Is there a reason why we are here?
Let's assume the secular premise that God doesn't exist and that all religious beliefs are false. What would be the consequence? The universe could have gone on fine and dandy without us. Or there could have been no universe at all. If you think about it is sort of a cosmic accident of things coming together in the exact combination to produce such a being as yourself. Of all the possible combinations of matter why did you get chosen? Your grandparents and great great grandparents and so on had to meet and the sperm and egg of your ancestors had to contain very specific sequences of DNA in order to produce you.
I feel like I shouldn't exist, it is just so unlikely. It's like the universe conspired to have me exist, but surely that's absurd. It's also seems absurd to believe that I'm here for no reason at all. That I'm here because I beat the odds. I don't know what to believe.
I feel like I shouldn't exist, it is just so unlikely. It's like the universe conspired to have me exist, but surely that's absurd. It's also seems absurd to believe that I'm here for no reason at all. That I'm here because I beat the odds. I don't know what to believe.
Comments (48)
Me too. Think of a forest in the darkness of our ignorance. The shadows take different forms, in response to our imagination. We fear and we see ghosts. We laugh and we see clowns. In ignorance our imagination runs wild and tries to engage possibilities of which are infinite. We don't know what to believe.
Quoting Purple Pond
Quoting Purple Pond
Quoting Purple Pond
Quoting Purple Pond
Our existence makes us biased in assessing the significance of our existence.
Since humans became a species, there have been perhaps 100 billion of us conceived and born. So no, we're nothing special, really. We weren't chosen, we happened. You didn't beat the odds. Like it or not, you are here for no reason whatsoever. The universe has bigger fish to fry than plotting how to bring you or me into existence.
However, now that we do exist, we might as well make the most of our brief time before we are annihilated and rejoin the infinite tribe of the non-existent. It will be back to the vacuum and cold dust of the universe all too soon.
How's that for emotional uplift?
Oh, sorry about that. Didn't mean to rain on the parade. Let me offer you an umbrella.
I have nothing against religion -- if it works for you, it's great. Granted, the existence of a Creator, the Logos, the Word in the Beginning, is very comforting. One doesn't have to own any fundamentalist creationist crap stock to believe in a creator, of course. Used to be a mainline Protestant believer myself.
I don't find our unexplained existence sans grand purpose to be a problem, any more than dealing with the various problems which arise from creator myths. Whatever theological overlay one applies, life is still the same. One should still be nice to children, still say you are sorry to the dog if you step on her foot, still call or visit one's parents regularly; still stay in touch with one's siblings, still feed the hungry, care for the sick, comfort the bereaved; still brush daily, floss regularly, exercise, eat healthy food rather that junk; stay informed, vote liberal-left, and so on.
We should still do those things because they make our brief stay nicer, whether there is a god to approve or disapprove.
An 'all good and loving' creator of cancer, malaria, Aids, famine, Hitler, Pol Pot, earthquakes... ? Sounds a bit disturbing to me. Is it some kind of weird psychopathic control-freak type of love you're thinking of?
Well said. And another point. If you find the dog hesitates over whether to accept your apology then it's probably time to get other kinds of help.
So, truth is what makes us feel good?
How do you know that the other possible combinations don't exist too? Because you can't see them? Surely the existence of something doesn't depend on you seeing it.
The problems that you state are indeed problems, under Materialism. They go with the metaphysical belief called Materialism.
But they, and Materialism, are unnecessary
There are inevitable abstract if-then facts. For example, there are syllogisms such as:
If all Slithytoves are brillig, and all Jaberwockeys are Slithytoves, then all Jaberwockeys are brillig.
And there are inevitable abstract if-then facts about physical quantities and physical laws.
A set of hypothetical physical-quantity values, and a hypothetical relation among them (called a "physical law") constitute the "if " premise of an inevitable abstract if-then fact.
...except that one of those physical quantity-values can be taken as the "then" conclusion of that if-then fact.
A mathematical theorem is an if-then fact whose "if " premise includes, but needn't be limited to, a set of mathematical axioms (algebraic or geometric).
And there are complex systems of interlocking inevitable abstract if-then facts, such as those mentioned above.
Those systems, too, are inevitable.
That means it isn't necessary to ask why they are.
Your life-experience possibility-story is one of those infinitely-many inevitable complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals.
I can't prove that the fundamentally, objectively existent world that Materialists believe in doesn't superfluously exist alongside the hypothetical world that is the setting for the complex logical system that is your life-experience possibility-story.
