Steven,
You and Yabby should get together your apparent belief in simplistic electo/chemical determinism i.e. we are the sum total of our genes.
When in reality there are so many possible combinations/variation it is effectively impossible to state there is a gene for religiosity.
I would submit to you that the best we can and probably will be able to say for the long foreseeable future is we will find varying degrees of potential for certain groups of behaviour. However within those parameters there will be an extraordinary range variations/triggers and other such causative factors that heighten various possibilities in the area of 'causing' religiosity.
Then we need to examine what the exactly the researchers meant by religiosity. From there one needs to understand if there isn't another more base explanation for the 'susceptibility to religiosity'.
Does this really mean that some who are so inclined all have the same reasoning, motivation etc or are they responding to different parts of what religiosity encompassed.

Having intelligently assessed the science, we now turn our attention to the stats and if the statistician were testing for the same factors. Let's not delve into the credibility of news paper articles particularly when it comes to the nuances of science.

In short Steven, Burbs accusation of inductive reasoning appear apt.
As Fractelle and others said more thought need on the topic. I too given your obvious smarts question your real motives.
I suspect Sancho is on the right track....As an Aussie and atheist I then wonder why then your almost one eyed support fora nation based or a religious notion. One that is dominated by default by extremist religiously motivated individuals. One that seems to refuse to acknowledge that Palestinians are a nationality rather than just a zealotic religious grouping

Aaah examinator

I was wondering whether you would appear, nefarious Zionist plot detector turned up to maximum sensitivity.

I have never claimed there is such a thing as a "gene for religiosity".

I have cited evidence, mostly based on the study of twins, supporting the notion of an INHERITABLE DISPOSITION TOWARDS RELIGIOSITY. It does not mean that if you have a particular genome you are doomed to be religious. It simply means you are more likely to be religious. AMONG GENETICISTS THIS IS NOT EVEN CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT.

It is also not controversial among population demographers to state that, on the whole, religious couples have more babies. This appears to be true even when we correct for confounding factors such as socio-economic status.

Finally there is some evidence that in the US people born in atheist households tend to become affiliated with a religious organizations while movements in the opposite direction are relatively rare.

Putting these strands together has led me to question the conventional wisdom – conventional at least among secularists – that societies will continue to evolve in an ever more secular direction.

Increasing secularisation has certainly been the trend in Western societies TILL NOW.

I suspect that trend is about to "bend".

And that is all I intended for this thread. A discussion on whether the trend will bend.

There is no nefarious Zionist plot here. Your plot detector has, once again, produced a false positive.

There is no hidden agenda. What you see is what you get.

I am not talking about any particular religion. I am talking about all of them.

Is my thesis correct? Will the trend of increasing secularisation bend? That's what I'd like to discuss.

To quote Cairncross:

A trend is a trend is a trend,
But the question is, will it bend?
Will it alter its course
Through some unforeseen force
And come to a premature end?

mikk<<Atheism..driven by..knowledge..and logic>>..thats feel good spin...a huge feel-good generalisation...to prove..please reveal your knowledge..by answering 3 small questions...

what was the first life..from not life?

plesase provide proof...and..as science..the means to replicate it...[as i know none has been done so...i will simply ask you..how the first living membrane...formed its first intact living cell?

but..question number two...

you claim that species evolved..from a common ancestor...meaning that there have been hundreds of evolutions..of one genus..into another genus...

please validate/proove..just one proven evolution of genus..into new genus..science fails to report EVEN..one faulsifyable..neo..[new genus..from old genus...via/mutation...but please provide your knowlewdge of..any..recorded genus/evoltion..out of or into..other genus

ok third question..do you claim evolution..as fact...then state your beliefs...unexpresable belief..is faith...DISprove..most of your athiest agnostic mates..simply follow their faith..metal dullards

<<...and is far better..placed to progress>>cause its so fsar from any faulsifyasble truths<<..than any superstition or ancient belief in fairy stories.>>..historical evidence is ignored..at our own peril..no doudt you disregard..shakspear and the other authers..of human writing's..as of same brush..stuff..plato/stuff pythogoris..right..dude?

<<If there is..a genetic predisposition..to believe..then where does that leave your gods/notion..of free will..and choice?>>...quite simply before begining life..we are given a pre-life/revieuw..of our whole life mission...

we chose our lives for its teaching...evolution is valid..on the spritual level...not the material level..

