Cognitive scientists and others have come to the general agreement that human religiosity is the outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved early in human history. That is, our religiosity is very old. Older even than @Jayhawker Soule (although perhaps not by much).
It seems there is also a general consensus among scientists that the specific brain architecture responsible for our religiosity consists of several psychological mechanisms (sometimes called "modules") common to virtually all humansand even to @lewisnotmiller. Depending on who you're talking to, these modules range in number from a few to perhaps two dozen mechanisms, and have attractively sexy names like "agent detection", "etiology", "Theory of Mind", "respect for elders", etc. Working severally or together, they give rise to various aspects of human religiosity.
Yet, it seems to me that these modules cannot account for at least some very prominent and important aspects of human religiosity.
For instance, they seem to fall short of accounting for at least some notions of deity. Among other things, I cannot figure out how the notion that god is an "all", or a "one", or a "oneness" came about on the basis of the modules alone. The notion that there is a god that can be described in those terms appears to be fairly common. It's by no means the only notion of deity humans have invented, but it is one of the more popular notions, so far as I know. Yet how can it be accounted for as a product of such things as agent detection, etc?
I would suggest that it can't. Rather, I think the notion that god is an all, a one, or a oneness is derived from the mystical experience.
Now, the mystical experience is a relatively rare phenomenon in humans that apparently arises when someone's subject/object perception comes to an abrupt end while some form of experiencing continues. That is, it comes about when a person ceases to experience the world as divided between what is them and what is not them, and instead experiences the world as some kind of unity -- as an All, a One, or a Oneness.
During normal subject/object perception, I and the tree I see are two separate things. During a mystical experience, the perception of discrete things ends, and is replaced by a perception that everything within my perceptual field is in some sense the same thing, is in some sense one.
I would now suggest that the mystical experience accounts for some aspects of human religiosity not entirely accounted for by the modular theory, especially the notion found in at least many cultures that god is an all of some sort, a unity, a one, or a oneness of everything.
Comments? Observations? Rants? Offers of money to go away?
It seems there is also a general consensus among scientists that the specific brain architecture responsible for our religiosity consists of several psychological mechanisms (sometimes called "modules") common to virtually all humans
Yet, it seems to me that these modules cannot account for at least some very prominent and important aspects of human religiosity.
For instance, they seem to fall short of accounting for at least some notions of deity. Among other things, I cannot figure out how the notion that god is an "all", or a "one", or a "oneness" came about on the basis of the modules alone. The notion that there is a god that can be described in those terms appears to be fairly common. It's by no means the only notion of deity humans have invented, but it is one of the more popular notions, so far as I know. Yet how can it be accounted for as a product of such things as agent detection, etc?
I would suggest that it can't. Rather, I think the notion that god is an all, a one, or a oneness is derived from the mystical experience.
Now, the mystical experience is a relatively rare phenomenon in humans that apparently arises when someone's subject/object perception comes to an abrupt end while some form of experiencing continues. That is, it comes about when a person ceases to experience the world as divided between what is them and what is not them, and instead experiences the world as some kind of unity -- as an All, a One, or a Oneness.
During normal subject/object perception, I and the tree I see are two separate things. During a mystical experience, the perception of discrete things ends, and is replaced by a perception that everything within my perceptual field is in some sense the same thing, is in some sense one.
I would now suggest that the mystical experience accounts for some aspects of human religiosity not entirely accounted for by the modular theory, especially the notion found in at least many cultures that god is an all of some sort, a unity, a one, or a oneness of everything.
Comments? Observations? Rants? Offers of money to go away?