Theory of Four Needs that [adequately] Explain and Describe Religion: The Four Primary Drives: The Need for Meaning, the Need to Belong, the Need for Ideology, and the Spiritual Drive + Unconscious Processes, Durkheim’s Social Forces, Filters and Selective Attention
Abstract: My argument is that religious beliefs are primarily created and generated by four very basic and fundamental “Needs” or “Drives.” From a rather practical and pragmatic approach, in general, religions could be said to involve meaning or purpose, others and relationships, as well as structures and principles for both meaning, relationships, and group coherence and integrity. A general understanding of religious beliefs would seem relevant and significant in understanding spirituality and spiritual processes - which are separate from some of the processes involved in group-related ideological processes which too often dominate spiritual-religious beliefs with overt aggressive tendencies - yet still associated.
Unsplash: Symbols are reflections of reality – not the real reality
1. Need for Meaning: “The meaning of life is to give life a meaning!” – is a quintessential illustration the of the iconic psychoanalyst, Viktor Frankl’s, theory of the human mind! (p. 22 Will) Frankl’s primary principle is that human beings have a Will to Meaning!”
2. The Need to Belong is deeply rooted in human consciousness. As the prominent social psychologist, Roy Baumeister, observed that “It is apparent that people have a deeply rooted need to have contact with other people.” (p.14 Meanings) Baumeister and Leary forcefully argue: “We [Baumeister and Leary] suggest that belongingness can be almost as compelling a need as food and that human culture is significantly conditioned by the pressure to provide belongingness.” (p 498 need)
3. a. Need for Ideology: Religions, as everybody knows are ideologies, the same as political ideologies such as communism or capitalism. In his writing about the politics of emerging countries, Clifford Geertz, an icon of anthropology, argues that religious, ethnic, and nationalistic ideologies are "primordial forces" at work in history and political society.
b. Human beings need order and structure. The social psychologists Michael Hogg and Dominic Abrams, observe that without processes in the mind that put order and organize the multitude of stimuli and experiences, "We would be overwhelmed and paralyzed by overstimulation.” In their book on social identity they emphasize that every psychological ‘theory’, in one form or another, ‘assumes’ that the mind “imposes order” and structure for the processes operating in the mind. (p.17 soc id)
4. Spiritual Experiences and Beliefs as Making sense of the World and Synthesis-Consensus Function: Any objective view of spiritual and religious beliefs – of the myths, the narratives, the parables and the teachings – it would be self-evident that these beliefs “made sense of the world. On top of that there is the Synthesis-Consensus of Frankl, James, and Jung that spiritual experiences [spirit] creates meaning and constructs a sense of reality and makes sense of the world
Preamble: Unconscious Processes, Durkheim’s Social Forces, Filters and Selective Attention
I. Unconscious: Automated Social Perception, Mental Categories, Symbolism
A. Unconscious: Lion’s Share Intimately Connected to the environment
Modern unconscious research demonstrates that the “Unconscious” processes 11 million bits of data per second vs 40 bits of data per second processed by cognitive processes
“Our conscious processing capacity isn’t insignificant, but clearly, it’s just a retention pond compared to the ocean of the unconscious.” (From: Forbes: Your Brain Sees Even When You Don’t June 24, 2013)
B. The Lion’s Share: Three major forms of automatic self-regulation:
John Bargh observes the three major forms: “an automatic effect of perception on action, automatic goal pursuit, and a continual automatic evaluation of one’s experience. From the accumulating evidence, the authors conclude that these various nonconscious mental systems perform the lion’s share of the self-regulatory burden, beneficially keeping the individual grounded in his or her current environment.” (P.462)
C. social perception involves largely automated unconscious processes
John Bargh observes, “The idea that social perception is a largely automated psychological phenomenon is now widely accepted.”
Social Perception is the essence of social Consciousness “Our identities are multifaceted – mother, musician, teacher, yoga enthusiast, NASCAR fan. In each of these [identities] there is stored implicit and ingrained knowledge about appropriate values and behaviors, likes and dislikes, ways of being.”
Commentary: If you think about the massive amounts of information involved in social interactions that puts perspective on the necessity for unconscious processing. Even in basic exchanges between two people involve a lot of information such as tone of voice, body language, hand gestures, and facial features which studies show convey a lot of information. Then there is social context and circumstances. Plus, there are theory of mind processes which process information about the intentions of another person.
D. Mental categories and social perception
“Mental categories are absolutely essential for simplifying and understanding the information-rich environment, the express link between perception [of the environment] and action probably exists for a good adaptive reason, such as creation of appropriate behavioral preparations in the absence of conscious guidance and monitoring. Within a social group, one is more likely to get along harmoniously with other group members if one behaves the same way than when one is "out of sync" and behaves differently. So, it makes sense that the default behavioral tendency in an interaction is based on one's perception of what the other person is doing (Before you know it. Bargh’s research emphasizes stereotypes and norms that create these "mental categories"
E. Symbols, Flags, and Kant’s Symbolic Knowledge:
Kant, Nietzsche, Ortega Gasset, Heschel, Heidegger and most of western philosophy state categorically that symbols are vital for both understanding and knowledge. However, most philosophers also state that symbolism - to a very large extent – remains outside the realm of cognitive processes and rational analysis. In effect, symbolism and quantification are mutually exclusive principles.
