Why are humans religious?

[Immanuel Can]

Thedoc:

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?

This is excellently put. It is indeed the starting-point issue, I think. When we are considering the belief in a Supreme Being, are we merely listing the delusions of the primitive that have no reference to reality, or are we discussing a profound human attraction to the Source and meaning of our existence.

Interestingly, the Bible actually acknowledges the problem. It says, "He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him." In other words, they can't get anywhere unless they are at least prepared to entertain the hypothesis that God does indeed exist, and that He wants to be found. Apart from that, we are inevitably back to the situation above: that is, we have two alternate ways of trying to account for the "religious impulse," and no way of ever finding out which is right.

The game-changer is the second part of the question: it is of primary importance that the Supreme Being "is," of course -- but that fact in itself is useless if He does not want to be found. Then we would still be stuck, with no one knowing any more than anyone else.

In short, the main question is, "Has God spoken." If not, we probably ought to forget the whole question: we're all just fools playing a guessing game, and we have practically no chance of figuring the answer out. But if the Supreme Being should ever have decided to reveal Himself to us, we might have a crack at getting somewhere.

That, I think, is why all "religions" suppose that there is some communication available from "the other side," so to speak. So all religious persons see the problem differently than the religious skeptic. They look for evidence of genuine Divine communication, whereas the skeptic naturally seeks to "explain away" what he is looking at. For the skeptic, the only question is, "How do I explain and dismiss this bizarre phenomenon known as religion?"

Attitude matters. In fact, it's determinative.

[Immanuel Can]

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.

Let's take our two explanatory strategies to this:

1. Skeptical -- if true, the commonness of some mythological constructs would suggest they stem from a common delusion or a common evolutionary imperative, not from a reference to a metaphysical or transcendent reality of some kind. It proves all religion is bunk.

2. Questioning -- if true, would the commonness of some mythological constructs suggest a deep, abiding, trans-cultural and universal impulse embedded in humans by their Creator and left there as a signal to us the reality of transcendence and the possibility of connection with the Supreme Being?

Which search we're on will interpret for us how we see the evidence, and may well even define for us the results we think we've found.

[thedoc]

These comments bring several thoughts to mind, first is an interview of Anne Graham Lotz by Bryant Gumbel, to quote,

Billy Graham's daughter: "For years we have told God we didn't want Him in our schools. We didn't want Him in our government and we didn't want Him in our finances and God was being a perfect gentleman in doing just what we asked Him to do."

Along with this are references in 2 books by David Gregory, 'Dinner with a Perfect Stranger' and 'Another Perfect Stranger' both made into movies by Jefferson Moore along with several similar movies on a similar theme. One of the points being made in the movies is that God is not forcing himself onto anyone, but is waiting for the person to seek God. God is not announcing his presence with a billboard and flashing lights, but it seems that many will say that if they don't see the billboard and flashing lights they will not believe in God. There are numerous accounts of people describing fortunate events that seem too good to be true, the doubters will say coincidence, and I would agree, except to add that "Coincidence is just God's way of remaining Anonymous".

On Oct. 5 2008 at 1;30 Sat. morning my wife was calling 911 to report that our house was on fire. 10 minutes later the fire crews were on the scene and by 2:00 the house was fully engulfed, a total loss. Early Sat. afternoon an insurance adjuster arrived, wrote us a check and said it was too big a claim for her authority. Sun. a friend called and asked if we would like to look at a rental house, which we did that afternoon. On Mon. we were in the office signing the lease without any I.d. except the word on our friend who worked as a realtor for that company. It just didn't seem that things could happen that fast without some help from somewhere.

[Immanuel Can]

Wow. What an experience!

The "religious" person might say, "What a miracle," causing all Atheists within earshot to spit milk out their noses.

They would respond, "There's nothing unexpected here: you had a cooperative adjuster, a timely friend and a clueless rental agent; all that happened was that got lucky."

We couldn't conclusively prove them wrong, could we? And yet...how you are determined to see things does have a lot with what, in the end, you are able to see.

[thedoc]

Wow. What an experience!

The "religious" person might say, "What a miracle," causing all Atheists within earshot to spit milk out their noses.

They would respond, "There's nothing unexpected here: you had a cooperative adjuster, a timely friend and a clueless rental agent; all that happened was that got lucky."

We couldn't conclusively prove them wrong, could we? And yet...how you are determined to see things does have a lot with what, in the end, you are able to see.

the same can be said about those who look for God, and those who deny God's existence, it's all right in front of you, do you choose to see or not see.

I believe it is an uncle of my older daughter's husband who takes vacation by volunteering for an archaeological dig in the summers. We were talking about Dinosaurs and feathers and I mentioned that for years the fossilized bones were all they looked for, and to find feathers they wold need to find the exact strata that the dinosaur dies in and look for the imprint of feathers, but no-one has looked yet. If you don't look for something, you will never find it.

The other problem is that most people don't see what is in front of them, few people are as observant as Sherlock Holmes but everyone thinks they are. In 1965 Penn DOT, and probably every other state in the US started replacing the old yellow and black 'Yield' signs with red and white ones, and probably in a decade you would be hard pressed to find an old one. But even in the 80's there were people who insisted that the signs were yellow and black. People drove past them all the time and just didn't really see them, they saw what they expected to see, and the same applies to God, people see what they expect to see and not what is really there. (BTW I first noticed the new signs in 1965 driving on the PA Turnpike.)

