Hardwired

close
more_vert
PeterH P
PeterH Mar 10, 2006 16:37:49
Replying to morfe

Are there not several different types of religious needs?

In times of hardship, war, famine, plague, distress - there is the appeal to a greater power for deliverance.. "God help me!"

In times of stability and more adequate resources, there is a need to celebrate religion through the arts.."God is great!"

Then there is the need for power over others as expressed through religious hierarchies, intolerance, heresies, hell and damnation, social class.. "God is on our side and you'd better believe it!"

Above all, there seems to be a need that is still with us and why, after rejecting the teachings of orthodox religions, so many people revert to superstition, crank creeds and little green men. They just have to have something to believe in.

Animals don't question why they are here and who made their world but we do. The answers are still so obscure and the universe so bizarre and complex that we simply cannot understand it. So we invent religions with creation myths and super beings to tell us what we should do. Perhaps one day we shall grow up, accept responsibility for our actions and realise that this planet and this life is all that we have.

L Littlestone
Littlestone Mar 10, 2006 17:16:55
Replying to PeterH

>So we invent religions with creation myths and super beings to tell us what we should do.<

Could it not be, however, that tapping into deeper levels of consciousness (through song, dance, prayer, meditation, chemical agents etc) we are transcending our rather restricted view of the world and in a way <i>are</i> in communion with super beings - not the super being without but the super being within :-)

M morfe
morfe Mar 10, 2006 22:01:58
Replying to PeterH

"Are there not several different types of religious needs?"

Countless, I'd say. Probably as many as there are differing psycho/physio/soicio/spiritualogicalistical situations. Although I only used the word 'need' in reference to Maslow. I would prefer to use the word 'response' as consider religion/spiritual activity to be a response to something. Whether or not that something is a 'need' or a 'want', I refuse to deal in absolutes especially with such a varying subject regarding personal psyches and environmental situations/responses.

As per the 'response' thing - of course, this is similar to saying "I consider eating to be a response to something" but with the added 'third' element that spirituality is not easily identifiable as an internal or external need. Then there are common instances where a psychological weakness or lack of reason slips into religiosity.

To hunger for bread is not the same as to hunger for communion with one's environment/creation/the universe/a sexy young vicar etc (delete as applicable).

Additionally there is the *fundamentalist* atheist (as opposed to the common atheist) approach that considers all religious/spiritual experience to be proof of a diseased mind, or at least evidence of mental invalidity or dishonesty. This is unusual in that it mirrors the opinions of the more fundamentalist religious adherents whom it is eager to denounce.

The crux of the question (in my mind) is whether or not this response is to external stimuli (physical or spiritual), or internal phenomena (psychological/phsyiological).

Mix in the extra brouhahah regarding the existence of a soul, or that elusive word- 'spirituality', add the whole control element of dogma, priesthood, theological politics &c and the salad becomes a brainsoup that will forever slip through any discursive colander.

And I'm done with food metaphors, time for dinner...