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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Can a baby know God?
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Black is the absence of colour, but electrons are not therefore black.
Not to get all sidetracked, but black is a color, not an absence of color. (Wouldn't the absence of color be "transparent"?)
It depends if you're thinking of colour as additive or subtractive. If additive, which is I think more intuitive, then the absence of any coloured light is black. If subtractive then white. Transparent is not the absence of colour: copper sulphate solution is transparent and blue.
quote:
As far as electrons go, if a black surface is one that absorbs all photons, then given that definition an unbound electron is black. An electron bound to an atomic nucleus, on the other hand, will only absorb photons of a certain wavelength, and could thus be color classified accordingly.
Perhaps a poor example then. Please substitute for 'electron' any particle that doesn't significantly interact with photons. Neutrinos? Otherwise, some abstract entity would make my point.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Sarah G
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# 11669
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Posted
It would appear that humans are hard-wired for religious belief, and there is an ongoing debate within evolutionary circles (and often atheists) about why this might be so (by-product vs. inherent advantage).
For example.
This is not functionally equivalent to a baby being born knowing God, but the DNA makes it tend to believe in God as it gets older.
Just as it would be odd to buy an expensive TV if there's no signal to receive, it seems odd that evolution has given this hard-wiring if there's no God to be perceived.
Posts: 514 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
Does anyone else like the novel Knowledge of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh, which tells of an attempt to find out whether knowledge of God is innate or learned ? In the story trying to find out doesn't turn out to be such a good idea, though that doesn't mean we shouldn't of course.
I've read the novel, but I don't particularly like it. It's too much a novel with a programme, and Paton Walsh uses her considerable powers to get you to condemn the religious authorities in the book. And, of course, the book's preferred answer is that babies have no innate knowledge of God, and she uses what she portrays as the betrayal of this innate innocence to stage a highly manipulative account of an auto da fe, designed to make the reader feel revulsion from organised religion.
I liked her earlier novel, The Serpentine Cave, though.
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Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle
http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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# 17687
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Posted
Yes. Absolutely!
Let me share with you a memory I have of my infancy. Why do I remember? Because it was both a miracle and a trial.
I was born a MONTH LATE, blue and not-breathing. They had to resuscitate me, and I was being given up for adoption because neither parent wanted to take responsibility for my existence.
Being a month late, I could SEE. Being an illegit kid of a charity case, I was relegated to the common nursery of a Catholic charity hospital run by nuns, who prayed over me.
That's the only reason I made it, because they prayed over this child who was so abandoned and disadvantaged.
I remember, lying on a surface, with curtains hanging between me and everything else, except that there was a clock abov e the door wshere people came in and out. And I remember I was expecting that something OUGHT TO HAPPEN.
But it didn't. People came and they went, and they ignored me because I had nobody here, to bond with me. so, I got to the point where I internally couldn't stand waiting anymore, and without words, I began scream, "What is going on here? Why am I just waiting here?"
And God heard me, and I felt HIM. And HE comforted me ... nobody else ... just God. And I bonded to and with HIM on that day, and I have never left His side til now.
On my honor, that is my truth, and I was fewer than five days old when this occurred.
Emily
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I say no. A newborn infant ‘knows’ nothing, by any sensible definition of the word. Hell, they don’t even know their own existence. Personhood emerges with knowledge of self, which in turn depends on such developmental processes as language and recollection of abstract thoughts, etc.
So, how can a baby know god?
Posts: 326 | From: California | Registered: May 2013
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
The neurology of infant development would not be consistent with your memory. Thus, you are a miracle. All the neonatally deceased infants in heaven are either singing praises about it, or filing complaints with the Miracles Department, which has been rather extensively downsized.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
Shipmate
# 17687
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Posted
LoL!
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
The neurology of infant development would not be consistent with your memory. Thus, you are a miracle. All the neonatally deceased infants in heaven are either singing praises about it, or filing complaints with the Miracles Department, which has been rather extensively downsized.
Posts: 326 | From: California | Registered: May 2013
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Posted
Babies don't know God, and neither does anyone else, I reckon.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
Shipmate
# 17687
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Posted
Speak for yourself, okay?
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Babies don't know God, and neither does anyone else, I reckon.
Posts: 326 | From: California | Registered: May 2013
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bib
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# 13074
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Posted
I contend that babies are closer to God than most adults. The problem with adults is that we move away from God and do our own thing.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
Shipmate
# 17687
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by bib:
I contend that babies are closer to God than most adults. The problem with adults is that we move away from God and do our own thing.
