Is religiosity an inevitable consequence of human psychology?

[Skwim]

PZ Myers, an associate professor of biology and ardent atheist and evolutionist has a Blog in which he speaks to various isses usually related to these two interests. Today he reported on the Wotld Atheist Convention he is at and said:

"The basic conflict raised was by DPR Jones, who expressed a rather pessimistic view that religiosity was an inevitable consequence of human psychology, and we're not going to escape it. I disagree. I didn't raise my hand and comment, though, because the Q&A should be for Qs — those things that end in question marks — and I have my own soapbox.

Psychology is not an issue of inevitability. We grow and change all the time, and to suggest that one state is determined because we can developmental evidence for it is misleading. An example: there is a game that children play that palls for us adults. It's called peek-a-boo. That one year olds can be naturally thrilled by hiding and reappearing says nothing about adult behavior. Unfortunately, we live in cultures that have enshrined peek-a-boo as an act of reverence, that couples weekly peek-a-boo sessions with sociability, and tells everyone they'll be horribly punished if they aren't good at peek-a-boo. Don't tell me it's an inevitable aspect of human nature, because my response will be to tell you to just grow the **** up. Some of us already have."
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I disagree. From my experience, for many people religiosity appears to be no less essential to good mental health than having good friendships is for many others. We all have certain needs that have developed along with our character, some perhaps a bit odd, others almost universal in nature, and to say that one can simply set them aside is to make light of the importance they have in establishing a peace of mind. So to a degree I agree with DPR Jones, who said religiosity was an inevitable consequence of human psychology, and we're not going to escape it. I would only qualify that statement with "many people," not all.

Opinions?

 

[JMiller]

I disagree. From my experience, for many people religiosity appears to be no less essential to good mental health than having good friendships is for many others. We all have certain needs that have developed along with our character, some perhaps a bit odd, others almost universal in nature, and to say that one can simply set them aside is to make light of the importance they have in establishing a peace of mind.

Two options, God is real and interacts within us, which results in the plethora and obscure variety of mystic views about God. Or, something in evolution of our species found it very useful to carry the "nurture" aspect of humans to a "super" level, and we have the capacity to create models of superness that tend to offer good and bad consequences.

So to a degree I agree with DPR Jones, who said religiosity was an inevitable consequence of human psychology, and we're not going to escape it. I would only qualify that statement with "many people," not all.

Opinions?

Actually it is all of us, not some. It doesn't matter if we are like them, it directly impacts us on a daily basis, and may continue forever. Right?

 

[Skwim]

Two options, God is real and interacts within us, which results in the plethora and obscure variety of mystic views about God. Or, something in evolution of our species found it very useful to carry the "nurture" aspect of humans to a "super" level, and we have the capacity to create models of superness that tend to offer good and bad consequences.
Actually it is all of us, not some. It doesn't matter if we are like them, it directly impacts us on a daily basis, and may continue forever. Right?

As an agnostic, whose psychological makeup does not include any inevitable religiosity, I have to disagree, as I believe would almost all other agnostics and atheists.

 

[Oneatatime]

As above many people do not believe in God or believe its existance to be unlikely to the point where they are unwilling to allow it to interfere with their lives. I suspect that the number of atheists and agnostics is far higher than is observed because social conditioning and pressures ensure that atheists and agnostics pretend to believe or just say they belong to a religion because they aren't aware that there is any other option.

At the rest least the widespread practice of childhood indoctrination renders any judegment of human religosity on the basis of the existing number of believers unreliable. A far better experiment would be to take a group of babies and raise them in a purely secular society and see if religion arises naturally.

 

[Noaidi]

A far better experiment would be to take a group of babies and raise them in a purely secular society and see if religion arises naturally.

Interesting idea. Perhaps a religion may not develop, but a sense of 'something beyond us' may still arise. Belief seems to be hard-wired into our brains, and from an evolutionary viewpoint, it may be easy to see why.

The fact that the vast majority of humans are believers of one persuasion or another indicates a predisposition to this behaviour. It may be due to the rise and dissemination of knowledge that leads more people to buck this trend, i.e. as rational explanations as to how the world functions become more widespread, the need for alternative explanations becomes obsolete.

