What is it about the concept of a deity that causes its persistence?

I see mainly two reasons

1) If a deity exists – and we don’t know that – it would solve the paradox of existence (Einstein’s deism)

2) If a deity doesn’t exist – and we don’t know that either – but people believe in it, this will still increase their survival chances during times of extreme environmental pressure (feature of the human psyche)

An excellent book touching on number 2 is Stephen Baxter’s novel “Evolution”. There also seems some new neurobiological evidence for number 2.

Some people need to feel like there is some kid of rhyme or reason to the universe (a “plan,” if you will), to think that it’s not as pointless as it appears.

Some people are afraid of death and want to believe that it’s not “really” the end. In fact, this seems to be the original cause of any religious thought at all, as we know that Neanderthal folks buried their dead with ceremony and items.

Some people have an innate need to believe anyway. It’s biologically compelled.

Also, religion can glue a culture together like nothing else can. How do you think Judaism survived so long under such harsh conditions (from Babylon onward…)?

Finally, it gives people a giant opportunity to feel right. And people love feeling right.

Allow yourself at the very least a modicum of the notion that the concept persists because the deity exists.

It’s good to feel that life was controlled when it was made, that there is someone watching us, and helping us, that life is purposeful, etc.

Also, from the religious creator’s perspective, it’s a great way to get people to obey you (the church) and keep order.

I think it depends on the situation but in my opinion there are three main reasons – 1 is that it makes the person holding on feel better; 2 the people who created the concept originally did it through fear & in some cases violent methods were used to create the fear all for the purpose of profit & control; 3 the individual is afraid between the training of church leaders & the fear that some other “truth” may turn them to something new. Churches do quite well at encouraging negative forms of shunning & making already weak people afraid of their own weakness with a result that makes them feel they need guidance which in the end is really in many cases a puppet like control. That’s all opinion based on experience as opposed to something I could reference without annoying amounts of research.

@mattbrowne For option 1, as with any answer further paradoxes arise when this one is solved. Option 2 is an interesting one. Why do you think a person’s self belief is inferior in terms of survival to their belief in the supernatural? Is the Muslim’s belief in Allah stronger than the Communist’s belief in the teachings of Marx?

@laureth I find the ‘fear of death’ explanation fascinating, as fear of death is something I do not understand, and I do not understand how a deity may ease this fear. Cultural reasons are certainly strong – many of the greatest wars in history have been religious, and the soldiers would never have fought with such vigour without the support of the divine.

@NaturalMineralWater Since none can prove (or disprove) the concept, isn’t it unlikely that the concept is perpetuated by the deity? Would not active involvement be somewhat obvious?

@laureth @FireMadeFlesh I agree with the fear of death philosophy, although I think it only works for people who were raised with religion and God. People like me who were raised atheist, generally do not fear the end either.

Fear in general certainly helps feed the belief in a deity.

I believe the neuroscience regarding the “God center” in the brain is legitimate. It seems some theists feel what I would call a euphoria while praying or meditating. I think they have almost an addiction to the feeling.

Well, I was raised with the concept of God and religion was a part of my upbringing, but the “fear of death” explanation never really made much sense to me. Either way you are losing everything that people cling to in the material world.

Also, laureth’s article clearly states: The scientists emphasized that their findings in no way suggest that religion is simply a matter of brain chemistry.

“These studies do not in any way negate the validity of religious experience or God,” the team said. “They merely provide an explanation in terms of brain regions that may be involved.”

It seems perfectly natural that there would be a place in the brain in which religious experience is felt. That sense of calm, or euphoria in some cases, that happens during meditation cannot be explained away by simply pointing out that there is a place in the brain that feels it.

@FireMadeFlesh – what kind of active involvement would you expect from God? Would you expect God to work through humans or would you expect showy miracles? I would call the persistence of experience across cultures and centuries as evidence of some sort.

Deity’s are there because it allows people of power and want to keep their power to not need to back up their actions with facts.

Just reach out into the unknown, and with enough leverage make your point heard and followed.

As long as there are individuals of power (and power is control) you will have deity’s.

@fireside not trying to just “explain away” the calm or euphoria, but I do think the people who experience it are different than me. I could prbably develop it I would guess? And, I see why people who experience might think I am missing something, missing the opportunity to feel a “connection” so to speak with the universe or God. I am not trying to diminish the feeling in my words. BUT, I am saying that much of deity experience it a matter of semantics I think. Praying to got or meditating in buddhism I have a feeling is theh same thing. When people “pray,” I think I concentrate, or hope, or search for an answer in my own mind. I think it is all the same in the end. UNLESS, you think God is sitting up there like a person or entity, judging, and moving us and nature around like pawns, then it is not the same.

