Learning Genesis
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Not my fault...Hey Abdicate. You have to subscribe to read the article
I say hey instead of hi. I googled the God gene. Seems they link it to evolution but still it is interesting and I hadn't heard about it before.
I'm not a Time subscriber either.
I remember the story breaking though and without doubt it is interesting. If it's true then I can put my lack of faith down to genetics, that's simple enough for me to understand. A quick bit of reading about the author will also explain why I am not homosexual as well - I don't have that gene either.
I suppose if it could be proved, it begs the question what is the evolutionary advantage in an individual having a 'God gene'? How would that be an attribute that ensures survival of the individual to pass that gene on? And according to an genetic experiment at a University on the students themselves it doesn't appear to be in all of us so if God does exist surely this gene should be in the whole population. I'm being a bit simplistic as I don't know enough about the science, only on a general philosophical level really.
Just thinking that those of us who have both Hamers 'God gene' and 'Gay gene' must be in eternal turmoil?
His research hasn't been well received in all quarters, below a review from one of your brothers in God.
http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Scien...ets-Bad-Theology.aspx?p=3#kztSIVgQWrh0bL1g.99
'The God Gene': Bad Science Meets Bad TheologySome scientists want belief to fit an evolutionary worldview. But we can't limit faith in God to a chemical reaction.
Fast-forwarding Hamer's argument, he claims to have discovered a gene known as VMAT2, which controls the flow of monoamines within the brain. Monoamines are chemicals in the brain that can make us feel pleasurable, ecstatic, or depressed. Monoamines include dopamine and serotonin, and are customarily released by psychotropic drugs and hallucinogenics. Thus, Hamer argues that evolution explains why many individuals possess the VMAT2 gene, and are thus more likely to have their monoamines regulated in a way that leads to self-transcendence. Following so far?
Once self-transcendence is defined as the goal of this evolutionary process, and once VMAT2 is identified as the gene responsible for creating the feelings associated with self-transcendence, Hamer is well on his way to arguing that self-transcendence plays a role in evolution by fostering optimism in individuals possessing the trait. Such optimism leads to better health, to a more positive outlook toward the future, and increased likelihood that these individuals will have children and hand down their genes through the biological process.
This physicalist explanation, limiting something like faith in God to purely chemical factors, is necessary because Hamer and his colleagues are committed materialists. He provides an explicit admission of this fact in The God Gene. Insisting that a scientific explanation for belief in God must be expressed in terms of chemistry and physics, Hamer explains: "Proponents of this view often are called 'materialists' because they believe that all mental processes can ultimately be accounted for by a few basic physical laws. Most scientists, including myself, are materialists."
In other words, as a committed materialist, Dean Hamer is looking for an explanation of belief in God that will fit his evolutionary worldview. In order to do this, he has to jettison all that is customarily associated with theism, avoid everything that has to do with the content of belief, and redefine his entire concern in terms of self-transcendence--an experience he admits can be purely secular. In other words, Dean Hamer tells us absolutely nothing about belief in God and very little about modern genetics.
This point was made devastatingly clear in a review of The God Gene published in the current issue of Scientific American. Carl Zimmer, another major evolutionary theorist, blasts The God Gene as bad science and reckless argument.
As Zimmer notes, "The field of behavioral genetics is littered with failed links between particular genes and personality traits. Those alleged associations at first seemed very strong. But as other researchers tried to replicate them, they faded away into statistical noise. In 1993, for example, a scientist reported a genetic link to male homosexuality in a region of the X chromosome. The report brought a huge media fanfare, but other scientists who tried to replicate the study failed. The scientist's name was Dean Hamer."
That's right. Dean Hamer is most famously [or infamously] known for his claim to have found a genetic explanation for male homosexuality. That study created a firestorm in the press, and though it was never replicated in order to establish scientific credibility, it quickly became standard fare for arguments claiming homosexuality to be absolutely natural, and therefore normal.
