorm, the child could not relate it to anything they themselves could cause, and hence that a human being could cause, and will therefore need to come up with an alternative such as God, gods or nature spirits.

I am simply floating the suggestion that this behaviour could be, in fact, learned by children from their own experience (in the best empirical tradition!) rather than being 'instinctive'. They know they can make things happen when they want, and therefore assume that whenever anything happens it is because something or someone wants it to. Obviously, as children grow older teleological explanations are discarded in many cases as they become more familiar with the physical processes going on in the world around them.

I can accept in part what you propose here.. the only problem is what you deem 'natural phenomenon' relies on an imaginary line or standard by which things are measured or compared but does not in and of itself offer more than a superficial account, since it is only concerned with explaining the obvious.
Why do we have glycolysis? so we can turn glucose into pyruvate, why do we need this conversion process, so we can harness energy, why do we need to harness energy, so we can survive, why do we need to survive? at some point you'll run out of 'natural explanations' why are we here, how did glycolysis get integrated into our bodies, when did it first come to be, how does it know to work in concert with other biochemical processes, why are there no futile cycles, why do all these biochemical reactions have a rate limiting step except for the urea cycle, how did the urea cycle know not to have a rate limiting step and so on and so on, try that times an infinite number to account for all the things we don't actually have more than a how it works rather than why...

children have that nidus and superficial answers might please them, they acquire more as adults that is true indeed, but some adults are happy with the 'natural response' though they can't account for the very specialized aspects of it and thus leave it for the day when deeper perception and reasoning of said 'Natural processes' -- while other adults tread the same path and acquiring more than what they started off with come with the same conclusion they held as children.. it is indeed what we call fitrah and I didn't personally need research to prove it.. but it was nice to see nonetheless on the account that many deem children to be born atheists.. I have no expectations from children for many obvious reasons, but being on the path of discovery, they are indeed equipped with this inherent response to the world around them.


all the best

 

[nebula]

Children are born believers...

Children are born believers in God, academic claims

Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic.

Dr. Barrett: "If we threw a handful on an island and they raised themselves I think they would believe in God." Photo: John Taylor

Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.

He says that young children have faith even when they have not been taught about it by family or at school, and argues that even those raised alone on a desert island would come to believe in God.

"The preponderance of scientific evidence for the past 10 years or so has shown that a lot more seems to be built into the natural development of children's minds than we once thought, including a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and purposeful and that some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"If we threw a handful on an island and they raised themselves I think they would believe in God."

In a lecture to be given at the University of Cambridge's Faraday Institute on Tuesday, Dr Barrett will cite psychological experiments carried out on children that he says show they instinctively believe that almost everything has been designed with a specific purpose.

In one study, six and seven-year-olds who were asked why the first bird existed replied "to make nice music" and "because it makes the world look nice".

Another experiment on 12-month-old babies suggested that they were surprised by a film in which a rolling ball apparently created a neat stack of blocks from a disordered heap.

Dr Barrett said there is evidence that even by the age of four, children understand that although some objects are made by humans, the natural world is different.

He added that this means children are more likely to believe in creationism rather than evolution, despite what they may be told by parents or teachers.

Dr Barrett claimed anthropologists have found that in some cultures children believe in God even when religious teachings are withheld from them.

"Children's normally and naturally developing minds make them prone to believe in divine creation and intelligent design. In contrast, evolution is unnatural for human minds; relatively difficult to believe."

source

 

[Supreme]

Re: Children are born believers...

I thought this was already established knowledge? It's logical to assume that children left on an island would up god/s for comfort and hope anyway, it's human nature. Man has been worshipping since its creation.

 

[Ramadhan]

Re: Children are born believers...

I thought this was already established knowledge? It's logical to assume that children left on an island would up god/s for comfort and hope anyway, it's human nature. Man has been worshipping since its creation.

Mind you, we have agnostics here who completely disagree with that. No matter how absurd that sounds.