@JLeslie – I think or prayer or meditation as the opposite. To me it is searching for an answer outside of my own mind. It’s a way of removing myself from the situation and opening up the channel to the spirit world or collective unconscious which provides insights beyond my material experience.

no clue as I don’t have a need for it and don’t get why others would either but I imagine it’s because it’s comforting, maybe

@FireMadeFlesh – No, personally I don’t think it’s inferior. But today we’ve got the luxury to survive for many weeks without constant group interaction. We turn the faucets in our home, go shopping and contemplate philosophy books for days. 50000 years ago the situation was very different. Life was a struggle. Or take Native Americans before the Europeans arrived. A common belief system can unite people. Religion and spirituality can also contribute to a sense of being part of something larger than ourselves. Feeling part of something bigger than ourselves can help people better cope with the many challenges in life. 50000 years ago there were far more challenges. Stephen Baxter makes the point that this behavior was built into the human psyche because it increased survival chances.

There will always be unexplainable events and the human mind doesn’t like this very much. I think, generally, when something can’t be explained by science, people start to wonder.

I’m a scientist and I’m on the fence. I vacillate between my spirituality and thinking of natural functions as a type of self-perpetuating machine, that all things have answers but we aren’t advanced to know them yet. There are moments when I feel the touch of something Divine, but then later moments, my rational mind takes over and starts questioning everything.

@FireMadeFlesh Many things were once thought preposterous by the great minds of history and science. The quickly sparking synapses of Einstein predicted such anomalies as black holes, yet he failed to believe they actually existed. What greater irony could there be for science and humanity than the failure to believe in the greatest concept of all time?

@fireside interesting.

” I vacillate”

That is the problem. Always trying to hold ground in that gray area. :-)

@ChazMaz I don’t see that as a problem – more people need to move into there

Existential angst is terrifying and paralyzing. If only I could bring myself to believe.

@NaturalMineralWater You know, Evelyn told me that very same thing just the other day. Funny how great minds think alike. You and Evelyn, not me, of course, my mind isn’t that great.

@evelyns_pet_zebra Well, you two make a cute couple (Textually speaking of course) You’re like the witty couples from so many of the Dean Koontz novels I’ve read.

While I immensely value knowledge, I favor wisdom because of its ability to transcend.

“God” is an answer. Some people think God is the answer.

We have evolved, I believe, to have a deep need to know the answers to our questions. Finding answers is crucial to our survival, and this need drives us relentlessly.

However, that relentless drive can be debilitating, too, when there are no answers. God is used to provide the feeling of an answer where there are no answers. Thus, God takes the place of the unknown, and calms us down enough to live with uncertainty. Well, most of us.

You see, some people have learned to cope with not knowing without resorting to an answer-that-is-not-an-answer (ATINAA). The problem with ATINAA is that it can stop you when you need to go further. ATINAA can be too satisfying. If I am correct, then, over a long period of time, God believers will slowly become less competitive, and the practice will eventually disappear, except, perhaps, in a very small part of the population, since we always need to maintain all possible coping skills, should they become the best method at some point in the future. However, this slow reduction in God-belief will probably take millenia.

@daloon I used to think theists would diminish in numbers, but I am constantly amazed at how they build one church after another here in 2009.

@daloon “God is used to provide the feeling of an answer where there are no answers.” Just out of curiosity, have you ever been a religious person?

People say things like this as if they are de facto without even acknowledging the possibility that the concept of a deity could actually be true. Even many of my atheist friends acknowledge the possibility that God exists. They may be exaggerating the odds that God exists, but they aren’t so close-minded as to shut out the possibility altogether. Doing so, imho, is incredibly naive.

@JLeslie I was raised a Christian. Maybe fear is more common in religious people though.

@fireside I do not particularly want any type of involvement. I am saying that we do not know of any involvement, or the deity would be able to be proven to exist. This means that concepts where the deity actively controls destiny are invalid, unless the deity wishes to remain anonymous.

@mattbrowne I do not disagree with you on any particular point, but why would this survival mechanism exhibit itself as religion rather than philosophical idealism? Is there something about religion that makes it a more powerful survival mechanism than ideological zeal?

