Genetics Influences Whether Someone is Religious Or Not

1. " 'I agree with LuckyLemon when he says, 'religion takes [too] many processes, thoughts, decisions, and life lessons” to place all of these factors on one gene. I assume that a collection of genes influences a person’s religiosity, just as a collection of genes influences a person’s intelligence" Yes, to clarify, when I proposed "Genetics does not influence whether someone is religious or not," I am referring to not one gene (after all, many simple phenotypical characteristics is usually never the result of just 1 gene). Referencing back to reiterate: "Genetics: Relating to GENES and genetic information" Now, although we agree that we are talking about multiple genes affecting/not affecting religion, I warn about connecting intelligence and religion. According to your "'Intelligence genes' reveal their complexity" reference, intelligence connects to how the brain is put together in terms of function, but nowhere in that article did it address that multiple genes influencing that intelligence connects with the same concept of multiple genes influencing your religion. Religion and intelligence are two different things, and although there are correlations of non-theists having higher IQs than theists (1), that is where the religion vs. intelligence consensus stands. It is a rocky foundation to keep going with those two. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. "LuckyLemon says, 'by understanding what truly does the role more [genetics or the environment], I can persuade the opponent of just how little, or not at all, their genes affect their religion.' I don’t know which of the two has a stronger impact. LuckyLemon did not address in this round which of the two has the bigger impact. And I don’t know if this claim was up for debate. But knowing which of the two has a stronger impact is irrelevant." I think what I was going for in noting this was that you emphasized we are not debating "genetics [having] a bigger impact on someone’s religiosity than his or her environment[,]" but I implied that because the environment/one's individual decisions is an actual influencing factor (I addressed that in my opening statement) that it is IS relevant to note them. True, we are not debating environment vs. genes, but in the end, if I say "This does not affect it at all," then I must note what DOES. It was an additional note I wanted to add; you do not have to debate it. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. " ‘religiosity’ is, as this complex term has different meanings to different people. Here I’m defining it as some quantifiable variable that reflects '[actions that indicate] belief in, obedience to, and reverence for a god, gods, or similar superhuman power” (I used the OED.com’s third definition of 'religion')." Religiosity is not "quantifiable"/quantitative; by connection to your very own definition with the word "belief" (someone's level of "belief" is not quantitative like a number of apples or statistical pie chart from the Census), religiosity should be qualitative (2). Nowhere in OED.com's third definition of “religion” did it use the word “qualitative.” (3) Let’s not change religion’s definition, shall we? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Also, I thought we did not want to touch on environment? Well, if you insist. Take out the whole paragraph you got from that reference, and you get the whole thought: "Today, we easily recognize that both genes and the environment influence behavior, and scientists studying behavior focus on the interaction between these two factors. Genes... create a framework within which the environment acts to shape the behavior of an individual animal. The environment can affect morphological and physiological development; in turn behavior develops as a result of that animal’s shape and internal workings." Genes "CREATE" the framework; they are not THE influencing framework. This sentence is not putting genes in the limelight; it is saying it is the jumpstart/framework for the ENVIRONMENT to play the role of affecting behavior. If putting it grammatically helps, here is what the sentence is without the introductory fluff: "the environment acts to shape the behavior of an individual animal." Technicalities aside, "genes creat[ing] the scaffold for learning, memory, and cognition, remarkable mechanisms that allow animals to acquire and store information about their environment for use in shaping their behavior" may be praising the processing and power of genes, but in the end, the "learning, memory, cognition" does not equate to religiosity (you could having learning, memory, and cognition to be an atheist plumber teacher surgeon barnacle starfish anything under the sun). (Separate Note Not a Part of Debate: Just because you have a PhD does not mean you always "know what you are talking about.") Thus, I see a deadlock where we need to truly debate. Genes do not determine religion because genes do not truly determine behavior. Understand this: It is well documented that a set of human genes are connected to the metabolism of dopamine and serotonin which are chemicals instigating risk-taking. This can manifest into certain behaviors such as the inclination to try roller coasters, fast cars, and daredevil tricks. This does not mean there is a gene for the behaviors "roller-coaster-loving" or "dare-devil trick-trying." Our genetic makeup predisposes us in one direction or another towards a behavior, but it is not that behavior that the gene codes for. There is no genes for Buddhism, Daoism, and Christianity. There are genes that can result in an openness/ susceptibility for certain experiences that later manifest into religion, but those genes are not "God" of "religion" genes. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. This, my friend, can be applied to the lack of religion as well. It is funny that the very Popular Science "What Twins Reveal About The Science Of Faith" article Daniel Dennett refers to has an ideal example of two twins, Elizabeth and Caroline, developing religions as they grew up despite having atheist and agnostic parents. Should the genes not have determined or highly influenced those two girls becoming nonreligious as well? By your understanding of religious genetic influences through Punnet Squares, both parents being both homozygous for nonreligiousness should have lead to a high percentage of their identical daughters becoming nonreligious as well. The very contrary happened. Not only did those two girls become HIGHLY integrated into their religions afterwards, but they both chose different religions: Christianity and Islam. The girls were both appalled by each other not trying to understand each other's religion as well, yet these two shared close to the same genetics/genes. Should they not have established some deep genetic connection of each other's religiousness, or is there something else in this mix determining religiosity? The article was attempting to make the conclusion that the mother was secretly and subconsciously religious off of her epiphany when she was out walking, and this quick notion of "I think I've found God" WHILE SHE WAS DYING is a scarcely reliable source to conclude off of. (4) If my finding a huge flaw in this twin study is not enough, please look at this Twin Study Critique (5), for although they are very useful and convenient when it comes to closely linked genes, they can be quite overrated and poor in judging the population as a whole. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. "Let me contradict myself for a moment. Let’s assume that religiosity can be traced to one specific gene instead of many genes, and that the phenotype of religiosity can be identified as easily as albinism can...Let’s say that being religious is the dominant gene (R) and that being nonreligious is the recessive gene (r)..." The fact you had to contradict yourself just to give a Punnet Square example off of a hypothetical religion-heredity example despite a single religious gene ever being scientifically identified or proven as dominant/recessive is reason enough to not debate a Punnet Square tutorial. For fun, what does the phenotype, or observable physical characteristics, of religion look like? What does a religious person look like? ;) Your turn, missy! ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ References: 1. http://www.atheistnexus.org...; 2. https://www.google.com... 3. http://www.oed.com... 4. http://www.popsci.com... 5. http://citation.allacademic.com...