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[Micro102]

Which is why I called it the most likely postion someone never learned of religion would take.

Actually, it's magic. You can see it in children, and in isolated "nature-religion" tribes. "Hey, I wiggled my hand once on a full moon and my aunt got a boy instead of a girl, that must be it!". Magic being: correlating causes and effects without scientific rigor. It's pretty cool to see what they (kids) come up with. Sometimes the correlation is "true" (the use of medicinal herbs), but more often it just isn't (the use of useless herbs as if they were medicinal).

Now if you combine that with our natural need to anthropomorphise animals, objects and events, it's easy to see where "gods" come from.

Actually I have personally experienced  a few moments of "magic". I threw a fit one day begging my mom not to let the cat out. It probably would of been the thousandth time he'd be let out, so there was no reason for my to throw such a fit (I was like, . She let him out anyway and on the way home we found him ran over

Sad story but the point is the chances of that happening are extremely rare and only seem to happen to children. I really don't believe in esp or anything but experience has told me otherwise.

[Siquo]

Sad story but the point is the chances of that happening are extremely rare and only seem to happen to children. I really don't believe in esp or anything but experience has told me otherwise.

That stuff happens all the time, but until you can reliably repeat it, it was probably nothing. Your mind wants to believe otherwise though, superstition is somehow ingrained in us.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Sad story but the point is the chances of that happening are extremely rare and only seem to happen to children. I really don't believe in esp or anything but experience has told me otherwise.

That stuff happens all the time, but until you can reliably repeat it, it was probably nothing. Your mind wants to believe otherwise though, superstition is somehow ingrained in us.

It's not "somehow" ingrained. Magical Thinking is a vital sign of mental growth in children from about ages 6-12. That's why they believe in Santa Claus and the like. After that, they'll tend to become more skeptical and discard their superstitious beliefs unless conditioned to do otherwise, which may stunt said mental growth by not moving to the next step.

[Siquo]

It depends on what you regard as "mental growth". Most people seem to think that the summit of mental growth is at the point where they are. 

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That's because their minds have yet to reach the next level of growth. They cannot comprehend it. Did you care about ethics or politics when you were eight years old? Of course not. None of us did, because we weren't old enough to truly get the ideas.

[fqllve]

I think he means more adults who think learning is something they stopped doing when they got their bachelor's degree.

[Siquo]

Did you care about ethics or politics when you were eight years old? Of course not.

Ethics and politics are definitely not the summit of mental growth. Politics, especially, that's more like mental (My english fails me here. Mental shrinking sounds too therapist, mental degradation sounds too much like a sports team that just didn't make it, mental declination, mental degeneration!) degeneration. See, even letting me think about it already affects my mad language skillzz.

[Leafsnail]

(snide comment redacted)

[Bauglir]

Did you care about ethics or politics when you were eight years old? Of course not.

Ethics and politics are definitely not the summit of mental growth. Politics, especially, that's more like mental (My english fails me here. Mental shrinking sounds too therapist, mental degradation sounds too much like a sports team that just didn't make it, mental declination, mental degeneration!) degeneration. See, even letting me think about it already affects my mad language skillzz.

I'd say they're higher levels of thought, though, than an 8-year-old can handle. Or, possibly, than an 8-year-old wants to handle. Well, ok, not all of politics is. A lot of it does involve pretty childish name-calling and blameshifting. Ethics and morals, though. I know a child's definition of "fair" changes as one gets older, for instance; I, and most children I knew (and I'm given to understand this is a wider trend, but I can't cite anything), at one point thought it was only fair if everyone was treated absolutely identically, but later on the notion that people ought to be rewarded in proportion to their contributions became more relevant, and I think that kind of situationalism is probably a higher degree of thought on the matter.

[Siquo]

I, and most children I knew (and I'm given to understand this is a wider trend, but I can't cite anything), at one point thought it was only fair if everyone was treated absolutely identically, but later on the notion that people ought to be rewarded in proportion to their contributions became more relevant, and I think that kind of situationalism is probably a higher degree of thought on the matter.

Personally, I think that's spoonfed ethics. But yes, 8-years olds do practice playground-politics and ethics.
If only they got better at it when they grow up...

[fqllve]

They do get better at it.

Or, at least they get better at abstracting it. And in some ways, many ways, that makes our ethics in practice worse. But it also allows us to consider more of the effects of our ethical positions. And it also makes them more consistent.

[Leafsnail]

"I dislike politics, therefore everyone who engages in it is inferior to me in terms of mental development".

[Siquo]

And it also makes them more consistent.

I regard that as a bad thing. If you can't change your mind, you can't learn.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

And it also makes them more consistent.

I regard that as a bad thing. If you can't change your mind, you can't learn.

It has nothing to do with mind changing, it has everything to do with forming a static stance on the issues that can go an hour without changing radically because you want cookies.

[fqllve]

Well, it's less about stasis and more about avoiding self-contradiction. Your views can still change, but adults are better at recognizing their hypocrisies.

Says nothing about their willingness to not be a hypocrite though.