Hopeful Monsters

:banghead:

Why Does Mankind Create Religion and Religious Belief?

Deep, fervent and determined belief in an all-powerful creator who presides over people and nature is common and pervasive throughout thought and culture.

But God does not exist. Allah does not exist. Nor do any Hindu gods. Nor do all the rest of gods and religious beliefs invented solely by and for the human mind.

So why are people compelled towards religion and religious belief?

Out of their heads

Religion taps into the two most powerful aspects of the human psyche – fantasy and egotism.

Religion is a way to project all kinds of feelings onto a thing – a vague ‘being’. At all times, this is merely an approximate construction, a device that exists solely to serve the human mind.

This device holds great power for homo sapiens sapiens. This is because it is all about something that does not exist – something that is never tested by reality. So we have a thing generated and sustained by the considerable power of pure fantasy.

The mind can run away with unchallenged thoughts of a flawless infinite being, with infinite wisdom, with perfect and unfailing love. These are thoughts that most humans have such a desperate, deep-rooted need to establish, that gods, and the stories and rituals that go with them, are invented.

(And what of Buddhism? It is all about the self – it is a purely selfish act to pursue Buddhism. Buddhism is merely all about the pursuit of ‘me’. Typical of humans to invent Buddhism to satisfy obsession with the self.)

The egotism of immortality

Thoughts of a heaven, a paradise etc do no more than satisfy the human ego – the sheer egotism of being observed by an all powerful being who selects one for immortality.

Human ego and human fears simply will not put up with the finality of death – hence the soothing, ego-led delusion of religious belief in immortality.

No one goes to heaven or paradise when they die. The electrical and chemical activity in their heart, brain, body, mind etc cease to function and they soon become decaying flesh, blood and bone. No noble spirit lives on – that is merely ego-led fantasy.

Merely a place for deep-rooted feelings

When people speak of ‘Allah’ or ‘Lord God’, ‘Him’, ‘Jesus died for us’, ‘Lord of Lords’, ‘God loves us’, ‘Jesus is Our Path To the Lord’ etc – all they are doing is tapping into to deep, primeval feelings about a powerful, flawless, wise, parent-figure, filled with unconditional love.

This is one of the core driving forces behind religious belief – the deep emotions it taps into: being loved, being noticed, knowing of someone who has made a great sacrifice for one, being cared for, being special, getting attention – the list is a long one.

Evangelical fervour and fundamentalism are striking examples of how people behave when they tap into these emotions then project them onto a notion elsewhere in their minds. They experience powerful (but time-limited) comfort. They numb their own pain.

So religion enables access to deep emotions that remain unchecked by reality – because they are projected wholesale onto a target that is anchored in a vague fantasy about something somewhere.

Believers undoubtedly feel good when they read or say to themselves and to others – ‘Jesus will take you to the Lord’ or ‘Jesus died because of his love for you’ or the endless permutations of such notions – vague, soft, fluffy mental concepts that help them access warm self-comforting feelings.

For some, the iconic mental picture of a suffering Jesus is merely a device they use to try to deal with their own feelings about suffering in their own lives. A man called Jesus might have existed and he might have suffered – but he was not the ‘Son of God’ – because there is no such thing as God.

Religion excuses psychopathic tendencies in humans

Religion is NOT and never has been the cause of war or atrocity by people – it is just a place, a constructed thing, where the psychopathology of people is put as they commit acts of violence and build notions of tribal identity.

The attacks on the twin towers were committed by deeply unhappy, dissatisfied, envious, people whose lives had become a bleak dead end. Lives that were to some extent even bleaker because so much of their time and energy had been spent believing in something that does not exist (Allah in this case). They egotistically and selfishly believed they were entering Paradise. They did not enter Paradise – their lives simply ended and they will never again exist.

Religion becomes the culturally embedded excuse for other – everyday – acts of human psychopathology. How convenient that the psychopathic act of slitting a live animal’s throat becomes enshrined in the Halal slaughter – where it can never be challenged, where it becomes too sensitive to criticise and beyond reproach. There is a South American ritual whereby a live bull is tied to a post and its head is hacked off – once again, human psychopathic behaviour is protected within the untouchable cloak of ‘belief’. How convenient for the psychopathic men who created this religious ritual.

Sharia law, the Fatwa and the Jehad are examples of how relentless human egotism, aggression and psychopathic tendencies – all of which pre-date any religion – become enmeshed within human culture, so that people have a cultural fabrication in which murderous, hostile and controlling behaviour may go on thriving and being excused century upon century.

