Religious Faith is an Emotion.

Great Debates
1

It comes to this… Religion and religious feelings are simply a human emotion. Not unlike Love or Hate or Envy or Fear or any other human emotional response to a stimulant.

After all, like Love, you cannot illustrate it. You cannot touch it, weigh it, draw it, isolate it in a lab.

As a human being I believe every living person has the capacity to feel all these emotions. As an atheist I think that some people simply have an overdeveloped sense of faith (or an underdeveloped sense as the case may be :wink: ). So just like some people have an overly active sense of jealousy or an under developed sense of empathy. Religious faith is simply an attribute that various individuals posess to various degrees. Like many personality traits, it is nurtured or neglected through one’s developmental years and it may lay dormant until a catastrophic event in one’s life triggers it to either flower or die.

So, are we simply going in circles about a human emotion? Could we not dig up endless amounts of text about Love or Obsession or Greed and formulate philosophies about them?

Granted Faith has had a big head start on the rest of human emotions because in its development through the ages, most human emotions have been encorporated into it. Still, may it no be considered a type of Super-Emotion? May we not say that it is the sum of all our fears and loves and hates and jealousies? Does that not adequately explain the extreme variance in religious experience among all people throughout the generations?

2

What exactly is the point underlying your condescension? What are we here to debate?

3

religious faith is also illogical. Ever try to have a logical debate with someone who has “found God?” It doesn’t work, simply because faith is not logical. For example, take someone who blelieves the Bible is the exact words of God delivered to men through some divine inspiration, and then try to explain to them that the bible has been translated so many times that it’s impossible for no words to be changed. They’ll get pretty pissy. Whatever, just thought I’d contribute to the lack of debate.

4

As you will recall, QuickSilver, in many discussions of “Love” (Plato comes quickly to mind) there is major opportunity for misprision between several meanings of the same word, which overlap sufficiently that one unconsciously switches between them and hence makes illogical conclusions that appear sensible until careful analysis draws the distinction.

I don’t think “faith” is an emotion per se, but I take the context of your basic point. The need for “eternal security” in a world that is changing more rapidly than some people can handle is a staple of some schools of conservative Christian preaching. Many of us have seen people cling to their understanding of the Bible stories in order to have something stable to which to attach their need for security in life. Others, needing some ideal love that is not present in their life, find it in an idealized “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” And so on. People are very creative in finding in God the thing they need most in their life. Poison, some years ago, brought out a song with this general theme: “Something to Believe In.”

This does not, however, rule out the object of their belief as a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Two, objectively equally probable, theories can be derived, depending on your view of what reality encompasses: (1) These people invent a god who provides for their emotional needs, or (2) These emotional needs are present as a part of the human nature given by a beneficient god who wishes to have people freely come to him in love and hence instills them with needs that he can fulfill. (The implication in case 2 would not be that he creates them emotionally crippled, but that the needs themselves, “pure” and not warping people, are his gift, the warpedness being due to human environmental factors and not his doing.) – And I’m sure Gaudere can easily find it possible to generate other scenarios.

As I’ve noted on other threads, there are and have been intelligent people who allege that there is one theistic god in charge of the universe and who is interested in humans and loves them, and there are and have been equally intelligent people who allege the opposite. The answer to this question, divorced from emotional needs, is one that is worthwhile to resolve for each individual. And the discovery that the former option is true entails a response that is described by the generic name of faith.

Finally, faith becomes the term for a dogmatic system of beliefs, rationally arrived at from a set of non-rational principles derived from revelation (or other source, in a few cases), and used socially to instill conformity. While I have a feeling part of the negativity towards “faith” that your post seems to show derives from this last point, it is not particularly germane to our purposes here.

So yes, faith can be an emotion, and I think generally is emotionally based. But that says little about faith’s object. And getting beyond the individual psychological needs that go to generate it, there are quite real metaphysical questions for which the facile assumption of “filling psychological needs” does not provide sufficient refutation.