As Zimmer laments, "Given the fate of Hamer's so-called gay gene, it is strange to see him so impatient to trumpet the discovery of his God gene." Zimmer then turns the table on Hamer, arguing that The God Gene should have been entitled A Gene That Accounts for Less than One Percent of the Variants Found in Scores on Psychological Questionnaires Designed to Measure a Factor Called Self-Transcendence, Which Can Signify Everything from Belonging to the Green Party to Believing in ESP, According to One Unpublished, Unreplicated Study. In the scientific community, that's undiluted condemnation.
It is laughable to suggest that belief in God is tied to any genetic structure that can be accounted for in this way. The Bible provides an authoritative explanation for our capacity to know God. As the book of Genesis makes clear, human beings are made in the image of God. It is the
imago dei
that explains the fact that we are the only creatures able consciously to know God, and to know Him intimately.
Any effort to create a genetic explanation for a generic experience of self-transcendence will fall far short of scientific credibility. More importantly, it will fall tragically short of providing an adequate theological explanation for how human creatures can know our Creator. That explanation is found only within the Bible, and is itself a knowledge revealed to us by our Creator.
The God Gene becomes a parable for our postmodern times--further evidence of the lengths to which clever humans will go in trying to deny that we were made by a Creator who designed us with the capacity to know Him. The book is bad science and bad theology combined, but it does succeed in making one point clear: Materialism just can't answer the big questions.
Here's another link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene but I basically agree with Matt's post.
It's interesting that the Scriptures bear this out too:
Exodus 20:5 (KJV)
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me;
Exodus 34:7 (KJV)
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear [the guilty]; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth [generation].
Numbers 14:18 (KJV)
The LORD [is] longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation].
Deuteronomy 5:9 (KJV)
Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me,
Any parent can see their "issues" in their kids. DNA and thereby genes are information stores and when you don't deal with sin in your life, those tendencies are passed down genetically. These are being only now discovered by scientists:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...r-inherited-genes-passed-two-generations.html
"Dealing" with sin is first to get saved, but we still wrestle with the "old man" and need to retrain our thinking to rewrite the code within our genes:
Philippians 4:8 (KJV)
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.
Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes To Your Genes
http://www.tunedbody.com/scientists...s-can-cause-specific-molecular-changes-genes/
Interesting... only 4000 years after God wrote it down for us...
Romans 7:25
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
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@TubbyTubby While I presented the information above you may have more easily accepted what I said, but only because of the articles and then, I'm sure, still hesitant. The point is, God wants only what's best for us. False Christianity (1,2,3 pray after me. NEXT!) without repentance (change of mind) one lives on in a dangerous lie, which is why America is literally imploding with drugs, sexual perversions, violence, and just plain old bad manners. 80% of Americans consider themselves "christian" but what that means is it's a cultural state, a status meaning they're not Jewish or Muslim or something else rather than believing in Jesus Christ as God Almighty.
So with science coming into alignment with the Scriptures over and over again, what more can be said to convince you the Scriptures are 100% correct?
So with science coming into alignment with the Scriptures over and over again, what more can be said to convince you the Scriptures are 100% correct?
Your first four scripture quotes are telling me that God will impart his revenge for sin on subsequent generations of the original sinner regardless of their behaviour? How does that hint at genetics?
I don't really buy into the Daily Mail article either, it suggests that DNA can 'change' within the mouse and that of course, contradicts all known genetic theory at its most basic level as far as I know.
The tuned body article is also interesting but you keep moving your goalpost every few minutes and it's difficult to get a feel for what your argument is. Are you advocating the 'God gene' is passed across generations or that we can somehow influence our DNA structure while we live?
You quoted Hamer as something you thought was true, then agreed with my post that refuted it and at the same time, say that the bible agrees with what I refuted? Confused? I am.
The author of that last link describes himself as a 'spiritual counselor' which would lead me to question his expertise, at least until it was independantly verified. And you should be hesitant of attributing God with, what appears to be 'sketchy' research at best. When it is disproven (unless already), would you then readily adjust your interpretation of Gods word?
Finally, Philippians 4:8 is a very good example of 'incomprehensible' if ever I saw it. I'm sure you are going to explain it to me though.
