frazzledgear
Senior Member
- Mar 17, 2008
- 1,479
- 544
- 48
A child isn't born with a conscience. The first thing a child learns is to be obedient or be punished. A conscience is developed through socialisation. Some individuals, sociopaths, fail to develop a conscience and are rightly seen as deviant. Having a conscience, then, is learned behaviour and a such is gained through experience. So while humans have the capacity for conscience, probably due to our superior brain, we have to learn how to develop one. The purpose of the development of conscience is to ensure social compiance in situations where there is little or no surveillance. That is beneficial to the survival and growth of the human species.
Religion provides a very strong surveilance mechanism. If an individual doesn't reach the upper stages of development of moral reasoning (referring to Kohlberg's stage theory) and they're still down in the first phase, the childlike phase where compliance is given because of fear of discovery and punishment, they will still comply even if there's no human surveillance because their god is watching them. A god, by definition, has at least a modicum of omnipotence. Being a very strong surveillance mechanism is beneficial for the survival and growth of the species, it ensures compliance and social order.
Current psychological thinking is that sociopaths really are born with no conscience and is not the result of abandonment, depraved surroundings or abuse.
That is because they have discovered that the vast majority of sociopaths had unremarkable upbringings with quite normal parents and normal siblings. Most people hear the word "sociopath" or "psychopath" and think of violent, dangerous people. But most sociopaths are not violent, obey the law but only because of the fear of punishment and not from any internal moral code -and function quite well in society, less so in their private life. They hold jobs, work hard, pay taxes. They simply have no conscience. They tend to see whatever benefits them as "right and good" and whatever doesn't as "bad and wrong". They know how to imitate emotions but the emotion isn't really there and many people can spot something wrong but just can't put their finger on it. Where the words sound right but something is just "off".
We have all probably run into or dealt with at least a couple of sociopaths. It is believed that the combination of a lack of conscience AND a depraved upbringing results in the violent and dangerous sociopath.
As for saying religious beliefs provide a strong surveillance mechanism in a society. So what? I could also point out that in some societies, religious beliefs were used in order to increase the wealth of the rulers. But so what again? How religious beliefs were ultimately used by a society does not prove or explain WHY religious beliefs came about in the first place and in no way shows it to be a "natural" occurrence of evolution. Especially since there still exists to this day religious beliefs that involve no threat of punishment in the afterlife for doing "bad" things in this life.
The theory of evolution says that when a species evolves -either by changing its physical appearance or its behaviors, it is in response to environmental pressures that threaten its future existence unless it adapts by changing its physical traits or behaviors. If a species makes the correct change in either behavior or physical appearance, that pressure is relieved. If it makes the "wrong" change that does not result in adaptation, that physical change or behavior is extinguished. So what environmental pressure were humans around the world experiencing that led to the change of behavior that was relieved with religious beliefs?
The original post was regarding a study to show that the species acquired religious beliefs as a step in the species' EVOLUTION -not what some cultures and societies later did with those beliefs once acquired. But that means that before the emergence of religious beliefs, humans worldwide must have experienced some kind of intense environmental pressure that posed a threat to their existence as a species first -and acquiring religious beliefs released that pressure. What was it? If the theory holds water at all, that the species acquiring religious beliefs was due to evolution -then the species had to first be experiencing intense environmental pressure that threatened it future existence and those religious beliefs relieved the pressure and allowed them to adapt to the pressures of their environment. Otherwise, acquiring religious beliefs wasn't due to "evolution" at all.
According to atheists, religious beliefs are merely delusionary beliefs -yet it is now some theory that human beings NEEDED to acquire these delusionary beliefs in order to survive as a species? Give me a break. Ant colonies do extremely well without any religious beliefs, share community living and thrive in far greater numbers than human beings around the world. So it must be something different.