Why do people believe in God/Gods/higher divinity

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-18 11:00am

A fairly obvious question at a first glance, but was there any scientific study conducted in this matter?

Why do people have this internal need of believing that there is something higher beyond rational grasp?

Or was this "need" forced down our throats for so long that the majority of population simply accepted it as a fact, that we requite to feed a flying spaghetti monster to our brains?

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2006-12-18 11:18am

Didn't they find a part of the brain that provokes religious experiences when stimulated a little while ago?

Aside from that, the fact that we went through several centuries of everyone expecting the Spanish Inquisition certainly didn't help.

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2006-12-18 11:54am

For the longest time I was a agnostic borderline atheist. But after joining the military and through a long chain of events, to long to go into detail here I strated beliving that there was something higher. Now if this higher power, what ever it is, is still around it most likley is not like any one religion.

And since I don't try to force my opinion on others than theres no harm in beliving. After all its not so much what you belive in but how you live and relate to others.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2006-12-18 12:26pm

This is a fairly complex question. I find myself agreeing with Freud's contention (also believed by Sagan, Dawkins and many other atheists), that the need for a god, or gods, is a "repetition" of childhood and the inner emotional need for a parent. People, like my own father, seem to have a need for spirituality, and, in his case, I believe it's his mind's attempt at working out his internal conflicts and negative feelings he still represses toward his own father (my grandfather was quite the asshole in his younger years and put my father through a lot of abuse). My dad has an M.A. in philosophy, can see how fundies are wrong, sees the evil that religion creates, yet still needs religion.

Of course, this is one school of psychological thought. Maybe the answer to this question lies strictly in our genes. Maybe it's a combination of things. [/i]

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-12-18 12:40pm

In addition to the repetition from childhood and the inner emotional need for a parent, I think it also includes some "misfiring" (as Dawkins puts it) of the human brain's pattern-recognition abilities: our minds have a tendency to anthropomorphize and attribute patterns and purpose where none exist, and that, in a big way, lends itself to belief in God. Combine that with curiosity and desire for explanation (however logically weak), and it's not hard to fathom how people can believe in God.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2006-12-18 12:51pm

The fear of death also factors into it. People tend to want an afterlife, because non-existance is something they either can't comprehend or are terrified of.

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2006-12-18 01:16pm

The fear of death, the need for something beyond what we are, a beginning and an end. There are lots of reason.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2006-12-18 01:29pm

Modern religious belief required 3 things: Indoctrination, indoctrination, indoctrination.

As for why we as a species seem to have this religious heritage, it's simply the need for us to comprehend and explain the incomprehensible and unexplainable. The problems arose when those explanations turned into culturally unifying dogmas and manifested themelves into rituals and then defined our different tribes.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-18 01:37pm

The birth of religion is a simple 5 step process:

Child asks his father why the sky is blue.
Ignorant primitive father doesn't know, so he makes up an answer.
Child grows up never knowing any better. As an adult, he interprets criticism of his answer as an attack upon his father.
Over the generations, answers get slightly modified and refined due to arguments, conflicts, and communications between people. Some more popular answers become accepted by communities.
Greedy and powerful individuals start looking for ways to modify the answers so that they will profit from them. The priesthood is born.

It's not that we have an innate need for religion; it's just that this process worked so well with our early primitive state, and carries enormous social inertia.

CaptJodan · Post by **CaptJodan** » 2006-12-18 02:45pm

Trytostaydead wrote:The fear of death, the need for something beyond what we are, a beginning and an end. There are lots of reason.

I think death and the need for something greater is a large factor to it.

Consider those who are vastly less fortunate and may not be in the best position to work their way out of their situation. The poor. The discriminated. The physically or mentally handicapped. These types of people, not just in this country but all over live lives that to them may not be fulfilling and yet they don't feel they can do anything about it (or, they choose not to because it's too much work). The belief in a higher being that will deliver them from their awful lives when they die and bring them to a heaven that knows none of the pain they go through now is vastly more appealing than trying to work your ass off with the chance that you'll get nowhere from your efforts.

