| HN Mirror

> A person is not born believing in gods. They are not making arguments about the existence or non-existence of gods. One day someone says to them that gods may exist, this other person has made a claim. It would be more than strange to say this person has a more valid viewpoint than the person who has made no claims.

I think this is a popular kind of argument, and the form of it isn't necessarily invalid. The form is to use a developmental model of a fetus developing into baby, to infant, to rugrat, etc., as a frame to eliminate something that, allegedly, emerges at some point during healthy development, utilizing simplified ideas in the cognitive theory of moral development or some such to show that something is not there, and then it is, almost as if by slight of hand, to construct the droll ramification that it is not an inherent quality, thus whatever it is, is not a priori, it is nurture not nature, beliefs are behavior, and they are learned behavior.

But in this case, it is not remotely as clear as I believe you would like. It could be nature. Due to a number of interesting cases and non-controlled, ad hoc studies on single patient bases, an idea emerged (from medical professionals exposed to patients with brain injury, most of the injuries caused by bicycle accidents) a concept emerged known as the Godspot: A conscious patient with part of their skull cap removed and their brain exposed was given a small charge on a particular area of the brain from, seriously, a zapper wand, idk what it is called, and the patient, an atheist that was not raised exposed to religion, experienced religious rapture and epiphany, and concerningly with other patients, visions of what we'd all recognize as Hell. Subsequent, and especially more recent investigations have shown this brain state is real and academically reproducible, but that there probably isn't a particular Godspot because so many parts of the brain are involved, arguably necessarily.

Regardless, whatever the hell that is, it evolved in humans, and there is absolutely no reason not to believe it occurs and can be induced in nearly all if not all mammalian brains.

And the repercussion of this extant evolved brain state is that: whatever triggers belief in God, at the very least, is not necessarily introduced through only nurture. It is part of what human beings are, part of common human genetic make-up assuredly, and maybe also other or all mammals, meaning, it probably existed long, long before humans showed up.

Have a goodnight.