I'm not trying to rekindle any religion or evolution debates, but the Proceedings of the Royal Society (UK) has published an article touting the evolutionary advantage of religion. I haven't read it yet, but is that ironic or what?
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the evolutionary advantage of religion
- Thread starter herenorthere
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LOL! I can't see how that would be beneficial at all. Not only has it collectively killed a bunch of people, but its leaders always seem to be safe, and they are usually the dumbest ones. I guess the Royal Society is attempting to prove blindly believing fairy tales confers some sort of advantage on humans?
I haven't read it yet, but it apparently has to do with religious factions dividing a population into groups and making the overall population more resilient against infectious disease. There has to be more to it than that, but I only skimmed the abstract last night and will read the article in the next few days.
Definitely lol. People that think we evolved straight from monkeys have no understanding of the concept of evolution, and thus aren't qualified to pass judgment on it at all. 
this could be copied and placed smack in the middle of a discussion on politics and fit perfectly.
This brings to mind a book I read a while ago called "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". Part of the claim of the book was that religion was the results of the two hemispheres in the brain working independently of each other early in human history. One hemisphere in charge of decision making and the other in carrying out those decisions. Apparently the half of the brain that said "hey do this" was perceived as a god or something like that and religion is derived from that. Kinda an interesting and weird book if anyone really wants to read through it. Sorry if I massacred the synopsis of the book if anyone remembers it better than me...it has been a while but I thought if anyone was really interested in the topic of the science behind religion this would be something I'd suggest. Plus there is all kinds of painful philosophical discussion behind was exactly is consciousness and other deep things like that. I know I skipped most of that
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ma...rid=&xml=/earth/2008/07/30/scireligion130.xml
That's the closest I can find.
That's the closest I can find.
I haven't been able to find the original article, but I found this:
http://homoeconomicusnet.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/evolution-and-religion/
The hypothesis, apparently, is that in areas with lots of diseases, anything that prevents group intermingling, including religious taboos, will be stronger, and thus there will be more religions in such areas.
Honestly, I can think of several huge problems with that right away, including whether or not they actually quantified how religion (or particular ones) affects movement, whether or not the diseases are even affected by movement (for instance, group interaction or lack thereof will have no effect on mortality due to the most deadly historical disease, malaria or any other vector-borne pathogen), and whether or not the number of religions is actually a Product of disease limiting the group size and thus leading to divergences in beliefs.
herenorthere, can you send me the PDF - I don't seem to have access to the current issue yet.
Mokele
http://homoeconomicusnet.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/evolution-and-religion/
The hypothesis, apparently, is that in areas with lots of diseases, anything that prevents group intermingling, including religious taboos, will be stronger, and thus there will be more religions in such areas.
Honestly, I can think of several huge problems with that right away, including whether or not they actually quantified how religion (or particular ones) affects movement, whether or not the diseases are even affected by movement (for instance, group interaction or lack thereof will have no effect on mortality due to the most deadly historical disease, malaria or any other vector-borne pathogen), and whether or not the number of religions is actually a Product of disease limiting the group size and thus leading to divergences in beliefs.
herenorthere, can you send me the PDF - I don't seem to have access to the current issue yet.
Mokele
A lot of anthropologists have written about how religion/superstition can benefit society. The underlying premise is that if having religion/superstition didn't provide an advantage, humans wouldn't have them. For instance, a ban against incest would have been beneficial for a group having the prohibition, even if they had no understanding of the reason. Similarly, the desert religions' ban against pork would have forced people to focus on animals better suited for that environment. I finally found the full religion-evolution article, but I had too much reading at work today and will get to the article another day.
