Why do people believe in gods at all?

Great Debates
1

A lot of recent debate in GD has been about religion. I don’t want to add to the “I believe because/I don’t believe because” threads, there are enough already. The subject I am curious about is:

Why do humans have the concept of religion in the first place?

I assume that theists among us will say something along the lines that a deity (in whatever manifestation) made humans, some of whom recognise the existence of a deity and attribute everything to his will. There is a whole range of deities, with a god to suit everybody. For example, the New Testament God comes across as quite a nice chap, the Old Testament God less so, rather more demanding with a bit of a split personality. The ancient Greeks and Romans had a range of gods, suitable for every occasion, the Egyptians and Babylonians had older, occasionally similar, sets, with local variations to accommodate local conditions. In Mesoamerica, the gods were rather more demanding but, fortunately for the priests, satisfied with prisoners of war. It is pretty much a rule of anthropology that all societies have some sort of religious belief.

I believe that humanity is predisposed to religious beliefs and have a theory as to why.

Back in the good old days, when Australopithecus was becoming Homo, curiosity evolved as a side effect of intelligence and language. The first questions were of the type “how do I find more of that tasty tuber?” and “what’s the best way of hardening the tip of my pointed stick?”

More complex questions came along, of the type “why does it rain?” and “what happens to me when I’m dead?” The people who first attempted answers to these questions were the first scientists. They observed the environment and drew conclusions. For example: the longer something remained unchanged, the more likely it would change (e.g. it always rains after a drought). Because these people understood cause and effect in terms of their own hopes and fears, they created an anthropomorphic explanation, i.e. a supernatural being, or god, did it. The next step was appeasement of and appeal to that god to influence events.

I would argue that people always look for answers to natural phenomena, e.g. what is the sun, where does rain come from, what happens to me after I die. Until scientific methodologies developed, people were content to listen to anybody with any explanation, especially if it offered comfort and was supported by even weak evidence. People wanted, and still want, answers, preferably comfortable ones. Those first scientists became priests. They knew that summer followed every spring. That they might believe that it only happened if the right sacrifices were made doesn’t matter – they offered an explanation, no matter how illogical it may seem under a different set of criteria. Keeping these answers within a religious hierarchy keeps the priest in control. Offer comfort and a conditional afterlife, and they had it made. FWIW, I think that the first king was a priest.

The scientific method offered a different route. It didn’t rely on speculation and it offered non-spiritual answers. However, some of the answers proved unacceptable for many theists. For example, the end of existence at death provides no comfort, no assurance of an afterlife, even if in hell.

So, my answer to my own question is that people are not predisposed to religious belief as such, they are predisposed to want answers to questions. Where the questions relate to topics such as the afterlife or ethics and morals, there is a corpus of thought and proposed answers to those questions, i.e. religion. Where the questions relate to the mechanics of how the universe operates, religious answers are now no longer generally accepted. Who still believes that the sun orbits the Earth, or that sky is a solid firmament and the stars are holes that allow god’s glory to shine through? (Or whatever the explanation in the Bible is.) Religion was the first cut for answers to difficult questions. Because it offers comfort, certainty and an insurance policy, it will always have great influence, for good or ill. It is, however, nothing more than an early, primitive attempt to answer hard questions relating to natural phenomena.

People are curious. Atheism accepts that there are, in principle, answers to all the questions based on enquiry, observation and deduction. That the answers might never be found or might be incomprehensible is accepted but the principle remains. Theism assumes that a deity pulls the strings. That some questions are insoluble is part of the mystery of the deity. Both belief ssytems try to satisfy the same desire in humans for answers.

2

I agree completely, especially given religion’s ubiquity. I wonder sometimes whether there’s a partial genetic element to it. It’s only in the last few hundred years that you could be burned/stoned/whatever for not toeing the party line in a lot of religions. It’s not (for me) a huge leap to wonder whether those predisposed in some way to religion in some way would flourish at the expense of those who aren’t.