Post Error
I quoted the Times who quoted someone else... I was only pointing out that someone wrote that we are genetically built to worship, which encumpasses a whole slew of events. And yes, sin is passed on to the next generation. Look at alcoholics, welfare, drugs, violence... bad manners in one generation leads to open violence in the next. Sin begets sin.
I knew you wouldn't agree with the articles, and that's fine, because they line up with something the scriptures talk about. Why is Philippians 4:8 incomprehensible? It's just saying have an active mind, where the vast majority of people are passive in their thinking which is also why they can't (and won't) read long posts. People are lazy and it's reflected in their lives. Any doctor will tell you placebos work... (scientifically how?) but it does. God says we're to think on the good things but we're spoon fed day in and day out with bad news, junk and irrelevant issues. That's my point. The word of God is 100% accurate and I'm sorry you have to have some scientific paper to show you it's true, but even then you reject it. That's just pride.
I knew you wouldn't agree with the articles, and that's fine, because they line up with something the scriptures talk about. Why is Philippians 4:8 incomprehensible? It's just saying have an active mind, where the vast majority of people are passive in their thinking which is also why they can't (and won't) read long posts. People are lazy and it's reflected in their lives. Any doctor will tell you placebos work... (scientifically how?) but it does. God says we're to think on the good things but we're spoon fed day in and day out with bad news, junk and irrelevant issues. That's my point. The word of God is 100% accurate and I'm sorry you have to have some scientific paper to show you it's true, but even then you reject it. That's just pride.
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No because there is no proof anywhere like I have described for YHVH...if you mean "scientific proof" or proof that a rank materialist would accept then very little could be believed in even much called science.
All people through all time naturally believe in something or someone greater than themselves having to do with creation and the governance of many aspects of life...archaeology and anthropology BOTH confirm this (you know...science?)...no one naturally is an Atheist (an agnostic maybe but not an atheist)...Atheists are made not born...theists are born and later persuaded otherwise (whether by materialist parents, or public school/college indoctrination into disproved theories like Darwin's, etc.,)
Once upon a time it was always a matter of spirits, then it was all a matter of the humors, then it was all a matter of instinct, now it is always "genetic"...what will it be 100 years from now? Hmmm? I guarantee it will change...
By behavioural learning and lack of parental guidance, not by genetics. You could take a baby from a bad home and place it in a caring environment and it would likely turn out good.
Not pride, just objectiveness. I don't agree or disagree with the articles until there is sufficient proof for me to be comfortable in accepting it.
I try to but sometimes there's a bit too much for a mere mortal to get through on here.
I would be interested in your answers to #509 if you have chance.
No one is born religious/knowing about God. We're born knowing we're hungry, in pain or happy. We're taught religion/God.
To borrow a definition of agnosticism " Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown or unknowable.". You are telling me that a baby has the basis of that worldview inherently?
Yes, we have through time used Gods to describe and deal with the unknown (along with a few unsavoury reasons also). We have also discarded many thousands of Gods along the way.
Evolution is not disproven, but lets not go down that path again tonight.
a) I did not say evolution has been disproven I said "Darwin's" theory...the only vestige is the idea of natural selection and his view is incorrect (mixed with LaMarkian acquired characteristics)...
As early as we can find, all humans (even Neanderthal and of course excluding australophithicus since they are just apes) demonstrate ritual, rites, ornamentation, and other qualities called "religious"...as soon as writing appears (even pictographs like Hieroglyphics)) we find inference to the god, gods, goddesses, etc...
As early as we can find, all humans (even Neanderthal and of course excluding australophithicus since they are just apes) demonstrate ritual, rites, ornamentation, and other qualities called "religious"...as soon as writing appears (even pictographs like Hieroglyphics)) we find inference to the god, gods, goddesses, etc...
That from Post #62, and then from Post # 495.
NO wonder there is little if any 'Learning Genesis' going on here. Instead of studying Genesis you have apparently been swatting up on many other religions? Is that right?
So, since Genesis seems to have been put on the back burner for a time, I think it is interesting that the Magus who reportedly visited the infant Jesus were in fact Zoroastrian priests.
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