What Psychology Can and Can't Say About God
"Prove that God exists," says the skeptic.
"Prove that He doesn't," says the believer.
"The burden of proof is yours," says the skeptic, with a sneer in his voice. "Exceptional claims and all that."
"I can't hear you," says the believer with his fingers in his ears -- and he can't, partly because of the fingers and partly because of the sneer.
"What an idiot," the skeptic mutters to himself.
"What a jerk." mutters the believer. Then they both walk away self-satisfied.
This schoolyard, net-yard argument has been repeating itself for centuries, but there's another, more civilized conversation that also has been going on for centuries: a conversation among scholars. This argument has caused some to leave the faith or, more rarely, to join it. It has driven the evolution and bifurcation of Christian theology. And yet, painfully, I think it has had little more effect in building bridges or resolving our deepest questions than the schoolyard squabbles. The burgeoning field of cognitive science may, finally, offer us a chance to have a totally different conversation about religion.
Many scholars of Christianity deal with big theological and philosophical questions: Based on our best ability to follow logic and detect fallacy, what is possible? If we eliminate self-contradiction and faulty reasoning, what is left of our knowledge of the supernatural? They ask not only, "Does the Christian God exist?" but also, "Can the Christian God exist, and if so, in what form?" These are the questions that apologists and counter-apologists have been wrestling with and arguing over for so many centuries.
Psychology, by contrast, doesn't deal with what is possible; psychology deals in practicalities and probabilities. It asks, "What can we know about how people (and sometimes other animals) function within this natural world?" It neither assumes nor denies the existence of a supernatural realm because the methods of science are not applicable to this question, and the findings of science are agnostic on this question. That said, it does assume that if we have sufficient natural explanations for natural events, then we don't assert supernatural causes as well. If schizophrenia can be explained (and controlled) by the presence or absence of certain neurotransmitters, then we don't bother talking about demons possessing schizophrenics.
This assumption is basic to the study of psychology, but not uniquely so. In fact, except where it threatens religious dogmas, it is considered trivially true. Consider our everyday lives. If I think my car runs on gasoline alone, I don't bother to draw magical runes or pray over it after filling the tank. Gallons of hydrocarbons suffice. If I think that locking my door will keep out thieves, I don't bother with sprinkling protective herbs around and above it. If I think that bullets alone kill enemy soldiers, I don't employ a cadre of voodoo specialists to stick pins in figures before going into battle. When we find natural cause-and-effect relationships that are sufficient for us to explain, control, or predict a phenomenon, then we let it be.
That is why a discussion of psychology -- specifically emotions, and even more specifically God's emotions -- is relevant to assessing biblical Christianity. The nature of God may not be subject to psychological study, but religious beliefs and assertions made by humans are not synonymous with God, if some such entity exists. They are natural phenomena, which means they are open to scrutiny via the methods of the social sciences. The Bible states that we humans are made in the image of God. Presumably, the similarities between our emotions and God's -- love, hate, moral indignation, vindictiveness, pleasure at gifts and praise, yearning for companionship, and so forth -- exist for this reason. But what are emotions, really?
Twenty years ago, the focus in psychology was largely on cognition: on memory, learning, attitudes and reasoning patterns that are accessible to our conscious minds. But as new experimental protocols and imaging technologies have been developed, it has become possible to explore a whole Carlsbad Cavern of subterranean mental processes that operate before and outside our awareness. These technologies hold up a mirror not only to our individual quirks and pathologies, but also to mechanisms of information processing and information distortion (cognitive biases) that characterize our whole species.
As cognitive neuroscience has flourished, another field of study has also flourished: affective science, the study of emotions. Psychology largely ignored affective phenomena for years. Emotions seemed too amorphous, subjective and hard to measure. But now neuroscience can correlate self-reports with actual brain scans, hormone levels and more, and affective science has leaped ahead. The growth of affective neuroscience has given researchers confidence to look at how emotions function at other levels -- in decision making, for example, or religious experience.
As we explore the nature of emotion, a set of interesting questions arises. Considering the nature and functioning of feelings, what would it mean for an omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent being to have emotions?
Christian theologian John Shelby Spong once said, "Christians don't need to be born again. They need to grow up." He was reacting to the fact that many believers never outgrow their childhood concept of God as a kind or mean daddy in the sky, one who needs our admiration, can be cajoled for special favors, and covers or beats our backs when we get ourselves into trouble. We often acquire religious beliefs before adolescence, when we are too young to process abstractions. When children are taught that Jesus loves them, they have no means of defining the word love except through their experience of other humans, especially their parents. As we get older, most people don't stop to reevaluate our childhood concepts. Believers rarely ask themselves, "What does 'Jesus loves me' actually mean?"
As long as our childhood ideas and habits, especially religious ideas and habits, are working for us, we seldom take the time to revisit them. Coming out of an Evangelical childhood, I remember how startled I was when I first realized that Catholics, Latter-Day Saints, and Seventh-Day Adventists were Christians! But they were bad, and Christians were good... I started laughing. My old categories had held sway long after I was capable of knowing better.
Looking at God's emotions through the lens of affective science forces us into our adult minds. It puts us in a position from which our adult selves can get a glimpse of the deeply layered god-concepts that are embedded in us whether we believe or not. Some of those concepts come not from our own childhoods but from the childhood of our species. The Bible writers did the best they could to sift through their received traditions and posit their best hypotheses about what was real and good, in other words, what was God. But living as they did, in the Iron Age, they were constrained by how little they knew about themselves. We may not have made perfect progress since then, but, mercifully, we have made some.
If you don't want to miss this series, you can subscribe to Valerie Tarico at this blog, or e-mail her at vt@valerietarico.com with the word "Subscribe" in the subject line.
