₦airaland Forum

Everyone is born an atheist until they are indoctrinated into the religion of the parents or culture. Think about it - if you were born and raised in Saudi Arabia, there's a more 90% chance that you would be a Moslem. If you were born and raised in the bible-belt in America, there's a 90% chance that you would be a Christian.

No one comes out of the womb with religious beliefs. We pick up these things from our culture as we grow up. Anyone without the nation of god(s) is an atheist. So before children learns of their local gods, they are well and truly atheist. As they grow up they as slow indoctrinated into their cultural god, which process also has the unfortunate effect of addling their minds, ridding it of most critical faculties. See for examples the children raised in the Madrasas in some islamic countries - they will have learnt the koran by rote by the time they are ten, to the exclusion of most other intellectually elevating material.

Of all children, few will remain atheist for the rest of their lives. The majority, due to societal folly would join one religion group or another. Some would come to their senses in adulthood and abandon the religions that were pressed on them in infancy.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Thinking about Morality
When we are in a pinch, surprising factors can affect our moral judgments

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=thinking-about-morality

By Adina Roskies and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

Cognitive science and moral philosophy might seem like strange bedfellows, but in the past decade they have become partners. In a recent issue of Cognition, the Harvard University psychologist Joshua Greene and colleagues extend this trend. Their experiment utilizes conventional behavioral methods, but it was designed to test a hypothesis stemming from previous fMRI investigations into the neural bases of moral judgments (see here and here).

In their study Greene et al. give subjects difficult moral dilemmas in which one alternative leads to better consequences (such as more lives saved) but also violates an intuitive moral restriction (it requires a person to directly or intentionally cause harm to someone else). For example, in the "crying baby" dilemma subjects must judge whether it is wrong to smother their own baby in order to save a large group of people that includes the baby. In this scenario, which was also used by the television show M.A.S.H., enemy soldiers will hear the baby cry unless it is smothered. Sixty percent of people choose to smother the baby in order to save more lives. A judgment that it is appropriate to save the most lives, even if it requires you to suffocate a child, is labeled "utilitarian" by Greene et al., whereas a judgment that it is not appropriate is called "deontological." These names pay homage to traditional moral philosophies.

Emotion vs. Rationality

Based on previous fMRI studies, Greene proposes a dual-process model of moral judgments. This model makes two central claims. First, when subjects form deontological judgments, emotional processes are said to override controlled cognitive processes. In other words, the subjects who are unwilling to smother the baby are being swayed by their emotions, and they can't bear the idea of hurting a helpless child. This claim has been supported by a flurry of recent behavioral studies and neural studies. Greene's dual-process model also claims that controlled cognitive processes cause utilitarian moral judgments. The new Cognition study puts that second claim to the test.

Neuroimaging reveals only correlations; it cannot determine whether a certain brain area is causing a particular judgment. But intervening in a process can provide evidence of causation. In the Cognition study, Greene et al. attempted to interfere with moral reasoning by increasing the cognitive load on subjects. They had subjects perform the moral judgment task at the same time as a monitoring task, in which subjects viewed a stream of numerals and responded to occurrences of "5." If this added cognitive load interferes with the controlled cognitive processes that cause utilitarian judgments, the researchers surmised, then subjects should make fewer utilitarian judgments and should form these judgments more slowly. (For more on factors that influence judgment speed, see here.)

As hypothesized, added cognitive load led to longer reaction times for utilitarian judgments, but the researchers found no effect on reaction times for deontological judgments. Although it took subjects longer to approve of acts like smothering a baby when also looking for the number 5, it did not take them longer to approve of acts like not smothering the baby. This differential effect suggests that some of the cognitive processes involved in the monitoring task are also needed for the processes that lead to utilitarian judgments but not for those that lead to deontological judgments.

The cognitive load did not, however, decrease the proportion of utilitarian judgments, as the dual process model predicts. People were just as likely to approve of smothering the baby, even if it took them a little bit longer to make that judgment. This is puzzling, and suggests that the two processes do not compete. Greene et al. try to explain away this counterevidence by speculating that subjects "were determined to push through" the cognitive load, but this story makes sense only if subjects knew in advance that they wanted to reach a utilitarian judgment.

Anomalous Result

The dual process model also predicts that in the absence of cognitive load utilitarian judgments will still be slower than deontological judgments. Because utilitarian judgments (such as that it is appropriate to smother the baby) rely on controlled, deliberate processes, they should take longer than deontological judgments, which depend on emotions, instincts and other fast, automatic processes. Greene et al. found this difference for low-utilitarian participants (who made fewer utilitarian judgments) but not for high-utilitarian participants. To explain this anomaly, Greene et al. postulate "an additional process" that enables high-utilitarian participants to make utilitarian judgments quickly.

These gaps in the theory are, perhaps, not very serious in the absence of any alternative explanation of Greene et al.'s main finding that utilitarian judgments were slowed by cognitive load and deontological judgments were not. This effect might be due to the particular form of cognitive load, however. Greene et al. used numbers to create the cognitive load, but utilitarian judgments often hinge on numbers. Hence, confusion caused by the stream of numbers might lead subjects to recheck before forming utilitarian judgments, but not before forming deontological judgments that do not depend on getting the numbers right. Scientists might test this alternative explanation by checking whether the same differential effect arises when the cognitive load takes other forms, such as monitoring for letters, colors or faces.

