My Excruciating Opinion on the Origin of the God Concept

[sayak83]

Based on what I've read and experienced, many struggle to describe the emotion felt during a mystical/oneness experience. I'm curious why led you to choose the word 'panic' to describe it.

Panic was/is felt by the baby being born. I myself felt overwhelmed, not panic.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Panic was/is felt by the baby being born. I myself felt overwhelmed, not panic.

I just reread your post and now understand that you are experiencing all of these feelings/emotions at once.

Sorry, I was on my first cup of coffee as I first read your post.

 

[Sunstone]

Sorry, I was on my first cup of coffee as I first read your post.

No excuses, Comrade Salixkov! You! Off to the salt mines!

 

[SalixIncendium]

No excuses, Comrade Salixkov! You! Off to the salt mines!

I do like salt...

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

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). ...

Actually, I think my tanta stumbled upon the idea while contemplating her bubbe making chopped liver.
QUOTE="Sunstone, post: 5493604, member: 499"]
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?[/QUOTE]
Where was it in animism or in ANE, Egyptian, or Greco-Roman mythology? It seems to me that 'oneness' - assuming that I understand what you mean by it - is a relatively late inference rather than a mystical revelation.

 

[crossfire]

Excellent questions, Riju.

To say that subject/object perception ends is the same as saying that the normal, everyday waking-consciousness distinction we make between what is us and what is not-us ends. I no longer see myself as distinct from the tree I am looking at. In fact, everything within my perceptual field is now in some sense one. That is, everything I see, hear, smell, or otherwise perceive is perceived as being in some way profoundly unified.

Well, all of our sensory perceptions are processed through our subjective mind. In that sense, all of our perceptions are unified in that respect. It is also within our subjective mind that we also assign meaning to the sensory perceptions that represent the objective world perceptions, as well as the perceptions we perceive from inside ourselves. If we mislabel subjective content/observations for objective reality, that is called delusion. (Such as if you see a rope, and it subjectively reminds you of a snake, and you insist that the rope is a snake.)

But what is this "one", this "unity"? Many people who have had such experiences as I just described have said it is god, deity. Not everyone makes that claim, but many people do. And I think there are several reasons why those who claim it is deity do so.

How well do you know your unconscious mind? Would you recognize it if you saw it? Or would it be "other," since it is by definition normally outside your waking consciousness. I'll be the first to admit that my unconscious mind is waaaaaaay more intelligent than my normal, waking consciousness.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

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 humans and 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?

Modules.....really?

It's simple as can be. People discovered that we all die and wondered in their grief with each passing, "Is that all there is?" "Is there a purpose to this life other than just survival?"

So some nefarious, power grubbing witch-doctors/priests/charlatans etc., used this grief, and fear, and the carrot or stick afterlife, to manipulate people. Voila! The birth of religions and religious war...and blind faith. It wasn't until the Age of Reason that we finally started thinking rationally about the concept of God(s) and the only question that brings them/It up at all, the progenitor of the universe.

But from that Age of Reason till today, mankind is still afraid to sit down and seriously study the concept of Truth, the one thing we should be worshiping as God, but the last thing the revealed religions (spiritual or political) want.

 

[David T]

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 humans and 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?

Well let's see.

Sex is a cognitive out growth of brain structure. Apparently we wouldn't be having sex if we didn't have that aspect. Wow genius' or!!

 

[gnomon]

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 humans and 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?

My first comment is that you are not partaking of my poison. God forbid.

Second I think these modules are bull****.

Third it's important to recognize that religious beliefs are not about God, however defined, but about culture.

Fourth, I do believe in personal spiritual experiences but I deny the modular experience as being anything close to the personal experience.

Religious concepts are not about God or individual spiritual experiences but they are about culture.

What you are describing is not a religious but a spiritual experience. A religious experience is a hard lined cultural experience but a spiritual experience is an individual experience.

On another level there is a tree. It's a tree because I call it a tree. Yet....it's not a tree. Because I can never understand what it is to be a tree.

 

[crossfire]

<...>

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?

Actually, the disappearance of the separation between subject and object is not rare at all--and you don't need to be in a mystical state to achieve it.

For example, when you are first learning to ride a bicycle, there is you, and there is the bicycle. After much practice riding it, you become proficient to the point where the bicycle is seen as an extension of yourself--you can subconsciously steer, accelerate, brake, and balance it all at once, so you can concentrate on going where you want to with it. Once you learn how to ride a bicycle, it is something that you never forget how to do--it is always part of you. The same can be said for any tool we use and become proficient in--the tool, prosthetic leg, or whatever, becomes an extension of ourself in accomplishing whatever task we are doing.

Does that make us gods?