Immanuel Kant, an Enlightenment German philosopher (1724–1804), created the theory of “symbolic knowledge.” Abraham Heschel observed, “Kant has demonstrated that it is utterly impossible to attain knowledge of the world as it is because knowledge is always in the form of categories and these, in the last analysis, are only representational constructions for the purpose of apperceiving what is given.” John Glenn stresses “basic concepts (the categories and the ideas of reason) which the human mind employs can only come to be conceived because they are capable of being first presented in concrete symbolic form!” human culture.”
Abraham Heschel highlights the fact that the most obvious, prevalent, and best illustrations of “symbols” are “flags.” Of course, Christian recognize Jesus Christ on the cross as a “symbol” – a symbol with diverse meanings for different people. Kant emphasizes that God can only be understood symbolically – which is in line with St Gregory of Nyssa who states: "The unbounded, incomprehensible divinity remains beyond all comprehension."
II. Genetics, Spiritual Symbolism and Energy
A. The Genetics of Spirituality
Tim Spector, in the article, What Twins Reveal About The Science Of Faith (Popular Science, August 8, 2013) states, “They [the researchers] estimated the heritability of spirituality to be around 40 to 50 percent, which is quite high………..These studies demonstrate our variable but innate inherited sense of spirituality, which affects how we perceive the world, ourselves and the universe.
B. Sociological Evidence of Unconscious Spiritual Symbolism – Star Wars & Harry Potter Fandom
Rhiannon Grant in The Sacred in Fantastic Fandom, Grant observes in 2001, the British government ran a regular census, but they included a new question about religion. In response, almost 0.8 percent of the total population said they were a “Jedi” or Jedi knight!” (p. 38) Those results were repeated in Australia and New Zealand.” The contemporary-modern social popularity of Star Wars and Harry Potter, and the numerous other imaginative fandoms, that provides massive data and evidence of the existence of unconscious spiritual symbolism.
C. Energized unconscious symbolism
In light of the " sociological reality” of Star Wats and Harry Potter Fandoms, spiritual symbols might best be understood in terms of Nancy Furlotti’ s argument which states, " Affect emerges from archetypes, which are the a priori ordering principles of nature, the world, and the psyche. When an archetype is activated, energy is put in motion that does not adhere to the laws of causality, or time and space." (Tracing a Red Thread: Synchronicity and Jung’s Red Book:(2010), Psychological Perspectives, 53:4, 455-478) Beliefs and ideas are very real and incredibly powerful. From that perspective, the idea of "spirit" as energy and force is very real, especially in light of a social-collective consciousness.
D. Prism Paradigm: The Energy-Filter Model
Energy “originating” from unconscious symbolism is processed and filtered – as a metaphor of light (energy) entering a prism and different colors emerging on the other- side of the prism. – As an expression of personal-individual spirituality.
As William James and modern neuroscience points out, people have different views because they filter or process – data and information differently. Personality, upbringing, culture-environment- ethnicity, experiences are shaping factors.
E. Selective Attention as an Evolutionary Adaptive Trait
Bernhard Hommel et al observe: “How is this related to attention? A few sentences after that famous phrase we quoted above, James wrote that attention “implies a withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.” …. And while these simple circuits for governing interactive behavior may seem far removed from the higher cognition of humans, they are indeed the precursors [approach circuit of the rostral tectum] to the mechanisms that control what has been called “selective attention.”
It is argued that selectivity in processing has emerged through evolution as a design feature of a complex multi-channel sensorimotor system, which generates selective phenomena of “attention” as one of many by-products. (No one knows what attention is” Bernhard Hommel & Craig S. Chapman & Paul Cisek & Heather F. Neyedli & Joo-Hyun Song & Timothy N. Welsh)
John Bargh’s story illustrates the power and influence of attention. John Bargh, a researcher and psychologist of the unconscious, observes, “When I was about twelve years old, we had a big family reunion and I decided to bring a tape recorder so we’d have a recording of our grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins for posterity. I come from a large extended family so it was a really noisy room. During the gathering, our grandma sat on the couch and told some great stories in the middle of all other conversations. We listened and enjoyed all of them, and a few days after the reunion, we went back to listen to it again. What a disappointment! Just noise, noise, noise, a million people talking at once and no way to pick out her voice from the other people talking, even though we heard her so clearly at the time. We quickly figured out that we hadn’t noticed the background noise because we had been so captivated by our grandmother’s stories. We’d filtered out what everyone else was saying. (p. 111 Before you know it)
F. Complex interconnectivity of the human brain
Moral Neuroscience: Funk and Gazzanigna observe that “Morality is a set of complex emotional and cognitive processes that is reflected across many brain domains. Some of them are recurrently found to be indispensable in order to emit a moral judgment, but none of them is uniquely related to morality…………Some of the emotions processed are more central to morality than others, but all emotions contribute to moral judgment given specific contextual situations.…….The neural circuits of brain regions implicated in morality overlap with those that regulate other behavioral processes,…..” ) Brain Architecture of human morality, Funk and Gazzanigna Current opinion in Neurobiology 2009 19:678-681) Musical neuroscience indicates intricately interconnected processes: Music cuts across diverse cognitive capabilities and resources, including numeracy, language, and space perception. In the same way, music intersects with cultural boundaries, facilitating our “social self” by linking our shared experiences and intentions.” “The evolution of music and human social capability Jay Schulkin, Greta B. Raglan Front Neurosci. 2014; 8: 292. Published online 2014 Sep 17. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2014.00292”
G. A New Emerging Awareness & Spirituality
“Spirituality is a natural human predisposition. It is more primal than institutional religion and concerns a person’s sense of connectedness with self, others, and the world (or cosmos). Kate Adams Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln & Brendan Hyde Australian Catholic University
The way you look at things is the most powerful force in shaping your life. Irish poet theologian John O’Donohue
Spirituality is a natural human predisposition! It is more primal than institutional religion and concerns a person’s sense of connectedness with self, others, and world!” (K. Bishop Grosseteste U, B Hyde Australian Catholic University) Spirituality is more primal, Anton Killin: "The oldest known musical instruments [date] from 40,000 years ago (40 Kya) ….” Killin argues that music likely originated in hominins as long as 275,000 years ago.