...but, any claim that it does, is an unverifiable, unfalsifiable proposition about a brute-fact, an unnecessary, unsupported assumption.
Why is there you? Why are you in a life? Because there's a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story that has someone just like you (you, in fact) as its protagonist.
That's why you're here. That's why you're in a life.
Why is there something instead of nothing? Because there couldn't have not been abstract if-then facts. ...and therefore complex inter-referring systems of them. ...infinitely-many of them.
There's no reason to bring a religious debate into this subject. The subject of this thread is metaphysics, and metaphysics isn't (or shouldn't be) claimed to cover, explain or describe other than things that are describable and disussable. There' s no reason to believe or claim that metaphysics covers or describes all of Reality. ..or that physics does.
No. See above.
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Not surprising, when you consider that there are infinitely-many life-experience possibiity-stories, as described above.
It's hardly surprising, as one of infinitely-many life-experience possibility-stories, one with you as protagonist.
Metaphysical reality has infinitely many life-experience possibility-stories.
I wouldn't say "not for any reason". The hypothetical person who is the protagonist of a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story, is someone who is in some way predisposed for life, someone with subconscious predisposition of some kind, toward life.
So it could almost be said that you were born into a life because you wanted to, needed to, or were otherwise predisposed to. ...were already the hypothetical protagonist of a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story.
If all this sounds fantastic or unlikely, then what better explanation can you find?
But yes, I agree that, even though there can be this verbal metaphysical explanation, it still is no less amazing and astonishing that we're in a life, that this life started. No matter how good a metaphysical explanation there is, it's still astonishing, and we still find ourselves asking, "Why did this life start?"
As I said, metaphysics doesn't cover, explain, or describe all of Reality.
Michael Ossipoff
Strictly speaking, of course it won't be "of the universe', because, as one is entering the timeless sleep at the end of life, s/he doesn't remember that there was ever such a thing as a universe, worldly-life, identity, time, or events.
(It goes without saying that you'll never experience a time when you don't experience. There's no "oblivion".)
And you make it sound scary, negative. What's scary about peaceful sleep?
Michael Ossipoff
The notion of "Creation" is over-anthropomorphiic.
Yes, there are awful things that happen to people in this world. Because much of it has societal origin, I often refer to this world as "The Land Of The Lost".
If Materialism is true, we're screwed
Well, but even then, the ordeal is only temporary.
But life should never be regarded as something to get through, to get overwith, That's a formula for continued dis-satisfaction and unhappiness. Obviously, being here, and knowing that it's tempporary, and therefore not that big a deal, we might as well make the best of it,
Also, It's been pointed out that, as animals, purposefully-responsive devices, we're here for our built-in purposes, but we're not here for things to happen to.
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Michael Ossipoff
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
anything like sleeping, because one presumably will never dream or wake up. Sleep is a euphemism for death, which has no ending.
Life just stops, and that's it. Nothing more. The prospect of death is a tremendous incentive to enjoy life while it lasts. Carpe diem.
1. There's dreamless sleep.
2. Shakespeare had a good point when he said, "To sleep, perchance to dream."
Of course that needn't refer strictly to the dreams in ordinary everyday sleep He probably was referring to any eventful experience when someone isn't in waking consciousness.
For example, I've suggested an eventful experience occurring during the time without waking consciousness, at the end of a life, but you don't believe in it. But even that eventually won't occur, and then death will for sure be dreamless sleep. What's wrong with that?
You won't know that, or care, because, at the deep stage of death, near complete shutdown, just before awareness stops (by your survivor's timescale), you won't know that your body is going to shut down, and that youu aren't going to wake up, because you won't know that there ever was or could be a body, or wakeful life.
At the end of life, it's just going to sleep, not unlike ordinary nightly sleep.
You're making it into something that it's not.
As I said, during that process, you soon won't know that, or expect or want an ending, or know that there is or was or could be anything other than that sleep.
Of course. At the end of life. But, at the end of life, you won't miss it or know that there was ever such a thing.
I realize that you don't believe in reincarnation. I believe that there probably is reincarnation because it's implied by my metaphysics. I just want to clarify that when I say "the end of life", I'm referring to the end of lives, which, if there isn't reincarnation, just refers to the end of this life.
When I want to refer specifically to the end of this life, or the end of a particular life, I'll say, "the end of this life, or "the end of a life."
No, there's sleep. You seem to be saying that a person arrives at a time when s/he has no experience. How could that be? Do you think that you could experience such a time? As I said, there's no such thing as oblivion.
