wordsmyth

Humans possess two distinct attributes that I believe contribute heavily to belief in god(s).

The first is curiosity. A sincere desire to learn how and why things are the way they are. Why does it rain? Why does the sun disappear each night and reappear each morning? Why do we die?

The second is imagination. The ability to confront and deal with reality by using the creative power of the mind.

With sufficient tools we can answer the questions our curiosity drives us to (science), but without those tools we often rely on imagination to fill in the answers (theism).

For many it is better to make up an answer and defend it, for to admit they do not know is intellectually emasculating.

Laci

I think most people need God to keep them structured and moral. It gives them a "higher power" to answer to.
They need God for those very difficult times in which they can't get answers from other human beings. That's when they pray to God.

Since they use to worship suns, moons, etc. Naturally a powerful, almighty God was somewhere above us (not on earth).

Yes, educated people lose their belief in God. But then there are astronomers, astronauts (scientists) who do believe in a "higher power." When they cannot find scientific evidence anymore because it's beyond their intelligence. That's when they say, "there must be a higher power" to have created such a beautiful universe.

:boohoo:

fishbulb

You and I may not believe in luck as a force, but you just need to wander over to a casino or a professional sports team to find lots of people who really do believe that luck is more than statistical variation in random trials. Whether they believe that luck is an actual woman living on Mount Olympus or just an ephemeral force that exists somewhere in the cosmos, they employ all manner of charms and rituals to try to seek its favour. They wear lucky charms, socks, hats, and so forth; they refuse to shower before a game; they blow on their dice; they knock wood before drawing a card; they do all sorts of weird things. They don't do these things for no reason. The baseball player who always wears his left sock inside out probably does so because, one day, he accidentally put his sock on inside out while dressing for the game, and it happened that he hit four home runs that game. To someone who believes in luck, it is only natural to make the connection between an unusually good result and something unusual he did beforehand. His ritual is just an attempt to repeat his lucky succeess.

Both forms of the gamblers fallacy (the belief that "hot" or "cold" streaks are likely to continue, as well as the contrary belief that losing several times in a row means that you are now "due" for a win, or vice versa) are widely believed. All in all, I would estimate that there are more people believe in luck (or karma) as an actual force that can be manipulated than than people who recognize good or bad luck as statistically expected runs of random outcomes which casually appear to defy the odds. What is more interesting is that these beliefs run concurrently with a belief in a one true god; even religious doctrine which holds that one god is responsible for everything doesn't stop people from carrying a rabbit's foot for luck.

I think this is essentially right. I also think that humans are more inclined to look for an intelligence than they are for mechanistic forces to explain why things happen. That's one reason that science has a hard time pushing the frontiers with most people: they are more comfortable imagining gods, karma, luck, and other mysterious forces than they are in imagining the universe as a big machine.

Jobar

We've had interesting discussions about this topic before. Check out Lord of the Apes, started by Dr S, who as I recall worked with primates, and even went so far as to claim that religion was pre-verbal. A fascinating discussion, unfortunately fouled by the presence of WJ's idiocy...

joedad

However exactly religion was born is of secondary significance to how it continues to survive. Religion survives, I maintain, because it is able to successfully compete for available resources. That sounds almost too simple to be true in the case of religion, but I don't see how it can be anything different. And if this is accurate, all of humanity is descended from this hypothetical privileged priestly class, which explains the prevalence of religion today very nicely. We're simply all the descendants of kleptocrats because kleptocrats possessed a survival advantage.

Looking at the future, monotheism is the closest thing to atheism. And the emergence of cultural monotheism certainly has to be seen as a positive step toward cultural atheism. Indeed, I see the prevalence of monotheism as having a direct relationship with atheism. The logic seems pretty obvious, but maybe I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy!

But I certainly believe that humanity is moving inexorably toward complete atheism, monotheism being defined simply as incomplete atheism.

