The Concept of God, Our Brain and Dilemma of Determinism Part2 of the series

By Prof Kuldip Sidhu

In the animal world, there appears to be no concept of God (Albeit animated Gods are prevalent in various religions like Hinduism) and it is still thriving, similarly our prehistorical human ancestors were also atheist. The modern human society began to emerge about 15, 000 years ago, with the advent of agriculture and initially consisted of small tribes that could effectively be governed with civility. But as the tribes became bigger and so were the demands for food and civility was not easy to achieve. Hence some wise persons, a head of their time invented the concept of God overseeing all of us and for greater good of society. The fear of God became a mechanism to control barbarous tribes. But this came with a price of enslavement of mind, the free will and where even today religious societies determine the fate of us all at large. The religion still today plays a vital role in politics and economics thus is in helm of affair regulating our mind and compromising the free will (deterministic approach).

After a lot of research into the various religious beliefs of the highly commercialized regions of the world, I have come to the conclusion that God was created in the image and likeness of the rulers of that particular geographic location. These rulers, through their advisers, created religions that targeted the fears of the people at the particular time. These advisers were similar to the marketing consultants and advertising specialists of today. The wealthy people found creative ways of keep the working-class people (slaves) obedient to their whim and fancy. The working-class people were threatened with eternal damnation for disobedience to the divine laws and instructions of an invisible authority called God. This God has created you in his image and likeness to obey and serve him with blind faith. This God choose special servants to be his messengers to his humble and obedient subjects. This God also commands that his loyal slaves in some religion must kill all those who do not obey his commandments, leading to the birth of separatist, cult and extremism!

Emergence of the concept of God in human history

The first humans were atheist, and the concept of God evolved gradually and even our primitive ancestors like Neanderthals about half a million years ago practiced some Godly burial rituals.

‘But how could that concept of God be perpetuated and surviving even now for centuries?’Is it a fear, belief or innate or in our brain’?

The faith, religion and reason are evolutionary distinct in human history but psychologically inscribed differently just as the epistemological opposite to each other. When you adopt the faith and religion, reasoning goes out of the window and concept of God appears real and the opposite is also true.With the emergence of modern society and cultural evolution where reasoning prevails, the faith and religion are becoming least important. For example, Japan, an elite society have only 4% believer in God and same is also true for Western Europe. America is an exception as the greater good has not prevailed there and it still remains as an individualistic society particularly with huge burden in health care. Surprisingly and similarly in underdeveloped world, there are more believer in God for the same reason.

Let’s fast forward a few millennia, where we are now living in a technologically advanced society driven by science and laws of physics and not the whims of faith, spirits or deities. Nevertheless, religious belief in one or more Gods that watch over our actions and judge us accordingly is quite prevalent in society. At the same token, religious belief has dropped tremendously over the last century, and we need to look and analyse at its reasons and causes. According to 2016 census in Australia, we’re a religiously diverse nation, with Christianity remaining the most common religion (52%). Islam (2.6%) and Buddhism (2.4%) were the next most common religions reported. Nearly a third of Australians (30%) reported in the Census that they had no religion in 2016.
The religious makeup of Australia has changed gradually over the past 50 years. In 1966, Christianity (88 per cent) was the main religion. By 1991, this figure had fallen to 74 per cent, and further to(52%) in 2016. Australia is increasingly a story of religious diversity, with Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, and Buddhism all increasingly common religious beliefs. Hinduism had the most significant growth between 2006 and 2016,drivenbyimmigrationfromSouthAsia.The growing percentage of Australia’s population reporting no religion has been a trend for decades, and is accelerating. Those reporting no religion increased noticeably from 19 per cent in 2006 to 30 per cent in 2016. The largest change was between 2011 (22 per cent) and 2016, when an additional 2.2 million people reported having no religion. How likely a person was to identify as religious in 2016 had a lot to do with their age. Young adults aged 18-34 were more likely to be affiliated with religions other than Christianity (12 per cent) and to report not having a religion (39 per cent) than other adult age groups. Surprisingly similar demographic trends are reported in other parts of the world. According to 2017 survey by Pew Research Centre on Religion and Public Life in US, when asked what makes life meaningful, only 20% related it to religion and faith, majority mentioned (69%) family.

Mercier (Mercier, B., Cramer, S.R. and Shariff, A.F. (2018). Belief in God: Why people believe, and why they don’t. Current Directions in Psychological Science) and colleagues divide the proximate causes of religious belief into three types: cognitive, motivational, and societal. One cognitive factor is analytical thinking style. People who tend to act according to reason rather than intuition are also less likely to believe in God. Perhaps relatedly, we also see a tendency for people who are higher in intelligence to hold agnostic or atheistic beliefs. In contrast, people who are high in what’s commonly called “emotional intelligence”—that is, the ability to easily discern the emotions and motives of others—also tend to be more religious. Of course, it’s exactly this ability to read others’ minds that led to the rise of religious belief in the first place, hundreds of thousands of years ago.

‘This is the faculty of our brain that was effectively understood and then exploited by some early geniuses to regulate us all’

There are also motivational reasons for religious belief. People who are socially isolated tend to have more religious faith, perhaps allowing them to feel they’re not truly alone. Likewise, people facing death are more likely to express faith in God and an afterlife. The old saying that there are no atheists on the battlefield is no doubt true to a large extent. Furthermore, faith in God increases when situations become uncontrollable, as in the case of natural disasters. Believing that God has a plan helps people regain some sense of control, or at least of acceptance.

Another motivational factor is self-enhancement. If you live in a society where religion is prized, it’s in your best interest to say you believe, whether you truly do or not. I’m sure there are plenty of doubters in the religious crowds not admitting due to fear of being discarded in such groups. And it’s not uncommon to hear stories of priests or pastors who’ve lost their faith but continue to preach because it’s the only way they have of making a living. One of my close friends, a psychiatrist once admitted that this subject of psychiatry is the least understood even to him but he is practicing it for decades and it is helping people.

Finally, there are societal factors that influence the degree of religious belief within societies. As a general rule, religious belief is considerably lower in developed countries compared with the underdeveloped world. For instance, Japan has one of the highest standards of living in the world, but only 4% of its population claims to be religious. Traditionally, Japan was a Buddhist country, and religion played an important role in the daily lives of the Japanese until after World War II. A similar trend has occurred in Western Europe, which many social scientists now characterize as “post-Christian.” Looking at the ‘ground zero’ at Hiroshima recently made me rekindle by believe that if there is a super power out there and is kind, it would have not allowed this butchering of more than 200, 000 people including children in one go by the fellow human beings! or was it a fate predetermined by the Almighty as may be the case in most of the air crashes, it all does not make any sense to me.

To be continued…