The need to believe?

[Lek]

Would it matter if we had developed an instinct for "seeking god"?  No, and that -is- whateverists point.  Something more is required for advocacy - what you're offering, completely aside of it's shoddy relationship to truth...is just lazy.

I;m more than willing to grant that we developed such an instinct...but probably not for seeking "god" - more like for seeking out dinner and threats of becoming dinner.  For "seeking out" intentionality..not the least of which, a human being hiding in the brush.  More projection..but hey.....we're evolved creatures..so you expect the features to have kinks.

I was replying to Deidre's dilemma about reasoning that there is no God, but feeling the need for spirituality. I responded that I believed that a need for spiritually is instinctive. So it does matter that we have an instinct for seeking God, which could be a factor in her situation.

[The Grand Nudger]

----whoooooooosh----

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I wonder if it ever bothers a missionary to play the part of a spiritual vulture?  Sniffing out emotional carrion and seeing if they might translate it into belief or support for their beliefs? To take a persons situation, one of grief combined with a seeming inability to adequately process that grief - a legitimate tragedy, and leverage it in support of fairies...does is ever tickle their bastard bones? Or maybe that's just The Way. / shrugs

[mordant]

I think we developed an instinct for seeking God because the environment in which we evolved reflected God.

What we actually developed is confirmation bias, agency inference and the like. We developed those because they were survival advantages during humanity's early development. Gods are just a side effect of that.

These things are no longer survival advantages in most contexts anymore. In some contexts they are positively survival disadvantages. That's why we're still seeing ghosts, gods, demons etc and it still seems intuitive that there's a First Cause.

What you're calling an "instinct" is in fact a mental glitch that it's important to push back against ... at least, if you value having a healthy relationship with reality.

[Thumpalumpacus]

 I think we developed an instinct for seeking God because the environment in which we evolved reflected God.

"He who made kittens / put snakes in the grass ..."

The environment when inhabit also includes cancer, and tsunamis killing a quarter-million at a time. Does that reflect your god? And how might one square that with his alleged good nature?

[*Deidre*]

This week just got better and better. I woke up this morning, thinking about prayer. That's a very habitual thing that I've done in my life upon waking or going to bed, and when I identified as an atheist a few years back, I had already fallen away from prayer. It was all like a gradual unraveling back then. But I feel like I've been here before, and yet this also feels different because I don't want to believe anymore. Whereas before, I logically rejected faith but still felt uneasy about identifying as an atheist, tbh. 

I think that is the game changer now for me, that I just don't want to believe. I'm not afraid to NOT believe, anymore. So, before work, instead of prayer, I reflected on the day, and promised myself that I would do my best to overcome what might come my way. (I like meditation in this regard, too) 

I feel really good about how I'm seeing myself.

[Ben Davis]

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This week just got better and better. I woke up this morning, thinking about prayer. That's a very habitual thing that I've done in my life upon waking or going to bed, and when I identified as an atheist a few years back, I had already fallen away from prayer. It was all like a gradual unraveling back then. But I feel like I've been here before, and yet this also feels different because I don't want to believe anymore. Whereas before, I logically rejected faith but still felt uneasy about identifying as an atheist, tbh. 

I think that is the game changer now for me, that I just don't want to believe. I'm not afraid to NOT believe, anymore. So, before work, instead of prayer, I reflected on the day, and promised myself that I would do my best to overcome what might come my way. (I like meditation in this regard, too) 

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I feel really good about how I'm seeing myself.

Deidre, may much fortune, truth and beauty come to you

[*Deidre*]

Would it matter if we had developed an instinct for "seeking god"?  No, and that -is- whateverists point.  Something more is required for advocacy - what you're offering, completely aside of it's shoddy relationship to truth...is just lazy.

I;m more than willing to grant that we developed such an instinct...but probably not for seeking "god" - more like for seeking out dinner and threats of becoming dinner.  For "seeking out" intentionality..not the least of which, a human being hiding in the brush.  More projection..but hey.....we're evolved creatures..so you expect the features to have kinks.