H. Music: A quintessential illustration of Spirituality and Evolutionary Adaptive trait
1. “It seems likely that proto-musical capacities
and their cultural particularizations as musics were crucial factors in precipitating and sustaining the social and cognitive versatility that mark modern humans. (p. 5 – 6 Music and evolution Ian Cross)
2. Music is a core human experience and generative processes
reflect cognitive capabilities. Music is often functional because it is something that can promote human well-being by facilitating human contact, human meaning, and human imagination of possibilities, tying it to our social instincts. Music is a fundamental part of our evolution – and functional because it facilitates “human contact” and out “social self” (The evolution of music and human social capability Jay Schulkin, Greta B. Raglan Front Neurosci. 2014; 8: 292. Published online 2014 Sep 17. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2014.00292)
Theory of Four Needs that [adequately] Explain and Describe Religion: The Need for Meaning, the Need to Belong, the Need for Ideology, and the Spiritual Drive
Meaning and Symbolism
One of Geertz's most significant arguments is that symbolism and meaning are essential and critical, for both culture and religion: “The view of man as a symbolizing, conceptualizing, meaning-seeking animal, which has become increasingly popular both in the social sciences and in philosophy over the past several years, opens up a whole new approach not only to the analysis of religion as such, but to the understanding of the relations between religion and values. The drive to make sense out of experience, to give it form and order, is evidently as real and pressing as the more familiar biological needs. And, this being so, it seems unnecessary to continue to interpret symbolic activities --- religion, art, ideology – as nothing but thinly disguised expressions of something other than what they seem to be: attempts to provide orientation to an organism which cannot live in a world it is unable to understand.” (p.140)
Without question, people, throughout history have derived and gotten meaning from religion and God. As I will discuss later, from the time of Aristotle, who stated "All men desire knowledge, to modern psychology it is clear people have a powerful need for meaning.
Baumeister-Funk & Gazzanigna Paradigm and The Complexity of Religious Beliefs
Baumeister argues that there is no such thing as an “Ultimate Meaning of Life” – rather a synthesis and holistic integration of diverse meanings – family, religion, education, play, police, philosophy, and so on. The neuroscientists observe that: “Moral neuroscience is an intricate and expanding field. This review summarizes the main scientific findings obtained to date. Morality is a set of complex emotional and cognitive processes that is reflected across many brain domains. Some of them are recurrently found to be indispensable in order to emit a moral judgment, but none of them is uniquely related to morality…………Some of the emotions processed are more central to morality than others, but all emotions contribute to moral judgment given specific contextual situations. (Brain Architecture of human morality, Funk and Gazzaniga) ……. The neural circuits of brain regions implicated in morality overlap with those that regulate other behavioral processes, suggesting that there is probably no undiscovered neural substrate that uniquely supports moral cognition.” Brain Architecture of human morality, Funk and Gazzanigna Current opinion in Neurobiology 2009 19:678-681)
The author and scholar, Stefan Schindler briefly sketches the broad outlines of religion: "The Root of the word religion is "ligio", meaning "to connect" (as a ligament connects bone to muscle). Res-ligio = "the linking thing." [is] usually [what I start with] started with that when teaching Philosophy of Religion.... Religion, by linking humans to a larger Meaning-Matrix, provides a sense of being at home in the universe, thereby overcoming feelings of alienation (and encounters with what Camus calls The Absurd). There are two approaches to this. Two interpretations of religion's function. The atheistic approach is to see it as wishful thinking. (Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, Bertrand Russell, etc.) The spiritual approach (a la Plato, Jesus, Buddha, etc.) is to see Authentic religion as a Recollection of our connection to something divine. One of the definitions of Dharma (it has multiple meanings) is connection, link, yoke (which is, of course, the root meaning of the word Yoga).