@NaturalMineralWater Are you saying we should believe in the Loch Ness Monster and Yetis, simply because we may be wrong to disbelieve the reports? Pascal’s Wager is grossly fallacious. Einstein was not strictly wrong to disbelieve the theory of Black Holes, as he did not have sufficient evidence. At the moment we do not know for certain whether or not there is a deity, so either assumption has a similar probability of being right or wrong depending on the weight of evidence and reason. This does not mean I am agnostic, I am just working on assumptions without going into evidence and reason.

@daloon GA, thanks.

@NaturalMineralWater I can think of an infinite number of things that might exist but for which there is no evidence, so far. My personal favorite is an invisible pink dragon that controls all our spiritual experiences. You can’t prove it doesn’t exist. And if you deny it, then aren’t you just as close-minded as you accuse me of being?

I think it makes much more sense to look at it differently. The issue, for me, is not whether these things exist or don’t. The question I ask is what advantage could there be to such beliefs, for which I can find evidence. We could actually test my theory about the desire for answers, and the comfort provided by something that seems like an answer, even if it isn’t one, in the sense that there is evidence for or agin’ it.

I’m not saying anything as if it is the de facto explanation, although I’m sure I often sound that way. These are all theories of mine.

As to whether I’ve ever been religious—that depends on how you define religion. I do not have anything that I would call a religion, but I do have things that are similar to what others call religion. Certainly I have spiritual experiences. Certainly I have experienced a set of oneness with the universe. Certainly I participate in weekly rituals designed to give me access to the numinous. Certainly, I’ve been part of many organizations that contain a central myth that brings folks together. Taken together, it is pretty much the same as a religion. It’s just that, for me, the term “religion” is such a loaded and undefined term. I prefer not to use it.

I just don’t have the ability to believe in something for which there is no evidence. However, there are many religions that don’t require such a belief. So you tell me. Am I a religious person?

@FireMadeFlesh When the church of the Loch Ness monster or a Yeti comes into existance than use that excuse.

@daloon… Same thing…

@NaturalMineralWater Thanks for the non-answer.

@daloon Whenever the conversation turns to people comparing God to fantastical creatures like santa clause and the flying spaghetti monster I know I’ve lost all chance of intelligent conversation.

@NaturalMineralWater why? there is nothing wrong with the comparison

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Actually believing the two are comparable is reason enough for me to choose someone else to talk to. I’m not trying to be mean.. it’s just that it’s futile to converse with someone if they truly believe that the God of Gods, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords is nothing more than a fat man with a red suit who shows up on Christmas eve.

I don’t know how you can be so arrogant about your God, and be so totally dismissive of others, just because they don’t have huge followings. No, I take that back. I do know how. You just don’t really want to think about anything except what you believe.

@NaturalMineralWater Whenever the conversation turns to people comparing God to fantastical creatures like santa clause and the flying spaghetti monster I know I’ve lost all chance of intelligent conversation.

I am not comparing the concepts, they are quite different. All I am saying is that to believe anything simply because it is the emotionally comforting alternative and equally likely unknowns is a gross misjudgement. You originally said ”What greater irony could there be for science and humanity than the failure to believe in the greatest concept of all time?” My point is that although it may be a correct assumption, it would be premature and foolish to go down that path simply to avoid the ridicule of later generations who potentially prove the existence of the deity.

In scientific research, a concept is not considered ‘true’ until it has reached certain probability limits of both type 1 and type 2 errors. Since we have no quantifiable means of measuring the existence of a deity, we cannot make an assumption either way. It is possible for you and I to form a stance based on qualitative evidence and logical reasoning, but still we cannot presume based on the consequences of a type 1 or 2 error. The consequences are irrelevant, as they come after the conclusion has been drawn.

@daloon I said nothing of “other” Gods. I was talking about Santa Claus. Anyway, this thread has died.. lol. I’ll see you in another perhaps.

@FireMadeFlesh – You asked, Is there something about religion that makes it a more powerful survival mechanism than ideological zeal?

No, I don’t think so. Take the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 or Mao’s Cultural Revolution in 1966. Equally powerful.

The genetic molding of the human psyche takes millennia. There seems to be (controversial) neurobiological evidence for religious/spiritual feelings. From Wikipedia: The God gene hypothesis proposes that human beings inherit a set of genes that predisposes them to believe in a higher power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene

Ideological zeal requires larger human settlements and more advanced cultures. I was talking about homo sapiens 50000 years ago. The simple belief in a higher power was possible. Reading The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx was not. Cultural evolution works much faster than genetic evolution.

Today people can survive quite well without religion, philosophy and ideology. Well, babies still need the smile of their mothers.

@mattbrowne That makes sense, thank you.