Cause of Religion

[James_S_Saint]

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So why are so very many people religious?

@James S Saint; East Meets West

Many years ago when I would stand between the software engineers and the hardware engineers to resolve in which area a computer problem might exist in the rather large system, I had to very carefully examine every subtle detail of both of their arguments because neither of their groups could understand the other. Strictly hardware engineers usually have a very difficult time picking up on why software works the way it does and strictly software engineers typically have a little trouble understanding the hardware concerns, but usually they just don’t care.

I find similar issues when dealing with different races. Is it the hardware or the software causing the arguments and incompatibilities?

I can sense some of the very, very subtle “wetware” differences that yield differences in their thinking. I can tell that it isn’t strictly a cultural issue or upbringing. The East Indian is very distinct from others when I try to discuss technical details. I can tell that it is not a matter of education. Often it is an issue of perceived priorities and thus concepts are taken differently. But there is no doubt in my mind that there are wetware differences at the root of it all.

I had no trouble at all understanding Buddha, a little more the Hebrews, but the Hindus have such an odd set of priorities to me, that I tend to not want to go to the trouble of interpreting the intent of most of what they have assembled. Aristotle felt like just a down home country boy, much like a Abe Lincoln. Plato required a little more, “why is he saying those particular things?”. The Italians, French, English, and Germans, I have no trouble understanding, but again there is an issue of priority differences.

Within each of the races and cultures, I can still detect very slight wetware differences that, no doubt, lead to some of the cultural and priority differences, usually involving the direction of passions. In America especially, but largely throughout the West, the neurology of the people these days has become so scrambled and corrupted that there is great differences merely between neighbors raised in the same town. That is clearly an issue of the wetware.

Of course all of that plays into their former and current philosophies. Although it should be understood that it is almost never, especially these days, a case of the average person causing this philosophy or that being predominate, but rather which group has gained control of their media exchange and thus their mindset. A great deal of social and psychological dissonance arises when one group somewhat forces their set of priorities onto another group with a different set of priorities, especially when they are wetware inspired. So the historical result is often today, not indicative of the actual people of that region, but rather due to philosophies being injected into them.

As I discuss things with zinnat13, I am constantly reminded of our physiological differences (the wetware) as well as our cultural differences.

Note that the direction of passion is one of the more serious issues that leads to differences in mindset and thus in religion types. That passion difference is largely an issue of the neurology or “wetware”. But the real question is more of why religion at all?

The issue is actually one of the complexity of reality, especially with other similar beings competing within it. If reality were truly and always simple, no one would bother with anything that we call Religion, nor Science. But obviously things can get pretty confusing.

When things get too complicated and are perceived as important, people first decide what idea to accept based upon its immediate appeal, “pathos”. And that usually involves accepting what someone else has said. So the passions involved concerning that other person gets involved as well. Then the issue is one of the perception of anything even close to being logical or consistent with what is already believed, which includes a great deal of superstition (a superstition is merely the naming of a cause for associated events when the details are unknown).

What the individual mind is attempting to do is find a simple means of deciding truth so that decisions can be made concerning otherwise uncontrollable events, such as weather or disease. When they have decided who to get their wisdom from, they have chosen within who to place their faith. And Science is every bit of a religion as any other. Science was supposed to be an “open source” religion wherein everyone could see why anything was to be believed, but it is very far from that these days and supported almost entirely by cult behavior.

The proposal to do away with religion is the proposal to merely yield decisions into the hands of the religion of Science for the sake of your simplicity in decision issues. People need a simpler means to understand what to do and when. They don’t really care all that much about why, but that question gets into the mix and needs to have an answer handy when it rises. Simple-minded and often erroneous answers are then provided so as to meet the needs of the simple-minded person who was inquiring.

The average person lives in a reality that is complex enough that he will never really understand it, yet will always need to be able to make reliable decisions. Accepting the ideas of other people is really his only option. And that is called “having faith” in those ideas and/or those people and their methods and intentions. Unfortunately, finding any “others” who have sufficient methods and intentions can be tough.

