If the difference between faith and reason isn't obvious to people — ssu

Knowledge is fundamentally foundationalist:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundationalism

Identifying the alternatives as either circular reasoning or infinite regress, and thus exhibiting the regress problem, Aristotle made foundationalism his own clear choice, positing basic beliefs underpinning others.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_belief

Beliefs therefore fall into two categories:

- Beliefs that are properly basic, in that they do not depend upon justification of other beliefs, but on something outside the realm of belief (a "non-doxastic justification").

- Beliefs that derive from one or more basic beliefs, and therefore depend on the basic beliefs for their validity.

Without basic beliefs, reason is not possible.

Therefore, there is no such sharp distinction between reason and faith. Reason allows us to reach derived beliefs. However, their ultimate justification can only be found in properly basic beliefs

We accept science and math because they work — Tom Storm

I accept religion, also because it works.

We take a snapshot of a presumably ane society along with its rules and call that our scripture. Now we have a benchmark to compare our own society to, as well as where it is heading. Next, we threaten the government to stop overruling the laws of nature and of a sane society, and make it cave in.

What is there about religion that does not work? In my opinion, the tool is perfectly suitable for purpose.

My point is that math demonstrates its utility — Tom Storm

Religion also demonstrates its utility. The government fears us more than the result of its elections. So, the tool achieves its goal.

You see, when the Taliban unceremoniously deported NATO from Kabul airport, they achieved something that nobody else was able to do. Or do you think that you can do that too?

We still can't demonstrate that there are any gods. We can demonstrate that math works. We seem unable to get past this point. — Tom Storm

You need to compare apples to apples:

- We can demonstrate that math works.
- We can demonstrate that religion works.

That is the fair comparison. Or even:

- We still can't demonstrate that there are any gods.
- We still can't demonstrate that Peano's successor function exists as mentioned in the axioms of arithmetic.

That is another fair comparison.

What you are doing, is comparing apples to oranges.

He hasn't. Read the Reddit article you yourself linked. — Lionino

You misunderstand what the Wikipedia page on the matter says. Godel has perfectly demonstrated the equiconsistency between his theorem and the axioms that he used. What else does any proof do, if not exactly that?

Yes, it can be but that formulation is not popular – though it's formerly my preferred position (while quite reasonable, it's too narrow in scope): — 180 Proof

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.

In my opinion, the difference between "absence of belief" and "disbelief" is just language engineering.

It implies that the position could also be indeterminate. However, we already have a term for that position, i.e. agnosticism.

Why would there be a need to create that ambiguous overlap between atheism and agnosticism? It merely mixes up the underlying truth values. A logic sentence is true, false, or indeterminate. Why deviate from standard logic. To what benefit?

I'm not a foundationalist. — Tom Storm

In that case, you will need to reject mathematics as it is staunchly foundationalist, i.e. axiomatic. Since science is not viable without math, you will also need to reject science.

Even animals use some basic arithmetic for reasons of survival. Hence, an anti-foundationalist animal cannot survive.

Again, every living creature needs to have at least some faith in order to survive.

But then again, with the birth rate collapsing, atheist populations are in the long run not surviving. Indeed, why would they? In the end, you still need some faith to believe that it would be meaningful to begin with. There is no compulsion in religion. Therefore, they are indeed at liberty to die out.

As usual, the proof will be in the pudding. Atheism will disappear. Only religion will survive. That is how it has always been. Nothing new there.

We do not say there is no god, that would be making a positive claim. — Tom Storm

There are three possibilities concerning the belief in God: true, false, indeterminate. Religion believes it is true. Atheism believes that it is false. Agnosticism is indeterminate.

Atheism is defined as a positive claim. It is agnosticism that refuses to make a claim. While agnosticism makes perfect sense, atheism doesn't.

For many, atheism is about belief not knowledge. — Tom Storm

If we look at the JTB account for knowledge, then knowledge is defined as a particular kind of belief:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem

The JTB account holds that knowledge is equivalent to justified true belief; if all three conditions (justification, truth, and belief) are met of a given claim, then we have knowledge of that claim.