Atheist beliefs can be considered rather unsatisfying to the vast majority of people. Despite the higher intellectualization here, it's obviously not the norm. Most people (and I count myself among them) don't like the idea of not existing after this life (made all the more depressing as I will likely not have kids and so there will be no one to really remember me by or carry on the family name). They just can't stomach the idea of ceasing to exist forever.

Worse, there's this sense of destiny that surrounds the human race. I suppose it comes from humanity's dominance over the planet. People like to believe that the human race is special or chosen amongst all other races on the planet (and the cosmos apparently). Sure we don't deserve it, but we ARE chosen as God's grand experiment so that everyone else can watch us suffer and learn from our mistakes (not sure about other religions, but the one I come from always has it that humanity will be higher in God's ranks because we suffered, while they just watched. See, we're special).

If your child is murdered, religion of the Abrahamic version allows for a sense of vengence against those who have done wrong against you, whereas not believing in some kind of after-life justice system means that your child is dead and gone forever, and it's really hard to get the bastard who did it back for that.

Death, the fear of it, the last laugh, I think is a big part of the whole thing. People need to feel as if they will go on beyond this form and non-existence after being in existence just seems like such a waste.

TithonusSyndrome · Post by **TithonusSyndrome** » 2006-12-22 07:52pm

I'd like to throw hallucinogenic drugs into our list of offenders. Most people on this board reserve their purest vitriol for the followers of Kent Hovind, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, but I find fans of Bill Hicks, Terrence McKenna and Timothy Leary even more heinous in nature. They consider themselves wholly enlightened, are unmoved by logic, and more alarming than anything most fundies do, they blithely set about trying to subvert science as spirituality's natural partner. Most personally, I've been hurt the deepest by such people, as opposed to religious fundies - and they have the gall to stare at me doe-eyed and hurt when I tell them to stay far away from me, as though I'M hurting their karmically balanced asses without provocation.

You'd be suprised how a diet of Heremetic reading material and the urging or a once-trusted friend to try powerful hallucinogenics regularly can loosen your grip on logic, parsimony and falsificationism. I know I won't let it happen again.

defanatic · Post by **defanatic** » 2006-12-23 06:49am

Um....

- Comfort
- Social security (church is a ready-made social group that you can get friends from almost immediately. I found this one out while pretending to be a fundamentalist)
- Indoctrination
- Filling the gaps
- Fear

If you ask people, though, they'll say things like "I see proof of God every day" and "I feel his love flow through me" (<- Said about anyone else is taboo while in a Church. Also discovered while pretending to be a fundie). This is probably untrue. People saying stuff like that are simply looking for justification.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2006-12-23 07:17am

I support the historical inertia. The fact that religion loses grip with the rise of reason and logical thought, as well as increasing human erudition about nature, points to that religion only arose because of ignorance and people who were willing to profit and gain power using that ignorance.

Such is only possible in a primitive society, so religion and God are products of our history, not a fundamental need of a human being. "Innate need" for religion is bullcrap. It's only "innate" in a society of primitive ignoramuses.

R. U. Serious · Post by **R. U. Serious** » 2006-12-23 08:12am

TithonusSyndrome wrote:I'd like to throw hallucinogenic drugs into our list of offenders.

I second that. Also see:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_re ... 11_06.html

"HOPKINS SCIENTISTS SHOW HALLUCINOGEN IN MUSHROOMS CREATES UNIVERSAL “MYSTICAL” EXPERIENCE"

Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in “sacred mushrooms” can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries.

The resulting experiences apparently prompt positive changes in behavior and attitude that last several months, at least.

The agent, a plant alkaloid called psilocybin, mimics the effect of serotonin on brain receptors-as do some other hallucinogens-but precisely where in the brain and in what manner are unknown.
[...]

Damaramu · Post by **Damaramu** » 2006-12-23 07:04pm

Funny this is up.

Did anyone catch Barbara Walter's special last night, Heaven- Where Is It? How Do We Get There? (warning=pop ups)

Bronx · Post by **Bronx** » 2006-12-23 07:58pm

Just a nasty experiment of nature.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2006-12-23 10:31pm

Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts wrote:Heaven is a fourth dimension if you will.