I read some interesting articles (it was on paper but I’ll try and find an online cite) about some neurological link to ‘spiritual experiences’. There was some work done about a part of the brain which was linked to a certain type of epilepsy; people who suffered from this type were very much more likely to have deep religious/mystical experiences - it didn’t seem to matter whether they were previously religious. Doesn’t prove anything either way, of course, but it’s interesting.

3

I think your answer is only partly right. The more important and tenaciously held aspect of religion is a deep seated desire in humans to feel significant. If you matter to the big guy (or big scheme if you don’t have a personified deity) then you matter. If you want to see how important this is to people just look at the struggle with the Copernican view of the world. Everyone got bent out of shape because he said we weren’t sitting on the exact geographical center of the universe. Darwin made an even bigger stink which people won’t reconcile themselves to. This is not because it defies a text, even the most devoted literal Christian does not believe every word of the Bible. How could he? It contradicts itself. The idea of man not being a special creation is just too damaging to the human need for significance.

Science is not completely rational because rationality cannot supply a premise. Induction is supposed to supply the premise of science but that falls down as being completely rational because of the a priori. Science is more an attempt to limit what you have to take on faith to the bare minimum. It’s the faith that believes you shouldn’t have faith.

4

For the purposes of this question, are you accepting it as axoimatic that such things as God/Spirits/etc definitely have no genuine existence?

5

I don’t understand what you mean here. To me, science is completely rational in that it offers explanations of "things"that can be verified and used as a basis for explanations of other “things”. In principle, every scientific theory can be verified from first principles. It might take a while, though.

Religion was an attempt to offer reasons using a different methodology. However, every religion offered its own methodolgy (cf. creation myths). In the face of alternative, verifiable explanations, religion has, and is still, retreating on the explanations of “things” front. Religions these days are big on morality and ethics and no longer seriously attempt explanations of “things”.

(By “things” I mean behaviour of the physical universe.)

6

To me, yes. To believers, no. I cannot prove their non-existence to the satisfaciton of belivers, believers cannot prove their existence to my satisfaction. An impasse, which is the fundamental stumbling block on all religious debate.

7

Mangetout,

I will now answer your question as opposed to the one I actually replied to (makes me sound like a politician).

It is “yes”.

My premise is that religion and science are basically two sides of the same “why is the universe?” trait in people. I do not think that a theist could ask the question because their belief system precludes an answer other than “God did it”. As xerxes points out, there is some evidence that there is a genetic trait towards spirtual experiences, I’ve read the same or similar article somewhere myself.

However, what do we mean by “spirtual experiences”? Is it specifically belief in gods, pixies, whatever or can we make a more general statement along the lines that people with this trait are more ready to accept belief-based answers to “why is the universe?”

I, obviously, think it’s the latter. But then I’m an atheist and biased. :slight_smile:

8

Fair enough, but as a believer, I’m still not sure I’d be confortable making bold statements about something I cannot prove.

I could say that religion is borne out of some inner sense that there really is a supernatural aspect to reality, but I’d have to prefix it with ‘perhaps’.

I’m not sure if it’s possible to be unbiased (or how you would know you were if you were).

9

Isn’t that what religious belief is all about?

10

For some people I suppose, yes (NB: I’m not claiming I’ve never made bold unfounded statements before, I’ve just come to realise that the kind of ‘proof’ that we’re talking about can be utterly compelling without necessarily being adequately presentable to third parties).

11

I agree with the OP, and I think that it is a good argument why religion has lasted so long. Even as civilization progressed and there were more true scientists and philosophers asking questions and looking for answers, there has always been plenty that has remained incomprehensable.

So after a long enough period of time, the usefulness of religion becomes an assumption since there are still unanswered questions and one can point to the long history of religion as a justification for it.

12

Once upon a time, Timmy Afarensis sat alone on a quiet evening and mulled over some memories and thoughts a couple days after an altercation with another tribe member that he didn’t like much. Sometimes it seems like the thing to do is hit fast and hard when you feel that way. Sometimes you are the one who gets hit and that doesn’t feel very good. Part of what you feel when someone hits you and hurts you deliberately is a feeling of wrongness. Also, though, when you see someone hit someone else, you mainly get a sense of what it feels like to be hit like that, to feel that pain and that sense of wrongness, and unless it seems like there was a good reason for it you feel a bit of anger towards the one who did the hitting.