In addition some of the methods of the “others” involves keeping people simple-minded and/or confused so as to maintain the social order concerning who is to be believed and accepted as authority. Of course social and personal egos get involved immediately merely due to the perceived need to respect the order or the person.

So the bottom line is merely that people, due to the mismatch between the mental capacity and the complexity of their lives, requires that they accept a religion, whether it is called “Science” or not.

[V-OutOfTheWilderness]

Hardware, software, wetware, isn’t religion in the firmware?

[Jayson]

This is what I class as a psychological motive for attraction to religion or spirituality, but this is not what I consider to be the root cause of it.

The root is more base than psychology, as psychology can be untrained and permanently removed from existing as a way of thinking.
However, you simply cannot remove from the human species the function of imbuing things with value, nor from imbuing some things with value higher than others, nor from imbuing some things with so much value that it is sacred to them.
And you cannot do this because our basic neurological framework is incapable of existing as this species that we are without this imbuement of value.

[James_S_Saint]

@Jayson

This is what I class as a psychological motive for attraction to religion or spirituality, but this is not what I consider to be the root cause of it.

The root is more base than psychology, as psychology can be untrained and permanently removed from existing as a way of thinking.
However, you simply cannot remove from the human species the function of imbuing things with value, nor from imbuing some things with value higher than others, nor from imbuing some things with so much value that it is sacred to them.
And you cannot do this because our basic neurological framework is incapable of existing as this species that we are without this imbuement of value.

The “root cause” was pointed out to be the issue of the simplicity of decision making. That is a physiological, psychological, and technological grand root issue within all intelligence. It is an issue of the complexity of a situation versus the complexity of the brain/mind/computer trying to handle it. So how do you justify the notion that is is purely psychological?

[Jayson]

I don’t justify the psychological tangent.
I was stating that your position seemed to focus on psychological aspects, but I see that you were intending to discuss a different portion of that process whereby associative induction on the neurological level takes place.

If the matter is only Religion and not proto-religion, then I think you are quite right.
If you couple this with the interest in like-preservation, then this would be a reasonable posit for the root of Religion.

If, however, we are to flip and discuss the root of spiritual experience, which is a prerequisite to religion, then I would assert the previous matter of discussion regarding the neurological processes for imbuement of value as well as the processes for identity.

[James_S_Saint]

@Jayson

spiritual experience

What is your intended definition of that phrase?

[Jayson]

A set of neurological processes dealing with value placement, empathy and sympathy, which has reached a value set capable of being described as ‘reverent’ to the individual, and from which existential experience and reflection is capable explicitly.

[Tralix]

Genetics for at least 1 million years our ancestors had no idea what actually made the world tick. When we found out at least some answers, we were loathe to give up our ancestors explanation because it had become part of who we are. You can no more separate humans from religion than you can dipsomaniacs from drink and expect them not to crave for their drug. Like any addiction no amount of logic is going to get them over their problems. I say problem I don’t think religion is a “problem” in the conventional sense, I just mean that people are strangely attracted to something that is now part of us, no matter how logical the explanation against, we still see something other than what we know.

[James_S_Saint]

@Jayson

A set of neurological processes dealing with value placement, empathy and sympathy, which has reached a value set capable of being described as ‘reverent’ to the individual, and from which existential experience and reflection is capable explicitly.

Emm… that is damn near the whole brain. What is the “spiritual” part that you are referring to? How is it distinguished from other experiences?

[Jayson]

That isn’t the entire brain, it’s very specific processes; but it gets involved on the basic layer of pretty much everything - yes.

That’s why my other thread stated that there’s no way to remove the event of humans having spiritual experiences from occurring; because the very constituents which permit the capacity of remarkable imbuement are the same constituents used in every day life as normal functions.
That was the reason I said that you could accomplish the effect if you would be alright with a frontal lobe lobotomy being a description of a complete human life.

What causes it to be spiritual is the amplitude; that’s why the description is written as, “which has reached a value set capable of being described as ‘reverent’ to the individual, and from which existential experience and reflection is capable explicitly”.