Of course.
Michael Ossipoff
Because this life (or this finite sequence of finite lives) is finite and temporary, and because sleep at the end of lives is final and timeless, constituting the end of the life-period, I suggest that that final timeless sleep at the end of lives is the natural state of affairs, and that waking eventful life is the anomaly, the exception. ..a blip in eternity.
I usually avoid using the word "endless" for the sleep at the end of lives, because, as I said, in that sleep a person has no wish for an end, or knowledge of such a thing as waking life.
So I prefer the word "timeless".
One definition of "Natural" is "usual or ordinary" Therefore I suggest that the timeless sleep is the natural state of affairs.
Then should we call this temporary, finite time in life, in the "physical' world of events "the Supernatural"?
I suggest that, because we're so used to this life, we have it backwards, regarding what's natural and usual.
Michael Ossipoff
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Gladly. Ask me something specific. And feel free to say, if you feel that the meaning of something I said isn’t clear. But be specific.
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When I looked at articles by Bruner and about Taylor, I didn’t find a topic in common with what I’ve been talking about.
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So, in answer to your question, I’d say "Not that I’m aware of".
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I wasn’t speaking of linguistics. But this website has a Philosophy-of-Language forum that you might be interested in.
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I don’t doubt that Fodor, Searle and Putnam could, and do, ramble endlessly about models of meaning….if what I’ve found so far is any indication.
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You’re asking me how those things fit around what I’ve said. Then I encourage you to read those things, and judge for yourself.
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Or are you saying that you need me to interpret those topics and authors for you?
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When I looked up Fodor, he was described as a philosopher-of-mind. Philosophy-of-mind is garbage.
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Is your question about Searle & Putnam, too, a matter of philosophy-of-mind?
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From what I’ve read by Searle, he believes in Mind as something nonphysical, something meaningful to speak of apart from the body, but believes that “of course” the physical world is the ultimate origin and explanation for everything.
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You thought maybe I was talking about pragmatic matters? :D
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First, the article that I found, about those 3 theories of truth, was talking about the truth of statements.
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Have I been speaking of statements?
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I’ve been speaking of facts.
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A statement is an utterance claiming a fact.
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But, since you ask:
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A statement of a genuine fact would be true by the correspondence meaning of truth.
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Western academic philosophical writing is a beautifully vast resource for a humungous amount of verbal diarrhea. …meaningful and relevant only to those who spew it forth (if even to them), and to the few people who follow them.
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I prefer to speak in plain English, and I try to speak concisely and to the point. If academic philosophers limited themselves to that, they wouldn’t be able to publish all that filler. Remember the “Publish-or-Perish” imperative.
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If an author wants to propose, present or offer his ideas to me and to most people, then I invite him to say it concisely in non-jargon English. (or whatever is the language of those he wants to say it to).
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You could ask me how what I’ve been saying relates to parts of it (the vast academic verbal diarrhea) , and (if I were willing to go along with that), this kind of question-and-answer could go on for many decades. No, thanks.
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But, if I may get back to the topic:
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As I said to Janus, feel free to specify which statement(s) of mine you disagree with, or which statement(s) I didn’t support, or which statement(s), word(s), phrase(s) or term(s) you don’t know the meaning of.
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But be specific.
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If you don’t disagree with any of it, that’s fine too.
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Michael Ossipoff
No need to apologize. My life isn't a parade. It's a funeral.Quoting Bitter Crank
To tell you the truth I'm in a bit of a fix. I have two options before me. One is religion and the other atheism. My present situation is, let's say, ''inconvenient'' both ways. In a nutshell, God seems bloodthirsty and the nihilism of atheism is depressing.
Quoting Bitter Crank
You are good person despite your name BitterCrank. I like your positive attitude; it's rare. I don't know if it's true or not but lately I've begun to realize that to be good we need to give up reasoning. As I once wrote on the forum: there's no good reason to be good. The best theory of life, The Theory of Evolution, can't explain morality which is NOT about survival of the fittest but about survival of the weakest.
Quoting Inter Alia
The current version of my God I'm struggling to come to terms with is, well, bloodthirsty. However, what about the good in this world? You can't ignore the silver lining, no matter how thin it is, can you? Speaking of myself I'm confused. Among the religions I find Buddhism explains evil very well - karmic retribution. Karma isn't that outlandish a claim to me because it simply derives of what even a child can observe - causality. You're right though about all the evil in this world - negative probabilities for God's existence mutliply.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Not always. Lies can be comforting too. Let's just say that the issue is quite complex. We need to be in touch with reality (know truths) to survive and evade pain but to be happy we sometimes need the odd lie, lies about our looks, our sexual prowess, our intelligence, our worth in society, etc.