There is no knowledge without belief. Furthermore, at the foundationalist core of knowledge you always find necessarily unjustifiable beliefs. Rejecting the foundation of unjustifiable beliefs amounts to rejecting the entire edifice of knowledge. If you can't have faith, you cannot know either.

The quesion we are addressing is - is there good reason to belive in god the way there are good reasons to believe in math? — Tom Storm

The reasons are similar. The belief in Peano's axioms allows you to use arithmetic theory and maintain consistency in downstream applications. The belief in religion creates a common understanding between billions of people that constitute a political counterweight to prevent governments from overruling the laws of nature. Different tools for different purposes.

Religion all over the world behaves like a political party - theism being incidental to its machinations — Tom Storm

Politics is unavoidable. The government is essentially a monopoly on violence. There needs to be a mechanism to suspend this monopoly when the government abuses it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven

The Mandate of Heaven (Chinese: 天命; pinyin: Tiānmìng; Wade–Giles: T'ien1-ming4; lit. 'Heaven's command') is a Chinese political ideology that was used in Ancient China and Imperial China to legitimize the rule of the king or emperor of China.[1] According to this doctrine, Heaven (天, Tian) bestows its mandate[a] on a virtuous ruler. This ruler, the Son of Heaven, was the supreme universal monarch, who ruled Tianxia (天下; "all under heaven", the world).[3] If a ruler was overthrown, this was interpreted as an indication that the ruler was unworthy and had lost the mandate.[4]

The so-called democratic voting circus was advertised as being capable of achieving this but it has now become obvious that it has failed at doing so. We are now effectively in the long run of all the past short-termism.

Dunning-Kruger is in full effect. — 180 Proof

Dunning-Kruger is about people who think that they know but in fact they don't. Since atheism requires omniscience while faith in God does not, doesn't Dunning-Kruger rather describe atheists and not religious people?

WTF are you talking about, kid? — 180 Proof

Ha ha ah! You have just made my point!

The difference is it misses a key factor. Demonstration of effectiveness. We have good reasons to accept math and the axioms because we can demonstrate their effectiveness. Anyone can do this at any time. — Tom Storm

Look at the size of the mathematical corpus:

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2014/08/computational-knowledge-and-the-future-of-pure-mathematics/

So how big is the historical corpus of mathematics? There’ve probably been about 3 million mathematical papers published altogether—or about 100 million pages, growing at a rate of about 2 million pages per year. And in all of these papers, perhaps 5 million distinct theorems have been formally stated.

The overwhelmingly vast majority of these 5 million theorems are useless and irrelevant. In what way would they be effective?

We can't even agree on which gods or why gods or how gods. — Tom Storm

There are alternative religions, just like there are alternative foundations for math. Two billion people agree on Christianity. Two billion on Islam. A similarly large number on Buddhism. There are obscure religions with a small number of followers, just like there are obscure math theories.

Furthermore, religion can be very effective. It can successfully prevent governments from overruling the laws of nature. It can also be effective at motivating individuals and stimulate their survival instinct. It can motivate individuals to maintain faith in life and in the future and keep reproducing from generation to generation. The birth rate for atheists may be crashing and burning, but religious communities keep going strong.

You ignoring context and equivocate "exist", "faith", "proof" .... no wonder you're talking nonsense. — 180 Proof

As soon as you switch to personal attacks, it means that you feel that you are losing the debate.

In mathematics, "faith" in axioms is more about agreement on foundational principles rather than belief without evidence. — Tom Storm

Faith in axioms still requires belief without evidence. Religious people also agree on the foundational principles of their faith. What's the difference?

No one has asked for a "mathematical proof" — 180 Proof

There is no other "proof" than mathematical proof. The OP asks "Can anyone prove a god?"
Well, Gödel gave mathematical proof. And now suddenly, no one asked for it!

only you have offered one that amounts to nothing more than a "higher-order modal" tautology. — 180 Proof

Gödel's proof is no more tautological than any other mathematical proof.

Is this an example of faith? — Tom Storm

Accepting a truth without evidence is faith. Therefore, an axiom represents faith. If you are not willing to do that, then why do it in mathematics?

