Is man 'programmed' to seek a 'god'?

[Kyriakos]

Split from Plotinus thread,

Generally the question is if we can talk of an inherent need, or even deeper an inherent ability, of man to seek the notion of a deity.
I fear that in our world of epidermic affairs and thinking of the surface, we mostly fail to take the time to examine just what the terms we freely use mean, to others, or even to ourselves.
Albert Camus in some letter argued that the polemic between thinkers had become faceless, and thus disoriented; one did not even know if the other was ever smiling before proceeding to attack him. Likewise i think that we do not take the time to try to examine what we are actually arguing about.

I think that we often fail to take into consideration the fact that if we even have the ability at all to think of something, then it must follow that that something already exists in our world of imagination, else it would not become intelligible. And although, by definition, i cannot think of anything which would be literally inconceivable, i can theorize as to such notions existing, maybe not meant for man to ponder.
But i maintain that if god was such a notion then in reality there would have been no constructed idea of a god, much less the complicated and multi-faceted phenomenon of religion.

Is man 'programmed' to seek a god? By which i mean is there anything inside one's psyche which demands such a consideration? Or is the idea of a god something attributable hazily to some past stage of human development, which will be negated in following aeons?
I lean towards the first claim, although i do not accept that it is in tautology with the claim that god does exist, much less an external god.

I want to write more, but it is an innate need to stand back and observe if there is interest on all this before dedicating more time to the question. After all we already have a prestigious theism and antitheism thread in ot

 

[Winner]

No. But we are "programmed" to look for meanings and patterns, which often leads to religion. It's been observed in pigeons too, I believe, so there is no reason to believe we're unique in that sense. It's just that our imagination allows us to invent Gods where there in fact are none.

 

[Kyriakos]

Since "the center of the labyrinth is the minotaur" maybe all those complicated patterns do have a real point of genesis, something very important that in our fleeting life we fail to see.
My own idea of a god, though, is not external (it may exist, but i cannot really claim anything either in favor or against the existence of an external deity) but internal, god being seen by me as the mechanism in the psyche which takes care of all that is not conscious, and keeps it in some balance, no matter what that balance may be in different people.
Most people seem to take consciousness for granted, and probably it is safer to do so, but maybe it is not also true.

 

[warpus]

Is man 'programmed' to seek a god? By which i mean is there anything inside one's psyche which demands such a consideration?

No.

A god is usually a smokescreen for "I don't know". God of the gaps, call it what you will. God is the answer to all the basic seemingly unanswered questions out there: Where do we come from, why do we exist, how did the universe begin, etc.

A god is the perfect answer because a god is basically.. well.. a super-powerful and amazing creator of the universe who is capable of anything. Fits the bill perfectly!

So when early man was looking around and trying to answer the questions I mentioned earlier, a god was just a natural way to do it (no pun intended).

We are programmed to seek out answers, to figure out our place in the universe. God is a good placeholder for that because it's an easy answer that you don't have to think too much about. Plus what if you don't actually know the answer? God. Why did that volcano errupt? It was a god. How did we end up on this planet? A god created us.. etc. Easy answer to questions we don't know the answers to. It leaves people feeling satisfied - it's good to have answers to questions.

Edit: So I guess my overall point is that we are driven to figure out the unknown. A lot of the unknown remains unknown to us, such as the birth of the Universe. It feels good when an unknown is answered - so we strive for it. That's my explanation for why gods are used to fill in the gaps - it leaves is feeling satisfied that we understand the universe and how it works.

 

[Silurian]

Well it is possible.

From Wiki

The God gene hypothesis proposes that human beings inherit a set of genes that predisposes them towards spiritual or mystic experiences. The idea has been postulated by geneticist Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, and author of The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes

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

 

[warpus]

What sort of evolutionary advantage would there be to such a gene? (didn't read the article)

 

[Kyriakos]

Edit: So I guess my overall point is that we are driven to figure out the unknown. A lot of the unknown remains unknown to us, such as the birth of the Universe. It feels good when an unknown is answered - so we strive for it. That's my explanation for why gods are used to fill in the gaps - it leaves is feeling satisfied that we understand the universe and how it works.

This is not incompatible with my own point, since the latter was that something hidden in the pronounced perplexity of the mental equations that form our sense of existence can be termed as a god. This is another way of saying a=b; b does not change a's meaning, it is just another term for it, likewise god is a term for this collective unknown.

That said i think your definition of mankind's plight is more attributable to the direct replacement of the unknown with a set, and obviously false, example of a supposed 'known', such as the external deity of the abramamic religions, or ancient Europe.

 

[Winner]

Whenever someone claims that some kind of human behaviour can be explained by a gene (or a set of genes), I reach for my knife. In other words, utter bullcrap, and I don't even have to read it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Whenever someone claims that some kind of human behaviour can be explained by a gene (or a set of genes), I reach for my knife. In other words, utter bullcrap, and I don't even have to read it.

