firecat

This was originally posted as a comment in

vito_excalibur's journal here; it's slightly expanded here.

Whether or not deity exists, it seems clear that a lot of people have a lot invested in deity's existing (believing or hoping or acting-as-if or...). I'm probably just not looking in the right places, but sometimes I wonder why more attention isn't paid to why so many people invest so much in it. Most of the speculations about that I hear are insults or dismissals from people who don't have the investment and who think that having the investment means you're deluded. That may be so, I suppose, but I also think that throwing away some pretty amazing (and yes, also some pretty horrible) human accomplishments as entirely based on delusion is depressing and reductionistic - kind of like saying oh, thoughts and feelings are nothing but electrical signals in the brain. Yes they are, but they aren't "nothing but."

Can you think of any neutral-to-positive and non-insulting reasons that many humans have a lot invested in believing in the existence of deity? What do we get out of it; why do some of us need or strongly want it?

(Disclosure - I need/strongly want spiritual experience and have had spiritual experiences [that could also be explained in non-supernatural ways, but I choose to experience/remember them as spiritual]. I neither believe nor don't believe in the existence of deity. I usually boil this down to "I believe in deity on alternative thursdays.")

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From:

miz-geek.livejournal.com

I'm not sure. I was discussing this with my hubby, though, and we came up with a few things:

1) Diety is so widespread a belief among humans that there is obviously something deep down in the human psyche that finds it important to believe in something larger than ourselves.

2) Essentially the erotic spanking explanation - People have many reasons for believing things and for deciding what constitutes valid evidence. For many people, the evidence for the existence of a diety is more powerful than the evidence against it.

3) I hadn't really thought of this one until my agnostic/atheist spouse mentioned it, and it's more of an insulting reason to NOT believe in god than a non-insulting reason TO believe. But, for those who choose science over religion as an explanation of why and how the universe works, faith is still underlying that decision. It's faith in science and not diety, but unless you really understand ALL that science out there, you mostly just have faith that it's correct. Faith that it's a valid system of explanation. You don't really know.

4) My personal theory - it's an extension of "it's all about me." Most people are self-centered. We interpret other people's behavior in ways that put ourselves at the center. If an LJ friend doesn't reply to my post, it's because they're mad at *me*. In reality, they're busy, or their computer broke, or they can't think of anything good to say, or a million other reasons, but by making ourselves the focus, we give ourselves some measure of agency or control or importance. We aren't just tiny, peripheral bits of fluff that don't matter. Anyway, we believe in diety for the same reason. We can't bear the thought that we're all just nothing, less than little bits of star-fluff. This may be an insulting explanation, but I really don't mean it that way. I think some kind of greater purpose is necessary to keep us from just giving up or going insane.

I think I've read that the oldest religious rituals are burial rites. The implication is that the development of religion is deeply intertwined with the awareness of mortality. That once we realize we're going to die, we have to come up with something beyond death.

BTW - Have you read Robert Sawyer's Hominid series? He kind of talks about this.

From:

pir-anha.livejournal.com

But, for those who choose science over religion as an explanation of why and how the universe works, faith is still underlying that decision.

i don't doubt that for some people faith in science plays the same role as faith in religion.

however, that's not true for everyone who chooses science over religion as a means for explaining how the universe works. i know what faith feels like because i once had it, but what i feel about science when i don't myself understand all of it is not faith, it's ... probability. i don't have faith in it at all; i expect that some of my scientific understanding will change as more data is found and new theories are formed. also, some of it i do understand completely because i've studied it.

i make a distinction between "belief" and "faith" -- belief consists of thinking something is probably true as explained to me; i could test it and check it out myself if i wanted to, but i trust a source enough to not go to that extent all the time. faith has no component of being able to test it and check it out for myself, it's just there, no rationale required or even possible. ergo i believe that science can attempt to explain how the universe works. but hey, if god stands in front of me tomorrow and explains sufficiently how that belief rests on faulty data, i'll be all ears and ready to discard what science i know. i don't have anything invested in science being true; it just has turned out to make good, solid sense whenever i've decided to study something in-depth. and the scientific method is ace when it comes to ferretting out pseudo-science.

because science is all about testing and checking things from every angle, faith is anathema to science; we have peer review instead. :) science can stand without anyone having faith in it at all, in fact it needs to stand no matter who tries to investigate it, faithful or not. science also changes when gaining new data, which is pretty much the opposite of faith persisting despite all contrary evidence. you can learn to understand science, all of it, if you apply yourself,because science has clear rules and is reproducible by anyone, anywhere. faith requires special insight and you can't learn it by following clear guidelines that work for everyone.

people who claim science is just another religion usually don't understand the scientific method.