Religious beliefs and spiritual beliefs are very complex, and involvement of a variety of drives, needs, emotions and hopes. As such, religion most likely performs a variety of different functions for human beings and human society. There are a plethora of theories about why people believe in God: fear of death; wishful thinking; animism, naturalism, fear of the unknown; explanation of the world and its origins; belief in the supernatural; social functionalism (morality; social cohesion); explanation of suffering; anthropomorphism; comfort; coping; naturalism; as well as superstition. None of these theories directly answer the question completely. Each may represent a piece of the puzzle, but none seem to capture the essence of religious beliefs. As the prominent social psychologist Roy Baumeister pointed out "Meaning" as such is actually a conglomeration and collection of various diverse meanings somehow interconnected into a functioning 'whole' or unit.
Fear of Death
Fear of death is a significant influence in human consciousness, and it has been noted by many scholars and scientists that the human being is unique in the animal world because of human awareness of death. Both the sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, as well as Carl Jung and other scientists all advance the awareness and fear of death as a major influence in the supernatural. Early human societies placed significant objects in the graves of humans buried as far back as 100,000 years ago. Grave goods are seen as a significant indication of a conscious awareness of death. Carl Jung emphasizes that early human beings doubtless realized that "life," although intangible and imperceptible, 'disappeared at death, when people stopped breathing - and thus connected "life" with the supernatural (for humans, back then, most likely 'everything' was probably supernatural since at the time there was no concept of "natural." Almost all languages, from Semitic ancient Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, Greek, and so on, do have the linguistic root for "spirit" in the word "breath." Fear of the Unknown David Hume and several other modern scholars, such as Roy Baumeister, connect the beliefs in the supernatural with fear of the unknown and anxiety.
David Hume (1711 to 1776), in his work, The Natural History of Religion, made very astute observations relevant to the condition of ancient humans: "We are placed in this world, as in a great theatre, where the true springs and causes of every event are entirely concealed from us; nor have we either sufficient wisdom to foresee, or power to prevent those ills, with which we are continually threatened. We hang in perpetual suspense between life and death, health and sickness, plenty and want, which are distributed amongst the human species by secret and unknown causes whose operation is oft unexpected, and always unaccountable. These unknown causes, then, become the constant object of our hope and fear; and while the passions are kept in perpetual alarm by an anxious expectation of the events, the imagination is equally employed in forming ideas of those powers, on which we have so entire a dependence." Hume argues that the unknown and largely unpredictable characteristic of forces that directly affect our lives and well-being is a major influence that induces people to adopt and accept religious beliefs and specifically beliefs in the supernatural.
The modern prominent social psychologist Roy Baumeister makes a similar argument when he argues that people have a need for control. He emphasizes that some studies demonstrate that even the "illusion" of control can reduce anxiety and increase resistance to pain. So, I would say only partly tongue in cheek, it would seem the bottom line having some illusions may not be such a bad thing after all?? Innate Anthropomorphic-Animism Software in the Human brain
Xenophanes, Aristotle, Hume and St Augustine
It is second nature for people to think in terms of human traits and characteristics, not only others, but also intangible concepts in terms of human intentions and human goals. The ancient Greek philosopher, Xenophanes (c.570–c.475 BC), was the first 'scholar' to make the observation that anthropomorphism was a very powerful factor in envisioning gods and goddesses. A bit sarcastically, Xenophanes observed that "But if cattle and horses and lions had hands or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do, horses like horses and cattle like cattle also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies of such a sort as the form they themselves have.
Aristotle made the same exact observation. St Augustine (c.354-c.430 AD) also made the same observation hundreds of years later – observing that people have the weakness of envisioning God in terms of a (human) being since it is difficult for them to imagine anything outside their own 'humanness.'
St. Augustine, like St. Gregory of Nyssa believed that God is beyond words and beyond comprehension. David Hume the famous philosopher (1711 – 1776) stated the same exact thought that human beings can only ordinarily think and envision things except in human terms and a human frame of reference.
I can’t resist adding that both Nietzsche and Mannheim observed that “social” influences produced “modes of thought or mindsets” – which would be relevant to seeing God as human.
Unconscious processes
Jean Piaget (1896 to 1980), a famous Swiss developmental psychologist, who did extensive studies of children and their tendencies for animism and anthropomorphism. Children, when they are very young appear to have fewer distinctions between self and world, as well as between self and others. They seem to have an innate tendency to perceive beings, objects, and things as being alive and as living entities or beings. In one study he tried to discover how children thought of life. In his research children were asked questions as to if one thing or another were alive. He found that young children, when very young, had a view of life as being universal. Perhaps this is because their primary self-awareness was that of being alive – so they might ‘assume’ all other things have this “aliveness” as well.
Modern psychologists now recognize that, in the human mind, there is without question a definite process in the human brain which has the capability to attribute mental states and project unto others their perceptions of others’ beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge, and motivations (which can be quite different from one’s own current views) to others. This process is termed “Theory of mind” (neuroscientists tend to describe it as the “default mode network” in terms of brain processes) It is understood that the “Theory of mind” [process is very important for people to grasp and cope with the human social interactions in day to day living. The Theory of mind and is pivotal in analyzing and judging others’ behaviors, and inferring others' intentions, motivations, and actions.