5

My point was by no means intended to be condescending. I appologize if it came across in that manner.

What I was hoping to debate/illustrate, Lib, was simply the idea that Faith and Belief as related to God, is like most human emotions: fallible, uplifting, misplaced, motivating, destructive, etc… But most importantly, if it is basically an emotion, does it warrant the kind of attention it has received over the eons? Is it perhaps not the time to classify it as such in the hopes of putting aside the more virulent and destructive forces that lead people to destroy others under the guise that they are serving a greater force than a merely fervent human emotion.

Also, as a side benefit, I was hoping I could illstrate that a “simple faith” is simply a human emotion not unlike the rest of our emotional human baggage we carry. What in your opinion is condescending about that?

6

What is condescending? You have equated my faith in God with synaptic spasms. That is what is condescending.

If emotions come from the brain, then they are unrelated to faith. As Poly (sort of) said, it is all too easy to equivocate. When I speak of Love in the metaphysical context of God, I am not speaking of what you feel in your loins when you’re horny.

Refusing to grant us the context of a Spiritual metaphysic for purposes of a discussion is tantamount to a Bible thumper refusing to grant you the context of reason for purposes of a discussion with him.

7

QS, you obviously would know that faith provides (to some) first principles by which moral codes are derived. If faith does not “warrant the kind of attention it has received over the eons,” then should other sources of first principles (which equally qualify as “emotions”, by your standards) warrant it? Are notions of freedom, equality between man, and the right to pursue happiness likewise “emotions”? The words “religion” and “faith” in your posts can be just as easily replaced by “equality” or “freedom.” As further proof, these ideas have taken the place of religion in many people. And furthermore, those “emotions” have also, to use your words, led people to destroy others under the guise that they are serving a greater force… See, e.g., the French Revolution.

However, I doubt you would so characterize these other principles? So then why pick on faith?

8

I’m a little confused Polycarp.

First you say that “faith” is not an emotion, per se. Then you say in can be an emotion. Followed quickly by, it is generally emotionally based. So which is it?

Truely, my intention is not to paint a religious or faithfull person as an emotional cripple. I am simply exploring the idea, with the help of the various points of view on this board, that perhaps faith need not be as complex and etherial as it is often presumed to be. Perhaps it is simply another human emotion.

Furthermore, you suggest that if the idea of a deity is indeed true and we are imbued at birth with the capacity to feel faith then it is a communal type of attribute true of the entire human race. On the other hand, if the idea that human emotions creates the need for a deity then it is up to the individual to determine that for him/her self. This kind of strikes me as divisive thinking. Why is it not possible/acceptabele for the community (indeed the human race) to come to the conclusion that the act of faith is simply a human emotional need based on many other emotional needs (i.e. love, hate, fear or mortality etc…)?

Is there an inherent need for faith to be institutionalized while the lack of it remain as a heretic fringe? If find it is what is often implied in these kind of discussions. I don’t have a problem with this, per se. As important as communities are to human survival, it is usually the exceptional individual that makes the strides of advancement which the rest of the society eventually follows.

9

jahn, i don’t think that faith and ideals like equality, liberty, etc are the same thing. rather, one can be said to hava faith in these ideals. as in your example of the french revolution, it was the faith that the french people had in the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity that enabled them to launch their attack against the regime.

i’m not sure that i would classify faith (religious or not) as an emotion (still mulling, quicksilver but i will say that it can be removed from the company of ideals (here i am talking about the personal act/choice/feeling of faith, not the ideal that everyone have faith in something.

10

And what is so simplistic and unelegant about synaptic signals in the brain? Have you, Lib, discovered all it’s intricacies? Are you keeping secrets from the rest of the Neurological Medical community? Do you have the knowledge and insight to the human brain that others have failed to uncover to date?

Surely your experiences with love are more varied than merely the theological and carnal. I, for instance, love my wife in other ways than simply carnal. My love for my kids, brother, mother, father, friends in not even remotely sexually related and yet different in each case. Your love of God may simply be another kind of love I am not familiar with but that does not make it any less of an emotional response.

