The human race - natural urge to religion

MungoMan

I was wondering today about the thousands of gods and deities which people have believed in since the moment our ape ancestors came down from the trees and evolved a bit, and developed the capacity for language. (ok, maybe apes don't live in trees, but ancestors of apes did live in trees).

Every time there was a group of people isolated in a different culture, they always had their own different gods. There was a lot of competition too, some gods were bigger and better than others.

Then finally, about (2000 years ago), there was another cult called christianity which decreed that everyone was wrong up until then - there was only one god (or is it 3 gods in one), and that all the other thousands of gods which had prominence up until then were a figment of peoples imagination.

The cult didn’t get too far initially, but at some stage a Roman emperor made it the official cult of the empire.

Paddy Irishman signed up to the new cult (so did a lot of other Paddy Europeans), although strangely enough, Paddy Middle East where the cult originated mostly decided it was bull****.

My question is, what kind of "kink" is there in people to accept the existence of deities, it must be inherent in the human condition. You have intelligent people, with a capacity for logic and reason accepting the existence of a deity without any evidence. A lot of these people are skeptical about all other things in life, but they accept religion without question.

I'm sure well over 99% of all the humans who ever lived believed in some diety of dieties or some kind of supernatural presence.

Theism is not for me by the way.

Galvasean

MungoMan wrote: »

I'm sure well over 99% of all the humans who ever lived believed in some diety of dieties or some kind of supernatural presence.

I wonder, did they all truly believe or were they just following orders?

oldrnwisr

MungoMan wrote: »

My question is, what kind of "kink" is there in people to accept the existence of deities, it must be inherent in the human condition. You have intelligent people, with a capacity for logic and reason accepting the existence of a deity without any evidence. A lot of these people are skeptical about all other things in life, but they accept religion without question.

There is an inherent need within humans to have an explanation for the world around them. Humans feel that they need to understand why everything happens the way it does. We have always filled in the gaps in our knowledge with fairy stories. Over time as our collective knowledge has increased those gaps have retreated because we have reliable answers for questions like why the sky is blue.

It's not really a question of intelligence though. I've been an atheist for 15 years and I was a catholic before that. I didn't get more intelligent when I became an atheist but simply my knowledge and information increased. I learned and understood the explanations for a great many things and realised that answer wasn't God did it.

kylith

Humans have an innate need to understand the world around them, and our brains are programmed to search for patterns and try to make sense of them.

2000 years ago people had no concept of germs or bacteria, so calling illness a punishment from a deity made as much sense as anything else; Amazonian tribes still believe that various illnesses are curses or witchcraft, not because they're not intelligent, but because they don't have the same information about sickness as we do. It's the same with things like ancient thunder gods; when you have no concept of air currents, static electricity and everything else that goes into a good thunderstorm it makes as much sense as anything to say that it's a god bashing away on his anvil because it sounds like someone bashing away on an anvil.

recedite

There also seems to be a kink which developed as a side effect of our ability to second guess what other people are thinking. This ability first started when primates began ripping each other off by stealing food and sexual favours considered to be owned by others in the group.
This ability is lacking in autistic type people, who find it hard to compete despite being intelligent in other ways.
Unfortunately the side effect of the ability is to make every conspiracy theory seem somehow plausible, and every fantasy seems a vague possibility, at least until all the unknowns can be eliminated. We refuse to believe that things can just happen at random, without their being planned by some rival person or a supreme being.
The idea is explored in this 3 part series The Human Spark (lengthy but worth watching over time)

liamw

Posting this AGAIN but it's worth a watch OP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg

PrettyP

Thanks liamw. Just spent the last hour watching that video. Very good.

nozzferrahhtoo

MungoMan wrote: »

My question is, what kind of "kink" is there in people to accept the existence of deities, it must be inherent in the human condition.

There are many answers to this, such as the tendancy for our species to see patterns where no pattern exists, or to look at the universe in a top down fashion rather than bottom up.

Another one worth mentioning however is our ability to represent the minds of others in our own mind. We have an ability to make a construction of others in our minds and use it to predict the behavior of others. The sentence “I wonder if he knows, that I know, that he knows I stole the biscuit” sounds simple enough on paper, but requires massive processing in the brain, and resolving the question involves us constructing “him” in our minds and viewing the world from “his” perspective in order to construct what he likely “knows”.

This ability comes with wonderful benefits. We tend to treat everything, even inanimate objects, in our minds the same way and personify then. Many of us have found ourselves reasoning with our car when it does not start, offering it rewards like newer and better oil if only it would start this time. We stub ourselves on a door step and actually get angry with the step as if it was at fault somehow.

Much of our art, literature and mythology would not be possible if we did not personify aspects of the universe, and the human condition, in this fashion. Our world would be a much more boring place without this.

The problem, and maybe the “kink” you are asking about, is that our species also has a tendency to start to think those personifications are REAL. Often they very much are real to us. When we are teenagers sneaking home way past our curfew, we create in our heads our parents and attempt to predict their behavior. Often the personification is so real to us that it is actually scarier than the punishment that actually results from our misdemeanors.

There is nothing wrong with personifying thunder or love as Thor or Eros. There is nothing wrong with personifying the entire universe, and everything in it, as a whole as “Allah”. Much beautiful literature and art has come from these things. The problem happens when people start thinking these personifications exist… or worse… that they know what those personifications want and we all must pander to them.

seamus

Personally I think it's a strong manifestation of the "argument from authority" fallacy. That is, we tend to believe things when they are said by people that we trust or that we think are in possession of more information.

So when a respected leader (of a family, community or nation) says that something is the way it is, most people fall in line. Most people want to take everyone else at face value, and are really, really bad at critical thinking and objective analysis. So when someone posits an explanation which fills in the gaps, people will accept it so long as it sounds remotely plausible. They don't need or want any evidence to back it up, they presume that the person telling them is being genuine.

I don't think people naturally urge for, or seek out religion. But our nature in terms of interacting with our communities means that it's very easy for ideas to spread, no matter how off-the-wall they are when taken objectively.

b318isp

In many people I have witnessed, there is a form of externalisation of causations - whether this is to look to others to do things, having unreasonable expectations of others, expect leadership, blame others, expecting others to provide and/explain, etc.

I think this makes many people look outside of themselves for explanations and actions - why there are disasters, why things do not go right, a plea for good luck, what happens when they die, prayers, how crops grow, etc. It's almost a reluctance to take on personal responsibility. It could be speculated that this is part of the tribal background in our history.

Unfortunately, it seems to often end up with people thinking the world is here for them, not the other way around. Religion can often fill this need, if you believe a God has purpose for us or Allah has predestined our lives.