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I think there is a great deal to suggest that faith is a psychological and brain based phenomenon. What else to account for the various faiths that say that they have the truth from God via a holy text and that others are wrong? What else to account for the various thousands of God ideas that have sprung up over the centuries?
Religion has been referred to as a projection of the ego. When people pray, they are truly talking to themselves. If they say they hear the voice of God, should we not refer them to a psychologist for possible schizophrenia? The need for a parent figure who watches over us and rights all wrongs in the end. Wishful thinking I say. When challenged with their specific faith based belief, believers are sometimes emotional as if they personally are offended. Yes it's your ego at work and your brain. Discuss.
I think there is a great deal to suggest that faith is a psychological and brain based phenomenon. What else to account for the various faiths that say that they have the truth from God via a holy text and that others are wrong? What else to account for the various thousands of God ideas that have sprung up over the centuries?
Religion has been referred to as a projection of the ego. When people pray, they are truly talking to themselves. If they say they hear the voice of God, should we not refer them to a psychologist for possible schizophrenia? The need for a parent figure who watches over us and rights all wrongs in the end. Wishful thinking I say. When challenged with their specific faith based belief, believers are sometimes emotional as if they personally are offended. Yes it's your ego at work and your brain. Discuss.
"psychological and brain based" is quite broad, it covers all of our perceptions and comprehensions.
Are you suggesting that religious belief is the product of genetics, with some disposed by biology toward faith and others not? This thesis, that god is a neurological phenomenon, has been advanced in the past, studied, and nothing persuasive or conclusive has emerged, at least none of which I am aware.
Further, perhaps there is no religion gene, but there is a disbelief or skeptic's gene. In that case it would not be a matter of what the religious have, but what they are missing.
That's the way I'm thinking. On a different thread long, long ago, the interesting suggestion was made that religion was a product of evolution because it gave a survival advantage. I begin to think now that any instinct we have is a product of evolution otherwise we wouldn't have it.
I believe anyone (even an atheist) could pray, and have their prayers answered.
This is not because there's someone out there, hearing prayers and answered them. There probably is a Creator out there, but he likely shrugs off most if not all prayers. But if prayer makes any sense to me, it's like this.
The test was not consistent. They found that it was more effective to hypnotize them, and get them to emotionally connect with the plant. They were then given answers, and the plant matched the wavelength. Two options are valid:
-The plant has some sort of nerve system, using the fluids in its body, and intelligence of some sort. This is their conclusion but arrived at a different one.
-This is what psychologists like to call "projection" on a PSI usage framework. The plant was being sent a message, and held it.
Without further ado, my awesome stick figures.
Living beings have all sorts of energy like body heat, the ability to hold static charge, and even their blood is slightly magnetic. So what happens when you pray? Well, consider these four models.
A living thing picks it up (as in 1 and 3), this creates an imprint on a specific target. The sick person gets better through reiki or praying over them, or whatever. In image 2, an object picks it up. The object is incapable of acting on it, so this instead makes this object "special." In the last instance, suppose I'm praying for luck on a math test (didn't study at all). My prayer despite supposedly being addressed to God will probably not reach God, for the reason that there is not a strong enough mental picture (you're not connecting with anything, because you cannot tell whether God is there, what God looks like, etc). So like a call-returned, it gets sent back, and your prayer bounces back and answers you. I do well on the math test.
Interesting video, thanks for posting it. I've often wondered why Theists get mad enough to sometimes justify the killing of another human or group of humans when their belief isn't shared. I usually go with the "fear" theory but many have killed in the name of obsession, or rejection. Food for thought.
The only thing I don't buy is "it's what God commands" I've always thought there must be a bit of crazy to go along with that one.
perhaps there is no religion gene, but there is a disbelief or skeptic's gene.
Or maybe it's not a matter of having or not having a gene but whether or not that gene is triggered to be expressed. Epigenetics is more interesting than genetics when talking about these things. Of course the two could be interrelated, if the gene isn't there it's not going to ever express; if it's there, it may or may not.
I think it's probably going to end up being more accurate to say that religion is a genetic predisposition but not a genetically determined thing.
Also to Aeroquipa's point about religion being an evolutionary adaptation, absolutely, but evolution is often very slow to change things. I think a lot of our ingrained evolutionary tendencies, such as agency attribution, no longer serve us well in the rapidly evolving modern world. We are then unfortunately saddled with the need to override our natural tendencies in order to sustainably get along in society.
Quite so, but we do not need to wait for evolution. We took natural selection by the scruff of its neck and turned it into farming and Crufts.
I know that trying to breed supermen is no longer an acceptable theory, but what I do think is that, if we understood better our evolutionary drives and how they drive us, we would be less liable to be driven by them. It's like the old moving lampshade. Once we know it's the heater doing it, we are less likely to shout 'Ghosts!'.
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Religion as a psychological / brain based phenomenon.