That's what makes sense to me, too.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Babies know God, I reckon, in the same way as they know their mothers. That is, they live in and by and through him, and have an experience probably almost wholly sensory-mediated of him--but I wouldn't expect that they can distinguish him very clearly from themselves, or even that they are aware of themselves as persons yet.
You don't have to know what the sun is to enjoy its warmth. Noticing the warmth is a form of knowledge, however primitive, and enjoying it--or not--is a response to that knowledge.
I'd argue furthermore that most adults aren't that far ahead of babies in their knowledge of God, so ...
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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# 17687
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Posted
With the heart one understands rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
"The Little Prince"
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
A baby's knowledge of God is not intellectual, it is mystical.
Meaning what, exactly?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
How does one separate projection from recollection? How does one quantify the, as yet, unverifiable?
Memories are funny things, we can have old memories of things which only recently occurred, our filing system for memories is far from accurate.
So, we are born knowing God, but as we grow we forget? Not reasonable, but ehh, no harm believing.
Oh, BTW, babies are not born knowing how to swim. Not exactly.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
Do dolphins, dogs and seaslugs also know God?
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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The Midge
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# 2398
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Posted
There seem to be two different concepts bouncing off each other here:
1) knowing God (as a presence)
2) knowing about God (as a numinous person with a beard)
Personally I'm agnostic about the beard. It is one of those things that is popular in pre-Raphaelite paintings and perpetuated by cartoons. The trouble we all have is that anything we say or write about God is by necessity symbolic and metaphorical. Sometimes These symbols and concepts are helpful and other times they can be confusing. Humans whether they realise it or not, have a habit of making God in their own image and possibly making a satan as a shadow to their own image too. The God as a monster view could be a sort of role reversal where the images of god become something to be loathed.
These sort of images are characters that The contemplative streams of christianity spend a lot of effort trying to get of or past order to get nearer to knowledge 2.
This issue drags up that old chestnut of original sin. This Is the concept that we are are all corrupted by a tendency to sin or turn away from God. So the new born could be born innocent with a knowledge of God and then this knowledge is progressively eroded by all the stuff that life, family dysfunctions and their own failings throw in the way. Exactly when this might happen is hard to say and is tied up with the issue of when exactly is an infant guilty of their own sin; the only answer for that can be offered here is "God only knows". It is possible that those with a mental disability might even remain in that innocent state to a far grater degree and keep surprising us with profound insights from time to time.
I believe In the need for continued conversion to overcome the theorists tendency to know lots about God but lack the Holy Spirit that is the knowledge of God's presence. I mean an awareness of God that can be a bit like colour blindness that may not be realised because that way of seeing is the way that I am used for. Thinking about it, it might also be said that the renewed knowledge of God a convert might gain could be eroded and corrupted in a similar way as our view gets cluttered by doctrine and practice or not bothering with our own disciplines. All this debate and passion within in the church is important in as far as it is the mechanism by which we seek to clarify and correct our vision. It is frustrating to realise that they very arguments and failings of the church that do so much to damage our knowledge of God are also our best hope of knowing God better this side of eternity.
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
@Evensong What does your last post mean? What is mystical?
@Emily I don't know about you but my heart pumps blood round my body. It's not a sense organ.
Surely the only honest answer to this question is "We don't know". Unless we were able to read minds how could it be otherwise?
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
When I was 2-and-a-bit I was taken to an Anglican church to be Christened. Standing with my parents (who were holding my little brother) and 2 sets of God-parents, I remember every single thing (even the pre-ceremony discussion if the Minister would hold me in his arms or I would stand).
I had never been anyplace like that and I so wished they would leave me there to get on with my own life.
The Priest, who probably called himself a Minister, was nothing special, neither was the church (rural NZ, wood inside and out and the usual "certain slant of light" one associates with that).
But I knew I was HOME and never wanted to leave.
Of course Mummy and Daddy took me home kicking and screaming to rot in Presbyterian mediocrity for the next 2 decades.
By the way, this is not my first ever memory (which was grass, the cottage, the vege garden, giving apples to the horse and worms to the poultry) nor my first date-able memory (my mother leaving to give birth to my brother when I was 18 months old)
[ 21. June 2013, 06:09: Message edited by: Galilit ]
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
What about the idea of pre-existence, expressed by Wordsworth in "Intimations of Immortality" - "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home..."? If we have immortal souls, would they not exist before we were born and is it inconceivable that babies may have memories of this although they can't express it?