I don't know if we could ever fully overcome the 'religious' part of our thinking, though. As long as there are unanswered questions (which there always will be), humans may be inclined to fill in the gaps with what they believe rather than leave a void.

 

[CatholicCrusader]

Is religiosity an inevitable consequence of human psychology?

You might find this paragraph of interest, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

28 In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behaviour: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being

LINK: Catechism of the Catholic Church - IntraText

 

[LuisDantas]

The biological tendency may be there, but I don't see the superstitious belief aspects of religion surviving for many generations more as a mainstream trait.

Religion itself will survive because it fulfills a needed role, that of dealing with existential anxieties. But it will be nearly all about what one chooses to do with his own life, with little time for beliefs proper.

 

[Skwim]

You might find this paragraph of interest, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

28 In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behaviour: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being

LINK: Catechism of the Catholic Church - IntraText

I don't think it's so much a quest for god, as a quest for inner peace, or a resolution of one's existential anxieties, as LuisDantas calls it. And it's this quest, and not that for god, that gives rise to religious beliefs and practices, god(s) being the common focus around which they all revolve. And I agree this gestalt is sufficiently widespread to perhaps call man a religious being, all exceptions aside.

 

[LuisDantas]

god(s) being the common focus around which they all revolve.

So you see theism as an essential component of religion?

 

[Skwim]

So you see theism as an essential component of religion?

No, but it is the reigning god construct. The deist religions I'm somewhat familiar with, or those that welcome deist beliefs, such as Unitarian Universalist, don't seem to have anywhere near the reassuring beliefs and behaviors common to theistic religions. As for the atheistic religions such as Hinduism and Confucianism they, of course, have their reassuring religious beliefs and behaviors, but don't have god as a focus.

 

[LuisDantas]

I wouldn't call Hinduism Atheistic. And I'm unclear on how you (and the article you mention in the OP) feel about the distinction between religious belief and theism.

 

[Skwim]

I wouldn't call Hinduism Atheistic.

From a quick Google search.

"Is There a Hindu Atheism? Examples of Atheism in Hinduism:
The Sanskrit word nirisvaravada translates at atheism and means disbelief in a creator god. It does not require disbelief in anything else that might be a "god," but for many anything less than a creator isn't a genuine god in the first place. Both the Samkhya and the Mimamsa schools of Hindu philosophy reject the existence of a creator god, making them explicitly atheistic from a Hindu perspective. This doesn't make them naturalistic, but it does make them as atheistic as any belief system, philosophy, or religion from the perspective of religious theists in the West."
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And I'm unclear on how you (and the article you mention in the OP) feel about the distinction between religious belief and theism.

I don't know about article, but to me theism is simply a belief in a deity that has an ongoing interest in and perhaps relationship with its believers. On the other hand, a religion is a belief system that typically deals with morality and usually has some kind of spiritual element to it. Theism may or may not be religious, and a religion may or may not incorporate theism.

 

[Cain]

What a great scene in Mad Max, where the surviving Children of the Apocalypse find Max (Mel Gibson)
They have already begun their fragmented Belief system with Elders (older children) in place and Sheeple at their feet and Max is the icing on the cake as Savior and God.

What a perfect analogy / example of indoctrination and religious delusion.

 

[CatholicCrusader]

You might find this paragraph of interest, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

28 In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behaviour: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being

LINK: Catechism of the Catholic Church - IntraText

I don't think it's so much a quest for god, as a quest for inner peace, or a resolution of one's existential anxieties, as LuisDantas calls it. And it's this quest, and not that for god, that gives rise to religious beliefs and practices, god(s) being the common focus around which they all revolve. And I agree this gestalt is sufficiently widespread to perhaps call man a religious being, all exceptions aside.

Well, the paragraph is based on the belief that there IS a God who created man and created all things. Based on that belief, it would be a normal instinct for man to seek his creator.

Of course, if you do not believe in God then you would not see the motivation as such.

 

[Skwim]

Well, the paragraph is based on the belief that there IS a God who created man and created all things. Based on that belief, it would be a normal instinct for man to seek his creator.