So, confirming you do not even know what yoi are talking about, Gödel only proves a mathematical expression and not, as you've claimed, "that god exists". — 180 Proof

Every proof does only that. In that case, why ask for "proof", if proof can never be satisfactory?

By "faith" I mean worship of supernatural mysteries e.g. "a god" (re: OP), not mere (un/warranted) trust in a usage or practice. Context matters. — 180 Proof

Yes, so what's the difference?

"Godlike" (e.g. Spinoza's metaphysical Deus, sive natura) is not equivalent to any supernatural god (e.g. "God of Abraham") so this "proof" is theologically irrelevant. — 180 Proof

You did not prove this.

More specifically, his argument consists of some undecidable (i.e. disputable) formal axioms — 180 Proof

Axioms are not undecidable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undecidable_problem

In computability theory and computational complexity theory, an undecidable problem is a decision problem for which it is proved to be impossible to construct an algorithm that always leads to a correct yes-or-no answer.

The standard truth status of axioms is not characterized as undecidable.

even if valid, it is not sound — 180 Proof

This argument can be made about every mathematical theorem, simply by rejecting the axioms on which the theorem rests.

nothing nonformal, or concrete, is "proven". — 180 Proof

Proof only exists in mathematics, which is never about the physical universe. Therefore, it is impossible to prove anything "concrete". That is not how proof works.

This might shed more light on where you think Wittgenstein went wrong. — Joshs

In fact, Gödel's first incompleteness theorem trivially follows from Carnap's diagonal lemma. If you want to attack Gödel's theorem, you can pretty much only do that by pointing out a gap in the proof for the diagonal lemma or by pointing out that the lemma does not apply because isProvable(n) is not a legitimate predicate in PA. Wittgenstein did not do that. Instead, Wittgenstein struggled somewhat with his own flawed interpretation of Gödel's theorem without pointing out a legitimate flaw in the proof.

Could you provide your own critique of Platonic explanations of the mathematics, lie that of Goedel, or the correspondence theory of truth? This might shed more light on where you think Wittgenstein went wrong. — Joshs

Wittgenstein wrote the following "notorious paragraph" on Gödel's first incompleteness theorem in his "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remarks_on_the_Foundations_of_Mathematics

Wittgenstein wrote

I imagine someone asking my advice; he says: "I have constructed a proposition (I will use 'P' to designate it) in Russell's symbolism, and by means of certain definitions and transformations it can be so interpreted that it says: 'P is not provable in Russell's system'. Must I not say that this proposition on the one hand is true, and on the other hand unprovable? For suppose it were false; then it is true that it is provable. And that surely cannot be! And if it is proved, then it is proved that it is not provable. Thus it can only be true, but unprovable." Just as we can ask, " 'Provable' in what system?," so we must also ask, "'True' in what system?" "True in Russell's system" means, as was said, proved in Russell's system, and "false" in Russell's system means the opposite has been proved in Russell's system.—Now, what does your "suppose it is false" mean? In the Russell sense it means, "suppose the opposite is proved in Russell's system"; if that is your assumption you will now presumably give up the interpretation that it is unprovable. And by "this interpretation" I understand the translation into this English sentence.—If you assume that the proposition is provable in Russell's system, that means it is true in the Russell sense, and the interpretation "P is not provable" again has to be given up. If you assume that the proposition is true in the Russell sense, the same thing follows. Further: if the proposition is supposed to be false in some other than the Russell sense, then it does not contradict this for it to be proved in Russell's system. (What is called "losing" in chess may constitute winning in another game.)

Wittgenstein mishandled Gödel's witness:

P <-> not provable([P])

By the way, first of all, P could be also be undecidable. We should not simply assume that the problem would necessarily be decidable (true or false). Otherwise, our approach could possibly constitute abuse of the law of the excluded middle.

Next, if P is true then P is not provable.
If P is false then P is provable.

Hence, P is [1] undecidable, or [2] true and not provable, or [3] false and provable.

In fact, we don't know what the actual truth status is of P. That is also not necessary.