<<Is there no other way..to get such benefits..other than being a believer?>>>..what benifits...god dosnt need an intermediatry...any can look upon his face...living/loving/grace/mercy..

there is no wrathfull/vengefull..god...get over our humanistic belief.. in a lie of..judgment day...get over god judging anyone


<<any.."spirituality"..is better for..us..than atheism?>>...the first step in realising..who we really are..is by knowing our creation is of love...

heaven egsists..in the light/god..to go..to the darkness..we need to reject god/light/love/logic....the light is living loving grace mercy...

the darkness love..vile hurt pain..spiritual darkness...depending on the absence noted within..of their..own..inner..true living light

<<Wickans are pretty spiritual,..as are yogis,astrologists..and those weird crystal/people.>>>..all life has gods animous within..sustaining..it..to egsist...but for god..all is darkness..

where god is light/life is....where god is logic reigns..
where god is love is

stevenlmeyer,

I wouldn't be bold enough to doubt the connections in your research are there. But is religion the cause of the connections you are making:

Is the inheritable disposition related to religion itself, or related to the saturation of offspring to parents religious beliefs.
You could probably link that german children of the 20's and 30's had an inheritable disposition to hating jews, but I don't think you could link that with genetics.

Is the increase in babies to religious households related to their religion, or related to a higher proportion of religious believers in south american, asian and african countries where education about contraception is lower.

I think unless you can establish why religion is increasing, you can't really speculate on whether the trend will continue based on "evidence".

But I'll have a non-evidence based, speculative opinion. I think in the short term, secularisation will increase in Western socities due to hard financial times.
Longer term, I think there will be a move away from the church, as the church struggles to keep pace with modern ethics and technology.

Another narcissistic thread, stevenlmeyer. Nice going.

Carry on at this rate and you'll be in the running for leader of the Opposition.

I for one don't buy into the injured-innocence bit. Your agenda has always been anti-Islamic, while your disguise has been a threadbare deceit of middle-of-the-road agnosticism.

But that's OK. We all like to keep our secrets. Myself, I'm actually a highly-evolved gerbil with a receding hairline and buck teeth, so the only place I, too, can really exist is here on the Internet.

Be that as it may, with this particular parade of nonsense you have managed to tie even your good self in knots.

>>Increasing secularisation has certainly been the trend in Western societies TILL NOW. I suspect that trend is about to "bend". And that is all I intended for this thread. A discussion on whether the trend will bend.<<

This is a far, far cry from your original position, I'm afraid, which was replete with genetic dispositions, selective breeding and "the seemingly doomed atheist sub-species".

Check back for yourself. Note, particularly, those really, really annoying capital letters.

Oh, by the way, your own arguments are transparently self-defeating:

>Consider that religion may have conferred an evolutionary advantage under primitive conditions. After all, who is likely to fight more fiercely for the best hunting grounds? A tribe of atheists? Or a tribe with warriors that believe that when they die they get a reward in the after life?<<

The obvious answer is of course, the atheists. The religionists couldn't care less, because their God will surely provide.

In this life, or in the next.

So much for the "evolutionary advantage". The godly would be the first to die off. Willingly, too.

What puzzles me is that if we gerbils can see it, why can't you?

Burbs wrote:

"You could probably link that german children of the 20's and 30's had an inheritable disposition to hating jews, but I don't think you could link that with genetics."

Were you to read up on the research methodology that geneticists who study twins use you would see that it would preclude them concluding that German children had a heritable – meaning heritable through the genome – disposition to hate Jews. Scientists who are that methodologically sloppy would not get their research into respectable SCIENTIFIC journals. (I am not counting medical journals as scientific any more because of the influence of the pharmaceutical industry and the corporate medical establishment)

As I said in my previous post, burbs, none of the points I've made about heritable dispositions to religiosity and propensity to have children are controversial among geneticists and demographers.

You wrote:

"…I think there will be a move away from the church, as the church struggles to keep pace with modern ethics and technology."

I think you under-estimate the adaptiveness of religion – note religion, not Christianity hence your use of the word "church" is inappropriate.

In the end I am making a forecast burbs. Time will tell whether my forecast is correct.

Pericles,

Most religious people through the ages have not relied on "God providing". They have tended to fight.

It is a mystery to me how religion could have survived all these millennia unless it conferred some evolutionary advantage. A recent New Scientist article discusses the issue.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13983-religion-is-a-product-of-evolution-software-suggests.html

It follows that if religiosity confers an advantage there is MAY be a genetic component to it – which is not the same as saying there is a "religiosity gene".

However note that a society made up entirely of religios would go extinct. Ancient societies probably needed BOTH.

But I guess you cannot expect mere gerbils to understand that there is a real question here that needs to be answered. Gerbils, after all, do not homo sapiens style brains.