Of course; we can't see heaven with our eyes because it's not a physical thing! It's time! This guy is brilliant.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-12-23 10:59pm

wolveraptor wrote:
Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts wrote:Heaven is a fourth dimension if you will.
Of course; we can't see heaven with our eyes because it's not a physical thing! It's time! This guy is brilliant.

It's not even the Twilight Zone, which is fifth-dimensional. St. Rod says so.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2006-12-23 11:02pm

I don't think this thread is answering the question. How can we ask the question of why people believe in God if only athiests answer the question?

darthbob88 · Post by **darthbob88** » 2006-12-23 11:16pm

Personally, I believe in a higher power due to man's lack of ability. Lots of nasty things happen to people, and me in particular. While it is not impossible, I very much doubt that humans are capable of such vile acts and of such organization in their atrocity. The only solution I can think of and accept is the existence of the mad god Finagle. Anything else is either too depressing or too unbelievable.

AK-047 · Post by **AK-047** » 2006-12-24 05:53am

I think that people believe in religion because it is an easy way out. Humanity obviously has its limits, and outside its limits, humanity has very little understanding of what is there. People worry about not being able to see and worrying burdens their minds. They can't remove the burden from their minds because it requires more thought, which added to the worrying, creates various mental conditions such as depression and instability (a very close person of mine had this experience, it pains me). Generally, people aren't known for their resilience against laziness, so to solve their unexplained things, they use their imagination, which is a special tool that humanity specializes in. With said imagination, they dream up answers to settle their minds, submerging themselves completely into their newfound beliefs until they are consumed in their own reality. Being social creatures, this process of belief spreads, and seeing how it provides an easy way out, many people take up on it and it becomes very very popular.

In another aspect, I think that religions are present because humans are elitists by nature. They separate themselves from animals due to their mental powers and language, and since they believe themselves superior, they don't want to be as disorderly as other animals. Laws are made, rules are founded, restrictions are set, but all in vain as some humans are still unruly. They need an empowering force to make people follow the set order. They create a greater entity who will reward them for being virtuous and smite them for their vices. But as they do not acknowledge, by creating a deity who punishes with force, they have inherently placed an evil above them.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-12-24 09:32am

It can be summed up a la the underpants gnomes like this:

1) Existential fears/curiosity/emotional vulnerability
2) Gods!
3) Profit

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2006-12-24 03:32pm

The fear of death, the promise of forgiven sins, the companionship etc...

What I don't understand is how people today can believe so strongly and literally in books which are almost entirely built on myths and fairy tales written by people who wanted to give their place in the world a significant meaning and to describe how the world around them worked.

I also don't understand why Christians etc. can't think for a moment and ask themselves some basic questions such as if the Biblical God exists, why hasn't He appeared to all the peoples in the world?

Singular Intellect · Post by **Singular Intellect** » 2006-12-24 05:06pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:I don't think this thread is answering the question. How can we ask the question of why people believe in God if only athiests answer the question?

Because we cannot trust any religious individual to be truely objective?

Find a religious individual who understands how he/she was brainwashed and indoctrinated by a belief system that is based upon ignorance and fear, yet still subscribes to that belief system, would be a peculiar person indeed...

Elfdart · Post by **Elfdart** » 2006-12-26 09:00pm

Aside from the desire for a Super Mommy or Daddy, I think the main reason people are inclined to believe in something far more powerful that on one hand brings them life and on the other takes it away comes from our primate ancestry. In the book Blood Rites Barbara Ehrenreich points out that early humans, like other primates were eaten by predators on a regular basis, but also lived off their leftovers. So like other scavengers, early humans were scared shitless of animals like the great cats, but were also thankful for whatever scraps they could get from them.

If you watch wildlife documentaries and see how baboons, jackals and other scavengers act when there's a lion or leopard nearby you'll notice the body language is very similar to how the believers act when worshipping. They avert their eyes, bow their heads, get on their hands and knees and so on. If we had tails, I'm sure the pious would tuck them between their legs when approaching the altar like jackals do when looking to get a mouthfull of zebra without getting the shit kicked out of him by the lions.