It is a well-known fact that [most – not all] autistics, who are known to have a deficit in their minds' 'theory of mind' functions tend not to believe in 'God,' most likely due to the deficit in 'theory of mind' functions. The bottom line is that the human mind has a definite capacity to envision others and things in terms of a person or entity and attributes intentions and intentional consciousness to them. In Faces in the Clouds, anthropologist Stewart Guthrie advocates anthropomorphism as a major influence in religious beliefs. Guthrie uses a few stories from firefighters fighting forest fires who at times would speak of fires as being alive with minds of their own. From my view, in that particular circumstance employing animism software to envision and imagine the possibilities of forest fires which are known to be erratic and unpredictable would seem very practical in those circumstances.
Jung's Collective unconscious would be in a category of its own. Jung argued that evolution endowed the mind of man, and specifically the Collective Unconscious with a spiritual and religious traits and abilities, and built-in structure that informed and shaped religion and religious beliefs. Jung stated, (Vol 8 [342]) "The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution, born anew in the brain structure of every individual. His conscious mind is an ephemeral phenomenon that accomplishes all provisional adaptations and orientations, for which reason one can best compare its function to orientation in space. The unconscious, on the other hand, is the source of the instinctual forces of the psyche and of the forms or categories that regulate them, namely the archetypes. All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes. This is particularly true of religious ideas, but the central concepts of science, philosophy, and ethics are no exception to this rule. In their present form they are variants of archetypal ideas, created by consciously applying and adapting these ideas to reality. For it is the function of consciousness not only to recognize and assimilate the external world through the gateway of the senses, but to translate into visible reality the world within us."
The Meaning Umbrella & The Meaning Matrix
I started this essay with the concept of "meaning" and the "Need for Meaning" because many of the other reasons and functions of religion and religious beliefs, and most all of these other reasons and factors, could easily fall under the Meaning Umbrella. That is people get meaning from God as a product of their fear of the unknown, or fear of death and so on. There are doubtless hundreds of other factors from needing hope, to getting meaning from other worldly sources when the suffering in the world environment is paramount, to needing transcendence, and so forth. Of course, Jung's idea of the Collective Unconscious in which the "spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution" is embedded would need to fall under the multiple categories of The Need for Meaning, The Need to Belong, the Need for Ideology, as well as including The Spiritual Drive. An unstated assumption but incredibly important characteristic of human consciousness in Jung's Collective Unconscious concept is that the evident reality that inherent in human nature there is a very strong Spiritual Drive. As the physicist Josephson points out many social scientists and scientists obsess over the 'supernatural' aspect of religion and ignore such worldly yet very important ideas such as the reality of a Spiritual Drive. Even a precursory glance at human history reveals an incredibly evident spiritual and religious drive in society and culture!
The Four Primary Drives: The Need for Meaning, the Need to Belong, the Need for Ideology, and the Spiritual Drive
My argument is that religious beliefs are primarily created and generated by four very basic and fundamental “Needs” or “Drives.” From a rather practical and pragmatic approach, in general, religions could be said to involve meaning or purpose, others and relationships, as well as structures and principles for both meaning, relationships, and group coherence and integrity. A general understanding of religious beliefs would seem relevant and significant in understanding spirituality and spiritual processes which are separate from some of the processes involved in group-related ideological processes - yet still associated.
Need for Meaning:
“The meaning of life is to give life a meaning!” – is a quintessential illustration the of the iconic psychoanalyst, Viktor Frankl’s, theory of the human mind! (p. 22 Will) Frankl’s primary principle is that human beings have a Will to Meaning!” Many of famous and iconic ‘Great Thinkers’ in history mirror that very idea and sentiment. From Aristotle, to Carl Jung, Viktor Frankl, Clifford Geertz, Nietzsche, Roy Baumeister, Paul Wong, as well as most existential and positive psychologists, the human drive and need for meaning as well as the core concept of human beings as "meaning-seeking animals" has been consistently emphasized, often highlighting that meaning is absolutely vital for coping with life. The "Will to Meaning" is Viktor Frankl's central concept of his theory. The pivotal concept of Clifford Geertz's almost universally accepted definition of Religion is Religion as a "System of Symbols!" Symbols, of course, embody "meaning!" As, the prominent psychologist, Paul Wong, observes, “religious and spiritual beliefs and practice are thought to serve as a central component of an individual’s orienting system, which helps the individual understand, appraise, and derive meaning from stressful life events and ultimately helps that individual decide how to react.” (p. xl Quest – my italics) Here is a link to an essay about The Need for Meaning: https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/the-need-for-meaning-frankl-jung-geertz-baumeister-and-paul-wo...