So Timmy Afarensis sat and thought about the fact that earier tonight, when he was mad at another tribe member he didn’t like, he imagined seeing himself hit the other person as if he were someone else watching, and it was as if he were mad at himself! A new and funny idea, oddly exciting in a quiet contemplative way: a sense of wrong that had to do with more than just which side of the hitting you were on? But the person who does the hitting often wins, makes the other person stop arguing or quit doing what they were doing that made you mad, and you get to get your own way, and that’s important, too.

And in turning this mess over in his head, feeling his way through his feelings about these things, Timmy Afarensis discovered that it felt like he was talking to someone else although no one else was there at the time–indeed, it was very private and would have been difficult to explain to anyone else.

In the course of his life, moments like these occurred from time to time for Timmy Afarensis, and he came to value and trust the process of doing this, whatever “this” was. He never invented a name for it and never spoke to anyone else about it.

Over the course of eons, though, this process was experienced by many individuals, some of whom did attempt to speak to others about it. When that happened, the reaction more often than not was a shrug, “Don’t know what you’re talking about”. But sometimes one of the listeners would say, “Oh wow, I thought I was the only one”. Once you got two or three people describing an experience that the others had not had, and attributing a lot of importance to it, it started to provoke more than a shrug. People would ridicule it, or indicate that the people describing the experience were not OK in the head. Once you got two or three people together who had not only had and described this kind of experience but had also been ridiculed for it, the experience began to have attributed to it even more importance (perhaps indeed some of them had contemplated the importance of the experience itself when doing their introspective contemplations) and they became even more insistent that this “thing”, this abstract activity of contemplating abstract feelings about abstract issues and sorting things out quietly, was important for the whole society.

Despite some intermittently nuttiness, it was noted that those who spoke of having these experiences often saw things clearly in a down-the-road sort of way; they might not seem right during the course of an argument but later on it would turn out that their way of looking at things was right after all. So even some of those who had never had such experiences themselves developed a sense of respect and awe for it, and for those who directly experienced it. And they became leaders in a sense, not so much chieftains as brujos, wisdom-conjurers, flame-readers, whose opinions would be sought and whose warnings and recommendations carried some weight.

Over time, of course, the experiences were given names, the process was given a name, the witch-leaders were given names, and religion was with us.

(At some point it became apparent to someone that if you could sort of grab the trappings and stories and present yourself as one of these people even if you’d never actually had such experiences, you acquired power, and charlatans were with us too. And, similarly, at some point it became apparent that if you could establish an official Office of “it” and appoint your religious leaders rather than recognize those who had the experience, you could sort of stuff and mount it like a taxidermist mounts dead animal specimens and put it in front of the people and use it to motivate and control them, while denouncing those who attempted to speak from the actual experience as “evil” and “of the wrong Gods”, and so demagoguery was with us as well)

Any questions?

13

—I read some interesting articles (it was on paper but I’ll try and find an online cite) about some neurological link to ‘spiritual experiences’.—

While these experiences clearly have played a role in many religions, they aren’t good avenues for explaining religion generally, largely because they are so rare, and most believers never experience them (since they usually take instense mental efforts like meditation, repetitive prayer for days, some mental condition that triggers them, etc.). So while they may be useful in explaining where some religious claims and ideas came from, or even some phrophets: they cannot really account for the belief of the average believer, who gets on just fine without having them.

14

Another possibility (at least, a theory of mine) that I haven’t seen mentioned here, is the need for childhood safety and the fear of adulthood.

We all go through that stage, early in our development, when we beilieve our parents to be omnipotent. Our intitial realization that this is not the case–the first time we see our parents do something that we know is wrong, or at least imperfect, is said to be a major psychological milestone on the path to adulthood. Then when we reach adulthood, we’re out there on our own, with no longer a parent that we can run to when the wide world frightens us.

I think religion is partly a projection of that need for infantile safety and parental protection; we create the Parent of all Parents out of that need.

