Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA03485 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 24 Sep 2001 01:34:03 +0100 X-Originating-IP: [209.240.220.151] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Dawkins was right all along Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 20:26:59 -0400 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F227e2U8QVjp3b6uIU100003de6@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 24 Sep 2001 00:27:00.0109 (UTC) FILETIME=[A02843D0:01C1448F] Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: Re: Dawkins was right all along
>Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 17:50:46 -0400
>
>Hi Bill Spight -
>
> >Please show how learning is, by definition, necessary for belief, using
> >the dictionary definition.
>
>A belief is "Something believed or accepted as true, especially a
>particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons."
>
>I fail to see how believing tenets accepted by a group of persons is not
>a learned behavior.
>
>But, really, semantics and definitions aside, religion _is_ a learned
>behavior. Period. It is not innate. Acting as the agent of a religion is
>a learned behavior. Period. It is not innate. Accepting rewards in an
>afterlife is a belief, and beliefs are tenets held _without evidence_.
>Learned tenets.
>
>Explain how one gets tales of an afterlife without being taught same.
>
>
There could be an innate or heritable underbelly to the generation of
religious belief, whether adaptive or non-adaptive. OTOH, there might not be
such an innate bias. I guess it depends on whether there's a "God module" or
not.
Any adaptiveness to such a bias would not justify religion in itself, a
distinction averting a plunge into the sticky realm of the so called
naturalistic fallacy.
Aside from a putative predisposing underbelly, the beliefs in religions are
probably learned. The beliefs themselves, as ideas, could not be inherited
in the genetic sense.
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