Is belief in God a basic instinct?

Lon Dubh

Short interesting piece by a psychologist from 4 thought TV (Channel 4)

Is belief in God a basic instinct?

(Edited link since last night)

http://www.4thought.tv/themes/is-belief-in-god-a-basic-instinct/dr-nathalia-gjersoe?autoplay=true

Edit: OOps (see below re mod edit, for some reason the link I had posted worked for me last night ).

There seems to be a series of these this short clips by different people. One by the psychologist (Dr Nathalie Gjersoe) I thought was good. I must go and have a look at the others

MOD EDIT:
Link that works in Ireland:
http://www.4thought.tv/themes/is-belief-in-god-a-basic-instinct/jonny-scaramanga

Sindri

I think so. I always thought that in some ways a belief in God is very egotistical in that in protects the ego from it's impending doom of death and stresses, offers some degree of a feeling of control and shelters the self esteem.

As well as the fact that we as humans are born with the propensity towards some degree of emulative learning and our first experiences of life, we notice that everything happens because someone (an independent being capable of force) does something, and we are aware of that fact so it seems natural that something was done and that some cognizant force did something, as there is always a reason for doing something (or so we think), like turning on a light so we can see. It's wired into us.

Rheo

It more than likely has a lot to do with agency detection. If we look at it from an evolutionary perspective, it was a significant thing to have when trying to survive. In the long grass, a sudden noise might instantly give someone the idea that an intelligent agent made the noise (a possible predator), and thus it would make a huge difference to survival to assume the worst and run for it.

A belief in a god or gods is more than likely a by-product of this. Although there is probably a few more factors at play as to why people believe in god, it would help to explain the whole "sacrifice a goat and the gods will let our crops grow" mentality. It's a very primitive outlook on things, but people even today still fall for it... (hurr durr God sent hurricanes because he's mad at gays derp).

Shenshen

Can't view that link, it says it's not available in my country?

That said, I suspect that a belief in god as a higher power is something that humans will inevitably come up with, it's essentially an extrapolation of their self-perception in interaction with the world. In other words, as humans can make watches, humans assume that someone made the world in a similar way.

But I think it's more than that. Humans think in bargaining terms - "you do this for me and I do that for you", and in order to bargain with nature it needs to be antropomorphised. This provides a certain relief of nervousness and anticipation, along with a feeling of being in control. All of them will help a human being survive.

And last but not least there's the fear of mortality. Almost as soon as humans realised the inevitability of death, they started to pretend it wasn't the end. And tied in to the notion of the afterlife was the judging god - you only get it if you're good enough.
Which in turn enforces group strength and cohesion.

Essentially, I don't think we're hard-coded to believe in deities, but I think our evolution favoured those who did.

joseph brand

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we live under our parents' roof for 20-30 years, then we move out, apparently as grown, mature adults. And responsible, Ha!

The image of god is that of a protective father-figure. Watching over us, with an imaginary arm round our shoulders. To many, it's comforting. Then there's Mother Mary, nicest woman in the world. The 'purest' mother (virgin), since she 'never' did the nasty. All paintings of 'her' show a meek, humble, soft and perhaps subservient beautiful woman.
When you think about it, they're essentially Super Parents. A father who isn't just mighty, but Almighty, and a God, nonetheless, who trumps all other gods. "Our god is the best!"

Our propensity to believe in gods goes way back to our ancestors' belief in the gods of thunder, rain, sun, wind, snow, clouds, temperature, trees, etc etc. They were worshipped by ignorant people, who, in all fairness, didn't know any better. A solar eclipse would have drove them crazy.

All it took was an astute, business minded, power-hungry individual to see the market for organised religion and BOOM!-> Organised Religion.

Jesus was the Richard Branson of his time. Virgin Heirlines.

Dades

Shenshen wrote: »

Can't view that link, it says it's not available in my country?

I've edit the OP to included a link that isn't geoblocked.

Mardy Bum

Its a cultural meme, Edward Taylor argues that the primordial form of religion was animism, it allowed humans to makes sense of death and allowed the attribution of souls to both landscapes and people. Once this idea had been conceived numerous competing ideologies formed in order to best explain it. The meme with selective advantage will survive.

New religions take on traits from older religions which they believe will best benefit its membership and that is why most religious practices can be traced back to previous religions.

Oscar Wilde put it more elegantly;

Religions, however, may be absorbed, but they never are disproved, and the stories of the Greek mythology, spiritualised by the purifying influence of Christianity, reappear in many of the southern parts of Europe in our own day. The old fable that the Greek gods took service with the new religion under assumed names has more truth in it than the many care to discover.