Sounds like Platonic or Origenist metempsychosis which AFAIAA is not professed by any of the major Christian traditions.
Wordsworth was a windbag, and his "One impulse from a vernal wood / Can tell us more of man, / Of moral evil and of good / Than all the sages can" is one of the silliest things ever written.
However, I have my own version of Daffodils, called Pigface, because it is about the only flower I can recognise, and my wife loathes it, so I recite it to annoy her whenever we see any.
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
So do premature infants know God? How far back does this knowledge go? Does this happen before the lungs are developed enough to breathe? Before the brain develops?
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by bib:
I contend that babies are closer to God than most adults. The problem with adults is that we move away from God and do our own thing.
I certainly think that young children can have transcendent experiences, possibly because they are not yet consumed by ego.
However, I think adults also have them quite frequently; but, making the journey from that to the idea of God is not always automatic or easy.
It's difficult to say to what degree that is an intellectual shift. As Evensong says, there can be a mystical apprehension.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
As far as I can remember back - when I was very small I assumed God was real because everyone talked about him as if he was. As soon as I started to think independently I became an atheist. At the age of about 6 I thought I was the only atheist in the world and couldn't work out why everyone else didn't realise God wasn't real.
I remained an atheist until I was about 12 or so. So I'm unconvinced about the idea of young children having knowledge of God.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
There's a difference between knowledge and experience. I think that young children can experience the divine; but I doubt they can intellectually defend the proposition that 'God exists'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
Just as it would be odd to buy an expensive TV if there's no signal to receive, it seems odd that evolution has given this hard-wiring if there's no God to be perceived.
Ah, argument from incredulity, always a winner.
No doubt you also believe that these lines aren't really straight and these lines are really different lengths. After all, it seems odd that evolution would give us the hard-wiring to see them wrongly.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There's a difference between knowledge and experience. I think that young children can experience the divine; but I doubt they can intellectually defend the proposition that 'God exists'.
You could put "experience" instead of "knowledge" in my last paragraph and it'd still stand.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
My babies looked incredibly spiritually aware and turned on and tuned in once their eyes could focus on mine. I thought they possessed the answers to life, the universe and everything.
I get the same impression when I look at a cat. Or a particularly wise-looking face that's appeared in the random growth of a tree's bark. Doesn't mean they do.
Knowledge of God has to be revealed to us, by God, and by those who know Him. To claim it naturally occurs at birth, or is hardwired into us, is to claim there's no point in evangelism, or even in Jesus bothering to come to earth to reveal God to man. If everyone is born already knowing God, what's the point in telling them about Him.
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
What about the idea of pre-existence, expressed by Wordsworth in "Intimations of Immortality" - "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home..."? If we have immortal souls, would they not exist before we were born and is it inconceivable that babies may have memories of this although they can't express it?
AFAIK Christianity beleives in life after death, not life before life. God may create us and give us immortality, but to claim we are naturally immortal is to say we are of the same substance as God Himself. Which is heretical IMO. Possibly an incursion into our thought from eastern spirituality which is all about immortal souls being incarnated into different bodies one after the other.
Wordsworth was a romantic poet. Which meant he liked to make stuff up that sounded deep and meaningful if you didn't think too hard, (or were high on opium).
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
My babies looked incredibly spiritually aware and turned on and tuned in once their eyes could focus on mine. I thought they possessed the answers to life, the universe and everything.
I get the same impression when I look at a cat.
Cats are really good at this, but all the idiotic things are actually thinking is "breathe in.... breathe out.... breathe in.... breathe out...."
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
What about the idea of pre-existence, expressed by Wordsworth in "Intimations of Immortality" - "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home..."? If we have immortal souls, would they not exist before we were born and is it inconceivable that babies may have memories of this although they can't express it?
AFAIK Christianity beleives in life after death, not life before life. God may create us and give us immortality, but to claim we are naturally immortal is to say we are of the same substance as God Himself. Which is heretical IMO. Possibly an incursion into our thought from eastern spirituality which is all about immortal souls being incarnated into different bodies one after the other.
Wordsworth was a romantic poet. Which meant he liked to make stuff up that sounded deep and meaningful if you didn't think too hard, (or were high on opium).
