Do humans have a faith instinct?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The short answer to the OP title is, "Yes. Because man is a social animal."

Try sometime imagining a capital-G God for an asocial animal. Say, leopards.

Who can limn the leopards' God?

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by SamIam

It seems as though history always describes a faith of some sort in ancient and not so ancient peoples. Anthropoligists often make the same observations of the peoples they study.

I think it would be more accurate to say that we are wired with pattern-making brains that see the world as cause-effect. For early humans, many of the things that mattered to them (weather, season, crop yield, reproduction) were the result of non-observable forces. In that scenario, they created a narrative that fit the pattern, a cause for the observed effect.

[Shawnee123]

It sounds like the old: better believe it IN CASE it's true. Which is not really faith or belief at all. I mean, if there IS a god, he's probably onto that ploy, and has Great Disdain for lip service.

[jujuwwhite]

I agree, Shawnee, I do happen to believe in God and worship Him in my own way and have my own relationship with Him but I also know He knows my true heart and can discern any 'make believe' I have. That's why I don't participate in organized religion anymore.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by jujuwwhite

I agree, Shawnee, I do happen to believe in God and worship Him in my own way and have my own relationship with Him but I also know He knows my true heart and can discern any 'make believe' I have. That's why I don't participate in organized religion anymore.

I think that is why I do.

Hey, raised Unitarian; baptized Episcopalian. Neither one is a faith for dummies.

Jinx's mom is looking at the eye the wrong way: from front to back, rather than back to front. Back to front makes a LOT more sense in evolutionary progression. Retina as a light detector, and so forward. Nature is full of partial eyes, though these are primarily found under water on simple organisms. Don't think I could name a single terrestrial example, even on a bug.

[Pico and ME]

I remember trying to 'believe' when I was little. I grew up in an atheist household but everyone else around me had 'faith'. So sometimes, lying in bed, I would practice believing with all my heart...just in case they were right. Even at that age, I felt really silly doing it. It just wasnt there for me, it was like trying to believe in Santa Claus after you were fully aware that he was a made up creation. In fact, in my young mind, it was knowing that Santa and the Tooth Fairy were not real that made it easier to realize that adults were doing the same thing about God.

[Pie]

Originally Posted by Pico and ME

I remember trying to 'believe' when I was little. I grew up in an atheist household but everyone else around me had 'faith'. So sometimes, lying in bed, I would practice believing with all my heart...just in case they were right. Even at that age, I felt really silly doing it. It just wasn't there for me, it was like trying to believe in Santa Claus after you were fully aware that he was a made up creation. In fact, in my young mind, it was knowing that Santa and the Tooth Fairy were not real that made it easier to realize that adults were doing the same thing about God.

Wow, I had exactly the same experience! Lying in bed, saying the "our father" in my head, waiting for it to be meaningful in some way... I gave up after the third day, I think, and went back to multiplication tables.

It left me with the strong understanding that reality is far more meaningful, beautiful and dependable than fantasy. YMMV.

[skysidhe]

I think we are basically altruistic beings so in that sense it could be genetic but as far as faith goes and what we hold that faith to and how we express it is a matter of perception and preference.


I think if by faith we mean church then I think some people choose to express their altruism through it.I think homeless shelters and charities are a good examples of this.

I think some people express faith by going to church which may not have any altruistic motivations at all.

I have faith in the basic altruism of man. I have faith in nature. I have faith in the natural progression of life and all that goes on in living day by day.
I don't know what it means to have faith in god if god is judging me by my faith because if he is then it is probably lacking. I am not saying I do not have faith...it just a certain particle of something I cannot really explain.

Originally Posted by Pie

Wow, I had exactly the same experience! Lying in bed, saying the "our father" in my head, waiting for it to be meaningful in some way... I gave up after the third day, I think, and went back to multiplication tables.

That's so poignant. To me

[Shawnee123]

We were told if we didn't believe (or even if we didn't do our homework) we would writhe in hell fire for all eternity.

(My 'rents didn't say that... they just sent us to Catholic elementary because it was a better school and my dad went there. After that, they didn't seem to care if I writhed in hell fire for all eternity. Hmmph.)

[morethanpretty]

I grew up in a Christian household, and for a long time I thought I should be too. I would lay in bed at night praying, asking for help. Waiting for it. I was taught, if you gave your burden over to Jesus, he would take the weight of it on his shoulders. So when I was especially troubled I would pray, I would try really hard to believe and have faith, but the weight never lifted from my shoulders. I would end up feeling worse, because despite my best efforts I obviously didn't have enough faith because the burden didn't get lighter. The emotional pain was mostly chemical (clinical depression), I did my best to help myself, but Jesus was supposed to be helping me too. Never did.
The suicidal tendencies didn't lessen until I gave up trying to have "faith."

I don't think humans have a genetic coding to make us have faith in the supernatural. I think we have always needed to explain the world around us, and there was no explanation or scientific method, ect, so the explanation we tended towards was supernatural because natural processes were so beyond our grasp. I think our current belief in the supernatural is just like tradition. Our societies have been so ingrained with religious beliefs, its going to take a long time for us to progress past it. There are still a large number of natural laws and processes that we don't understand, for some its just easier to attribute it to the supernatural.

My mom is one of those. She'll tell me something like, "The eye is so intricate and well developed for its purpose, we can't even get close to making something like that, only God could do that." Its a dumb argument for God to since evolution has had a few billion years to develop the eye. Humans have had what, a few hundred thousand years? There is no comparison.
Just because we can't recreate some product of nature, doesn't mean it had to be God. That is a lazy explanation.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by morethanpretty

My mom is one of those. She'll tell me something like, "The eye is so intricate and well developed for its purpose, we can't even get close to making something like that, only God could do that."

Whose eye? Ours? A squid's?

[morethanpretty]

Originally Posted by jinx

Whose eye? Ours? A squid's?

Our eyes. Good article, I shall have to remember it.