maximilian finds it intellectually repugnant that when we are offered a (scholastic) philosophical explanation, everyone nods and agrees, and nobody seems to see that there are alternative explanations. the presence of such explanations serves to, at the very least, show that the (scholastic) explanation, being one of many explanations, may be the wrong one. of course, these alternative explanations are rarely taught or mentioned in philosophical circles, perhaps because philosophers do not understand science, are too lazy, or fear it for being an evil system and built by antimetaphysical laboratory miscreants of satan.
what a betrayal of the thomas aquinas that they worship! thomas at least pretended to have a system where he brought in alternative explanations and then debunked them in favor his explanation. ironic that maximilian_antithomas, should be the one who adheres to the methodology of their idol (yes, idol, for he suspect that they pray "in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the thomas aquinas, amen").
having taken cheap shots at the thomists, we now move to the topic of this essay: that there is this innate need / drive / force in humans (although thomists like to say "in men," perhaps because women don't exist in their language), and this drive is one that is towards god and religion. the explanation for the presence of this innate desire to believe in god is this: it is placed there by god. therefore, god exists, for nobody else but the creator could have written this desire in our hearts. this is similar to the wimpy justification for their ethics: "the natural law written in our hearts." the care bears would love that.
but there could be other explanations that could suffice to explain this apparent desire to have a god, explanations that do not require belief in an all-powerful *magical* being. again, if the discussion is among philosophers, then the rule should be to use human reason and sound logic, not testimonies from prophets and volumes of revelation. unfortunately, the philosophers around here do not seem to have the time to read (and understand) the wisdom that science has accumulated using human reason and sound logic.
appeal to evolutionyet evolution (maximilian will argue evolution more in other essays) gives a valid explanation, and the theory evolution is not just a theory, it is the essential epistemic paradigm of all biological sciences ("epistemic paradigm" means "guiding the way of thinking and worldview of its adherents"). thus, anything that has to do with life or its life's processes, fall under the auspices of this paradigm, and the mental and emotional ("spiritual") processes of human life is governed by the rules of evolution. because of natural selection, our more intelligent ancestors in the african savannah were more adept at finding patterns and applying them towards daily survival, and hence, had better chances living long enough to have intelligent offspring. the dumb ones died out, and the species as a whole, generation by generation, inched towards intelligence (though quite a few dumb ones are still around today). biologically speaking, intelligence was made possible by the presence of more cerebral neurons in specific combinations (and for those who think that intelligence is in strictly in the spiritual mind and is not the brain, let's give them a brutal lobotomy and see how intelligent they are afterwards). these traits were passed on to the children, and so on. it even got to the point that the babies' heads were starting to get too big that childbirthing became fatal. hence, those with huge heads failed to be born, while those with smaller heads made it into the world. the end result is the balance we have today--the baby will grow to be an intelligent human with a relatively large cerebrum and, more importantly, a complex cerebrum, but is born before the head becomes too large. thus, the human is born early, and has to spend a few helpless months outside the womb to complete the maturation process. horses don't have this problem -- they're born ready to run. the result of this intelligence is clear today. mathematics, language, and everything else are all about patterns. but in the beginning, when the human was faced with the world and all its mysteries, some things were just beyond comprehension. lightning was a mystery, and yet there had to be a cause. at least for the human, he or she had to attribute a cause for it, since he or she was obsessed with cause and effect patterns -- the hallmark of intelligence. so why not posit an "unknown force" and be done with it? some decided to give it an animistic nature -- the first deities. eventually, anthropocentricism would create more human-like gods. this tradition of relying on the unknown force to describe and explain things beyond our comprehension is still with us today. astronomers have their elusive dark matter. theists have their gods. the prehistoric societies clung to their belief in deities for reassurance and guidance and social organization. ethics, that slippery branch of philosophy so hard to pin down, makes the most sense and is the most systematic when it is within the context of a religion and is among believers. society's rules and norms demanded that there be gods to reward and punish, since society's authority couldn't be everywhere. ethics, like human psychology, evolved, too. here is the source of our marriage and sexual norms and taboos, our ideas of ownership and justice -- all intended to make sure the society does not decay and people kill each off in grudge contests and survival competitions. today, we continue in this tradition, but in our daily lives, there is also something quite personal that makes us wish there was a god. the turmoil and sense of not being in control, repulsive to us since we are intelligent beings that demand order and patterns, demands a belief in something larger than ourselves, something that will magically save us when we need saving. some would call such a belief faith. some would call such a belief convenience. this tradition we still have, and exposed to it, we eventually get attracted to the idea of having a god. this is the innate desire. |
appeal to psychologyeven if one does not believe in evolution, one can see that intelligence, the capacity to learn and to apply this learning, is basically finding patterns. putting paperclips into the socket means electric shock. do this several times, and you learn not to mess with electric sockets. if asked to put the paperclip into an open appliance circuit, you'd apply what you'd learned and say no. monkeys can learn this. so this innate desire for a god may be a product of human psychology. it is a natural symptom of intelligence striving to find meaning and patterns in things. now faced with the exquisite mess of daily life and the daily problems that seem to defy analysis, where does the human mind turn to? unable to find meaning, the human creates an x-factor. remember algebra? when we need to solve a word problem and we don't know the value of something, we say, "let it be x" and begin to work from there. this was the case with our ancestors, who needed an explanation for lightning and posited "let it be zeus" or whoever. this is god. where is the meaning for why mother got sick? let it be x. for those brought up in a nontheist environment, this x is chance or coincidence. for others, having been exposed to religion, they think this is god. therefore, this search for god may not necessarily be proof that there is / was a god who wrote such a desire in our hearts.
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