I would argue that that we do not have a desire to seek god, but a desire to seek answers and certainty, and God is one tool that people use to fulfill that need by providing answers to questions which otherwise cannot be answered
Seeking God for ANSWERS to questions that couldn't otherwise be answered?? What would be some examples of such answers that ONLY god could provide, friend?
@@Bill..N Any question? there would be no need to guess. If god knows everything we could know everything thru him. I quite like what @sordidknifeparty is saying, i would add that a desire for god could also be explained by our survival instincts and impulses. I think those could bring about desire for immortality and for a god which can grant us that immortality. Again, to answer your first question better, see what i think about survival instincts and desire? That's what i think but i have no way to know this is 100% true. @sordidknifeparty is saying only god could grant answers to these kind of questions with 100% certainty.
Possibly, but if you were to ask believers certain questions like “why did God allow such and such to happen” or why did God create us in the first place, most will tell you that they don’t know or that while they don’t know they trust God. So it seems like belief in God doesn’t necessarily provide answers to everything.
I always find the Skyrim Bandit Explanation compelling. You know how Skyrim Bandits go:"Must have been the wind!" when you miss them with a shot and they cant find you? And then you kill them?" So false negatives are way more detrimental then false positives. Looking for something thats not there is better, then not looking and something is there. Especially if predators are around.
I've never had a natural sense for a god or gods. I have, however, always liked media that presented a character who seemed infallible - like the cowboy with the fastest gun or the superhero with the greatest powers. I like these characters because they can face any danger and yet always feel safe. A similar type of character is the priest or holy man whose faith is strong enough to endure any torment because he has God to back him up. His belief in God, regardless of its truth, lets him live with less anxiety and a feeling of safety. I tend to look for an earthly protector, but that's just me.
Nice video. I believe „fitra“ is true. There is „innate knowledge“ we have. Religious behavior was one of the first behaviors of modern humans 30,000-50,000 y ago. And since then belief in afterlife/God hasn‘t disappeared. I don‘t think we should ignore this and this is one reason why I believe it is possible to know God/afterlife
For me the question of theists being sad at the point of death is easier to understand if you have a personal experience of death that actually emotionally moved you. Its not just a sadness of not seeing someone again. Theres the shocking finality in the physical -for our lifetime - sake of a loss of legacy and possibility, never being able to make a different choice or take back any mistakes or hurt or do things different, and a shattering of the academic idea that we all die with the very real experience of sudden loss. Emotions have a logic to existing, but do not need formal logic to be justified and happen in spite of our intuitions. So i dont find Alex's line of reasoning about theists "not really believing what they say they do" to be wholly satisfying. Thoroughly enjoyed the full video of this discussion, though. It was very entertaining and turned me onto Unsolicited Advice and his channel, so thank you
If theists actually believed what they said they did, they wouldn't have these thoughts- anymore than you would when your friend was going to Hawaii a week before you, but you'd see them a few days later. But they don't really believe.
@michaelnewsham1412 the logic is there and i have little issue withe substance of the point, but that's really just re-stating Alex's objection rather than adding detail to the matter. Truthfully I think this is a reflection of people just not taking the matter of death seriously, like the guy at the bar who thinks he is an amazing fighter or would be having watched MMA, but not actually being in fights. People (imo) tend to think imagining something makes them capable in the moment of thinking and acting "correctly". When the reality hits, the experience is usually a different animal and hits in different ways than wr can often imagine. Doesn't change the fact that a theist grieving is still indulging in foolishness, of course. I am happy to accept that. It just doesn't really say all that much about the intellectual integrity of the person, IMO, so much as a blind belief in the sense of being.
Anybody who has read the divine pymander and has gone through the experiential transformation described there will be in no "doubt" about any of this. Purify the mind open the heart and the beauty above all other beauties arrives.
As an ex-Catholic attending Catholic Elementary schooling I shared that feeling during Communion. After the schooling turning me into an Atheist, I have found many other ways to achieve a similar and greater high. No god needed.