Need to Belong:
Human beings have formed groups – and, later, societies – since Homo sapiens emerged on earth. The Need to Belong is deeply rooted in human consciousness. As the prominent social psychologist, Roy Baumeister, observed that “It is apparent that people have a deeply rooted need to have contact with other people.” (p.14 Meanings) Baumeister and Leary forcefully argue: “We [Baumeister and Leary] suggest that belongingness can be almost as compelling a need as food and that human culture is significantly conditioned by the pressure to provide belongingness.” (p 498 need) Baumeister cites medical statistics that show that ‘lonely’ people have a much higher mortality rate, but concludes that “The fact that belongingness predicts happiness more strongly—far more strongly, in America—than any other external circumstances is another sign that the need to belong is exceptionally powerful. Satisfying the need to belong is more crucial and decisive than satisfying any other need.” (p. 109) Baumeister’s Need to Belong is widely accepted in social psychology, and quoted and cited frequently by social psychologists. Here is a link to an essay about the Need to Belong: https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/need-to-belong-society-baumeister
Need for Ideology:
Religions, as everybody knows are ideologies, the same as political ideologies such as communism or capitalism. In his writing about the politics of emerging countries, Clifford Geertz, an icon of anthropology, argues that religious, ethnic, and nationalistic ideologies are "primordial forces" at work in history and political society. From the dawn of civilization men (and women) have fought and died for their ideological beliefs. In World War I, roughly nine to ten million men fought and died for their country. The emotions involved in ideologies and patriotism are tremendously strong. Inter-group conflicts generate the most savage and brutally violent acts in humanity. Furthermore, history would seem to be sufficient proof that religions are groups and that throughout history, religions-religious beliefs form groups. It would, therefore, seem an inevitable conclusion that "a" function of religious beliefs - ideologies would be to 'form" groups, and it would then follow that one purpose of rituals - which Geertz argued were, in essence and at the core, "arguments" (presumably for that particular religion-God), would necessarily be, in that light 'ritual' submission of the individual to the group. That is, in partaking of the rituals, the individual not only accepts the "authority" of the group, but also as many rituals include hierarchal dominance, asl engender acceptance of the hierarchy of dominance. There are over a dozen genocides since WWI. Here is a link to an essay about Instincts and group identity: Instincts, Groups, and Genocides - https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/post-title80df2bb9
Human beings need order and structure.
Francois Jacob observed that man “cannot bear the void!” Susanne Langer, the philosopher, echoes Jacob when she said that man “can adapt himself somehow to anything his imagination can cope with; but he cannot deal with Chaos.” (p. 287 new key) The social psychologists Michael Hogg and Dominic Abrams, observe that without processes in the mind that put order and organize the multitude of stimuli and experiences, "We would be overwhelmed and paralyzed by overstimulation.” In their book on social identity they emphasize that every psychological ‘theory’, in one form or another, ‘assumes’ that the mind “imposes order” and structure for the processes operating in the mind. (p.17 soc id).
Clifford Geertz observed that given the unfocused nature of human needs, desires, drives and instincts, without the structure that culture provides, the human being “would be functionally incomplete, not merely a talented ape who had, like some underprivileged child, unfortunately been prevented from realizing his full potentialities, but a kind of formless monster with neither sense of direction nor power of self-control, a chaos of spasmodic impulses and vague emotions.” (p.99 interp)
Separate and Distinct Processes in the Brain:
When it comes to ideologies, there would appear to be, on the face of it, two distinct levels. The first level, which has already been brought up is that ideologies provide a “Meaning Structure” or a “system of symbols” as Geertz points out when it comes to religion. However, ideologies also organize people as well – through roles, status, meaning, and purpose. That is, especially the emotional structure of people is structured by ideologies, and, unfortunately, group-related instincts, such as patriotism connected with nationalist ideologies, are connected or associated with group ideologies. Here is a link to a brief essay about group-related instincts: https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/post-title80df2bb9
Neuroscience has Identified 360 distinct and separate regions of the brain. MRI tests performed by neuroscientists have shown that different situations frequently engage different brain processes as well as that those different processes, in general, working in tandem with other separate brain processes. The bottom line is that the spiritual processes involved in creativity and ideals such as compassion will be completely different and separate than the brain regions engaged in "defending" the survival and integrity of a group or ideology, for instance.
Spiritual Drive: A Drive – Making Sense of the World A Synthesis-Consensus of Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Emile Durkheim, and William James
Motivation: A Point of Order
I feel the motivation question is a critical question, so I feel this needs to be “addressed” for perspective before proceeding.
Part 1: Spiritual beliefs as a Drive or Motivation. When you talk to "spiritual people" - spiritual beliefs are not just a motivation but a very profound source of inspiration and a powerful drive. In contrast spirituality as a motivation is conspicuously absent from academia. Beginning in 2017, I researched it Extensively and even a scholar of religious had not heard of any as well S. Schindler, Dr. Wong, Dr Emmons, Dr. Park, etc. In the five psychology of religion textbooks I have, there was no mention of spiritual or religious beliefs as a motivation or drive. I messaged five ‘official’ anthropology professors engaged at the time in a discussion that question and got no response. I google-scholared spiritual drive, and I posted in discussions on academia. The bottom line is that science has no explanation at the moment how millions and millions of churches and temples got built. That is mindboggling. “Our” society has probes on Mars, and can measure the reciprocal spin of two subatomic particles separated by large distances but “we” have no current theory or idea as to how all these churches and temples came into being.
