Conversation about religion

Me: Well, I’m not sure the difference between them(subconsciousness and unconsciousness). 

I was just trying to say my deep mind is unwilling to accept Christianity. 

 

And so far based on my experience it seems evolution can explain human’s irrational behavior much better than creation.

But I’m open to change my mind because I know theory can change over time. 

 

No theory is considered absolute truth. 

As new evidence is uncovered, a theory may be revised or replaced by a more useful explanation. 

That’s what I learned in Dr. Alsbury’s biology class. 

 

So please let me know if Christianity has some valid explanations for human’s irrational behavior. 

 I’m willing to learn about them. 

 

friend: Interesting. Well humans irrational behavior you are talking about is probably sin. So by Adam and Eve eating the apple when Jesus told them not to was the first sin. If there was no irrational behavior in the world then there would be no sin and therefore we would not need God. So by us sinning we need to accept Christ into our hearts to save us from our sins. That is why Jesus died on the cross to save all our sins. For me personally walking around and looking at the world and how intricately it was made I just don’t understand how that could have happened by chance. Even the more I learn about the human body and how perfectly it works together. It is all so perfectly made that I believe there has to be someone that is far more intelligent then us that created all of it. 

 

(40min writing)

Me: Thanks for the sincere answer and for sharing the Christian point of view about human behavior. 

 

The irrational behavior I’m talking about is a home bias in investing. Home bias is the tendency for investors to invest the majority of their portfolio in domestic equities, ignoring the benefits of diversifying into foreign equities.

 

For example, France’s stock market is 4% of the global stock market but France mutual fund investors invest 55% of their money in France.

 

New Zealand stock market is less than 1% of the global stock market but New Zealand investor invests 75% of their money in New Zealand.

 

In the early 1990s, right before the Japanese asset price bubble crash, Japanese investors invest 98% of their money in Japan.

 

The majority of Korean investors invest their money solely in the Korean stock market even it’s about 1.5% of the global stock market.

 

Likewise, like industries, companies, and countries that we often encounter, we feel that they are safe just because we encounter them frequently.

 

(Statistics are not the latest but I think it still works to show the home bias.)

 

In one experiment, when trying to invest abroad, investors' brains have become more active in the amygdala, which controls fear.

 

This irrational preference for familiar things seems to be an instinct that arose in ancient times.

 

If any new stimulus or new object does not harm us many times, we judge this to be safe. This tendency keeps us from being harmed and succeeded to reproduce to inherit this feature to the next generations.

 

I think we have this instinct because we are the descendants of survivors who had these instincts which helped them to survive. 

 

But some of the ancient instincts that helped our ancestors to survive often are not helpful anymore to survive in modern life and I think it causes irrational behavior. 

 

 

I agree that it’s hard to believe the intricate world seems can’t be made by chance but I think it’s not appropriate to see the world from humans’ point of view. 

 

Human life is at most 100 years, but Earth's life is 4.5 billion years. (Of course, this number is a theory that is no absolute truth. As new evidence is uncovered, a theory may be revised or replaced by a more useful explanation.)

 

I think this period of eternity is impossible to understand from a human point of view, and with such a long period, it will be possible for things that we cannot even imagine to happen, for example, the birth of life.

 

and personally totally disagree that the human body works perfectly. When you learn investing, there are countless mistakes made by our natural irrational instincts which mess up the accounts.

 

These are why evolution is so compelling and persuasive to me since our irrational behavior makes sense from evolution’s point of view. 

 

Counterarguments are more than welcome since I love to listen to others’ opinions to keep myself from being biased.