15

I think perhaps, the concept of a god is an attempt to fill a void–to seek out the other. Whether or not that void exists psychicly, in the “soul” or in brain chemistry I don’t know. I also don’t know if it is a reponse to a certain event, as in lissener’s post, or if it’s organic in nature. Just my two cents.

16

And a few million years later, we’ve finally found the answer to the second question. Viagra.

17

An interesting exploration of the psychological and anthropological origins of religion.

It might be worth pointing out that, while many of the points made are valid, they do not necessarily refute the validity of religious belief. It is equally valid, each within its own metaphysic, to say “we evolved this belief because of these natural consequences” and “because there is a God who desires to have people believe in Him, in creating us He endowed us with these characteristics, basing them on these natural reactions to phenomena.”

In short, one cannot refute the validity of a theology by pointing to the possible non-supernatural causes for a belief structure.

18

I think there’s a combination of a few things that made good human soil for theist formulations of religion.

1: Whatever ®evolutionary shift that turned hominid consciousness into human consciousness. Human consciousness is extremely narrative; religious experiences can certainly be invoked. Notice how “invoke” has etymological roots with speaking, vocal. We know what we think when we hear ourselves speak it–or hear it spoken. Notice how quick people are to leap to praise of a well-evoked piece of narrative with such things as, “Oh! You said EXACTLY what I was struggling to!”

(“But that WAS what I was thinking!” is the protest. And, often, sure–or at least, I accept that it certainly feels that way. But…that old riddle of chicken-and-egg applies, it seems to me.)

2: Intentionality. Self-consciousness can recognize a remarkable thing–the conscious being intends to do something–and does it. Will.

Ancient Man had a dawning realiziation of causality. Things caused other things to happen. How that was, who knew? But AM had an increasing sense of hirself, of that mysterious something that allowed conceiving an action, intending it, and then doing it–and actions certainly caused things to happen. The tribe ate well for weeks because they ate the flesh of the mastodon. The mastodon’s flesh was available because it fell off a cliff and died. It fell off the cliff and died because the hunters drove it that way. The hunters did that because…well, because, they willed it. They chose it, willed it, and did it. The other tribe, the more slope-browed ones, they were in awe of how much meat AM’s tribe had. They couldn’t conceive of how people could hunt such a large creature–it was too big!

Clearly, intentionality was behind every cause, even if it was a mystery.

From this connection, there’s a few branches. Animism is an immediate one–intent lies in every thing which can be a cause, which means that it lies in everything, period. But AM is demonstrably different than the air or a rock–AM is a being, a specific kind of thing different than other things.

And from there, it’s a short hop to theism. All causes come from beings, therefore, if causes do not come from people, they come from other beings. Or perhaps one being who only appeared to be many, as AM has ten fingers but only one self, or how AM has a mate and seven living children and eight dead ones, but they are one family.

The rest is pretty much history.

19

1: Yes God(s) worship is wired in and

2: It’s all about language and the built in neural grammar and pattern matching skills of the human brain

Humans are very different mentally from every other creature that stalks this planet. As a consequence of the physical evolution and development of complex language and communication skills and the associated brain hardware necessary for this, humans live their lives in a mental space that places people and phenomena that impact them in both a highly expanded and complex (compared to any other animal) physical and temporal context.

This temporal context is key as it allows humans to place themselves “outside” themselves in the consideration and contemplation of how the universe runs. Because of this humans can grasp (or at least imagine) complex patterns of cause and effect for these phenomena. Theism in this context is simply an attempt to grasp and create ever more complex and comprehensive paradigms for the universe and our place in it.

It is interesting that as our empirical understanding of the natural world becomes (though investigation) both more discrete and abstract at the same time, that popular theism follows (with a significant lag) this model for their various explanatory structures and mechanisms employed. As a consequence of this theist constructs in modernity have tended to slide from being proud, concrete statements about the manifestation of supernatural phenomena to simply being allegories of a Godhood that is more complex, intimate and abstract than previously understood. It’s sad in a way as it was our imaginative creation stories and theist paradigms which defined us and made us human in the first place but everything moves with the tide of change, even God(s).