midnight rain

I agree with you in that regard, but I think his point was too take a different look at the situation. Usually people with religious beliefs are called weak because they follow the Bible so they won't "rot in the ground" or be "smited by God" so I think he was looking at it from the other side, not putting non-believers down.

mr dave

absolutely. i totally agree with the idea of genetic survival as well, it's far bigger than any individual person, but it's not what i call ego. the unconscious push towards the survival of our genetic being is the otherside, the voice that is never heard but always felt, i guess you could call it your gut instinct. to me that level of survival is primal and basic, and as a base level aspect of ourselves it's not something that i would expect to manifest itself on a higher level like material desires and (for the sake of simplicity) sin.

it's kind of like the belief in a conscious and sub-conscious mind. left to their own devices i believe that the conscious mind would simply reflect the greater ego of the human being onto the individual person (greed, gluttony, jealousy, etc.), while the subconscious mind would provide the necessary urges for survival (food, shelter, mating, etc.)

much in the same way you describe the challenge of considering both science and religion i think the biggest challenge facing every individual on the planet is to balance the three aspects of their minds without becoming schizophrenic. to be able to consider the wants of the conscious mind vs. the needs of the subconscious as controlled by the intellect of the individual. the less you want the easier it becomes to see all of everything and nothing.

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i am the universe

sleepy jack

Reversing the cliche positions and backing it up with illogical arguments doesn't make it remotely true though. His last statement was a polite way of promoting stubbornly clinging to beliefs regardless of rational argument and his bit about non-believers being weak because of their skeptical inquiry was just laughable.

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SugarRush

Still, this "unknown" term seems fuzzy to me. If you do not know it exists then how can you state it exists? If science seems limiting to you, doesn't faith in god seem far too "unlimited'. If there are no boundaries and no limitations, that can often be more worrisome.
If you mean to say things that have not yet been explained by science then, I guess that's the fundamental difference between Christian and more science-inclined person. While a Christian might have faith in God a scientist has in faith that science will eventually explain it all. Its almost futile to try to persuade the other side since both have such strong faith in what they believe. Neither is right or wrong, its simply what you have faith in.

mr dave

right, and for me once i overcame the fear of my self i was able to start believing in both, but that's just me. i do claim to be the universe after all...

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i am the universe

Guybrush

I think the concious mind is very much driven by the unconcious gene survival motives. For the caveman, greed and gluttony will come from a want to secure resources for himself and his closely related. Jealousy comes from the fact that if his partner has sex with someone else, he could end up raising a child which is not his own and considering how much resources it takes to raise a child, that's a very bad thing for the caveman - biologically speaking, he's helping the competition. The caveman could still want to be unfaithful to his own partner, males have very little investment in reproduction (the energy spent wooing the partner, then having sex and the loss of sperm) so a pregnant fling being left to raise his children on her own or with her close family might be a good trade-off. It's awful to say, but even rape might might make sense from a purely "scoring-bio-points" kind of way which is why I guess some people still do it, it has a genetic basis likely with environmentally conditioned behaviour on top.

This makes me sound very cynical, but I'm not. If there is an exploitation tactic that targets women (having sex and leaving), then women will of course evolve to try and counter that tactic so it won't necessarily be as popular as I hinted at. I also think people have great care and consideration for those they consider part of their group such as family and friends and possibly also members of their community. The best qualities in us comes from the fact that humans are social animals and our fitness and well-being depends on others. Working together is a brilliant tactic. It's when someone is not part of "us" but "them" (people you are not dependent on) that people on average become more cynical and careless.

I think the "highest" level of ourselves is the expression of the self like through arts or even just the way we portray ourselves here on musicbanter. However, I believe that most of the time, the gene tactics are often part of the final expression then as well.

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Something Completely Different

lucifer_sam

no, women and men evolved on the same scale and timeline as each other. we wouldn't evolve to give advantageous traits to one sex and not the other, that would be counter-evolutionary. i do agree that other traits -- jealousy, for instance, are evolutionary in design (because it works best for both sexes). but an intrinsic desire to rape certainly doesn't have evolutionary merit; it creates a need for a protective characteristic (which again wouldn't serve any evolutionary purpose since it doesn't facilitate mating).

there are other female-male traits that have evolved over time, such as the tendency for humans to grow larger penises (in the absence of a penile bone) than other primates due to our erect postures. in addition, the human vagina has developed a more anterior orientation to facilitate mating. it's always interesting to notice why our genitalia look like they do.