Have you ever gone to a library and openned a biology book to study how creatures work? That is one of the most enlightning feeling you can get@@TremendousSax
I attended a Catholic school and in my teenage years became an atheist which lasted for decades. The universal fine-tuning argument (NOT Creationism or ID) made me think again. I think a creator of some type set up the universe for Life.
Julian Jaynes in his book “the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind” hypothesizes about this as remnants of our brain development from the times when we were not conscious.
Since our most basic instinct is to survive, we seek security. We understand intuitively that there can be no absolute security in this world, but if it's suggested to us that there is another world in which a Guarantor of absolute security can be found, our imaginations are fired. There's this rush of joy, a spike of hope that we can easily misconstrue as contact with something otherworldy: a divine visitation, if we've been so primed.
That experiment has been performed literally billions of times, and we absolutely know the answer to that question. Are you trying to compare that to something? Perhaps to something which has never been demonstrated even a single time?
We can do that with reality too. Nietzsche lamented the devaluation of a uniting collective belief in a higher purpose, and said it would lead to societal destabilization into chaos. [looks around] I think we've run that experiment. Pretty sure the Soviets and Maoists did too.
I think religious types can still justifiably be sad at a death because they will lose access to that person, atleast for now, but also, they don't REALLY know if that person, or if they, will in fact go to heaven. So they don't really know they will have access to that person again, even if they believe in heaven.
Sure, but in the context of the afterlife, it won't matter. It's said that we will not be the same people in the afterlife as we are here in the present moment. If a person goes to heaven but their family member goes to hell, the person in heaven will not dwell or despair about the family member in heaven. They will be enjoying eternal bliss and joy.
Philosophical reasoning can explain away why we long for God. IF we were just existing and trying to explain nature and existence from our observation through science, logic, reasoning, and speculation. But I guess faith stem from God actually intervening in His creation and giving us reasonable evidences for His existence in the life of Jesus Christ. Yeah you can debate whether or not He was God in the flesh depending on your stance, but majority of both religious and secular scholars agree Jesus as a person existed in history. Now, the Old Testament prophesied His coming, how He would be born, how He would live, and how He would die and rise again. Hundreds of years before He came. Predicted how He would die by crucifixion on the Cross hundreds of years before Crucifixion was even a thing. What are the odds of that happening? Thomas who was the most sceptical of the disciples didn't believe Jesus rose. Yet after seeing Him, he committed his life and later died in service of the Gospel. Then there are things that can be debated such as the authenticity of possession stories, miracles, testimonies, whether supernatural encounters are legit or just psychological etc etc. But I think the prophecies written hundreds maybe even a thousand years before and the fulfillment of it in the life of Jesus Christ who came and lived and died as it was foretold is good evidence of the divine and why we have a reason for our faith.
(Agnostic here: this is extremely short because I honestly forgot all I was going to say, sorry!) This was sort of mentioned in the video, but I think the idea of God could also potentially have been seen as a stand-in explanation simply for what we don't know based on WHAT we know (knew). We naturally recognize patterns, and if we are missing information then of course our theories and ideas from those patterns will be naturally errant in some way. The theist might of course argue that the sense and theory we have today is too complex, but in return it is important to note that (I'm about to butcher some historical research here, so forgive me please as I am much understudied in this area) if I remember correctly the history of religion seems to leave a progression from (oversimplifying here) faiths from animism to polytheism to monotheism as we know it - with each iteration growing in strength and complexity. This seems completely natural given the normal evolution of human ideas and technology. Over time, these conclusions snowball into theism as we know it today in the mainstream world. This would be a decent challenge/explanation for the "sense of the divine" simply from how humans pick up ideas over time. Just a thought! I know I missed a lot there so I apologize.
@ Have you ever seen any of his debates? He was a master of elocution and rhetoric. Even if you disagree with him, there are scarcely few orators that could match his wit.