Please don't give up reasoning. Like Jesus said, we must be as harmless as doves and as wise as serpents.
Quoting TheMadFool
You are in a fix because the two categories -- atheist nihilism and bloodthirsty God belief, are, indeed, dismal alternatives. But you don't have to look at atheism or god in those ways. God is too much a mystery to nail highly specific adjectives onto.
One can be an atheist nihilist, but atheism doesn't necessarily lead to nihilism. Loosen up your categories. They are to small, too rigid.
Wise words.(Y)
Quoting Bitter Crank
I'm feeling better already. Thanks.
The trouble is we do though, it is the deception of metaphors. when we talk about God we inevitably think of a person, just like the people you meet from day to day, our brains simply can't help doing it any more than when we see a table we cannot see it as mostly empty space between tiny quantum particles, no matter how much we tell ourselves that's what it really is.
So when people consider the bad things in the world they say "Oh God's not that simple, it's all just an esoteric generalisation, he's more like a feeling than a person and we couldn't ever understand". Satisfied that they've covered that particular crack they ignore it. Next day, God comes back again in his usual guise, some really kind and protective bloke with a big beard, mysteriously like the dad we all wanted but never quite had...
Well, a non-relgious view isn't that great for the heart either. Philosophers have searched for the meaning of life, which I think would look good on the atheistic CV, and come up with nothing. To me that means we may choose to do what we like, don't you think so? Why shouldn't someone believe in God then, even if such a belief ignores what you call cracks?
Nothing wrong with a belief in God, but you've not given any reason why that should be the 'God' of any particular religion. Saying you believe in God is like saying you believe in 'gfuthflit', useless unless you know what it is. That's why, way back, I talked about the real decisions we have to make day-to-day. It's not about answering the question of who created the world, so what if God did, or 'gfuthflit' did, what matters is what you're going to do about it.
So you're not deciding between versions of metaphysics, but between different actions. Think about what you said "Well, a non-relgious view isn't that great for the heart either.", what's the most obvious rational conclusion from that? We've established between us that neither religious, nor non-religious metaphysics are 'good for the heart' so what would be the simplest, most unbiased explanation for that? That the 'heart' doesn't give fuck about metaphysics. It's wants people to like you, it wants you to do good things for your community, to be fit, watch sunsets, enjoy a good story, have a laugh. To do these things you have to actually make decisions about what actions are going to bring them about. We have the real world as a massive test-bed for that. Do the religious seem to doing well on that front?
Religious people seem to be more at peace with themselves don't you think? Of course religion is a cause for many conflicts but when it comes to inmer peace religion seems to be doing quite well.
Nothing intrinsically, but think about what you would actually be doing. How are you going to know what 'the best bits' are? if you already know whether a bit is 'good' or not, then what are you actually gaining from it, you knew what the right thing to do/believe was all along, otherwise you would not have been able to make that judgement. The only way to gain new knowledge about what to do/believe is to trust the person giving you that knowledge, such that even if it seems a bit counter-intuitive at the time you're going to go along with it anyway. If it, in fact, matches your intuition then they haven't given you any knowledge at all, just told you what you already knew.
So gaining any new knowledge (that you can't personally verify), still comes back down to trust, and how can what the church institutions have done possibly qualify to earn your trust?
Religious people are obviously not more at peace with themselves, I'm mystified as to why anyone would think that. Religious people abuse children, they then cover-up that abuse, they torture people, murder those who don't agree with them, start wars over a stupid building/wall/relic, subjugate women, ostracise homosexuals, stone adulterers, cut people's hands off for stealing, close their church doors to the homeless because 'god made them poor', jail people for touching another man, blow themselves up in public places, murder innocent children because they went to a pop concert. What on earth makes you think religious people are at peace with themselves?
Not me. I want the truth - always. My feelings are secondary to the truth.
But that doesn't make sense. Do you think morality is innate? Are we born with it? I don't think so. People from poor backgrounds with little education and living in neighborhoods where crime is rampant tend to be criminals while people who're better off, not necessarily in terms of money, are morally better. I think morality is a learned behavior and so comes from outside as opposed to inside. What do you think?