I have not refused you anything of the sort. I merely pointed out another context within which your feelings of faith may be possible.

11

On rereading my post, the distinctions I thought I had made clear are not so. And I do see your quandary.

My first point: “Faith” is a word with a multiplicity of meanings, including some overlap. Second: at least in some meanings, it is not itself an emotion, though it can be based on them, and in fact much of the time is. Third (implicit) point: For some people it can be an emotion in itself. Fourth point: Whether it is emotionally based or not, there are serious grounds for exploring its referent. (And on rereading, I note that I distinguished between monotheists and non-theists, omitting polytheists and deists with abandon. Sorry, pagans, deistic UUs, and others that I slighted!)

I disagree, and without any intended putdown find this view too simplistic for the reality of human experience and conceptions of god, gods, and worlds without gods. To carry our classic wife:god analogy to yet another thread, your love for your wife is rooted in the good sex you have together; that is a biological imperative. But I would be the first to jump to your defense if someone suggested that that is all it entails. Likewise, saying that faith fills emotional needs is not sufficient to infer that it is self-generated to satisfy those needs; there may be other causes and other things superadded to it to produce a result more than the root cause, just as a good marriage is more than the behavioristic sex urge and pair-bonding that are its necessary but not sufficent bases.

I see your point. But the finding of an object for one’s faith (or failure to do so) is individualistic, the product of one’s own emotional needs. Libertarian and I believe in “the same god” – i.e., we agree on an external referent concept for our ideas of who god is. But his internal concept, as is becoming clear as we post, is far more abstruse and intellectualized than is the core of mine, while mine is more interactive than his (I think!). In essence, Lib. preaches a Johannine God, while mine is more Lucan. There is also the problem with an external referent that everyone can agree on. Triton, for example, would appear to equate our theism with that of a fundamentalist, simply because we are in fact theists. Everybody creates their own idea of God, and no two people have quite the same concept. So a community-based definition is difficult, and when you take into account that “faith” is a word with multiple meanings as well, no clear concurrence on what the heck we’re talking about, anyway, becomes possible.

I don’t think so. But I could be wrong.

Absolutely. While I have nothing to add to what you’ve said, except perhaps to flag Akhnaten as a good example of your point that helps to make mine as well, I left this portion of your post in as a quote so that we had at least one point on which we were in full agreement. :slight_smile:

12

The OP is really off-base. Emotions are feelings; faith is a philosophical position.
Religious fervor, the jumping, shouting, testifying-and-justifying Pentecostal spirit, could be classed as an emotional state, but to call faith an emotion is to render language meaningless.

13

Alright. So let’s attempt to define “faith” for the purposes of out discussion. I’m certain we won’t be the first or the last. Given that I have taken the position of the atheist and you the theist, would it be too simplistic to define having “faith” as belief in a supernatural being or creator?

For me, polytheist and all the other theist would fall into the same grand category of the “faithfull”.

Now I must disagree. Sex is a biological imperative … it does not have to be good. (Though our’s is wonderful, thank you for asking! :D) People do not always establish successful long term spousal relationships based on initial sexual contact. As you yourself freely admit, there is more to a marriage of true minds than sex alone. I believe that the important signals are established and matched before sex occurs. This does not in any way suggest that the relationship will stand the test of time, it simply suggests that there are enough matching criteria to attempt a paired bonding. This of course does not preclude recreational sex… but neither does it exclude it. But I digress…

And why not? Why must there be more to it? Why seek all this comlexity in what may be otherwise more elegantly explained. People have justified the most horrific things to satisfy their emotional needs. I give you Munchhausen by Proxy. Here is just one example of a strong emotional need for attention that over-rides the protective maternal instincts in a mother and often puts the life of her child in extreme danger.

Exactly my point. May we not further suggest that the reason for so many variances in faith and religious practices stems from somewhat varied individualistic emotional needs that are very much influenced by one’s culture and/or environment.

