Religion as an explanation
As an atheist, I often see God (actually there is a sentence portion that seems contradictory)....ok...
As an atheist, I often imagine God as a poor explanation for the origin of life - if God was so complex that He could design life in all its glory, how did God get to be so complex - if complexity requires a designer then God needs to be designed too.
It is also a very complicated explanation - lots for God to do, nothing simple really.
Evolution is a better, more subtle explanation for life than God, although many religious people reject the need for a better explanation.
Which is weird, as it seems apparent that monotheism was in itself a better, more simple explanation for religion.
Humans are apparently hard wired to posit intentionality to other thinking beings, (that Tiger intends to eat me) and this intentionality becomes teleogistic (that tiger is designed for eating me). This hard wiring trips in cases where intentionality is not realistic (that coconut is designed for me to eat, and that coconut tree intends for me to eat its fruit). This leads quite neatly on to animism - I shall worship that life giving tree that intends for me to have a nice coconut eating life.
Of course worshipping trees is ridiculous, and Abraham probably knew that deep down. So he wanted a better explanation than every tree or bush intends us some good or ill. And hey presto, why not use Occams Razor - the simplest explanation is correct. It is much simpler if there was one being who intended us good or ill, and that being made the coconut tree and the tiger. No more ridiculous animistic polytheism for me - its up-to-the-minute modern monotheism all the way for this boyo now.
Atheism seems a cleaner explanation all round.
monotheism as an better explanation of r intentionality
posted by paul @ 4:34 AM
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