Gödel's incompleteness theorem states that there exist in Peano arithmetic (PA) logic sentences that are undecidable, or, true and not provable, or, false and provable. Hence, in constructivist terms, P is indeed a legitimate witness for Gödel's theorem, making his theorem intuitionistically unobjectionable.

Hence, there is nothing wrong with Gödel's witness.

When Wittgenstein wrote:

Just as we can ask, " 'Provable' in what system?," so we must also ask, "'True' in what system?"

Gödel's work is about "provable from PA" and therefore "true in the natural numbers" (as well as all other nonstandard models of arithmetic).

When Wittgenstein wrote:

If you assume that the proposition is provable in Russell's system, that means it is true in the Russell sense, and the interpretation "P is not provable" again has to be given up.

Wittgenstein assumes the soundness of PA ("Russell's system"), i.e. provable implies true.

Gödel's theorem does not assume neither the consistency nor the soundness of PA. The theorem states that "There possibly exist false statements that are provable", i.e. are inconsistent, and also "There possibly exist true statements that are not provable", i.e. are incomplete. So, PA is possibly inconsistent and/or possibly incomplete. The theorem does not say which one it is. It could even be both.

While it is perfectly fine to assume PA's consistency in (ordinary) mathematics, it is not good practice to assume it in metamathematics, where it is often part of the question at hand, such as in Gödel's theorem.

In fact, Gödel proves in his second incompleteness theorem that if PA can prove its own consistency, then PA is necessarily inconsistent. Wittgenstein was clearly also not aware of Gödel's second incompleteness theorem. Consistency was even more the question and not a valid assumption in Gödel's second incompleteness theorem.

In my opinion, Wittgenstein's remarks on Gödel's theorem are confused. He did not point out a problem with Gödel's theorem. What problem in that case? Wittgenstein rather pointed out a problem with his understanding.

For Wittgenstein, the mathematician is an inventor not a discoverer, and mathematical proposition are normative. — Richard B

Wittgenstein considered his contribution to the philosophy of mathematics to be his chief contribution:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein%27s_philosophy_of_mathematics

Ludwig Wittgenstein considered his chief contribution to be in the philosophy of mathematics, a topic to which he devoted much of his work between 1929 and 1944.

Wittgenstein has, however, gone into history as someone who does not understand mathematics particularly well:

https://philpapers.org/archive/FLOOSW.pdf

Wittgenstein's remarks on the first incompleteness theorem 1 have often been denounced, and mostly dismissed. Despite indirect historical evidence to the contrary," it is a commonplace that Wittgenstein rejected Godel's proof because he did not, or even could not, understand it.

Wittgenstein's take on the matter was rejected unanimously:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems

On their release, Bernays, Dummett, and Kreisel wrote separate reviews on Wittgenstein's remarks, all of which were extremely negative.[38] The unanimity of this criticism caused Wittgenstein's remarks on the incompleteness theorems to have little impact on the logic community.In 1972, Gödel stated: "Has Wittgenstein lost his mind? Does he mean it seriously? He intentionally utters trivially nonsensical statements", and wrote to Karl Menger that Wittgenstein's comments demonstrate a misunderstanding of the incompleteness theorems writing:

It is clear from the passages you cite that Wittgenstein did not understand [the first incompleteness theorem] (or pretended not to understand it). He interpreted it as a kind of logical paradox, while in fact is just the opposite, namely a mathematical theorem within an absolutely uncontroversial part of mathematics (finitary number theory or combinatorics).[39]

In my opinion and based on what he wrote in his "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics", Wittgenstein was just confused. In my opinion, Wittgenstein did not understand model theory either:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-mathematics/

From this it follows that all other apparent propositions are pseudo-propositions of various types and that all other uses of ‘true’ and ‘truth’ deviate markedly from the truth-by-correspondence (or agreement) that contingent propositions have in relation to reality. Thus, from the Tractatus to at least 1944, Wittgenstein maintains that “mathematical propositions” are not real propositions and that “mathematical truth” is essentially non-referential and purely syntactical in nature.