Of course, if you do not believe in God then you would not see the motivation as such.

It has nothing to do with my belief. The implication of the article is that all people recognize there is a god and therefore seek him out. But this is simply not the case. As pointed out in the thread, there are quite a few cultures with millions of people in which god has not been presumed or sought out. So I think it's a mistake to base the notion that man is a religious being based on god. For many millions of people god plays no part in their religion.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

As for peek-a-boo, very young children are fascinated by it because they have not developed object permanence, and for a short do not understand the concept once they do have object permanence. There is indeed a reason for it. And you can also learn a small degree of adult behavior from it, and other child games such as patty-cake.
And in some cases, psychology is a case of inevitability. Such as it is inevitable that as a teen becomes an emerging adult, his/her thought process will change as the frontal lobe matures.
Same for religion, only there are many reasons for it. For some people it's a support system, for some people it stimulates the brain in a way that fulfills various needs, and can even make it addictive, and of course there are many sociological issues as well. It is most likely here to stay.

 

[Oneatatime]

Interesting idea. Perhaps a religion may not develop, but a sense of 'something beyond us' may still arise. Belief seems to be hard-wired into our brains, and from an evolutionary viewpoint, it may be easy to see why.

The fact that the vast majority of humans are believers of one persuasion or another indicates a predisposition to this behaviour. It may be due to the rise and dissemination of knowledge that leads more people to buck this trend, i.e. as rational explanations as to how the world functions become more widespread, the need for alternative explanations becomes obsolete.

I don't know if we could ever fully overcome the 'religious' part of our thinking, though. As long as there are unanswered questions (which there always will be), humans may be inclined to fill in the gaps with what they believe rather than leave a void.

Atheists/Agnostics demonstrate that even with the our superstitious handicap we've still quite able to live without being religious. Its a matter of accepting that we are all born with this flaw, as a consequence of being able to form causal connections and trasnfer concepts, and not allowing ourselves to be mislead.

The fact that humans don't simply operate purely on an emotional/instinctive level and instead use our intellegence to make decisions would indicate that adopting religion is a failure of the individual to make use of their intellectual faculties, either through ignorance or because outside influences discouraged it as is the case with religion.

Often religious people recognise that their beliefs are irrational yet when still refuse to drop them because of some percieved evidence. Its somewhat ironic that religions which claim to elavate people above the level of beasts often work hard to ensure that people don't make use of their minds but instead encourage emotion and instinct to dominate.

 

[JMiller]

The biological tendency may be there, but I don't see the superstitious belief aspects of religion surviving for many generations more as a mainstream trait.

Religion itself will survive because it fulfills a needed role, that of dealing with existential anxieties. But it will be nearly all about what one chooses to do with his own life, with little time for beliefs proper.

In a recent edition of Psychology Today, it explains why Freudian thought is making a come back. Yet for many many years his views have been brushed aside to new age and guru type groups.

The reason cited is current scientific studies have proven many of his ideas correct. His ideas had been pushed aside for much the same reason you say superstition will be pushed aside. So I just thought it would be interesting to offer this info into the disussion.

It seems there could always be an aspect of our nature that is ahead of scientific testing and therefor might require much of the superstition and philosophical ideas that for now are still unexplainable.

 

[leedan]

It is simple. Religion is the consequence of fear. Early man had much to fear of the unknown. As our minds evolve I believe religion will disappear.

 

[LuisDantas]

In a recent edition of Psychology Today, it explains why Freudian thought is making a come back. Yet for many many years his views have been brushed aside to new age and guru type groups.

The reason cited is current scientific studies have proven many of his ideas correct.

Freud was made obsolete by many of his own disciples, as well as by himself (his later ideas are just as dogmatic as his earlier ones, yet incompatible with those). So I wonder how they could be made relevant again.

He had some good insights into the importance of symbolism, but expressed them in ways that were nothing but disastrous and misleading. The one important factor that makes psychanalysis still useful after all this time is that it has learned how to deal with its own lack of realibility and scientifical value in interesting and pragmatic ways.