Fear of death is a basic instinct. Belief in god is not.

Sycopat

Superstition seems to be.

But it's also the natural result of a mind trying to make sense of the world with only poor information to interpret it. Particularly a mind predisposed to paranoia, seeing patterns in chaos, and having hallucinations when ill or intoxicated (like ours are.)

I don't think belief in gods is inherent (and for this discussion, we really should not talk about 'God' as monotheism is only one option, and doesn't seem to have been common in pre-modern era's anyway.) so much as it is a side-effect of the interaction of our tendency toward superstition with our extended tribal social structure.

Zillah

I think it is a confluence of a number of features that people have touched on:

- Over-active agency seeking: Evolutionarily speaking it is a much safer bet to assume agency where there is none rather than vice versa. Assuming a tiger is in the bushes when there is none: You look silly. Assuming a tiger is not in the bushes when there is one: Eaten. Extrapolate these features to the big picture and the brain intuits the presence of someone behind it all.

- Social bonding and the preservation of culture: The tribe with a religion - rituals, songs, dances, shared myths and principles, social structure - has a big advantage over the one that doesn't.

- Authority-oriented thinking: We intuitively analyse social status amongst ourselves, whether that is to boss people around or being happy being led, or switching around depending on circumstances, we tend to assume someone is at the top...but your Dad or the priest isn't quite as high as one can go, is it?

- Existential angst: One side-effect of self-awareness and abstract thinking is the realisation of mortality and purposeless. We don't like this and our bias towards positive thinking leads to assuming that we're not mortal and that we have a purpose.

- Memetics: Thoughts and ideas fight with each other for prominence and survival in society. Some are better at it than others, and the ones that learn to stick around tend to stick around for a very long time, and have a number of ingenious adaptive and defensive features that keep them going.

- Pareidolia: The brain seeks out patterns, and can be over-active doing it. This relates a lot to agency seeking. Better to assume the presence of a non-existent feature, plan or pattern than to miss one that does exist.

That's it in a nutshell. It's a big gooey, irrational, hypocritical mess of all of those things. Most people tend to focus on one or two of them, but I think they all play a role. I suppose morality is a factor too, but the way religion handles morality I would say that it is simply a feature of their approach to authority.

EDIT: Typos.

[-0-]

http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2011/110513.html

nozzferrahhtoo

Lon Dubh wrote: »

Is belief in God a basic instinct?

Not directly but I think it is indirectly related to many things that are.

An analogy often used is if you imagine asking "Is catching the common cold a basic function of human biology?". Clearly it is not. Why would evolution select for catching a virus?

What does happen in evolution however is that the Virus is selected for it's ability to use aspects of the human condition that have evolved for other reasons. Belief in god is likely very similar.

For example we have what is called "The Intentional Stance" and "Agency Detection" which Evolution has selected for. This is that we see agency before we see no agency. And we evaluate the intentions... especially towards ourselves and our loved ones... of any agency.

The evolutionary selection there is clear. You are more likely to die by detecting no agency where there is some and being wrong than detecting too much agency and being wrong.

Further our evolved ability to "put ourselves in the other shoes" means our brain has the ability to represent others and run "test scenarios". "I wonder if she knows that I know that she knows I lied" is a simple enough sentence but the ability to represent in our minds the minds and scenarios of others in order to visualize it is astounding really.

And it does not stop with the minds of others. We have a penchant for personifying and representing in our minds things like emotions, inanimate objects, facts of life like death and even the universe itself. This ability has led to great art, literature, folklore and folktales and more. However all one must do is take that one step too far and start thinking the personifications real and suddenly you have gods and the like to contend with.

We are also a pattern seeking animal which is good but we are over active in that and see patterns that are not there or draw patterns in our minds from incomplete data sets. Much superstition comes from this fact alone.

So no I see no reason to think that god belief is directly an instinct but I can very much visualize ways in which it can act like a memetic virus utilizing things that are natural to us in order to perpetuate itself.

What I have certainly never been shown in my life is even the first reason to think that god belief is in any way based on any arguments, evidence, data or reasoning that is actually available to us or can be presented by any one person to another. I have been asking theists for such for 18+ years now to no avail. Literally nothing is forthcoming.

the culture of deference

Lon Dubh wrote: »

Is belief in God a basic instinct?

Simple answer is No.
In the timeline of humans existence god and religion are new concepts.

old hippy

I don't think it's instinctive, I think it's a mental illness.