That's both harsh and wrong. Wordsworth wasn't the one who took opium, and the one who did (Coleridge) was one of the greatest minds of his time. The concept of the life before life has a long pedigree, most notably for the Romantics in neo-Platonist thought. 'Intimations of Immortality in Early Childhood' is generally accepted to be one of Wordsworth's most intellectually-grounded poems. He didn't just make stuff up -- he thought through his poetry about time and space, about love, memory, God, the self, relationships with others.
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Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle
http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
A baby's knowledge of God is not intellectual, it is mystical.
Meaning what, exactly?
You want me to define mysticism?
I said on the other thread:
quote:
No. We are born theists. God creates souls and they are born. Newborns have innate, intrinsic knowledge of God. They lose this later as they become more human and are subject to human limitations.
We come from God (we are born) we go to God (we die).
We are helpless and have no mental faculties when we are born. We are often helpless and our mental faculties are often diminished when we die.
Mysticism is knowing God beyond the intellect or the emotions. It's a kind of "at-one-ness" or peace with ourselves, others and God. It's actually much, much more powerful than intellectual knowledge of God.
Seeing as how babies just came from God I don't see why they are not at-one with God in this mystical sense (unless they're hungry etc.)
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Surely the only honest answer to this question is "We don't know". Unless we were able to read minds how could it be otherwise?
Of course it is George Spigot. But this is a bulletin board and 95% of what we say is pure conjecture and opinion. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
It would appear that humans are hard-wired for religious belief, ...
<snip>
Just as it would be odd to buy an expensive TV if there's no signal to receive, it seems odd that evolution has given this hard-wiring if there's no God to be perceived.
Or perhaps the word 'religion' should be replaced by another with far, far fewer connotations of God/god/s.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
When I was 2-and-a-bit I was taken to an Anglican church to be Christened. Standing with my parents (who were holding my little brother) and 2 sets of God-parents, I remember every single thing (even the pre-ceremony discussion if the Minister would hold me in his arms or I would stand).
I had never been anyplace like that and I so wished they would leave me there to get on with my own life.
The Priest, who probably called himself a Minister, was nothing special, neither was the church (rural NZ, wood inside and out and the usual "certain slant of light" one associates with that).
But I knew I was HOME and never wanted to leave.
That's a very cool story.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I've obviously silenced you all.
In a good way. I'm finding what everyone has said very interesting - especially your comments
Nen - doing lots of thinking.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
It would appear that humans are hard-wired for religious belief, and there is an ongoing debate within evolutionary circles (and often atheists) about why this might be so (by-product vs. inherent advantage).
I once heard a lecture by an atheist academic who posited that belief in God - or rather the sense that we are all being watched - had evolutionary advantages, and developed for this reason. Presumably he also sees this inclination in babies.
The book being promoting was Jesse Behring, 'The God Instinct'. I think it's entitled 'The Belief Instinct' in some countries.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Studies with young children show they cheat less when they think someon is watching. Even should hat someone be an invisible person they do not quite believe in.
One study put a chair in the room and the children were told of an invisible princess sitting there, watching them. Even after feeling for her and not finding her, they cheated less than children who were not told they were being observed.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I've obviously silenced you all.
FTW
Yes, silence is just what is wanted on a discussion site.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I've obviously silenced you all.
FTW
Yes, silence is just what is wanted on a discussion site.
I'm still waiting for the answer to my question about premature infants from those who believe babies have an innate knowledge of God.
{crickets.....}
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I've obviously silenced you all.
FTW
Yes, silence is just what is wanted on a discussion site.
I'm still waiting for the answer to my question about premature infants from those who believe babies have an innate knowledge of God.
{crickets.....}
I think it's possible. But not the sort of knowledge that comes from rational brain processes and senses as we experience them, more of the mystical knowledge that Evensong describes. Hard to prove - or disprove.
Nen - rethinking a lot of things these days.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Nenya, have you stopped beating your wife?
It's not binary Nenya. Not 50:50. It's 100:0 I feel a neo-Thomist approach burgeoning (and no IngoB, don't get out the insurance manual please).
Or perhaps an existentially phenomenological one.
Anything else is just poetry.
And no I'm not a rationalist and in fact I'm a vitalist as I do not believe that mind is an epiphenomenon of matter.
My first premiss is God. The hypostasis. The ground of being. He thinks us autonomously thinking. How we develop to that point in our first two years as land animals and previously as aquatics we don't know. We cannot EVER know Him until the resurrection to transcendence and even then.
But it will suffice.
What did Jesus know before He had a conscious narrative? Up until right now I assumed He was in some ineffable way in communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Right now I question that for the first time. He had two natures, two wills perichoretic in one person. So He couldn't know God either whilst having His nature. Or He wouldn't have been human.