Quoting Inter Alia
Well, they seem to have purpose in their lives, they believe in an eternal soul. Atheists, on the other hand have to constantly struggle to find a purpose in their lives, their morality is weak, etc.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Good for you. What about the truth of the finitude of existence, suffering and death? I'm sure you hope that truths didn't exist?
What I hope and what the truth is are two different things. It seems that many people on this forum can distinguish between the two. Which one were we talking about again?
I'm simply pointing out the fact that some truths are unpalatable.
Yes, I absolutely believe that, you can see reactions to injustice even in other primates, see the work of Frans de Waal. All tribes have taboos against most of the stuff we think of as immoral and ostracise those who don't share and support the community. No culture in the world condones murder or theft, all consider generosity a virtue, I could go on, but in summary I consider the evidence that morality is innate to be overwhelming.
The fact that some people find themselves in a situation where they feel their best interests are served by behaving immoraly is a damning indictment of our society. Go into a primary school in those areas and ask the kids if stealing is wrong, what answer do you think you'd get?
Quoting TheMadFool
What, abusing children? How's having a purpose any use to you if it's a soul destroying one? As I said in my earlier post, having a belief in a soul doesn't make you happy; having good friends and being a useful part of a caring community makes you happy.
Im still not quite sure where you're coming from here. You've just said atheist's morality is weak (implying that of religious people isn't) after I've just supplied you with a liturgy of crimes committed by the deeply religious. What more data do you need to go on?
This bearded fellow is lodged in billions of minds, mine too. It's the children's Sunday school story that doesn't grow up with us. Some enduring effort is needed to learn, unlearn, and relearn. The cliché god, big daddy in the sky, is too small, too simple, too literal -- and altogether too familiar. Big daddy god is not suitable for mature adult audiences.
One place (there are others) to look for direction on how to get a grown-up god is (surprise!) the Bible: Like Isaiah:
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
or in Job:
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? 8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? 12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?
More metaphors, yes. It is very hard to think or speak of an immortal, immaterial, immanent God, permanently pervading and sustaining the universe. "All that" is just way out of our ordinary reckoning. So, we use metaphors like "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?"
It's a discipline to stop thinking about God in material terms, to get it through our thick skulls that God is not like us. (Such as, God didn't evolve; God doesn't have a body; God doesn't have senses, emotions, ideas... All that is our stuff. God isn't located "somewhere" -- like heaven. God isn't "seated on a throne" because God doesn't sit, stand, lay down, or hover.)
I'm offering this as intellectual advice, not pastoral advice.
Quoting TheMadFool
Inter Alia, aren't you doing the same thing (only in reverse) that TheMadFood proposes? You are picking the worst parts of various religious groups and packaging it as "This Is What Religious People Do"? Had you ranged wider, outside of the Abrahamic religions, you could find even worse things that religious people do.
People--all 100 billion of us that have ever existed--tend to behave badly, and nothing we have thought of so far is able to make angels out of us. That's one thing.
The other thing is that studies have found that religious people, on average, tend to be more at peace, happier, well adjusted--or something--than people without religious beliefs. This good effect of religion might come from regular association with other people. Social isolates usually are fairly unhappy, die at an earlier age than socially involved people, are healthier, and so on.
Religion (for better or for worse) supplies regular social activity and a basket of organizing principles which can be used to make sense of frequently unpleasant realities. Familiar rituals tend to feel good. Doing them with other people is even better.
Religion, as Karl Marx noted, "... is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions."
Amazing.
Even dogs dislike it when they are not rewarded for effort and they can see that other dogs are rewarded.*** Canine through Primate morality is rather limited. It may be the basis of cultural elaboration by us primates, but I think you'll have a hard time proving that connection.
You bring in culture: "No culture in the world condones murder or theft..." Is culture innate too? OR, do we develop cultural features and pass them on to the next generation through instruction and example? Language (in which so much culture is encapsulated) isn't innate either. The capacity and urge to learn language seems to be innate, but there is nothing innate about any particular language.
*** The difference between canines and primates on this point is this: In laboratory situations, where dogs in experiments can see each other, dogs object to not being rewarded for effort. It doesn't make any difference what they are rewarded with, as long as they receive something. Primates in laboratory situations object when they do not receive equal quality rewards. Dogs stop cooperating if they are unrewarded. Primates stop cooperating if they are rewarded with inferior tidbits, like a slice of cucumber instead of a slice of apple, or a piece of turnip instead of a piece of orange.