For example, the notion of truth in Peano arithmetic theory is defined as correspondence with the set-theoretical structure of the natural numbers. This is an abstract, Platonic reality and not the physical reality, but regardless, truth is still based on correspondence. Hence, arithmetical truth is not syntactical in nature.

Every time I have read something that Wittgenstein has written about mathematics in which he commits himself to a verifiable claim, it turns out to be simply wrong. Hence, Wittgenstein's contribution to the philosophy of mathematics is mostly ... confusion.

Sour Grapes — Vera Mont

What exactly would I envy? Dealings with the HR department of a university? I have never had to go through any HR department. I find the practice insulting. It says everything about your station in life. I am semi-retired now. If I was ever going to work again, I'd rather swear fealty as a serf to the lord of the manor than to deal with an HR department.

Perhaps you have learned a lot but still don't know everything there is to know, and perhaps you have made some wrong assumptions. — fishfry

Stephen Wolfram writes on this subject:

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2014/08/computational-knowledge-and-the-future-of-pure-mathematics

Curating the math corpus. So how big is the historical corpus of mathematics? There’ve probably been about 3 million mathematical papers published altogether—or about 100 million pages, growing at a rate of about 2 million pages per year. And in all of these papers, perhaps 5 million distinct theorems have been formally stated.

So, in order to know everything there is to know about mathematics, you need to read 3 million papers. Did I read them? Did I ever said that I read them? Did I even read 0.1% of them?

Knowledge is a gigantic database of (claim,justification) two-tuples that is for 99.999% stale and irrelevant. The only meaningful way of finding out what is relevant, is to work your way back from solutions that solve problems all the way into the math that directly or indirectly facilitates the solution.

So, is knowledge a good thing? Possibly, but it is first and foremost, utterly useless.

The idea of feeding students with some arbitrary excerpt from such knowledge database, assuming that it will ever be useful to them, is misguided and nonsensical.

That is the reason why the education system fails. Its knowledge-acquisition strategy simply does not make sense.

The only way to pick the right things to learn, is by going in exactly the opposite direction. You start by trying to solve a practical problem, for which there exists someone willing to pay for the solution, and only then you learn knowledge as required for producing the solution.

Whatever is real does not require faith — 180 Proof

Numbers are not "real". They are abstractions. Their use ultimately requires faith in Peano's axioms. So, you can't do math without faith. In all practical terms, you can't do science or technology without at least some math.

Hence, you can't live as a human without faith. Can you live as an animal without faith? No, because animals also use if only very basic arithmetic for their survival.

only a god can "prove a god". — 180 Proof

Gödel has proved the existence of a Godlike entity from higher-order modal logic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_proof

Gödel wasn't a god.

In fact, proving the existence of something is much easier than proving the impossibility that it would exist. In the first case, you only need to locate a suitable entity, just like Gödel did. In the second case, you need to inspect all possible candidates and demonstrate that they are unsuitable. Hence, you need to be an omniscient being in order to prove that an omniscient entity does not exist. Hence, only God can prove atheism.

So, the correct statement is:

Only a god can disprove the existence of God.

That would obviously lead to an interesting contradiction.

There obviously many features of h.sapiens that are biological in origin - practically everything about human physiology and anatomy can be understood through the lens of evolutionary biology. — Wayfarer

I consider evolutionary biology to be largely conjectural. If you truly understand something, then you can build it by yourself from scratch. So, as far as I am concerned, evolutionary biology does not truly understand what they are talking about.

But what about the religious experience, in particular, can be understood through that perspective? — Wayfarer

Religion is much more modest than evolutionary biology. It even starts by saying that even though we may ourselves be unable to create biological devices/beings from scratch, there is someone else who actually can. This take on the matter sounds much more plausible to me.

So let’s get clear on what you mean by ‘designed’. Where do you think your idea fits into that overall set of ideas, or does it not? — Wayfarer

I look at biology as a technology that we mostly fail to reverse engineer, if only, because we do not have access to its design documents. In a sense, it is superior to our own technology, because it seems to embed the factory that produces the device inside the device. We can't do that.

