Freedomain Radio

http://www.theage.com.au/national/infants-have-natural-belief-in-god-20080725-3l3b.html

This so-called researcher has announced to the world that belief in god is hard-wired in infants.  Atheism must be learned, according to her.  

Fortunately, there is some well reasoned commentary on this blog: http://blogs.theage.com.au/thereligiouswrite/archives/2008/07/in_the_beginnin.html#comments

Nice to see you posting again!

If belief in "God" were hard-wired, it wouldn't take a decade of constant propagandizing and psychological terrorizing, to convince kids of it.

She studied children between the ages of 4 and 7, well after children have picked up on religious concepts from their parents. Certainly the brain is wired with a disposition toward creating and absorbing religious beliefs, but god is a specific religious concept and not universal to all religions. I'm with David Eller that we are born atheists.

Thanks for the welcome, Greg!  My main contribution this past year has been telling other people to come over here git some larnin...  but I'm rarely here myself.   I admit I got somewhat discouraged by some of the conversations, when the negative banter was taking a lot out of us.  But I am still very interested in all things freedom, and of course forever grateful for the education I got from Stef and this site. 

Great responses.  I'm sure this nutcase will ignore all reason. She is not hard-wired to do so, just trained.

Mh. I think she could be right. It might be an essential survival mechanism embedded in a  child to work with the concept of "god". I don't think we come to this world ready made and just have to explore the white territory in our minds for the rest of our lives. I would say a child's brain is evolving and sort of rudimental with basic survival strategies. A rejection of the parental mythologies at this age would be a life threat. The responsibility for a parent would be acknowledging this desire for "being good" not abuse it and support a free mind.

My parents weren't religious. I cannot remember them using the word "god". Nevertheless they were "gods" to me as a child.

I don't think that the concept of "god" as something beyond the parental "god-like" existence, higher power of whatever, is part of the child's world because there is no need for it and nature is economical, isn't it?

Then why is it that I was never religious and I was raised in a catholic household? I think this lady has her "facts" twisted.

 In this interview what she says isn't quite the what the reporter says.

http://www.science-spirit.org/article_detail.php?article_id=128

However, the cumulative contribution of many domains of cognitive developmental psychology suggests to me that it’s a serious possibility that spirituality is a universal aspect of human cognition.

"spirituality" not god.

Then read about her test questions and even that is hardly supported.

On forced choice questions, consisting of three possible explanations of primary origin, they would predominantly go for the word "God," instead of either an agnostic response (e.g., "nobody knows") or an incorrect response (e.g., "by people").

Kids will know what isn't made by people and eliminate that answer. Kids will probably believe that somebody knows and eliminate the answer nobody knows. This only leaves one possible answer with any possibility of sounding correct. They didn't even have "None of the above" to choose from. It seems completely loaded to me.

GregG:

 

If belief in "God" were hard-wired, it wouldn't take a decade of constant propagandizing and psychological terrorizing, to convince kids of it.

And there wouldn't be so many kids who come out of that 16 years of propagandizing with doubts about "god." I wouldn't call it "convincing" them as much as "terrorizing them into abject conformity."