From:

elainegrey.livejournal.com

people who claim science is just another religion usually don't understand the scientific method.

Well, i think back to Hume's _On Miracles_ often in this context. Hume's injunction is that if the observation cannot be replicated, (and thus you can not use the scientific method to examine and explain it,) the rational man is required to deny it occurred.

In practice this is where one looks at the out-lying data point and says, well, yes, but there was probably some factor that intruded (the sample was prepared incorrectly, a power surge occurred in the equipment, the original diagnosis was incorrect). And I am very happy to accept there may be an explanation along these lines that explains why most out-lier points occur.

What this then leaves is the fact that there are potential areas of reality where the scientific method cannot be applied. Assertions to the actuality of these areas cannot be tested with the scientific method. To me, fidelity to skepticism and science means one must accept that there are potential modes of reality that cannot be described scientifically and be agnostic about those modes. Perhaps we will learn all the complicated relationships and be able to isolate and make repeatable the patterns, thus moving the observation or experience away from the miraculous into the scientifically understood. But if we don't, i don't believe Hume is right in saying we must deny the observation. I think *that* is the mark of faith, not in the scientific method, but that the the extent of what is is completely describable through science. And i've met folks who do hold that faith.

From:

firecat

What this then leaves is the fact that there are potential areas of reality where the scientific method cannot be applied.

Yet.

To me it's entirely rational to hold the theory that new scientific methods will be developed that will allow observations and testing on areas of reality that currently can't be observed and tested. Such new methods have appeared many times already.

(Note, I personally don't think humans will be able to observe and test absolutely everything, but there are a lot of areas of reality that we can't test yet but will be able to eventually, assuming we don't blow ourselves up first.)

From:

miz-geek.livejournal.com

Okay, I'm channeling the spouse now, not myself - I think what he's saying is that for most people (many? some?), the belief in science contains a faith that the people doing it are doing it correctly. That the scientific method really works. And he's claiming that the difference is more the standard of evidence you'll accept. And now he's saying that he has faith that eventually science *will* figure it out. And that there's really no basis for that, but he believes it just the same. (And then he started quoting George Michael and I had to stop listening :D)

Personally, I think I agree more with you - the difference in the standard of evidence is of utmost importance. Replicability and logic are key. And the fact that I *could* learn this stuff if I wanted to. Although, if I mediate and fast long enough I might have visions, so maybe that's not a good point.

From:

firecat

The many technologies that I'm dependent on is proof that people are doing science - some kinds of science - correctly: they can replicate the result so exactly that they can crank out a zillion products based on it, which mostly work.

There are other things that are a lot harder to study scientifically, and having delved fairly deeply into research in some of these fields, I'm quite sure that most people aren't doing it correctly. Perhaps they'll eventually figure it out and perhaps not.

From:

starcat-jewel.livejournal.com

Yes, exactly. People who insist that science is just another form of religion bug the fool out of me, because it's clear that they don't really grasp either science or religion. Here's the difference:

No matter how esoteric or involved the science, if I chose to put in the effort to acquire the training, I could understand it eventually. That I choose rather to trust that those who have had the training are not lying to me is no different from choosing to trust that the 12"x6' piece of lumber I'm buying at the hardware store really is 6 feet long and 12 inches wide, rather than re-measuring it for myself, or using a calculator instead of pencil and paper to figure my gas mileage.

The essence of religion is that it cannot be understood -- it must be taken on faith, particularly because so many of its tenets appear to contradict observable reality. There is no training I can receive which will prove that Heaven exists, or allow me to determine whether the Deity is male or female, single or triple or an entire pantheon. Those concepts are all human inventions -- they are items of faith, not fact.

My partner makes a button which states it very succinctly: "Faith requires no facts. Facts require no faith." Religion is about faith, while science is about facts -- which is fine until people try to mix the two together. There's a place for each; science can't prove that the Bible was divinely inspired, and the Bible can't demonstrate how the earth was created.

From:

pir-anha.livejournal.com

no different from choosing to trust that the 12"x6' piece of lumber I'm buying at the hardware store really is 6 feet long and 12 inches wide, rather than re-measuring it for myself

*grin*. i re-measure it for myself. and not just because people make mistakes either when cutting, or when sorting. lumber measurements are simply an iffy thing, partly for historical reasons, partly because wood changes dimensions with humidity, and it makes a big difference whether it was cut green or dry. eg. a 2x4 of construction lumber never actually measures 2 inches by 4 inches, but might be 1.5 by 3.55 inches; a 6" wide piece of pine board lumber likely measures just 5.5". the only thing that can usually be trusted is the length.

i think your calculator example is much better. :)