I was replying to Deidre's dilemma about reasoning that there is no God, but feeling the need for spirituality.  I responded that I believed that a need for spiritually is instinctive.  So it does matter that we have an instinct for seeking God, which could be a factor in her situation.

Hi Lek, it's funny you bring this up. I had read a few years ago, an article about how archaeologists had determined that ''religion'' or what could be considered early forms of it, dated back to pre-historic times, like with how people looked at altering their states of consciousness. So, maybe it's instinctual to explore or be curious, but I don't think it's instinctive to believe. As humans, we are curious though by nature, but probaly what is instinctive is the desire for security. To feel safe. Creating a powerful god in our minds to handle all of our troubles, even if that is a fantasy, can bring about those feelings of comfort. It's instinctive to want to feel safe, I think.

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This week just got better and better. I woke up this morning, thinking about prayer. That's a very habitual thing that I've done in my life upon waking or going to bed, and when I identified as an atheist a few years back, I had already fallen away from prayer. It was all like a gradual unraveling back then. But I feel like I've been here before, and yet this also feels different because I don't want to believe anymore. Whereas before, I logically rejected faith but still felt uneasy about identifying as an atheist, tbh. 

I think that is the game changer now for me, that I just don't want to believe. I'm not afraid to NOT believe, anymore. So, before work, instead of prayer, I reflected on the day, and promised myself that I would do my best to overcome what might come my way. (I like meditation in this regard, too) 

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I feel really good about how I'm seeing myself.

Deidre, may much fortune, truth and beauty come to you

And to you, as well. 

[Whateverist]

I suspect, as I think Khem may have just hinted at, the capacity/tendency to attribute comprehensible intentionality by personifying 'spirits' of animals and weather (etc.) would have been evolutionarily advantageous. It would be a natural first step which could have given our growing brains a way to strategically engage the perils and potential benefits of the environment, even before the development of symbolic language.

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If you thought rape was instinctual would you advocate for it?

I don't think it's instinctual.

Maybe not, but the sex drive itself obviously is instinctual and rape would be the upshot given the opportunity and no countervailing inputs.

But to your point about seeing the intentions of gods in all manner of events, I completely agree with you.  Of course I don't endorse relying on this primitive way of thinking any more than I endorse rape.

[KevinM1]

*decloak*

I've never had the instinctual need to believe in a god. Quite the opposite, actually. I've always had a visceral negative reaction towards religion and spirituality, even as a child. It always felt uncomfortable, weird, and wrong to me.

*recloaking*

[Astonished]

I suspect, as I think Khem may have just hinted at, the capacity/tendency to attribute comprehensible intentionality by personifying 'spirits' of animals and weather (etc.) would have been evolutionarily advantageous.  It would be a natural first step which could have given our growing brains a way to strategically engage the perils and potential benefits of the environment, even before the development of symbolic language.

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I don't think it's instinctual.

Maybe not, but the sex drive itself obviously is instinctual and rape would be the upshot given the opportunity and no countervailing inputs.

But to your point about seeing the intentions of gods in all manner of events, I completely agree with you.  Of course I don't endorse relying on this primitive way of thinking any more than I endorse rape.

Well back when we were wearing bloody animal skins and bonking women on the head with clubs to drag them back to our caves, we weren't exactly moral agents. Evolving to the point of cognition we're at where language can develop, direct ideas and feelings could be shared, etc., are what enable us to actually understand concepts like consent, empathy and morality. So even if a thing was instinctive and advantageous (preventing our extinction by reproducing as much as possible during our early ancestors' day), we can contemplate it and determine if in fact it's a good thing, or advantageous, or at least outweighs the consequences in our modern age. In the case of rape, it does not, even if it once did and is the reason any of us are here rather than one more dead branch on the tree of life. Same with religious belief, although I don't believe that in and of itself is instinctive, merely a by-product of other behaviors that would be better off contemplated and concluded that they should be rightly dismissed for their lack of continued utility. But because the rules of the religious game are what they are, its staying power is such that we actually have to question whether it's instinctive. Because them fuckin' heathens are the last people we should be associatin' with 'cause they ain't got gawd in their hearts.