Showing papers on "Supreme Being published in 1990"

Theism as a By-Product of Natural Selection

Abstract: Regardless of culture, race, or time in recorded history, to be a member of the human species is to be capable of theistic thought. Even if one claims not to believe in God, most people still have the capacity to conceive of a supreme being. It may be among the earliest of humanity's abstract concepts and, according to some, perhaps its most profound. Theism, or the ability to conceive of a God, has yet to be adequately studied by objective methods. One possible reason for this lacuna in scholarship is that previous theories and methods of study were often at odds with the scientific method. In this article, we ask, By what mechanism or process did theism appear as an attribute of some forms of life? In which of the various prehistoric species of the genus Homo did this ability first arise? Do only humans or can other species conceive of God? Suggesting answers to these questions is our primary goal. Moreover, the theory that we present is, unlike its predecessors, potentially testable. This article is organized so that religious explanations of the human ability to conceive of God are presented first, followed by three concepts that underlie our theory of theogony (i.e., self-awareness, mind, foreknowledge of death) and the place of mind and God in evolution. Throughout we tend to mix evidence from human and animal studies.

The Revisionist Challenge: Can the liberal do without “liberty”?

Abstract: It seems a truism that, (1) the liberal believes in liberty. But, even ignoring the vagueness of “believes in”, this tells us even less about liberalism than, (2) the Catholic believes in God, tells us about Catholicism. Neither statement distinguishes one creed from its rivals. Socialists, conservatives, anarchists and Buddhists can all believe in liberty (sometimes, but not always, different concepts of liberty); just as Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Hindus all believe in God (sometimes, but not always, different gods). (2), though, has at least the virtue of conveying one definite, fundamental and necessary belief of the Catholic: that there exists a supreme being. It is agreed, even by sympathizers, that (1) gives the liberal no such thing. “By definition, a liberal is a man who believes in liberty,” says Professor Cranston, “but because different men at different times have meant different things by liberty, ‘liberalism’ is correspondingly ambiguous.” If Liberty be its god, it should come as no surprise that liberalism is a schismatic church.