Wow!
Am I wrong IngoB? Yes or no will suffice if that's what Aquinas says. Your actual adduced, rhetorical opinion would be better.
And IngoB, is quantum mechanics necessary or contingent?
[ 23. June 2013, 10:41: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
I find your post quite hard to understand, Martin. If you want a response from me could you make it clear what you'd like me to address? Although it sounds as though you'd rather hear from IngoB. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Nen - hopefully not being too obtuse.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
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Sarah G
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# 11669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
Just as it would be odd to buy an expensive TV if there's no signal to receive, it seems odd that evolution has given this hard-wiring if there's no God to be perceived.
Ah, argument from incredulity, always a winner.
No doubt you also believe that these lines aren't really straight and these lines are really different lengths. After all, it seems odd that evolution would give us the hard-wiring to see them wrongly.
Apologies for not getting back sooner, but events intervened.
I'm not sure I would put it in quite this way. Indeed, I'm conscious that, especially in what is a relatively new field, an explanation may be developed which has good explanatory power. However I don't see it yet.
The question of why religious belief has evolved as hard-wired remains unclosed, and “Because God wants us to know He's there” seems a strong workmanlike explanation, while certainly not being conclusively the only one. It still remains odd that we are designed to perceive what doesn't exist.
Now one explanation given for optical illusions, such as you linked to, would be that evolution isn't done with us yet. We see the illusions because our visual processes haven't evolved, not because they have evolved strangely for some reason.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
It's not really odd to have evolved (not designed) to perceive what doesn't exist. Watch a bird in your garden, or in the park, it is continually on the look-out for what doesn't exist, but what might exist, e.g. predator, food, mate.
In other words, many animals are alert to stuff that doesn't exist, but might.
I'm not saying this is an explanation of religion or God, since I don't really go for just-so stories, but it does explain why animals are on the look-out.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
There is an Akan (Ghana) proverb: "You don't need to teach a child about God." or: "No one points out God to a child."
Which would tend to put most Sunday School teachers out of a job.
To which Cerosos replied,
Seriously though, if children all come pre-programmed to know all about God, why the intense amount of effort to provide them with religious education? Seems like an enormous waste of effort.
I agree many religious educators are busy telling children about God when they should be asking, "Tell me what you know about God."
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Nenya - it's me not you. And no, I wouldn't rather hear from IngoB, but he will have some magisterial opinion on the subject, one way or another.
As no adult knows God, I see no reason to extrapolate the utterly unknowing as knowing Him.
The question being asked and that conclusion crystallizing led to the realization that it must have been so for Jesus.
Despite Him feeling forsaken only as He died. And whatever made John the Baptist leap in the womb at six months.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sarah G
Shipmate
# 11669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's not really odd to have evolved (not designed) to perceive what doesn't exist. Watch a bird in your garden, or in the park, it is continually on the look-out for what doesn't exist, but what might exist, e.g. predator, food, mate.
In other words, many animals are alert to stuff that doesn't exist, but might.
I'm not saying this is an explanation of religion or God, since I don't really go for just-so stories, but it does explain why animals are on the look-out.
It's an interesting parallel, but I don't feel it fits. There are real predators.
The birds have evolved to react to something that does exist, and is sometimes there. Which highlights why it would be odd if we had evolved to react to something that doesn't exist, and is never there.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Sarah G
So what's your argument? That God must exist, otherwise we wouldn't have evolved a mind to think about him? Hmm.
Does that mean that unicorns and mermaids must exist?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
Ok I googled mystical and came up with this:
1. Of or having a spiritual reality or import not apparent to the intelligence or senses.
2. Of, relating to, or stemming from direct communion with ultimate reality or God: a mystical religion.
3. Enigmatic; obscure: mystical theories about the securities market.
4. Of or relating to mystic rites or practices.
5. Unintelligible; cryptic.
So in the context of this thread saying that babies gain knowledge of god via mystical means is saying.....what?
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
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The Midge
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# 2398
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Posted
Probably option 2: being what we are born with. Possibly with shades of 1.
Though it has to be said that Mysticism is a slippery term. Bernard Mc Ginn as Cited by Denys Turner in Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (OUP 2000)
quote:
No mystics (at least before the 20th Century believed or practised 'mysticism'
Turner goes on to discuss how experiential mysticism is culturally conditioned. Therefore it is unlikely that practitioners are talking about the same thing.
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
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