Imo genes influence the mind, but ultimately we experience the cosmos, both the external and the internal, primarily through the mind, and therefore self-reflection is also done through it.
By this i do not just mean that examining one's consciousness is obviously a mental phenomenon, and genes take part in that, in largely undefined ways. I also mean that the hard scientist who examines genes uses inevitably the human mind as well in doing so, thus making the examination of the genes anthropic (i hope this term means human in english)

 

[civ2]

Whenever someone claims that some kind of human behaviour can be explained by a gene (or a set of genes), I reach for my knife. In other words, utter bullcrap, and I don't even have to read it.

Total support.
This claim was used to "prove" to many stupid claims already, it became totally pointless.
(Racism, Nazism, gayism, murderism, etc. All is total crap - we are what WE choose to be, not what was "programmed". Social wise, that is.)

 

[Kyriakos]

Total support.
This claim was used to "prove" to many stupid claims already, it became totally pointless.
(Racism, Nazism, gayism, murderism, etc. All is total crap - we are what WE choose to be, not what was "programmed". Social wise, that is.)

I would agree with you, potentially, if all we were was our immediate consciousness.
But it is understood by now that human beings have a vastly larger mental part, which is the unconscious. In that the Ego has no immediate role, since it is unconscious to it, much like when you lie on a chair in your living room you do not see before you the foundation of the apartment block which is tens of meters below.

 

[Silurian]

Whenever someone claims that some kind of human behaviour can be explained by a gene (or a set of genes), I reach for my knife. In other words, utter bullcrap, and I don't even have to read it.

Well some little known journal called Nature published a book review.

Book Review

Nature Genetics 36, 1241 (2004)
doi:10.1038/ng1204-1241

Michael A Goldman
The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired Into Our Genes

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n12/full/ng1204-1241.html

 

[civ2]

From the "religious" point of view:
1. We have free will to choose "right" and "wrong".
2. Thus we must be free in doing so.
3. Thus we can't be "programmed" genetically or anyhow.
4. People do act accordingly to their upbringing or environment and so on - but this is the result of external forcing, not "built-in".
BTW, it's known that humans are able (and supposed) to control even their thoughts, so much for all "subconscious" influence.
What I mean, is that even if you suddenly have a thought of driving over that puppy, you have FULL 100% ability to stop even THINKING about it, let alone DOING it.

 

[Kyriakos]

From the "religious" point of view:
1. We have free will to choose "right" and "wrong".
2. Thus we must be free in doing so.
3. Thus we can't be "programmed" genetically or anyhow.
4. People do act accordingly to their upbringing or environment and so on - but this is the result of external forcing, not "built-in".
BTW, it's known that humans are able (and supposed) to control even their thoughts, so much for all "subconscious" influence.
What I mean, is that even if you suddenly have a thought of driving over that puppy, you have FULL 100% ability to stop even THINKING about it, let alone DOING it.

Yes, and even your thought of stopping to think about it is attributable to something below it. Moreover even that something below it is attributable to something even more below it; it is enough for a term to be stabilized, to have a specific enough meaning, so that it acquires foundations which are unseen further below.

In a way it is like the oxymoron that Borges claimed,that "each author creates his progenitors"

 

[HannibalBarka]

Not really. In many families in France, many people grow with no religious teaching at all. My wife is one of them, her "knowledge" about Christianity and Catholicism is near 0. She has never felt any need to seek any God, she just think the notion does make as much sense as Aborigene Mythology. My kids are brought also with no religious adherance even though we talk sometime about religion.
I think the "Man are programmed to seek a God" is pure religious propaganda.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, that is a bit like claiming the police is in favor of thieves, but "whatever floats your boat"

 

[Silurian]

Not really. In many families in France, many people grow with no religious teaching at all. My wife is one of them, her "knowledge" about Christianity and Catholicism is near 0. She has never felt any need to seek any God, she just think the notion does make as much sense as Aborigene Mythology. My kids are brought also with no religious adherance even though we talk sometime about religion.
I think the "Man are programmed to seek a God" is pure religious propaganda.

Religious people do not like the idea because it reduces their belief to a subconscious desire.

 

[HannibalBarka]

Hm, that is a bit like claiming the police is in favor of thieves, but "whatever floats your boat"

Quezako? I'm sorry I don't understand what you're saying. would you please elaborate

 

[Kyriakos]

I was under the impression that you were trying to reply covertly to my saying in another thead- still am in general.

Anyway, my point elaborated is that to think there is genetic disposition to looking for a god has very little to do with thinking that a god exists. I personally do not, unless i make a tautology of god with something epistemic, like the 'controlling mechanism' of the unconscious.

 

[galdre]

We are programmed to understand the world around us, since by understanding it we increase our chance of surviving in it - religion/mythology is one result of the desire to understand, science is another. Of course other things come out of religion beyond simply trying to understand the world around us, but I think the basis is that desire for understanding.