Further reading:
Darwin, Charles. "Letter 12757 to E. B. Aveling," 13 Oct 1880 (http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-12757).
Spong, John Shelby. Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile. HarperOne, 1999.
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Valerie Tarico: Psychology of God: Do Christians Believe God Has Emotions?
Even suggesting that a deity can have emotions is to play into that childhood understanding. I have some understanding of neuroscience and affective psychology. I recognize that the unfolding understanding of how the brain works will challenge religion, perhaps even more than Copernicus and Darwin did. Certainly, the concepts of cognition, consciousness, awareness, intelligence, memory and knowledge not to mention free will are all open for exploration.
But those are all on the human side. In the first two parts of the series, I have yet to see a suggestion of what sort of deity would have emotions. Can a deity even experience emotions? Perhaps the Olympians?
I suggested in a post on section 1, that we would see a discussion of projection and transference.
Well, OK--maybe for two centuries. Before that, expressing non-belief could get you killed.
Now the believer and the nonbeliever are in the same bolt.
The believer will be unable to see origin and cause of this American decline as a universal principle doing what it does best: Self-destruct those aspects of ignorance that are not in alignment with these universal principles of love and divine intelligence: karma.
The believer has made a God in their image so this imaginary God like them has no problem with 50 million without health insurance, watching another person’s house burn to the ground because they did not pay their 75.00, or continual wars with other religions as the bible is packed about wars between those of chosen people religion status.
Now the nonbeliever is in the same bolt as the believer not being able to see these universal principles in action, as they believe there is no meaning and purpose to life. They are here by accident, gravity created them, and it is socially convenient to be a good person. Natural selection has made most humans good persons.
So as this nation declines to third world status and thanks to these universal principles that communism, socialism and capitalism must self-destruct; this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to become an observer and learn reality discernment. Or not.
It's ok to be an exceptionalist in the political sense, because that view is grounded in history. But it's an exaggeration to assign a religious meaning to that.
I did a double-take at this one: "Gravity created [us]"?
It is very hard not to sneer when confronted by ignorance like this. Please have the courtesy to find out how nonbelievers think before you speak for us. (It's not hard. There have been several best-selling books in the last few years. And Google is your friend. Or you could even, you know, ask somebody).
you can brain scan all you want and you will not find love or intelligence or awareness.
a brain scan confuses cause and effect.
recently I read a book on there is no god and this author mentioned consciousness once and did not even mention awareness.
we have religion that has made a god in their image and we have a materialist that confuses an effect for a cause.
believers or nonbelievers no difference.
"For example, the emotion of love is proposed to be the expression of paleocircuits of the mammalian brain (specifically, modules of the cingulate gyrus) which facilitate the care, feeding, and grooming of offspring. Paleocircuits are neural platforms for bodily expression configured before the advent of cortical circuits for speech. They consist of pre-configured pathways or networks of nerve cells in the forebrain, brain stem and spinal cord. "
Specifically which materialist confuses an effect with a cause? and how?
Please note that every remarkable thing humans do or have done--eradicating smallpox, going to the moon, creating little machines from which we can access something called the "internet"--was done by hard-headed materialists using the scientific method. Faith didn't get any of those things done.
It does not "take faith" to believe in evolution. What it takes is an understanding of the overwhelming evidence we have for the process.
Also note that the believer raises a straw man by asking the skeptic to prove there is no god, as skeptics tend to doubt god's existence, not believe there is definitely no god.
Perhaps if the believer would take the time to provide proof that god exists, understand the skeptic's actual position, etc, it would not be a schoolyard fight. In fact, atheists and theists do, surprise surprise, have civil and intelligent conversations along those exact lines.
Yes, Dan, but I *always* sneer when I'm discussing "god" with "believers"...dang it, I just can't help myself.
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Free, reasoning people simple refuse to judge what lacks a preponderance of evidence, as true. Meaning, deities don't exist until there's sufficient evidence suggesting they do. That's how the American judicial system works, on the preponderance of evidence or lack thereof. Judgment can't be inconclusive. When sufficient evidence is available, it would be reasonable to reopen the case.
Even if judgment is rendered true, meaning existence of a deity is granted, I'd psychoanalyze and critically assess whether the deity is worthy of attention, respect or reverence. Most deities have demonstrated passive-aggressive personalities, human emotions, immoral virtues. Why would a perfect being desire worship(a morally corrupt quality)? What pleasure does it derive from demanding the submission(enslavement) of humanity? Etc. Those are questions to ask. Respect isn't a right. It must be earned.
Science answers questions. Religion fabricates answers. Philosophy is Science. Religion doesn't answer philosophical questions. Religion professes a pseudo-philosophy to cloak it's desire to subjugate humanity to it's deity. Religion begins, insists on the assumption that God exists. It doesn't answer the question "Is there a God?" in a truthfully challenging, substantiated manner. Religion sells an unsubstantiated motive to submit to it's deity: For eternal afterlife? Enslavement is immoral. Bait and trap is immoral. Why's there something instead of nothing? Energy. Intelligent Consciousness requires an enabler called 'energy' for it's existence, functions. Energy is the 'Creator' and 'First Mover'. God refuted. Religion unnecessary.
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"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies." - Thomas Jefferson
No wonder they invented gods.
And we can count ourselves fortunate to live in times where such tyrannical, enslaving, worship-addicted gods have been shown to not exist, and explanations for much of what is around us have been discovered; and we can be certain that given time and resources, we will answer the vast majority of our questions with scientific research.
I still stare at the stars in awe, though--intellectually knowing that they are stars does nothing to dampen my wonder at them.