That ‘reverent’ part is pretty crucial.
We value eating gum over eating feces, but we do not hold gum as reverent; simply because it is too mundane.

Also, that description is a summary of a massively longer tangent of which I believe you have already read most of at my blog.
It is not only about value, but that is a very easy one to pick on here for brevity.
It is also about how we create identity and the nature of how our system of empathy works.

These functions are what are needed for a combination to occur into a mix of that “mystical” sense people feel about “existing” and about their sense of relation to “everything-not-me”.

[James_S_Saint]

Can we say that “spiritual experience” is an “exaggeration of relevance”?

[Jayson]

Yes, quite so, but we need to keep in mind that with our brand of spirituality (leaving open the possibility of other life forms having similar but different forms of neurological frameworks) also includes the neurology which permits us our way of creating identity (not only our identity, but even the identity of ‘pop can’ or my identity of ‘James S Saint’), as well as being tumbled into a pile with how our neurological framework functions in regards to our brand of empathy (which is rather unique to our species in the exact manner in which we employ it - it is possible for someone to feel empathy for an object by a representation of translating the object with assumptions akin to a human experience of what happened to the object).

[James_S_Saint]

@Jayson

Yes, quite so, but we need to keep in mind that with our brand of spirituality (leaving open the possibility of other life forms having similar but different forms of neurological frameworks) also includes the neurology which permits us our way of creating identity (not only our identity, but even the identity of ‘pop can’ or my identity of ‘James S Saint’), as well as being tumbled into a pile with how our neurological framework functions in regards to our brand of empathy (which is rather unique to our species in the exact manner in which we employ it - it is possible for someone to feel empathy for an object by a representation of translating the object with assumptions akin to a human experience of what happened to the object).

So we can include (as a subset) “empathic transference”. Often a person “transfers” an emotional empathy into a perceived “like effort” to live, such as a tree or a cat.

But again, I say that this occurrence is the simple effort of the mind to reduce complication and see likeness or dis-likeness in simpler terms, “black or white”.

The exaggeration comes from the hope that “all is resolved” by “this simple idea”. When the emotional, unconscious mind cannot refute the perfection of an idea, it is “awestruck” with the notion of such perfection and thus “exaggerated relevance” and “worship”.

The bottom line seems to always be merely an issue of trying to perceive and conclude by the simplest method and means. And that leads to over worship of a simplistic idea that wasn’t quite as perfect as perceived.

Related to this is the issue that I was just discussing concerning the Yin-Yang symbol. It is an exaggeration of truth in that negative and positive are NOT actually “equal but opposite”. The metaphysics involved is just enough complicated that those seeking perfect understanding in simple ways accept the notion of perfect symmetry where there actually was none. Science falls for the same impetuous for simple concepts that are unfounded (such as “equal and opposite” and “quantum mechanics”).

Life is complicated enough to be taxing on both the neurology and the psychology, so the mind does all it can to simplify and hope for the best.

[James_S_Saint]

Man;
“God is awesome. God inspired the Bible. If it is in the Bible it is good. If it isn’t in the Bible, it is bad. It is that simple, so I can return to beating my wife, kicking my dog, and hating the homeless for being bad.”

Woman;
“God is about Love. God is awesome. People should love all life. Men misunderstand how simple it is, so I can return to ignoring their arguments and rationalities.”

The Devil;
“Haha… I couldn’t care less how simple you try to make it. I can always make it more complicated than you can handle.”

[Jayson]

I think it’s a very fine split, and I think that’s why the split between spiritual experience and religion is systemically fine.

There is a tiny one though, that has not much to do with reductionism.
Our brains can create an affinity for a thing disproportional to the average population for entirely no rational or irrational reason; simply because it fired in that manner at that time, or simply because of a fault (such as in medical cases).

There can be a rock on a beach and for no functional reason at all, a human has the capacity of picking that rock up and keeping it for the rest of their lives without any functional reason behind the motive; they simply may express that they felt a sense of endearment when looking at it and so they kept it.