[Immanuel Can]

To quote that famous philosophers' organization, Monty Python's Flying Circus...

"Who are you, who is so wise in the ways of science?"

I find your remarks quite apt.

[thedoc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJkO-EKRVd0

[thedoc]

I almost forgot,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2gJamguN04

[Immanuel Can]

Brilliant stuff.

Try also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1feEqgRZQI

[Skip]

In 1959, helping my mother clean up after a party, I emptied an ashtray into the wastebasket and started a fire. My mother, who was washing the kitchen floor, ran in and threw the bucket of water on the fire. Nobody was called, no home was destroyed, no harm was done. (Obviously, this could not have happened without divine intervention.)

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina killed 1500 or so people; left the survivors bereft, homeless and destitute. The government and rescue agencies were slow and inadequate. Many of the poor victims are still displaced - but there are new hotels and casinos for rich tourists. (Divine Intervention was fervently prayed-for by many; received by few.)

In 2008, I came down with a nasty cancer. (What'd I ever do to You, God?) Received aggressive, state-of-science treatment in a modern Canadian hospital under an excellent universal health-care plan and recovered. (Thank You, God!)

You take whichever bit of anecdote suits your narrative, and parlay that into "evidence" for magic, while ignoring the rest.
That's how religion starts.

[marjoramblues]

Skip: In 2008, I came down with a nasty cancer.
Received aggressive, state-of-science treatment in a modern Canadian hospital under an excellent universal health-care plan and recovered.

M: We've come a long way, haven't we? Glad that you recovered. Still faring well?

[Immanuel Can]

Skip:

Glad you made it. Just so you know I'm not talking glibly, my brother, a devout Theist, just underwent an incredibly painful and humiliating surgery. I was with him for five days in which his agony reached acute proportions for hour after relentless hour. Don't let anyone tell you that in this life the good get rewarded and the bad get punished. Things around here sure are messed up. And none of us can say for sure why individual situations happen.

I also think that any time we start trying to "read into" such events the mind of God, or try to moralize someone else's pain, we become fanatics and Pharisees immediately.

Yet you raise an excellent point: any account of the existence of a Supreme Being is going to have to give some account of why so much evil happens, and often to good people, as well as why so many evil people seem to get away with so much. Either we are then going to have to postulate a malevolent god, an incompetent one, or else explain in a satisfactory way why He would allow things that are *not* His wish, and which produce injustices and pain of all sorts, to continue. That's part of the burden of any religious perspective.

Interestingly, it is a burden that every Atheist and Agnostic also faces. They too live in a world where pain, misery and evil take place. If they are, as they would so often have us believe, the voice of reason and the direction of hope, then they too owe us an explanation of how and why these things happen. They too suffer; they too have darker moments; they too lose loved ones; and in those moments they, just like all of us, need something to tell themselves.

But what is it?

[thedoc]

Shall we start with an assumption, for sake of argument.

'God created the Universe and all that is in it.'

That would include all the laws of physics, Laws of nature that control life and how it evolves. That these laws work in a reliable and predictable manner is a promise from God that they do work and will continue to work in the manner that science has discovered, and there will be no capricious changes at God's whim. If you stand near a tree that is dead and about to fall down, it may fall on you. Microbes will evolve to survive in the face of newer and better antibiotic's. Physics and disease are part of the world that God created and humans have chosen to live in, if you don't like it there is a way out, but that is not what I believe God's intention is. Part of God's gift to humanity is the ability to discover what the world is and how it works, railing at God for the way God created the universe is not the answer.

[Ginkgo]

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.

One can find evidence that early hominids ritualized death. Before they could undertake this practice there would need to be self-awareness. Self-awareness probably came first. For example, there might be some evidence to show that elephants ritualize death by arranging the bones of dead elephants. Saw a doco on this once, it was very interesting. Elephants also easily pass the mirror test to demonstrate self-awareness. Chimps pass the mirror test and show an interest in dead relatives, but make no attempt at any any ritualization.

[Skip]

Yet you raise an excellent point: any account of the existence of a Supreme Being is going to have to give some account of why so much evil happens, and often to good people, as well as why so many evil people seem to get away with so much.

That wasn't exactly what I meant by the examples. I meant that we humans are self-centered: we tend to interpret everything that happens in the world (or at least that we know or care about) as having some special significance related to ourselves. We see the world and events forming a pattern with us at the center. When you zoom out, the pattern disappears.

I'm fine; made 65 last year. The 38-year-old farmer in the next room, with a nice wife and two teenaged daughters, died. People - good ones, bad ones, young and old - die all the time, and suffer and hurt one another. Dogs, too, and elephants and dolphins, who never got a bite of that apple.

If you look for sense and reason hard enough, you can pick out details that support your idea of how the universe operates. (Well, somebody's idea; most of us inherit our belief-system.) And I think that's exactly what primitive people did: tried to make sense of what happened to them by positing entities somewhat like themselves - only more powerful - stage-managing the production of which man is the star. (And besides, they missed their parents.)