Is the belief in the existence of a higher power obsolete, or is it innate in the human psyche?

I think that people have an innate yearning for "something more". It seems to me that people who live an amoral or immoral lifestyle feel this after awhile.

It is a very hard question to debate, but a good one.

Atheists use reason above all else. Perhaps to them, the "worship" of reason replaces the need for believing in a higher power. I don't know, I have never been an atheist.

I believe there is something in us that asks "Why am I here?", but I do not believe that a higher power is necessarily a part of that. They may be the conclusion some people come to though.

I have concluded it is innate. It is not the same for every person. Some will have a great tendency to rely on such a belief system while others may have none. Most people do have this as part of their psyche but not all people.

I think we simply have an innate curiosity about the world. When things couldn't be explained, people turned to the supernatural. Early civilizations worshipped the sun, rocks, trees or enigmatic spirits. They worshipped gods and goddesses, finally trickling down into the mega-monotheisms we see today. In addition to entities, and more specifically deities, we also have other ambiguous forces we attribute the unexplainable to, whether we call it luck, chance or fate.

Whatever name people give to the unknown, their curiosity -- the who, what, why and when of our existence -- the only thing I see to be innate is that curious nature. If people choose to name that "God" (theists), then I suppose it could be argued for them that "God" is innate. Others like myself (atheist) can resign ourselves simply to shrugging our shoulders for the time being and saying, "I don't know."

Like Gray Seal, I think that the belief in a higher power is innate...or at least the quest for 'something more'.

I was raised by atheist parents. My folks are so anti-religion that when they came to visit and I read the children's bible to my son, my father felt compelled to pipe in, "So...indoctrinating him at a young age, are ya?" When my (half) sister suggested we say a prayer before Thanksgiving dinner, my father said,"You can pray all you want, but I'm certainly not going to".

One of my earliest memories was regarding a conversation with a friend (I think I was 3), and being excited to hear that one could actually talk to God through prayer. I don't know how I already had the preconceived notion that God existed. It was certainly never introduced to me at home.

This is an interesting topic for me, as someone who is terribly conflicted with the idea of an all supreme, all knowing entity who "created" all that is. I've taken several courses in philosophy in order to come to terms with the above quote.

I personally think that humans will always be asking, "why am I here"...looking for meaning in their lives.

Despite the fact that I am conflicted, I do have my children attend church, and sunday school, simply for the fact that I do believe that its important for them to have moral grounding. In the mean time, I continue to do my research on the dead sea scrolls, John Keel, ancient spacemen, and reincarnation, looking for answers myself.

Since the idea of "seeking God" in the sense of "other" is a particularly western idea, I can hardly conclude that belief in a higher power is innate. The fact that there are so many religions and philosophies in the world is evidence enough that people do not innately seek God.

We seek to understand that which we fear; we fear that which is unknown. The greatest unknown is death, so it is no surprise that many of the world's religions address this in very central ways. What we innately seek is not God but security; being forgiven and being assured a comfortable eternity after death are a means of achieving a sense of security.

I'm not knocking religion here; all religions are "valid," in the sense that they provide an answer to our most fundamental fears. Can anyone be blamed for believing in that answer (whatever it might be), when the perceived alternative is hopelessness, fear, despair?

Since we are physically inextricable from the the universe at large, it is my belief that there is no external causation - there really is no "external" or "internal" at all. The answer which comes from outside is false, because it is received rather than discovered, fully formed; it merely disguises our fear - it does not overcome it.

In the distant past, belief in a higher power both explained things that we didn't understand about the world and gave comfort to those who needed it. While the first isn't necessary anymore, some people still need the second. Many people are still terrified of death and the thought that they are alone and truly responsible for their actions. This is why man has invented all manner of things, not just gods, to look up to. Look at how many people believe that aliens are watching over us. Or nature spirits. Or, of course, gods.

Look at the basic belief structure that underlies religion. Belief that we're going somewhere 'better' when we die, which deals with an innate fear of death and the unknown. Belief that a deity is looking down on us and watching out for us. A 'devil' to explain why there are bad things in the world, to blame our failings on. It gives a sense of community and commonality that many people require. And unfortunately, religion has given man a method of dealing with things that are 'different' by declaring them evil. If you're not with 'us' you're against 'us'. If you don't believe as we do, you're going to hell, and far too many are willing to help the 'sinners' on their way.

Should religious belief be obsolete? Certainly. We should know better, especially about the really bizarre aspects of religion. Humans, however, simply find solace in things beyond themselves such as father figures in the sky who can magically make everything better. Until we really learn to stand on our own two feet and take ultimate responsibility for ourselves, religion will remain a part of humanity. It isn't a bad thing in general, so long as the negative aspects can be controlled.

quarkhead, that pretty much summed up my sentiments on the subject

Throughout the course of history, religion and the many "idols" and "ideas" that have been worshipped have served many purposes in people's lives...but I don't think the idea of/belief in some sort of "higher power" is something innate.

It is through our own curiosity about our world that we seek to answer the questions that seem to have no reason based upon "science" or "that which we know to be fact"...if we can't explain it within the realm of our understanding of the world, then there must be some other "force". We don't like it when we don't know the answer to something, so as a means of comfort, we seek to create answers with the information we do have/know.

I don't know...to me it's more of a reaction/response to something in one's environment (be it fear of the unknown, a desire to justify specific actions, etc.) than something occuring "naturally" at birth.

Since we don't live in a vacuum, this sort of thing seems impossible to explain/understand on either side.

Though I am a born again Christian, I am not so self righteous to presume that my beliefs are the end all say all on spirituality and religion. One's personal convictions are just that, personal. But I had an uncle who once said, "In an infinite universe there are infinite possibilities." And I've come to believe that like most on this board, the search for truth is true human nature and what separates us from the other species. That search for answers is in someways more important than the answers that we may find. I personally believe that "god" in what ever form he, she, it may be in, has engraved on the human spirit the yearning for a connection with that entity for a variety of reasons, the least of which is comfort in the fact that we are not alone in this infinite universe...

Neither.

It is clearly not obsolete; the vast majority of human beings have some sort of spiritual belief system. It is clearly not innate, because a small minority of human beings do not.

Personally, I can't even get a handle on what anyone means by "spiritual" that would not be adequately covered by the word "emotional."

I have no problem with being told that my lack of belief in anything spiritual is wrong; I have a problem with being told that I am not telling the truth when I say that I have no belief in the spiritual.

Thank you Victoria. You've expressed what I've been fumbling to say for a long time. Maybe we should start a thread asking "what is the spirit anyway"?

I tend to agree with quarkhead on this one.

I think that people are afraid of the unknown and post-death is a great big ?mark. People tend to go to church more and find religion as they approach that part of life (old age for many people or maybe terminal illness). In any case I think thats an indicator of why people seek/need religion in many cases.

I also agree with Abs when he says that people have innate curiousity about the world. I think its a combo of innate curiousity as to why we exist, where all this came from, and what the meaning of all this is, as well as a fear of what is unknown and beyond this life.

edited to fix punctuation/grammar errors