Stephen T-B

We don’t know to what degree other intelligent species have “consciousness.” We do, however, know we have it.
Could our possession of it be a consequence of the development in the brain of, if you like, “spare” capacity over and above the simple needs of finding food, shelter and reproducing?
Could it be that tool-making and the development of language caused an expansion in our cognitive ability which brought with it an awareness of self?
Self-awareness may bring with it an awareness of self-annihilation - a very difficult thing to grasp or come to terms with.
With self-awareness may also come an awareness of our vulnerability - not easily forgotten by those living a hand-to-mouth existence in circumstance where drought or flood, pestilence, famine, earthquake, fire, storms, dangerous animals and hostile neighbours are ever-present threats.

Uncertainty makes people superstitious (it’s no coincidence, then, that actors and footballers are notoriously superstitious.)

It encourages us to look for “protective magic” - and in early human communities the most powerful protective magic was judged to come from the phenomena which dominated day-to-day existence, such as the sun, the Earth (with its mysterious cycle of death and re-birth) the hearth, rivers, springs, forests, mountains (in mountainous regions) and certain significant wild animals.

These powerful sources of magic needed to be placated, and we see the emergence of “wise” individuals who know how this can be done - the precursors of a priesthood.

The evolution of physical entities into non-physical gods may have taken many, many thousands of years - and there are many, many thousands of years in our history for it to have happened in.

Theli

Isn't it also probable that early man mixed the social interaction and signs between him and other humans, with the indifferent nature around him?
Seeing powerful and frightening natural phenomenan (such as lightning) as a sign of hostility and anger coming from a superior being. The normal social reaction of subjugation most likely followed, and through that- worship. Well, it's an idea...

God is the ultimate alpha-male.

callmejay

Humans are storytellers. Witness the enormous film industry today, as well as all of the great books, paintings, sculpture, etc. throughout history. Today we recognize two separate forms of storytelling (fiction and non-fiction) but that is a somewhat recent development, and in fact is still not the case in some cultures. Even today, "fiction" can contain great truths, even if the stories themselves are made up. I believe that primitive religions were simply stories that were made up, embellished, retold, etc. This is pretty clear (I think) if you look at the roots of literature. There is the oral tradition that preceded the writing down of The Illiad and The Odyssey, for example. Now was that fact, fiction, both, or neither? I don't think that the question really meant the same thing back then. It's pretty hard to look at the Greek pantheon (for example) and all its myths and think that every myth was taken as the literal truth, but at the same time it's clear it wasn't "just" fiction, either.

Karen Armstrong in her book , A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, argues that modern fundamentalism in its various forms (Christian, Islamic, and Jewish in particular) is (ironically, I would say) a result of modernity. A few centuries after the (re?)invention of the scientific method and modern philosophy, it became nearly impossible to be religious in the old ways, and consequently a new, more literal, interpretation of religion arose. That neither-fact-nor-fiction category doesn't really exist for most people any more, and so we've had to sort of choose one or the other. Most of us on IIDB have chosen fiction, and the fundies have chosen fact.

Deacon Doubtmonger

This begs the question often asked about advertising: How many people knew or cared that they needed God until His "advertising" told them so?

An analogy is useful here: In Colorado, the Department of Public Health is currently running an anti-smoking ad in which a little girl, in an excellently-acted burst of simulated mournfulness, talks of the alleged dangers of secondhand smoke and then whines, "Aren't you scared?" The intent, of course, is not to impartially ascertain who's scared and who isn't, but to induce fear in those not already afraid. Gullible viewers, of course, will pick up on her facial expression, tone of voice, and the grotesque images of smoke, and indeed feel scared -- and few will have the intellectual spine to shout "NO!" at the little brat.

One of my biggest objections to religion is how much of it is based on inducing fear in the same manner. Of course, in religion as well as in smoking, once fear has been induced, the fearful will want to relieve it, and then feel fully justified in haranguing and harassing both smokers and atheists. Grrrrrr ...

Deacon Doubtmonger

"Kids do not smoke because a camel in sunglasses tells them to. They smoke for the same reasons adults do: because it relieves anxiety and depression. And you'd be anxious and depressed, too, if you had to put up with these insecure, striving, anal yuppie parents who enroll you in college before you're old enough to know which side of the playpen smells the worst!"

--George Carlin