Why are humans religious?

[Ginkgo]

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[jackles]

because of the evolution of the brain relative to consciouseness.the brain .all brains are bridges from sizelike event locality to sizeless nonlocal consciouseness.religion comes in to play at the certain point where good and evil can be reflected upon.in other words death awareness is realised by the brain.

[Ginkgo]

because of the evolution of the brain relative to consciouseness.the brain .all brains are bridges from sizelike event locality to sizeless nonlocal consciouseness.religion comes in to play at the certain point where good and evil can be reflected upon.in other words death awareness is realised by the brain.

I quite like this explanation. Thanks jackles.

[thedoc]

because of the evolution of the brain relative to consciouseness.the brain .all brains are bridges from sizelike event locality to sizeless nonlocal consciouseness.religion comes in to play at the certain point where good and evil can be reflected upon.in other words death awareness is realised by the brain.

I have been contemplating the question, "What is the First Cause" of religion"? I agree that the development of human consciousness and the awareness that people are individuals have a part in the process. Was it just the development of the human brain that led to religion or was there some external cause that put the idea into the human mind?

[jackles]

I think you could think of it as humans are religious machines.or as the machine like brain is centred on consciouse meaning.an ant woulld have an automatic scence of meaning as in being or functioning as an ant in an event.where a humans scence of meaning is a few steps removed.the meaning of life is self consciouse of its self in man.seperate from the event.

[thedoc]

I think you could think of it as humans are religious machines.or as the machine like brain is centred on consciouse meaning.an ant woulld have an automatic scence of meaning as in being or functioning as an ant in an event.where a humans scence of meaning is a few steps removed.the meaning of life is self consciouse of its self in man.seperate from the event.

Then you are suggesting, at least in part, that the human mind, once it became self aware, is predisposed to religion and the belief in God or some kind of 'higher power'? And that the human mind is also predisposed to the idea that each person has some spiritual aspect that is somewhat separate from the physical and survives after death?

[thedoc]

because of the evolution of the brain relative to consciouseness.the brain .all brains are bridges from sizelike event locality to sizeless nonlocal consciouseness.religion comes in to play at the certain point where good and evil can be reflected upon.in other words death awareness is realised by the brain.

Could this be another way of saying that the brain/mind is a bridge from dualism to non-dualism? Or to the Buddhist concept of "Universal Mind", or any of the other labels that have been applied to the concept.

[jackles]

Yes the religions are are if you like super natural.they explain human nature in super natural terms.the meaning of life is from a so called normal stand point super natural.nonlocality though seems super natural.love is super natural.

[Immanuel Can]

This is interesting. I was just considering chewing this idea over with Thedoc on another strand when this one appeared. May I pitch in?

When we're trying to explain a phenomenon like belief in a Supreme Being, we're always in danger of slipping into an explanatory fallacy of one kind or another. For example, the observation, "ancient humans feared the dark or death" may well be true, but it's not necessarily a causal explanation -- it could simply be a secondary fact, additional to whatever actually caused religious yearning to happen. Or again, "religion offers us redemption and hope" may well be, at least in some cases, an apt observation and explain why we like it; but it isn't a causal explanation for its origin either -- it could be that the religious impulse is *both* productive of these human benefits *and* caused by some other fact or force.

So to say what humans appear to want, need or get out of "religion" (whatever the heck that is) is not to say what *created* the religious impulse. Unless we can, for some reason, rule out the possibility that some more profound force created that impulse then all such explanations remain ambiguous or subsidiary observations at best, possibly red-herrings at worst. We simply cannot know, when we look at the human side, whether we are observing a delusion of primitive minds or a profound reflection of man's essential, created nature.

A lot of what's been said so far is premised on answering the question from the human side; as in, "Why would humans suddenly decide they needed to believe in a God or gods?" But is there any possibility that humans are not themselves responsible for the production of an interest in transcendence? Is there, in anyone's view, a point in exploring the opposite hypothesis: namely, that the "religious" impulse is not so much a product of man's (or woman's) search for God as it is of the Supreme Being's interest in humankind?

[marjoramblues]

"religion" (whatever the heck that is)

Good question. What do you think it is?

[thedoc]

Please Can, pitch in, as they say, "Once More into the Breach".