Want to have multiple wives and children – and do so with pathological, utterly irresponsible indiscrimination? Wish to dupe people out of their savings and property? Then invent Mormonism.

Religion and obsessive behaviour

Religion also satisfies human kind’s love of ritual, duty and repeated detail – all religions have stories, prayers, specialised vocabulary, texts, songs, solemn ritual, specialised behaviour, specific acts, specialised dress, hierarchies, special names, grand titles, duties and so on associated with them.

These all have to be mastered, repeated and repeated (then repeated) and used very carefully – these are merely constructions to satisfy the same human obsessional mental quirks and loops of thought that lead to train spotting and egg collecting.

Religion and identity

Some so-called ‘spiritual’ people, believers in Allah, God or who ever, become enraged when their beliefs are questioned. Why is this? It is because their whole sense of identity (individual and tribal) has become fused with their beliefs and their daily rituals. To doubt their beliefs is to dismiss them and their tribe. So they become angry and aggressive. Once again, the human ego is never far away. It, after all, is real while Allah, God or whoever is not.

Religious belief is facile

Humans have always seen a causal link between real events and beings who ‘exist’ solely as fantasy. They have always felt the need to appeal to an all powerful being. Hence gods and cults of the sun, fertility, the sea, childbirth, the weather and so on.

Rational theory and investigation are much harder work. Science has gained strength only later in history, and cannot easily displace superstitious instincts and beliefs about causality long since fused with culture and sense of identity.

Egyptian and Roman gods have faded from human culture only to be succeeded by cults based on much the same levels of facile belief in supernatural beings. History shows that these recurring patterns of human thought are always served by successive invented systems of irrational belief and self-comfort.

Believing in God or Allah is easy – it’s an even easier option with the relentless parental and peer pressures so often applied.

Understanding physics, evolution, cosmology etc is often more challenging and, equally, it is more humbling of both the individual and collective ego (as will increasing understanding of brain function, neurological structure and evolutionary biology, which will at last help explain aspects of religion both discussed and not discussed here).

Which do the majority of people chose – religion or rational thought?

Most embrace the facile and less challenging of these two – the one that vaguely satisfies unresolved basic emotional needs, the one that excuses hostile and controlling behaviour, the one that satisfies egotistical fantasies about immortality, the one that serves as a device of self-comfort and emotional analgesic.

No one needs religion

To lead a life of integrity, honesty, generosity, kindness and care, does not depend upon belief in God, Allah or any in other human superstition.

Nor does it require ‘spirituality’ or a job for life paid for by church, synagogue, monastery or mosque. Nor does one need to pray to stone statues or mumble towards a lump of rock in the East.

People merely need to embrace rational thought and freethinking. They merely need to endeavour, as humble humans, to lead a life of integrity, honesty, generosity, kindness and care.

emotional

Feeling superior? Ego inflated big enough? A cut above all the rabble of irrational believers? Enlightened, freed from pitiful theistic ignorance?

Indulge, then, my son. Relish every moment. And perhaps, one day, you'll grow out of it.

Volker.Doormann

It is not true that integrity, honesty, generosity, kindness, individual, collective ego, care are proofs of rational science and rational thinking. Phantoms.

'This is because it is all about something that does not exist – something that is never tested by reality.' There are absolute no proofs for this assertions. Pure fantasy. It should be well known, that it is philosophically senseless to argue, that anything does not exist.

Science is handicapped in the area of ethic. It has no experience about quality, and no reference. Moreover, science has never shown by evidence, that the belief in the ethical superiority as ‘collective’ in respect to an individual is really a superiority.

Humanism is a hoax without any base, and this includes that it has also no base in natural science. The proves always demanded from spiritual based beings, never would be given from Humanism; there is absoluty nothing. The demands on truth and honesty does not change, if one does exchange his label from '*ism' to 'a*ism'.

Volker

Rational BAC

Surprised no atheists have come to this guy's defense. His first post too.

Assuming it is not a cut and paste, but his own words, then I think he did a very good job. (Not that I agree with it)

I applaud you. Good job.

Hopeful Monsters

My words - no cutting and pasting. Yes - there's many bold assertions - but the alternative is an even longer text and too much equivocatory clutter.

AquaVita

So?

I see quite a few atheists
get outraged whenever that same belief is asserted, misguided it may be.



