Are humans genetically 'hard-wired' to believe in god?

Lol, rebooting the harware usually doesn't do much for its longevity.

I really don't see how one can't be perfectly religious without the rituals, though.

BoGoWo! Where ya been?

rufio, care to cite a few cultures that do NOT have some sense of a deity, primitive religion or god-type figure/figures?

I seem to recall that quite a few African religions sometimes have Gods that don't have any interest in human actions, and sometimes Gods that aren't even responsible for creation. I found this on eHRAF and the ethnographic atlas.... I could go look it up again, or you could.

That may be true, but the point is that those tribes still have the god-instinct, which is central to the thesis presented here. How the gods are conceived or act is not the point. It's the fact that these humans felt the need to create them. The premise presented here is based on strict science, not differences in religion. That was the only reason I asked you, to make sure we are on the same wavelength here. The question then, still remains, is it possible that humans posess a 'god-gene' as presented in the argument? In a lot of ways, both Soz and Setanta's posts, and part of rufio's first post actually do support the theory. If curiousity about the world around us is common to all humans, it is most likely genetic, not environmental.

Aren't Gods defined by how they act?

I actually remember some entries stating that the cultures had no God, but I didn't look into it, so I don't know the details. The ethnographic atlas isn't known for its depth.

The study of religion is scientific as well as biology, and if those finding contradict these, they're no less likely to be right. In any case, this is based on extrapolation and not on empirical studies, so it is further dubious.

"Genetic" is usually used to describe an inherited trait that varies from person to person - I'd say an interest in the world around us is a human universal, not a gene. There is similarly no gene to determine how that would manifest - in one God, or many, in a creator God or a passive God, in no God, in science, in mysticism, in superstition - it's always different.

I think the question may be ill-phrased: is the idea really to look for a "God-gene," per se, or to examine whether a certain aspect or certain aspects of the "human intellect" (which is probably not so singular as we like to believe) almost inevitably give rise to "spirituality." And to try to remove elements of bias, it seems that we'd have to use behavior alone as a determinant of whether an isolated group of humans is inclined toward spirituality.

That said, my gut is in line with sozobe's (I think). Our greatest asset as a species is probably this problem solving, anticipating, tool-making brain. Since behavior -- i.e., problem-solving -- is conditioned by immediate reward mechanisms (think about how mice are trained, for instance), we probably derive some pleasure from using our brains, and so might even be inclined to use them when they don't really benefit us. If one of our common behaviors is to try and figure out why things happen, we'll do like Descartes pretended to do and follow a line of causation until we don't have an answer any more, and whatever questions still remain we make up answers to. In this way, science is no different than religion, except that scientists like to make their answers testable.

Just talking out my arse, and I doubt there's a complete answer to this through intellect alone. The religious experience is, after, all, an emotional one, as well, and stimulates more than the primate brain...

But a single gene? Seems highly unlikely to me.

How 'bout a pair of jeans?

rufio, gods are not defined by how they act. All gods are athropomorphised models of things human beings do not understand. How they act is completely irrelevant. patiodog, I'm thinking that the idea is to prove a collective genetic instinct towards god-culture, in whatever form, and that religion is essentially a result of neuron-firing, and not from a true outside source. As for looking to find a single gene, I don't really know. That would indeed be hard to prove.

cav-

I was mainly hinting at a couple of points in the article that made me squirm -- the necessary oversimplification of genetic inheritance and the claim that only humans are possessed of any degree of self-awareness. Conscious thought seems to me to be predicated on being able to consider the existence of something that isn't there; that's what imagination is, isn't it?

Hmmm, not sure what I'm saying! Der, have not been very bright lately.

Yes, a pair of jeans!

Hmmm....well, it's just the preface to the theory. As I stated originally, I have not read the book itself.

But if I don't disagree with something, whatever will I have to say?

Uh oh pd....heh heh...

To attempt to "explain away" the concept of god as simply a response to genetic conditioning, if that is the exercise in the work to which Cav refers would be simply the flip side of the coin to theism. Theism is a form of irresponsible moral cowardice by which one evades one's responsibility for the quality of the world which one inhabits--whereas a thesis that a belief in god is simply a genetic product or by-product evades the issue of that irresponsibility, the issue of the hunger the spiritual have to make sense of that which we know only superficially and often inferentially (the universe) by reduction to an absurdity.

Quite apart from the absurdity of attempting to explain one of the most complex and enduring of human self-delusions in genetic terms, i begin to suspect that this would constitute a "sneak attack" on theism. I laugh . . . ha ha . . .

I think Setanta is on the right track there with this post. I suppose that's why the author of the book gets frequent death threats. 4 hours of late-night talk radio is really quite hard to remember, but I do recall a comment regarding humankind's miniscule ability to comprehend the universe without science.

Hell, it's pretty miniscule even with science. That's why we write stuff down.

I could be off-base here, but it seems to me that if this 'belief in God' thing were truly hard-wired, then the author would not have been able to write the book or even to conceive such an idea. There would be no atheists in the world any more than there are pentagonal, rather than hexagonal, beehives. Unless, that is, all atheists are mutants in some basic sense of that word. Sorry, can't buy it on intellectual grounds.

This isn't based on any deep knowledge of the subject, but I think that people have a part of their brain reserved for hierarchical obedience. This allows social networks to form and allows humans to participate in leadership/government. I don't think this automatically points to a g-d or g-ds, but it leaves room for one (the highest alpha male.)

We also need our curiosity satisfied, and will accept answers that satisfy it, whether true or not. G-d can serve this purpose.

But I'd be hesitant to say there was anything genetically inherited which pointed directly to a g-d. I see it as a function of societal interaction.

Good point Merry Andrew.


One of probelms I see with this theory, is that it presupposes a cause--effect link between so called physical brains, brain activity and thought, when no relation has ever, as yet, been shown to exist.

Secondly it cannot be shown that brains, and their activity are anything other then ideas in the mental realm since all examinations of brain activities ( and all other events) are mental. i.e. eveything we can know as, concepts, ideas, images, thoughts, perceptions etc. are what we term 'mental', and from there we posit ideas of physical realities as if they were not only real but primary and prior to the mental realm. That is indeed quite bizarre.

Setanta, a "theist" by definition only belives in God. Why do you think this implies a lack of responsibility?

Twyvel, phychologists and neuroscientists would disagree. But I'm not one of them, so I'll leave that argument for now.