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first.am

Guybrush

Say, who's the one with a degree in biology here?

I don't think you've read much evolutionary theory. Evolution within populations against exploitation tactics is a common thing and happens all the time. Think of how vampire bats may share blood which is a valuable resource to them. It would be easy to only take blood and never give any back, so a defence against that exploitation evolves.

Many males are promiscous because of what I wrote above. The parental investment is usually potentially very small. Hypothetically speaking, a mammalian male of a species can make perhaps make 100 females pregnant. Let's say out of these 100 single parents only 2 are able to raise their children to full maturity. That could still be a better payoff for the father than mating with 1 and spending a lot of time and effort fathering those children. Indeed, in many species, mothers are left to parent the children on their own.

However, if you're one of the 98 women whose children died because the father left, leaving you on your own, your genes are not gonna make it either. In other words, having sex with people who are gonna run off might not be a good idea, especially not for humans whose babies require considerable care. Their genes will do worse in a competition with those who have a counter strategy. The counter strategy here is trying to evaluate who you're gonna have sex with. You wanna know that your partner won't run off and if those who possess the counter strategy more often have sex with with fathers who are loyal and stay with the mother, that will ensure the survival and evolution of both the mothers counter strategy and the the fathers loyalty.

However, it's likely still a good strategy to be a little exploitative considering how little resources it might take to do so. "Strategies" like rape wouldn't make sense if everyone did it, but it might make sense when there's only a few doing it. That might be enough to keep such a strategy in a population, though at a low level.

Several species of fish are sexdimorphic meaning the males and females look different (different morphology). The bright coloured male of a specie might have a harem of women and protect it against other predators/male competitors, but there could also be a "sneaky ****er" in his harem, a male who also looks like a female and secretly sneaky-****s his harem girls. The "dimorphic" males who do best in the population are those that are able to sniff out these sneaky ****ers and chase them away so this ability evolves .. at the same time, the sneaky ****ers who survive and mate the most are the ones who are able to trick the other males into thinking they're female, so they are developing their exploitation strategy.

See? That's an example of evolution of exploitation strategy and counter strategy even within one sex.

You really should consider picking up Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene". It explores these topics far better than I can in a simple post and it's easy to read too.

edit :

By the way, it might also be worth mentioning that any counter strategy is also likely to come at a cost. If there's no exploitation strategy, then there's no selection to uphold a strategy against it and losing or degrading the strategy might even be selected for if it comes at a net cost to the individuals posessing it.

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Something Completely Different

lucifer_sam

ah, i see. it's just difficult to imagine that males of the same species would evolve differently.

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first.am

Whatsitoosit

I never said I was living a good life, I was just flipping it and letting it be known that it takes great strength to have faith in a world that is "logical". I was passing judgment at the person who called religious people weak... again, I'm not classifying myself as a person who is full of faith. I have doubts and criticisms just the same but I appreciate and respect anybody who is willing and able to believe in something strongly despite proof or evidence of its existence. Call me/it stupid but I see the beauty in it.

pretty much, I see where Sleepy is coming from. There is no middle ground when it comes to faith, either you have it or you don't. I've tried doing the middle thing but it just doesn't work.

I never said I was a better person, if you go back and read what I wrote you will see I said I am not living the good life I am mentioning, again I was just countering the point of view that believers are weak minded.

Thank you.

well you are now politely turning the phrase "people who are religious are weak" into "skeptical inquiry". Wow, how much nicer that sounds. There's judgments flying from both ends. My arguments aren't illogical, I am basing my views off of people I have crossed paths with that are true believers in faith. They are good, loving, strong, passionate people who have flaws like everyone else but are truly better people because of their faith. I am not saying a non believer can't hold these qualities, what I was saying (in my first post) was that it doesn't matter either way how you get there as long as you get there. I was not calling nonbelievers weak, I was calling those who pass judgment of good/strong people as weak because they understand something that a nonbeliever doesn't.

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"It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile,
but it doesn't take any to just sit there with a dumb look on your face."