Do religious ideas arise from fallacies?

The OP is very specific about what is being discussed.
The originator wants to look at misconceptions that could have sparked religious notions and restressed his intent in Message 39.

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This thread is not about proving that these "possibilities" are valid or not. This is probably not a good thread for those who don't feel that religious "notions" could have developed from misconceptions.

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Thank you

More correctly, the current consensus is that photons exist. As Percy often reminds us, all science is tentative.Keep in mind that, not too long ago, the consensus was that there is a force of attraction between masses (Newton' theory of gravity). Today, the consensus is that the presence of mass causes curvature of space-time, and that this curvature is the explanation of gravity.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

This entire OP is predicated on the premise that people throughout the ages have been demented and/or liars and/or idiots, and that nothing they say about their beliefs is to be taken seriously.People know when they are personifying, it's mostly an art form, it's not something "primitive" people do because they are stupid or childish. Certainly people misinterpret their experience in various ways, especially because we are fallen, but there is no call for this total discrediting of the witness of the past. Modern man is no improvement on the ancients in basic human abilities anyway.Religion throughout the ages, as I base it on the Bible, has been a combination of the distortions of fallen intellect, the activities of demonic beings that sometimes possess human beings, and demand placations and sacrifices, along with the vague distorted memory of the one true God which they are doing their best to usurp and keep distorted. This is why revelation from God Himself was needed, which He provided in the record known as the Bible.You want to explain it all in terms of faulty human cognition, but there is nothing wrong with my Bible-based alternative explanation, that includes a real supernatural realm in the mix. And I don't see that modern humanity has anything on the ancients.

Try tell that to the modern man. Often times I reckon folk have the notion that man evolved from ape around about the time of the industrial revolution.In another thread, someone suggested that only legend could be the basis on which a person 2000 years ago could live to 100. Whereas all you have to do to live to 100 in any age is avoid being killed.

No, simply unable to compenasate for their cognitive/memory shortcomings; as they didn't have science with which to discover them. If someone's methodology is fatally flawed, should you be taking their beliefs seriously? Only when they know.
If and when they don't know, they don't know. Science gives us the edge. Except it's not connected to reality, and it can be used to support anything."I am God. You simply can't see it, since you humans have forgotten how to differentate me from a human; and the demons make sure it stays that way."Edited by DominionSeraph, : No reason given.

Everything's tenative. Do you demand absolute certainty before you accept something?

That doesn't alter the fact that it is reification that gave us photons.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

No, it was experimentation. Feel free to make up your own history, though.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Yes, it was experimentation that lead to theory, and the photon was a placeholder in that theory (i.e. an abstraction). See here and here.It sure looks like reification to me.I raised the issue in Message 22, because the discussions seemed biased. Evolutionists were saying that religion involves the fallacy of reification, but did not see there own use of reification.My point:

reification is not a fallacy - it is not even logic (to which "fallacy" properly applies).

the use of reification is widespread in science, religion, and elsewhere.

reification can be useful.

religious people don't notice their own use of reification, for the concepts involved are so commonplace to them that they take them for granted.

scientific people don't notice their use of reification either, and for a similar reason.

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Let's not have a double standard here.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

If one checks descriptions of reification, one finds that it is often called a fallacy. The important point is that the item referred to is not, in fact, a thing or substance. Therefore, it is erroneous to refer to it as such.In the photon example, it was discovered that the photon was indeed a thing and it was correct to refer to it as such.Another example is beauty. Beauty is an abstract concept; it is a generalized notion observed in actual instances of various objects. It would be incorrect to speak of distributing beauty in bottles, because beauty is not a substance. (Regardless of what the cosmetic industry would have us believe!)I suspect that we differ in what we think of as an abstraction, reification, or maybe both.

Err no. You building a stawman - none of those words or ideas were communicated in the OP - you imagined them to strengthen your weak position.The ancients viewed the world thru a lens that was darker than our view today. Our knowledge of the world has increased and accumulated significantly.Likewise a generation 2000 years from now will have a much clearer understanding of reality.I would not want a future generation be held captive to the beliefs and misunderstandings of today by a group of backward thinking fundamentalist pharisees.

But you objected to the characterization of moderns' view of the ancients as liars and idiots?

What is or is not a thing or substance is highly contentious. Are you aware of anti-realism, which holds (for example) that electrons and photons are not real but are useful fictions? Try here and here. While I don't have any names, it is my understanding that there are some quantum physicists who doubt that quarks and the like exist, though they find them useful fictions. When was this discovery made? Do you have reference? It is my impression that it was decided (not discovered) that photons are things. That's quite likely. But it is also likely that you disagree with the theists as to what is an abstraction and what is an example of reification. And that's why I say there is a double standard here.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

I do not view the ancients as liars and idiots, so yes I would object to that. As I said the ancients had a less complete view of reality - they were not demented.If I was born during the Bronze Age I would have naturally thought that the earth was center of the universe and that you could build a tower to heaven and threaten God.We now have a greater perspective sitting on the shoulders of prior generations. I prefer we take advantage of the perspective.But if I were to reach for the label idiot, I would apply it to those who want to shunt todays view of reality back to the prevailing perspective of several thousand years ago.Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

One potential source of confusion, Woodsy, lies is the way we use language. We often talk about abstract things as if they had the properties of objects or substances. The 'water cycle,' for example. We speak of the roundabout journey made by H2O molecules as if it were a geometrical circle existing somewhere.This use of language is a fine--and even necessary--ingredient in forming concepts and communicating them. No discussion in science or philosophy could go far without it. But it can also lead to misunderstandings.Also note that no abstraction ever is totally abstract. When we pay close attention to what happens in our heads when you encounter a word like 'beauty' or 'evaporation' or 'kinetic energy' we'll notice some sort of image still manifesting itself, however lacking in detail it might be. Even when we want to be abstact we can't empty our mental pictures of every last bit of sensory detail. We just can't do it. It's inherent in the way we form concepts. We make models.A clear boundary between abstraction and concrete images cannot finally be set. Concrete and abstract are really matters of degree.But a real possibility of confusion follows from this and it seems to be on display in this discussion.I'd say that likelihood of confusion lends support to your OP. But it also makes it dicier to insist on the term 'fallacy'--if by 'religion' you mean pre-scientific ways of conceptualizing phenomena that have no material form. We see rain falling on soil and think of a circle; the ancients saw rain falling on soil and thought of a procreative act. Either way, it's a mental image of a process. If we can do it, they can do it._Edited by Archer Opterix, : Cleanup.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.