In the Judea/Christian tradition all things are attributed to God who is unknowable, there is even a statement in our service to that effect the mystery, "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again". There is no attempt to explain how this could be, but it is presented as an article of faith.

In Buddhism those who have achieved enlightenment have been with the 'Universal Mind' but have chosen to return for the benefit of others. Enlightenment itself cannot be stated, "Those who say don't know, and Those who know don't say", and the reason given for this is that words are inadequate to describe the experience, and to experience enlightenment is the only way to know enlightenment.

What little I know of Hinduism indicates that there is no help there either.

However I am not totally at a loss for ideas and that leaves me with the thought that Man's becoming self conscious was the point when this awareness of God, or whatever else you want to label it, came into existence. I would suggest that when man first started to bury the dead was the point in time when the concept of a supreme being was realized. At first it might seem that there is little that we can learn about this first awareness but I believe there are clues in the burials themselves that can teach us the beliefs and ideas that led early humans to put their dead in a grave rather than just walking away. Animals just walk away, a human being will try to protect and provide for those who have passed beyond, but beyond what? Burial indicates to me that early humans believed that there was something beyond death and this would mean some God or supreme being.

All this leaves us with the question, did early humans realize these concepts from within and create the concept of God, or is there a supreme being that put these concepts into the very make up of humans when the animal was raised up to be human? I am looking for that trigger that made homo sapiens animals into human beings and sparked the concept of God.

[thedoc]

"religion" (whatever the heck that is)

Good question. What do you think it is?

The most simplistic answer is a belief in God or some other supreme being.

My own take on this is that religions grew out of Mythology and all Mythology was the same in the beginning, so all religions have the same origins and the differences are the result of human corruption.

[uwot]

My own take on this is that religions grew out of Mythology and all Mythology was the same in the beginning, so all religions have the same origins and the differences are the result of human corruption.

The earliest mythologies in the development of western religion that we have records of, Mesopotamian and Egyptian, had similarities. Both included creation myths that had primordial water gods. Water gods begat Earth gods, who begat air gods, who begat fire gods. Both these civilizations were founded on flood plains, where agriculture is relatively easy. Receding flood waters leave a deposit of earth; methane is produced by decaying vegetation at the bottom of pools and bubbles up like air and just happens to be flammable.
The definitive mythology of Greece tells a slightly different story, because it was written by a shepherd, Hesiod, on a hillside, where water springs from the Earth. In Greek mythology, the first god to emerge from Chaos is Gaia, Mother Earth. The origins of most mythologies is an attempt to explain where the world came from, what it is made of and how it works; the christian answer to which is the trinity: god the father, god the son and god the holy ghost. It is only once the science part of mythology is dealt with, and you get into politics and ethics, that human corruption creates dissent.

[reasonvemotion]

Heraclitus declares that “there is only one that remains, and from out of this all else is formed; all except this one is not enduring.”

The monotheistic religious claim is that God is absolute, eternal, and unchanging; all beings, things, and phenomena in the world are transient, impermanent.

Man, all men it seems, are in need of a symbolic life.

[thedoc]

My own take on this is that religions grew out of Mythology and all Mythology was the same in the beginning, so all religions have the same origins and the differences are the result of human corruption.

The earliest mythologies in the development of western religion that we have records of, Mesopotamian and Egyptian, had similarities. Both included creation myths that had primordial water gods. Water gods begat Earth gods, who begat air gods, who begat fire gods. Both these civilizations were founded on flood plains, where agriculture is relatively easy. Receding flood waters leave a deposit of earth; methane is produced by decaying vegetation at the bottom of pools and bubbles up like air and just happens to be flammable.
The definitive mythology of Greece tells a slightly different story, because it was written by a shepherd, Hesiod, on a hillside, where water springs from the Earth. In Greek mythology, the first god to emerge from Chaos is Gaia, Mother Earth. The origins of most mythologies is an attempt to explain where the world came from, what it is made of and how it works; the christian answer to which is the trinity: god the father, god the son and god the holy ghost. It is only once the science part of mythology is dealt with, and you get into politics and ethics, that human corruption creates dissent.

Yes, there are differences between the Mesopotamian and Greek Mythologies, but it has been suggested that both of these grew out of the earlier Hunter Gatherer Mythologies, and I rely on Joseph Campbell as a source, to believe that these earlier mythologies were all the same in substance, even if they varied slightly in detail.