Vanna,

I think that academics nowadays would certainly get brownie points from their universities if they could uncritically proclaim that Islam is 100 % a religion of sweetness and light and, just as fifty years ago there was no such thing as the Mafia, there is nowadays no such thing as al Qa'ida (it's all an American lie), and the Muslim Brotherhood is a selfless community organisation dedicated to equality and peace.

A. J. Phillips,

Thank you a thousand times for that magnificent quote:

“The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship ... There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

Joe

Loudmouth,
Nothing in life is 100% "sweetness and light", but the tendency now is to denigrate all religions.

Meanhwhile, it is more than likely that humans are genetically predisposed to worship a God or a set of Gods.

Unfortunately for many university academics, they are no longer considered godlike.

I think that Santa has a lot to answer for.

I think that when children find out there is no Santa that their disappointment is so great that they willingly turn to the concept of God, the one promoted by all manner of mischievous men who know a sucker when they see one.

The amazing thing is that there have been 40 plus comments on this thread and they all talk about nothing because god does not exist. It is a Santa-replacement for adults who can't quite grow up!

God-hole, paah! It's a nonsense as is life after death and heaven and hell.

Wake up and smell the roses!

DavidG,

No not really about nothing.

The "parent hole", to use analogous terminology, is quite real, with excellent biological reasons for existing and a clear basis for variation and selection, hence evolutionarily sound.

Religions co-opt this real thing and pervert it something different, analogous to the way in which a healthy and beneficial desire for rich food in hunter-gatherers is subverted by the false promise of sugar-rich confections in industrialised times.

Religion promises nothing that is not a gross exaggeration of parental care, and knows it. The principal way of describing "god"'s concern is purely through reference to that of real parents, but of course the religious "father" is bigger and better.

Sells has not acknowledged this biological basis despite the terminology infesting religious language, a severe failing given that he is aware of such matters. Sells has not provided any sound reason why it may be insufficient. Given the bizarre psychological manipulations many religions use, I believe Sells cannot justify *any* component of "religious experience" that is definitively incapable of being mimicked through intense delusions encouraged by lifelong indoctrination and social pressures all based on an "innate" desire to bond with parents.

Sells has posited a "proclivity" without giving any reason why it *in fact* represents anything more than a perversion of natural yearning for parental care, guidance or even self-discovery. He claims it is *special*, effectively numinous or somesuch, and acts as if positing the possibility makes it so. Even Sells is aware that Aristotle got much more tangible things wrong, and is hardly a guide on this one.

Sells is trained as a scientist, it seems bizarre that his "faith" requires such word games. It is insulting to his competance and ours to posit one developmental pre-priming (language) while ignoring the one most prominently applicable to religion (parent bonding).

One might get away with that in church publications, but not in any effort to arrive at genuine understnding.

Rusty

Rusty Catheter:
Thank you for your last post -- a very clear presentation of your position. Nevertheless my own view hasn’t changed since our last exchange: adopting God as a parent-substitute is what some Christians do, but some others don’t. (I can’t say whether it’s the same in other religions because I don’t know them well enough.)

But your last post makes it clear that you’re using evolutionary theory as the basis for all your reasoning. I suggest that evolutionary principles are very useful in dealing with many phenomena in human life, but not with all. There is a human drive that aims beyond survival.

Crabsy,

It is insufficient for you to make the assertion that there is something more than parent substitution. You may have been indoctrinated to think so, but that does make it so. Having already been emotionally snared, it is possible to devote a *lot* of effort to imagining things not real.

The onus is upon you (or Sells) to show that there is *no way* that co-option of the mundane can explain religious experience. Further, to demonstrate why there is something so extraordinarily special about it that (a) religion is definitely the answer and (b) "christianity" can claim to be the sole fullfillment in the face of others claiming likewise about other religions.

I don't think you'll have much luck there.

A "human drive beyond survival", which I might happily stipulate later, is not useful if it is subverted and applied to things that have no basis, like pseudo-needs confected by people with a vested interest in supplying pseudo-fullfillments.

Rusty.