Biology as a technology is analogous to Von Neumann universal constructors:

John von Neumann's universal constructor is a self-replicating machine in a cellular automaton (CA) environment. It was designed in the 1940s, without the use of a computer. The fundamental details of the machine were published in von Neumann's book Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, completed in 1966 by Arthur W. Burks after von Neumann's death.[2] It is regarded as foundational for automata theory, complex systems, and artificial life.[3][4] Indeed, Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner considered Von Neumann's work on self-reproducing automata (together with Turing's work on computing machines) central to biological theory as well, allowing us to "discipline our thoughts about machines, both natural and artificial."

The reality is that in all practical terms we can't do self-replication with our technology. So, biology is simply a superior technology.

Therefore, my analogy that tries to map something that we do understand, the technology of computing devices, to some fragment of biology, is necessarily limited. We simply cannot reverse engineer it. If we could, we obviously would.

The very notion of "design" is tied to our technology. The term may be too simplistic when discussing non-human technology. What exactly does it correspond to in that case? I think we must accept the limitations of what we truly understand, reflected by the technology that we master and the problems that we can solve. If we truly understood biology, we would be able to build biological devices from scratch, which we can't.

Therefore, the term "design" merely reflects the limitations of what we understand. If we truly understood the technology of biology, we would probably dedicate a better term to reflect a particular important document that describes how it truly works.

Can anyone prove a god, I enjoy debates and wish to see the arguments posed in favour of the existence of a god. — CallMeDirac

To prove from what?

There is no context-free proof. A thing like that does not exist. You always need system-wide premises, i.e. an axiomatic theory that you first accept without proof.

If the next question is going to be, Yes, but how do you prove your system-wide premises? then we have landed in the middle of a pointless exercise in infinite regress.

In "Posterior Analytics", Aristotle already pointed out why you will eventually always have to accept unproven system-wide premises. After the 2500 years since Aristotle, this will obviously not stop infinite regressionists from engaging in their favorite exercise, i.e. infinite regression.

Kurt Gödel has proven the existence of a godlike entity from five axioms in higher-order modal logic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_proof

It means that the belief in a godlike entity is equiconsistent with the belief in five axiomatic modal expressions.

The standard criticism on Gödel's proof is obvious and should be expected:

Most criticism of Gödel's proof is aimed at its axioms: as with any proof in any logical system, if the axioms the proof depends on are doubted, then the conclusions can be doubted. It is particularly applicable to Gödel's proof – because it rests on five axioms, some of which are considered questionable. A proof does not necessitate that the conclusion be correct, but rather that by accepting the axioms, the conclusion follows logically.

Every proof implies at best equiconsistency with the system-wide premises explicitly relied on in the proof. A proof can never mean more than that. There simply does not exist a proof that embodies more truth than that. That is simply not possible.

Still, Gödel's proof has the merit of raising the bar.

Instead of attacking the notion of Godlike entity, one must now first learn higher-order modal logic and attack the five axiomatic expressions in his proof. Atheist often seem to believe that they are smarter than religious people. Fine, in that case, show us your mettle and try to meaningfully attack Gödel's subtleties in higher-order modal logic.

But they’re not designed - not unless you’re defending an intelligent designer. Are you? — Wayfarer

I personally believe that it is a non-human technology that embodies particular design principles. The analogy I see it through are technology devices with embedded software, i.e. firmware. There are lots of parallels. It is obviously not exactly the same. However, there are still surprisingly many similarities. An acceptable way to analyze something for which you do not have design documents, is to compare it to things for which you do have them. That is why I view biological devices through the lens of modern computing devices with embedded firmware. For example our own eyes are quite similar to embedded cameras with embedded firmware. It is not a perfect analogy but it is still better than nothing.

Biology operates through mechanisms and principles that are not designed or created by humans, whereas technology is inherently a product of human creativity and engineering. — Wayfarer

Biological systems are designed according to principles that appear similar to us to a technology, but clearly not of human origin. I use the term biological technology to point out that to an important extent we are similar to technological devices.