Dr. Visuri, who did a really incredibly balanced study of “high functioning” autistics and who is a scholar of religious beliefs, replied to my question about spiritual and religious beliefs as motivation and drive by saying that motivation and drive are important and pivotal questions. I asked her how she might envision motivations. Her response was “Spontaneously, these are some categories I'm coming to think of: - Social motivation: sharing the traditions and beliefs of one's family and community. - Psychological motivation: religion and spirituality used as coping strategies - Experiential motivation: making sense of things that cannot be explained through logical reasoning - Power as motivation: having a position in a religious group that one does not want to lose - Existential motivation: religion and/or spirituality being the core of meaning making. In that “religious studies” are her specialty, it would seem rather evident that the motivation question is not set in concrete in social sciences.
Part II An illustration of the motivation question in spiritual people Nora’s story! from an article on children's spirituality.
First is Nora’s account of her ability to see auras as a younger child: When I was four or five years old, I was playing dolls with two friends. One of them asked what my favorite color was. I replied ‘Pink.’ She asked what shade of pink? I said the shade of pink of the light around your head. Both little girls said ‘What light around the head?’ A fear like a knife went through my heart as I knew they were telling the truth; they didn’t see the light. I was seeing something they could not see. I never saw lights around people again until I was in my 30s. Nora considered seeing auras normal until she realized her friends could not.
Nora observed that “The significance this had on my life after I remembered this experience has made me a seeker of higher consciousness. A believer that my function on this planet is significant to every person on the earth.”
Nora’s observation that “The significance this had on my life after I remembered this experience has made me a seeker of higher consciousness.” Illustrates the motivation question. From my often-informal conversations with people who have spiritual experiences, there appears to be a universal understanding that their experiences have been a profound motivation for them. As a point of information, I would observe that, besides Nora, another woman named Nunzi has that same capability of envisioning auras. Of course, Edgar Cayce, the documented healer-psychic (active roughly from 1923 to 1945) is famous for seeing auras.
Addendum: Spiritual Experiences-Beliefs: Synthesis - Making sense of the World
Any objective view of spiritual and religious beliefs – of the myths, the narratives, the parables and the teachings – it would be self-evident that these beliefs “made sense of the world. On top of that there is the Synthesis-Consensus of Frankl, James, and Jung that spiritual experiences [spirit] creates meaning and constructs a sense of reality and makes sense of the world
Paul Wong is an extremely reputable and well-known psychologist and author. When I approached him with a brief summary of my “New Approach,” he was kind enough to observe that “Your approach is new in the sense of a broad-minded integrative approach, breaking down the artificial traditional divide between science and religious, or scientific psychology versus humanistic or psychoanalytic psychology.” He went on to suggest that a title of “A New Integrative Approach" would be appropriate."
There is a rather remarkable consensus among the psychologists, William James, Carl Jung, and Viktor Frankl that "spirit" and spiritual processes create meaning and a sense of reality. Carl Jung, a psychoanalyst and contemporary of Sigmund Freud, observed that "Spirit gives meaning to his [man's] life" (CW8:643) William James emphasizes in his classic work, originally published in 1902, The Varieties of Religious Experiences that "They [spiritual experiences] determine our vital attitude as decisively as the vital attitude of lovers is determined by the habitual sense,..… (P.47)
William James goes on to say that religious experiences and spiritual experiences create and generate a “sense of reality” (p.48) In the anthology, Meaning in Positive and Existential Psychology (2014), edited by Batthyany and Russo-Netzer, Paul Wong, the prominent positive-existential psychologist, observes: “Frankl considers meaning seeking as stemming from one’s spiritual nature.” (p.156)
The argument that “Spirit” or spiritual processes create meaning, of course, dovetails into Durkheim's argument that religious and spiritual beliefs create norms and social ideals, and, in fact, society as well. The consensus that Spiritual Processes [Spirit] create meaning, a sense of reality and, in the end, actually create Reality and Truth, without question would mean that spiritual processes are intimately connected to the Need for Meaning and Meaning Structure. Yet I would suggest that the spiritual processes accentuate the integrative and synthesis function of meaning, and at times bring transcendence into play. Furthermore, especially in context of concepts such as the Holy spirit, it would seem clear that spiritual processes also play a significant role in the connectivity with others and the group and so also connect to the Need to Belong. Both Jung and Frankl believed that the "conscience" plays an important role in the spiritual processes [spirit] and so as such exercise a moderating effect on the processes involved in the Need to Belong and some of the processes involved in ideological directed processes.
As Emile Durkheim, a founding father of sociology, stated unequivocally: “Today we understand that law, morality, and scientific thought itself are born from religion, have long been confused with it, and remain imbued with its spirit.” (p62 el) More relevant to this discussion. observed, religious and spiritual beliefs not only created morality, values and norms, but perhaps more importantly created social ideals, such as Compassion, Truth, Justice, Equality, as well as Morality and Righteousness. These social ideals are pivotal principles and tenets, not only of every major religion, but also became values and norms embedded in society and social structure.