14

Faith is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof”.[sup]1[/sup] For example, you must simply accept that A is A. GoBoy is right. You have drawn a false analogy.

[sup]1[/sup] source: Merriam-Webster

15

I am not questioning the fact that faith is a belief in something that is not proven. I am examining the possible underlying cause(s) by which faith may come about.

If you or goboy do not wish to entertain the idea that faith may have other roots than the God given attributes you ascribe to it then you have already closed your minds to my premis and we are not going to be able to have any kind of discourse on the subject.

16

is this EMOTION usually artificially created? the jesuits have a saying “give me a child until he’s seven years old and he’s mine for life.”

i was at a party and overheard a woman say “i’m an atheist and i want my children to be atheists also.”

so are we just dealing with so much childhood programming and REACTIONS to programming? even if there is no god the atheists can’t come up with a shred of evidence, they just seem to enjoy making fun of christians.

Dal Timgar

17

Err . . . just for the sake of argument, what kinds of evidence that something does not exist would be acceptable?

“I know that Purple People Eaters don’t exist, but, dammit, I can’t find any evidence that they don’t!”

18

Red herring. I have not closed my mind.

Look, I realize I overreacted, and I’m sorry for that. But please imagine how you might feel if a theist swaggered onto the board and openened a thread, posting the following:

[/quote]

It comes to this… Atheism and other such skepticisms are simply spiritual and intellectual failings. Not unlike child-molestation or murder or theft or rape or any other immoral response to a spiritual stimulant.

After all, like any psychosis, you cannot illustrate it. You cannot touch it, weigh it, draw it, isolate it in a scriptural context.

As a child of God, I believe every living person has the capacity to have faith. As a theist I think that some people simply have an overdeveloped sense of skepticism (or an underdeveloped sense as the case may be). So just like some people have an overly active sexual deviancy or an under developed sense of righteousness. Atheistic skepticism is simply an attribute that various individuals posess to various degrees. Like many spiritual traits, it is nurtured or neglected through one’s developmental years and it may lay dormant until a catastrophic event in one’s life triggers it to either flower or die.

And blahbiddy blahbiddy blah…
[/quote]

19

David Koresch and the Branch Davidians, the Moonies, the Mormons, the KKK and virtually every religious/cultist order out there can claim exactly the same thing. Where is the challenge in brainwashing a child’s mind?

Substitute atheist with the words, Jewish, Christian, Bhudist, athelete, musician, what have you… where is the problem with that. Can you blame her? Would you expect her to raise her children as something she does not endorse?

…Waiting for the “get off the cross, we need the wood” contingent to enter any second now…

Once more for clarity… This is not a thread intended to poke fun at theists. I am just trying to examine another possibility which I happen to believe is plausable. Can we do this without recrimination… please?

20

goboy, emotions are neurophysiological functions. It is true, to some extent, that faith is a philosophical position; however, it is nature of said philosophical position which is in question. If one adheres to the idea that the brain is the source of all functions, then faith can be categorized among emotions. If one ascribes to a concept of a soul having interactions with the brain, then faith has been imbued in some individuals and is not a physiological function. Given such a metaphysical argument, the statment:

is incorrect, Libertarian.

Polycarp, I must disagree with you on all four counts. The word “faith” must have a singular meaning, or rather, a common understanding of the word must exist. Perhaps Libertarian’s definition will suffice:

Let it be noted that I disagree with the “firm” qualifier in this definition. It is my understanding that one can have faith in varying degrees. Secondly (and thirdly), given the metaphysical nature of this topic, faith must be either emotional in nature or not. Finally, the referant is of no consequence. It is the nature of the human act of having faith which is the issue. Please elaborate further upon your points if I have failed to comprehend the intended meaning.

I completely understand how this topic could be found to be offensive, and your point above illustrates this concept quite well; however, since the issue is rooted in the metaphysical dilemma of materialism versus dualism, there must be a “correct way.” Someone is misguided.