Actually pigs are very suited to that (and almost all other) environment(s). Pigs can live almost anywhere and eat almost anything, they have nutritious and delicious meat, their bones and organs can be used for a variety of uses, etc. It would be very cruel of a god to make such a useful animal and not let anyone touch it
. The trichinosis reasoning for pork being banned is nothing but a myth. The only reason pork was banned in Judaism is that as luck would have it, we tend to taste like pig. Even the cannibal vernacular for "human" in the indigenous tribes of PNG translates to "long pig". It's also the blood-curdling scream of pigs being slaughtered that reminds people of...well...us. There are and were no inherent health reasons not to eat pigs, besides the fact that Jews were uncomfortable with it since it apparently is reminiscent of human. So somewhere down the line, someone (human) decided that it would be off limits. In fact, when that area of the world was much more of a mosaic of religions and cultures than it is now, Jews were the only ones that didn't eat pork. Anthropologists actually are able to identify Jewish settlements because they were the only ones that contained no pig bones. Somewhere along the line (much, much further down the line), Muslims, who used to eat pork, adopted a *distinctly* Jewish tradition. However, Muslims somehow don't see this as ironic.
Read "A Short Digression on the Pig" in God is not Great for the full story.
It's sort of like the Hindus and cows thing. I forget what flowery story they tell you about how cows are holy blah blah blah, but the reasoning behind this is similar. Somewhere along the line, one of the rulers of that area decided that cows were to be "holy" and unable to be eaten solely for the reason that when peasants were starving in the winter and whathaveyou, they wouldn't eat their only source of income.
I was always told that the reason that certain cultures don't eat pig is because they are dirty animals, which makes sense, although that could be a "cover up"? lol
And I think the same goes for dogs in Islam; they cannot be kept in the home, but can be used as guard dogs, and this is because they are dirty. Or something like that. I could be wrong.
-Ben
And I think the same goes for dogs in Islam; they cannot be kept in the home, but can be used as guard dogs, and this is because they are dirty. Or something like that. I could be wrong.
-Ben
The funniest thing about all these "debates" is the premise that the created know more than the creator, if one is taken into consideration. It is also funny how everyday the anti-God crowd continues to juggle new ideas why there isn't a God or why certain people "needed" a God due to "their circumstances".
If you're so sure about the existence of God, then what's the need to continue going on a crusade? The real answer will be revealed when you die.
If you're so sure about the existence of God, then what's the need to continue going on a crusade? The real answer will be revealed when you die.
There isn't a debate going on; it's a discussion.
As for the pork prohibition, it's been a lot of years since I read about it or even thought much about it, but I think the benefit of having cattle, goats, etc instead of pigs is that it allows for a pastoral life, which makes for a more efficient use of an arid environment. The idea isn't that religions intentionally prohibited this or encouraged that to make followers more ecologically efficient, but a religion whose laws/rituals did happen to do that would be more successful. Not only because the followers thrived, but because outsiders would notice and be attracted to the stronger god.
As for the pork prohibition, it's been a lot of years since I read about it or even thought much about it, but I think the benefit of having cattle, goats, etc instead of pigs is that it allows for a pastoral life, which makes for a more efficient use of an arid environment. The idea isn't that religions intentionally prohibited this or encouraged that to make followers more ecologically efficient, but a religion whose laws/rituals did happen to do that would be more successful. Not only because the followers thrived, but because outsiders would notice and be attracted to the stronger god.
Wolfn
Agent of Chaos
As a Muslim, here are my thoughts
Pigs: haraam (forbidden) animals. They're very dirty because they wallow in mud and feces and their flesh is infested with parasites.
Also, in Islam, animals have to be killed a certain way. The animal is hung upside down, the person killing the animal says "bismillah" ("In the name of God") and then slits the animal's throat. This death is instant because the blood immediately drains from the head, so there is no suffering for the animal. And since there is no suffering, the meat isn't tough because the animals tense up when they are being slaughtered any other way.
Pigs don't have a throat to slit, so that's another reason why we don't eat them.
As for dogs, their saliva is impure (because they lick their crotch to clean themselves), so if a dog licks us, we have to wash that spot 7 times to make sure all the impurities are washed away.
That being said, I'm personally a dog lover. Look at how cute these pooches are:
Not according to the Qu'ran (I think), but there is a Hadith (saying) of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) that dog's saliva is unclean.
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