Lastly it is vital to understand that spiritual and religious beliefs are drives – likely interconnected with other needs and rives.
Conclusions:
The Need for Meaning, the Need to Belong, and the Need for Ideology are without question intimately inter-connected and intertwined. As Roy Baumeister observes, “Meaning itself is acquired socially, from other people and from the culture at large. Nature equips the human being with appetites but not meanings” (p.6 Meanings) - something echoed by many other psychologists who argue that people get meaning primarily from and through other people – significant others, role models, religion, government, educational institution, and so on. That alone, links meaning, and the Need for Meaning, to others, people, and the Need to Belong, which would also be directly connected to structure, organization, and the Need for Ideology.
Lastly, I would briefly would highlight the fact that, while those three basic “needs” cover the bases and sufficiently describe religion and religious beliefs in general, the complexity of the human being would clearly suggest there necessarily exist other significant influences – for instance, the 'Need to Control' and the question of 'Spirit' as a separate category, besides being intimately and directly connected to meaning, as Carl Jung, Viktor Frankl, William James, and Emile Durkheim all agree. That being said, my argument is that the three basic needs - the Need for Meaning, the Need to Belong, and the Need for Ideology - provide a sufficient and necessary cause for the formation of religion and religious beliefs - as Piaget might have said.
Addendum: Death IS A Figment of Your Imagination
Excerpt from mini critique of academic materialism which has had thousands of views and zero criticisms
A. Death IS A Figment of Your Imagination
Excerpt of 2018 critique of academic materialism endorsed by Dr H Koenig, Dr. P Wong, Dr S Farra, & S Schindler - which focused on the fallacy/maladaptive stereotype 'All spirituality is unreal!' W R Miller and C E Thoresen, state that “A philosophical basis for this perspective is materialism, the belief that there is nothing to study because spirituality is intangible and beyond the senses.” That fallacy produces the – from my research – widespread maladaptive stereotype that “All spirituality is unreal” Applying that argument to death which is also not “quantifiable” makes ‘Death a figment of your imagination!" Death obviously is not a figment of the imagination and shows exactly how defunct, dysfunctional and unscientific academic materialism
My critique of academic materialism has had over 5,000 views on academia.edu with zero criticisms.
B. Other methodology flaws and problems
1, It does not follow from the materialist argument that neurons fire in the brain that there is no social consciousness (Baruss, Mossbridge) a) "There is no psychology of groups” (Allport) b) Geertz’s five-part definition of religion has no concept of community or social consciousness. Both Virgilio Enriquez and David Hay state the extreme individualism inherent in western academia is destructive (anti-social)
Contrasted with “religion and spirituality are more or less coherent… meaning systems embedded… acquired through social relationships.” Paloutzian & Park (p. 12)
2, Dr Neal states she has no training in People who have spiritual experiences. DSM has NOTHING on spirituality J. E Kennedy states "very little research" has been done about people. The chapter on experiences in Park and Paloutzian's Handbook reveals experiences but nothing on people
Academic materialism is a system is founded on a number of false premises, fallacies, & maladaptive stereotypes - which makes it a cult. The Materialist Mindset (Mannheim) creates a researcher bias – as shown by flaws and errors.
C. When logic and proportion Have fallen sloppy dead
The lyrics from the Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit song are hauntingly prophetic
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head
Remember what the dormouse said
Feed your head
Truly prophetic – likely a read of meaning in the academic materialist world that we live in – long before Sheldrake who observed “The atheist ideology found a powerful ally in materialist science, which by the end of the nineteenth century, portrayed a purposeless, unconscious, mechanical universe where humans, like all life, had evolved without purpose or guidance. In this godless world [devoid of spirituality], humanity would take charge of its own evolution, bringing economic development, brotherhood, health, and prosperity to all mankind through progress.” (p.157) Sheldrake goes on to say, “The rising influence of mechanistic science accelerated this process from the seventeenth century onward. God was removed from the workings of nature, now seen as inanimate, unconscious, and mechanical, functioning automatically.” (p.155) -purposeless is the pivotal concept.
I should add that I think it is telling that they got the conclusion wrong – instead of feed your head, it should have been feed your heart (spirit)
D. Kaiser Permanente has been abusive.
The U.S. Department of Justice accepted my complaints # 83404-WLP, 83404; 95500, 91650, 91569, 90778 – focused on the degrading-disrespectful response on the Definist fallacy - maladaptive stereotype that "All spirituality is unreal" which my research shows are a problem in academia and American culture. Medical guidelines require respect for spirituality. The KP board of doctors, Dr Davis, Dr Neal & member services told me to go screw myself (effectively). + Dr De Paulo & Dr. P Perez (effectively) conveyed that 'All transcendental spirituality is psychosis!' - including autistic spirituality, dreams of deceased ("not uncommon") & grieving.
Deprived of Medicare: my address in social security is Port St Easton, MD & I am on a tourist visa in Phils in 5-23 KP refused service for my Medicare benefits - because I don't have a Maryland address. - In my view, KP did this in retaliation for complaints I filed. In reply I got DOJ 293169-VXT: Special Litigation Section is “reviewing!”