Future studies should explore the distinctions that the current literature roughly characterizes as emotion versus cognition, and deontological judgments versus utilitarian judgments. Further clarification will come with a more precise specification of which functional processes constitute the controlled cognition that is supposed to cause utilitarian moral judgments. Clearly, more work needs to be done. But that is the sign of a useful experiment: it raises tractable questions that further research can illuminate. For the time being, this study takes an important step forward both by addressing a crucial issue for the dual-process model and also by presenting strong, though not conclusive, evidence for the role of controlled cognition in utilitarian moral judgment.

Mind Matters is edited by Jonah Lehrer, the science writer behind the blog The Frontal Cortex and the book Proust Was a Neuroscientist.

These are good questions. Does anyont know their Ko-ran here. C'mon, don't be shy - no one is watching.

How come you guys don't believe in Sussicorn?

Negro_Ntns:
@Post

There is more evil than you have revealed my brother.

Did you not see where it was promised that for those that blaspheme against Abraham and the children of Abraham and the tribes of Abraham;

, a day shall come when Huxley's IP address shall be revealed;
, and the IP from both his desktop and his laptop shall lead men to his whereabouts;
, and on a day when the sun shall cast its shadows on the horizon;
, Huxley shall be sneaked upon;
, like thieves in the night, men shall reveal their presence to him;
, and on that day Huxley shall have no cover, nor a relief;
, and the blasphemer Huxley shall be made to account for what his hands and thoughts have sent before this day.


Huxley, Keep it coming; it is coming up with you!

Is this a threat? Why ar eyou threatening me?

IDINRETE:
huxley huxley keep up the good work. May the spirit of Robert Ingersoll descend on you, not like the spirit of Elijah descending on Elisha the teenage killer,

many thanks

onyinye2:
Why is that every time folk starting asking why you are atheist you always sign off??

I am signing off cuz am tired and have got work tomorrow. Discussing about my conversion is a rather long and demanding process.

rampant:
@huxley

ok so tell me why do u choose to believe that there is no god or God

u said u were once a christian and got your senses back in your teens and reconverted yourself back to an atheist,because that is d way it was before

tell me why did u leave christianity and go back to being an atheist?

rampant:
@huxley

ok so tell me why do u choose to believe that there is no god or God

u said u were once a christian and got your senses back in your teens and reconverted yourself back to an atheist,because that is d way it was before

tell me why did u leave christianity and go back to being an atheist?

Now we are in business. You have started to ask intelligent question now. Am afraid, I cannot continue now as I have got to go to bed. It is midnight here and I have got work in the morning. I shall respond tomorrow evening.

Have a good night and catch up with u tomorrow.

Just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist and see which people in the past have been designated as AC. In view of that, what are the chances that I am the AC?

rampant:
@okija_shrine

r u an antichrist?no offence

@huxley
u still havent answered mi question

according to what i read,some of them antichrists will come wt peace,claim to be good but at d end bring up wars and forcing people to believe that there is no God or god,so that is why im asking u ,r u one?

hey be truthful wt your replies ,and be proud of watever you're ,its not as if someone is going to stone u to death from d internet ,so r u one?yes or no

I cannot answer yes or no cuz I don't know who/what the AC is suppose to be like. The is a very long history of different people designated as AC. Of all those people who was the real AC? Or is there an AC for each generation?

Does anyone in Nairaland believe in Sussicorn?

Do you guys believe in Sussicorn?

Okija_juju:
Dude!! We must be related. And who the Bleep is sus-whatever??

You are welcome. How are you. Join the fray.

I don't believe these guys don't believe in Sussicorn

rampant:
its a yes or a no answer,r u one?uve heard about them like u said earlier and im very sure that uve read about them and their properties judging from the kind of person that you're,so tell me r u one?

If the AC is suppose to be like Hitler or the Pope, then I am not the AC. I have not caused a war and am not the head of the Catholic church, nor any institution. How is one suppose to know who the AC is?

Okija_juju:
Or do they believe in Santa, the easter bunny, the tooth fairy, lepracons and elves

The question was - Do you believe in Sussicorn? If you don't, why don't you?

onyinye2:
Huxley, were you raised atheist or were you at one time Christian??

I was born an atheist (for as a baby I had no notion of god(s)), raised and indoctrinated into Christianity, then found my senses in my teens and de-converted back to being an atheist.

rampant:
u said i could ask u d question right?now ive asked,so answer me - - ------------------------- r u one?

How am I suppose to know? What are the properties of the AntiChrist?

rampant:
we all have been hearing of the anti christ and its coming

are u one of them? don't be offended

Have heard of the notion of Anti Christ, yes. Was the Pope or Hitler not suppose to be the AntiChrist?

rampant:
huxley can i ask u a question?

Go ahead.

rampant:
u can also contact him like this---------------

i huxley finally give my life to YOU,i believe YOU r my Saviour,i believeTHAT through YOU i can be saved ,i believe that i have sinned against YOU and against man,and i am truly sorry, . . . . . . . . . try it like that and u will be able to contact him quickly

Will he contact me back? How will I know it is him?

onyinye2:
Huxley, before i answer your question, answer this. You do believe that atoms exist in this world right? even though you can't see them, but you know they are there and without them there is nothing.
Same here.

Absolutely NOT. I don't BELIEVE atoms exist.

I do not know what you guys mean by god. You have got to tell me who he is - what it/he/she is capable of, how to contact him/it/she, what his/her/its attributes are. Otherwise, how would I know what to believe?


Do you guys believe in Leocorn Sussicorn?

rampant:
@HUXLEY

please tell us,do u pray at all?

in which God do u believe in?

What is praying?


Who/what is god? Tell me who/what god is and I will tell you whether I believe in it/him/she.

LOL, LOL, LOL

Well, at least, it makes up for what you have failed to learn from your Sunday schools or your sermons and churches. How is that for free bible instruction?