Conversely, a human is capable of waking up one day and walking around their dwelling and suddenly being hit with an unprecedented removal of identity with the empathetic tactile sense of their reality - disconnected.
And this state, can suddenly be struck with a variety of sensations; dread, fear, awe…some may just start crying.
This is a great example of your reductionism and why I can agree with it as a definite layer that should be counted and considered.

I would place it lateral with the constituents though.
That those constituents of identity, empathy, and value are processed in parallel by a function of reductionism, which will employ both deduction and induction.

Sort of like saying a computer processes literal in serial, and then also saying that its constituents to process are the following circuits.

[James_S_Saint]

@Jayson

I think it’s a very fine split, and I think that’s why the split between spiritual experience and religion is systemically fine.

There is a tiny one though, that has not much to do with reductionism.
Our brains can create an affinity for a thing disproportional to the average population for entirely no rational or irrational reason; simply because it fired in that manner at that time, or simply because of a fault (such as in medical cases).

Well that is strictly a neurological interference issue, “toxic environment”. The “natural brain” has very few times when it “mis-fires” for no reason related to physiological/neurological interference (toxins and/or viruses).

@Jayson

There can be a rock on a beach and for no functional reason at all, a human has the capacity of picking that rock up and keeping it for the rest of their lives without any functional reason behind the motive; they simply may express that they felt a sense of endearment when looking at it and so they kept it.

That would be the “emotional transference” that I mentioned. The mind hopes for the simple idea that by holding onto something familiar, it can be relieved of the complex decision making that plagues it. Give that same person a real hope of gaining great prosperity (by whatever means they measure such) through some very active means, and they will forget all about that rock. The decision making process would be made simple for them… without the rock.

@Jayson

Conversely, a human is capable of waking up one day and walking around their dwelling and suddenly being hit with an unprecedented removal of identity with the empathetic tactile sense of their reality - disconnected.
And this state, can suddenly be struck with a variety of sensations; dread, fear, awe…some may just start crying.
This is a great example of your reductionism and why I can agree with it as a definite layer that should be counted and considered.

That is the issue of “disillusionment” when their mind realizes that things are not as simple and good as they hoped. They “disconnect” because the former notions of good and bad have been debunked. They then immediately seek a “new hope”, again some simple idea that resolves all of their prior efforts and confusions, "I merely need to give up and go with the ebb and flow of the universe, the ‘Holy Spirit’". Or “I need to give my life to God”.

@Jayson

I would place it lateral with the constituents though.
That those constituents of identity, empathy, and value are processed in parallel by a function of reductionism, which will employ both deduction and induction.

Sort of like saying a computer processes literal in serial, and then also saying that it’s constituents to process are the following circuits.

I have no idea what that meant, but I’ll take your word that it made good sense.

[Jayson]

Regarding this part:

That would be the “emotional transference” that I mentioned. The mind hopes for the simple idea that by holding onto something familiar, it can be relieved of the complex decision making that plagues it. Give that same person a real hope of gaining great prosperity (by whatever means they measure such) through some very active means, and they will forget all about that rock. The decision making process would be made simple for them… without the rock.

In some cases, but that wasn’t what I was referring to.
There can be a complete lack of anything other than, for instance, the rock can have absolutely no attachment what-so-ever to it other than it simply has a nice sensation of endearment attached to it.
It doesn’t have to offer anything else, nor offer any solutions for any part of the brain’s computations.

In fact, this part of the human species is what primarily makes humans capable of being frustrating to examine in an empirical fashion.

We cannot deduce from the simple process of this affinity that there was a hope involved at all; we can assume that in most applications in a social environment of human society that something like that has occurred, but we cannot assume such is the case with the brain function itself.
And we can’t exactly do that because there are examples of it arbitrarily occurring, including in some cases where the brain is abnormally impulsing (which, yes, doesn’t happen often, but it does; and that shows a characteristic of the function).

Does this happen often in the articulated language of Religious theology and dogmatic prose?
No, you are quite right in that regard.
That is the fine line that I spoke of.