As for innateness, sure: evolution has developed innate capabilities in many species. But in humans, it seems to require the medium of culture to develop innate qualities -- because it takes so long for humans to reach maturity.
Whenever I consider this type of question, I try to imagine one or more people born on an island, isolated from any sort of existing human culture.
I think morality is based first on survival, then on thriving. Think of two people growing up alone on separate sides of an island, each with an adequate supply of food and shelter. One day, they meet. I don't think either person would feel compelled to hurt the other. After the initial shock of seeing another human, I think they would eventually feel compelled to communicate in some way, and maybe even cooperate. At a minimum, I think the instinct would be to avoid, rather than engage in a hurtful way.
However, change the circumstances by drastically reducing the available resources, and the meeting might not go so well. The individuals may feel compelled to eliminate each other, in order to secure more resources for their own survival. If they had already met and formed a relationship prior to the scarcity of resources coming into play, I imagine the spirit would be more of a cooperative one.
Perhaps my logic is tainted by the hope that we are all innately moral, and that hurtful choices are only made by those who haven't had a decent upbringing, have grown up in a morally questionable society, or have experienced more than their fair share of difficult circumstances...
I came here to say this but you already said it well, so I won't even bother.
I will say, though, as to why anything exists at all, that is something I will never stop reflecting on and being infinitely puzzled by. I'm sure it's impossible to find an answer--it's impossible enough just to think about it coherently, like trying to look at your own eyes or taste your own tongue. Still, that doesn't stop me from thinking about it nearly every day. It's truly the single greatest mystery.
Hahaha! Especially funny when removed from the rest of your comment... :)
That gave me a laugh.
I'm touched by your concern for my intellectual development, but you have completely (deliberately?) missed the point of what I was saying, Perhaps I should have been clearer. My point it that God ends up in everyone's mind as the bearded 'dad you never had' regardless of what anyone says he is, and that includes the authors of the bible.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, are you denying that these things were done by religious people? So the statement "this is what religious people do" would be entirely accurate. What you mean to do is apply a lazy caricature of my argument so that you can trot out the stock response that religion has some good things too, but that has nothing to do with the actual line of argument.
What has been argued here is this;
Quoting TheMadFool
Quoting Bitter Crank
Quoting TheMadFool
Quoting TheMadFool
The summary of which is that something about a belief in God solves something that atheism does not solve i.e it is a necessary condition for membership of the set "people who are OK" (where OK, is the state we are aiming for (I'm English so we don't go for 'great' or 'wonderful')), If you remember your undergraduate set theory, all I have to do to disprove that assertion is find one single example of a person who has the property 'being religious', but who is not 'OK' and one person who is atheist who is 'OK'. What the majority of religious people are like is irrelevant.
If I were to argue that something about redness was intrinsic to apples, all I would have to do would be to find one red thing that wasn't an apple and that would disprove the theory, there might then be thousands of red apples, but 'redness' and 'appleness' are not linked because there exists one non-red apple. There are happy content and kind religious people, there are nasty selfish and devious religious people, therefore religion has nothing to do with one's happiness, kindness and contentment, it is not an argument about numbers it is one about necessity.
It's funny how one can mention on this forum that the word of a book that talks about seven-headed dragons and an angry god striking people down with thunderbolts might not actually be true and be met with concern that one might be being a bit harsh, but suggest that there might be some truth in the work of several leading primatologists, neuroscientists and ethicists, with hundreds of years of combined expertise in the field might actually be right and you get met with incredulity.
What exactly is it about the possibility that sufficient knowledge of 'right' and 'wrong' might be innate for us to not require religious instruction that you find so difficult to believe?
The issue is simple; literal interpretations of scripture. Your view of scripture is a literal caricature.
And alternatively, if the issue is "hundreds of years of combined expertise", then reference some intro theology texts, like Tillich's "A History of Christian Thought", which spans more like 2,000 years.
No, my view of scripture is a literal one, to conclude that it is a caricature requires there to be some objective reason why scripture is not to be taken literally, if so where did this objective knowledge come from. Have I got a missing page in my King James' that says "Oh and by the way, don't take all of this literally"?
One cannot be an expert in theology because there is no objective measure of one's theory. Theologians can be popular, they can be considered interesting, insightful, but they cannot be experts, no-one has yet tested any of their theories, so no-one can say if any one of them is more right than any other. a million years of speculation wont make anyone more right about religion, the book says what it says, the rest is just guesswork.
You have a lot of research ahead of you.