Assuming you don't mean "firmware" literally; sticking to the metaphor, what is the soul? Does it not also code the hardware so that it operated effectively? Is the soul, software? The operating system for the software? — ENOAH

The soul is what is gone when we die. Its role while we are alive is not clearly determined.

Is it necessarily instilled in us biologically? Or is that a favored interpretation because your's is currently a physicalist view?

Could it have been instilled in each human soul; this innate desire for religion? — ENOAH

In my opinion, impossible to say. The notion of soul is also part of religion. I personally believe that we have both some form of firmware as well as a soul.

What technology are you referring to? I thought we were discussing biology. — Wayfarer

Biology is a natural technology. We did not design it. We only very partially understand it. Still, it works surprisingly well.

Designed by whom or what? — Wayfarer

Not by humans, because that would lead to infinite regress. So, the technology is clearly of non-human origin. The rest is foundationalist belief. In religion, the belief is that the universe and humanity were created by the same creator.

Humans are biologically the same everywhere, but culturally and intellectually they’re vastly different. — Wayfarer

Every human is even individually unique. By design so.

If that’s so, you should be able to provide a citation. — Wayfarer

Quran 30:30 (Ar-Rum): So be steadfast in faith in all uprightness ˹O Prophet˺—the natural Way of Allah which He has instilled in ˹all˺ people. Let there be no change in this creation of Allah. That is the Straight Way, but most people do not know.

So why bring Islam into it? why not just stick to biology? — Wayfarer

Because the idea that religion is biologically innate comes from there. It is standard Islamic doctrine.

Do Muslims believe that it’s biological firmware? Or doesn’t it matter whether they believe it? — Wayfarer

I use the term "firmware" metaphorically here. It's a bit like the software embedded in specialized devices, such as your phone's camera, but obviously implemented in a completely different technology.

We do not control or even properly understand this technology because we did not design it.

The Quran does not contain its implementation details. If it did, we would probably not understand it anyway.

Do you think Muslims would agree that ‘fitrah’ is a biological drive? — Wayfarer

The term "fitrah" in Islam refers to all behavior that is innate. So, where else does it come from, if not from our biological firmware?

We are not a completely blank slate:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct

Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements.

Humans are, however, incredibly flexible. We are able to override a lot of innate behaviors while animals cannot.

For example, people may be able to modify a stimulated fixed action pattern by consciously recognizing the point of its activation and simply stop doing it, whereas animals without a sufficiently strong volitional capacity may not be able to disengage from their fixed action patterns, once activated.

This flexibility is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Humans are beyond any doubt the species that is the most prone to corruption, depravity, and degeneracy.

It doesn’t need to be invalidated. It’s simply irrelevant, even if it is the case. — Wayfarer

It is irrelevant until it isn't anymore.

Spolsky's law: All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky.

The organic-chemistry composition of the stomach is mostly irrelevant but not completely.

The innate inclinations of humanity, its biological firmware, is actually even less irrelevant. A lot of human behavior is determined at the biological level.

But I don’t know if on that basis you could say that language is biological feature — Wayfarer

Yes, I believe that language is a biological feature that is part of the biologically preprogrammed firmware of humans. Otherwise, there would be humans in history or throughout the world that do not use language.

studying it through the perspective biology would be more suitable than through, say, linguistics or anthropology. — Wayfarer

That would be in my opinion unsuitable. For example, every stomach is ultimately built from atoms. That does not mean that you should address a stomach ache by means of theories in nuclear physics. But then again, this does not invalidate the observation that every stomach consists of atoms at some deeper level of observation detail.

But why do you think that maps against biology? — Wayfarer

Whenever a behavior is universal throughout history and throughout the world, it can only be biological. Otherwise, there would be or have been numerous societies in the past and/or throughout the world that did not have it. Every society that has ever existed, had a religion.

It always contains two things:

(1) a way of praying to the divine
(2) a set of rules not to break

If it is biological, then it is preprogrammed in one way or another into our biological firmware ("fitrah").

But then again, humanity is very flexible and adaptable. We are often able to overrule our own biological inclinations. Therefore, I believe that people are fundamentally religious but can also easily be trained not to be.