Which wraps around to the part that I failed to articulate well.
The constituents of empathy, and value are processed by reductionist ambition, but in and of themselves each of the two constituents has no concern one way or the other.
They simply relay and augment by default of their makeup.

I made an error before in including identity into the constituent list that doesn’t inherently apply to reductionism within its own function, as identity pretty much is completely governed by reductionism.

Also, the disillusionment example was supposed to be an example of reductionism to contrast against the rock example that lacks any motive of reductionism inherently.

I also wasn’t referring to firing of the brain without physical provocation, but instead stating that it can do so by design of its function without motive of provocation by process.
It’s a real fine difference between these two and its the difference between our discussions; so fine that in other contexts we probably wouldn’t even bother mentioning it.

It’s like the difference between what makes up a circuit and what method governs it for use.

[James_S_Saint]

@Jayson

Regarding this part:

That would be the “emotional transference” that I mentioned. The mind hopes for the simple idea that by holding onto something familiar, it can be relieved of the complex decision making that plagues it. Give that same person a real hope of gaining great prosperity (by whatever means they measure such) through some very active means, and they will forget all about that rock. The decision making process would be made simple for them… without the rock.

In some cases, but that wasn’t what I was referring to.
There can be a complete lack of anything other than, for instance, the rock can have absolutely no attachment what-so-ever to it other than it simply has a nice sensation of endearment attached to it.

That is exactly what I was referring to.

@Jayson

It doesn’t have to offer anything else, nor offer any solutions for any part of the brain’s computations.

That isn’t applicable. Everything is a part of the brain’s computational efforts and there is never any emotional attachment that isn’t a part of that effort. In effect, that is what emotion is.

@Jayson

In fact, this part of the human species is what primarily makes humans capable of being frustrating to examine in an empirical fashion.

We cannot deduce from the simple process of this affinity that there was a hope involved at all; we can assume that in most applications in a social environment of human society that something like that has occurred, but we cannot assume such is the case with the brain function itself.

“We” certainly can. I am not seeing why you can’t.

@Jayson

And we can’t exactly do that because there are examples of it arbitrarily occurring, including in some cases where the brain is abnormally impulsing (which, yes, doesn’t happen often, but it does; and that shows a characteristic of the function).

Even in the case of the abnormal responses for whatever physiological causation, the brain still treats the issue with the same concern and for the same reasons. Just because a memory cell went bad in your PC doesn’t mean that the operating system isn’t going to treat it as valid data and attach all of the same significance to it along with all applications. A mis-firing doesn’t really have anything to do with it unless it is on a very large scale, large portions of the brain are affected (someone poured coffee onto the motherboard). Quite a variety of drugs, viruses, and radio emissions will do that and are designed for that effect. But I hope we aren’t talking about that being the cause of religion.

@Jayson

The constituents of empathy, and value are processed by reductionist ambition, but in and of themselves each of the two constituents has no concern one way or the other.
They simply relay and augment by default of their makeup.

Lost me again… and from there on out.
I suspect that perhaps you are using “reductionist” in some way strange to me or perhaps merely applying it using an ontology that isn’t registering with me.

[V-OutOfTheWilderness]

@James S Saint

That would be the “emotional transference” that I mentioned. The mind hopes for the simple idea that by holding onto something familiar, it can be relieved of the complex decision making that plagues it. Give that same person a real hope of gaining great prosperity (by whatever means they measure such) through some very active means, and they will forget all about that rock. The decision making process would be made simple for them… without the rock.

Yes James. I’m very iconoclastic when it comes to God and religion. But in my daily life I simplify it and give thanks to God for all the little blessings I find in my day … and there are many of them. I’m very silly about it, when I step back and look at it. But I have to be grateful to “something.” Why not God?

[Jayson]

James,

What I mean by reductionist, is your phrase of, “simplicity of decision making”.
To reduce.

Due to the confusion probably taking place where I’m probably sounding like I’m speaking about Reductionism in philosophy, let me rephrase.

The constituents of empathy, and value are processed by reductive ambition, but in and of themselves each of the two constituents has no concern one way or the other.
They simply relay and augment by default of their makeup.