When confronted with someone conflicting with who you are, you often get confrontational and defensive. This is a human thing and by no means limited to theists.

So why doesn't the issue end there? Why get so riled up about something that doesn't exist?

Methinks you haven't done much studying on buddhism. Much of it is the pursuit of happiness and the search for compassion. How is this selfish?

Agreed, in this context.


Now I think you're getting somewhere. I have no doubt that this is the primary reason for much of religion's perserverance. However, I think it unwise to discredit all religious ideals and emotions as being a crutch from reality.

What you cannot discredit based on emotions and such, discredit with logic and reason, the very basis for our thoughts.

Again, I'm curious as to why you need to exert God's non existance to fervently. Let the logic and evidence stand on their own.


I disagree. People may cite religious motivations, but they are rarely ever in harmony with that certain religions ideals. Besides, as my good friend Chris Rock states, "whatever happened to just being crazy?"


How is having multiple wives morally wrong?

Agreed. But I wonder how much humans really desire routine. But that's another thread for another time.


Well said.

And if indeed they do, and the evidence they examine and thoughts they use, lead them to believe in something that I do not, I will still have respect for that person for challenging themselves and taking a chance. I hope we would all do the same.

TenaciousVeracious

Assuming Rationalist BAC is a born again Christian, his comments are very fair and open minded. I thought this site was populated by enough atheists to defend truthtold.

The subject of why people believe is important - maybe it should have a forum area to itself! People can believe because they're deprived and desperate or they can seem to believe because it serves their own intentions in some way (look at the Far Right Christian Movement). It is a rich and complex area - but good start here and I see others on the site have gone into this subject themselves.

Calzaer

A couple reasons. They either want to believe out of a need for psycological comfort, like emotional. Or they've experienced events that are completely subjective to the viewer, like meditation or prayer response, that count as nearly-incontroverable evidence to the viewer, but as no evidence at all to anyone outside the viewer. In practice, someone who would probably be more assured of his own sanity by being an atheist (like me) is prohibited from making the deconversion due to these experiences, both past and current. So my choice is either declare myself irrevokably insane, or "believe". Which is really not much of a choice at all.

...ya know, when I think about it that way, it's really just a subcategory of the first reason I mentioned.

Godless Wonder

I read somewhere (maybe in a book called "Rational Mysticism", not sure) that it's pretty normal for people to have a few vivid, real-seeming hallucinations in the course of their lives. It doesn't mean they are insane. Of course I don't know what kind of experience you had. And there are various interpretations that can be made of these hallucinations, one being that "goddidit" (esp. likely if the hallucination involves something taken to be god, I suppose) That being said, I can't recall having any such hallucinations myself.

Rational BAC

I think "believing" is a very natural human trait.

Belief in the very simple sense of using your imagination to consider the prospect of concepts beyond the normal senses, beyond what seems so obvious to our senses.

Belief, or consideration that an idea which has not yet been proven by any fact, and just exists as a proposition, a fantasy, but may someday be proven.

Religious belief is an extension of this very natural human trait. It is a fantastical hypothesis, something that may be proven correct some day, but as yet there are no facts to support it.

If you or I woke up tomorrow with no foreknowledge of celestial dynamics, it would be quite obvious that-------the world is flat, and is the center of the universe, the sun and moon rise, cross the sky and set-----the stars are fixed little points of light, completely different than our sun.

Anyone who challenged this most obvious viewpoint based on sensory "facts" would be derided for indulging in absurd fantasy and ridiculed. Feeble minded fools and dreamers obviously overindulging in their own fantasy world. With so little common sense about the most obvious things -------as to be of no communal usefulness and therefore to be set adrift on an ice slab. Survival of the fittest and all that.

It is only because of the "believers" among us who have always challenged the obvious, with no "facts" to sustain them and nothing but their very human imagination to be able to think beyond "reality" --------------that we have gotten beyond the stone age.

To disparage any belief is to disparage the main reason for the whole development of mankind. Belief or "thinking outside the box" is always what has made us unique as a species on this planet.

I actually believe the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun and the moon revolves around the earth, and the Sun is a star. (actually I think they proved that some time ago as actual fact).

And I bet there is some stone age "believer" long ago dead, who, if he could come back today would say "dammit, I said that a long time ago---and they all laughed at me for being irrational".

So have a little respect for all the "believers" of humanity. We may end up being right after all, in spite of all the rational and sensual arguments against us.