A child runs to his mom for advice, protection and love. When they outgrow that , the mechanism has been established in the subconscious and the supernatural becomes your new mom. Amen
Ok but you cant lie, the gentleman on the right is (As a non-gay man) insanely attractive. Like even a straight man can see that that guy is a girl magnet
@@JocoseJokes Some women may find him attractive but many others may not, so I don't think you can say that he's objectively attractive, I guess you can really only make up your own mind. I personally think Alex is far better looking but maybe that's because I'm british. You're probably right though in the sense of the average opinion of women because he does exude that kind of confidence.
@@readysoldier6799 brother what💀 Listen, there is something severely wrong if you decide to comment THAT on the comment that i made that wasnt even remotely gay. That my friend is called projection
A clean explanation that works for me is that humans neccessarily project our theory of mind onto the world around us. When civilised humans try to anthropologise the universe as a whole, this projection sometimes takes on the (imagined) persona of a God. I had a teacher in my childhood, explain that the oldest religions started with anthropomorphic aspects of nature. E.g. Talking mountain faces, ancient vengeful trees, monkey kings, etc. The stories we told each other often involved merging natural phenomena with heightened fantasies to teach lessons through analogy. This evolved into tribally distinct and reverential fables. I.e. polytheism. Which was refined into monotheism.
I imagine that an ability to project internal thought onto external beings evolved alongside our complex social skills, leading to rich shared experiences such as empathy and even language. Or our ability to anthropologise and speak may be why we are able to process complex concepts internally. It's like we have complex inner 'images' of people that we can have sort ofshadow conversations with. One of those images is of ourself, which we use to test social scenarios and plan for the future.
What I'm saying is that evolving speech leads to a tendency to project human personality onto non-human things. God is just that projection on a really big scale. It's why people's conception of God sometimes mirrors their personality.
Oh, belief in an ultimate authority is helluva useful thing; it can create bonds and communities, relieve you of responsibility, bring comfort on a number of existential issues. No wonder why a trait like this would develop. Honestly, I'm baffled it's such a "gotcha" statement! And I'm not even a hardcore atheist!
"..relieve you of responsibility.." You apparently do not know what you are talking about. I have never felt such heavy responsibility before I found God. Your infantile image of god as punishing authoritative father might originate from your false religious upbringing, but in no way conforms with what a mature theist perceive as God. But I give this to you , it must be difficult to realize it in the fundamentalist christian countries.
People will believe whatever helps them in their life. From bending the truth in their mind to believing in unprovable things such as religion people will just cling on to what makes them feel the best. So the belief in a religion does satisfy the comfort people strive for or the meaning they couldnt find otherwise
When I was a kid I would wait for my parents in an after school program. If they took too long I would really feel truly in my heart that they died. How could I have had a sensus myparentsdyingtatus if they’re still alive?
i think any conversation should start with acknowledging the massive bias that for generations, we have been grown in a world where there is a clash between different religious Gods, and even denominations about the truth surrounding of the same apparent God(s). the only way to know if humans naturally do this would be to do it uninfluenced/unbiased, which would mean not teaching them about anything except language, discluding specifically the idea of Gods or religion. forgetting about religious biases, it's quite obvious that any reasonable and non-speculating position could only certainly say as much as "there is more to the universe than just me alone". discluding false reality theories, it is quite evident that we come from our parent's parents, that they are a product of all life on Earth, and that the Earth is a product of all matter in the universe. i personally believe that the main reason people find this trippy is because our intelligence allows us of all animals to finally thing about an ultimate beginning, but this is where i believe one must be careful in their thought. start with a non religious deity? okay, not a bad position philosophically, but there are still alternate possibilities to consider, and one shouldn't jump to a belief position regardless as this is not something that can be proven. now once one begins making claims, or believing in unproven universal fundamental claims that their alleged deity wants certain things? nah, that's bad philosophy.
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A further installment of the mutual admiration duo, that just ADORES being, well....simply wonderful. There's absolutely no room, even for a purely theoretical God, in the self -worshipping narcissism of these two, who only have eyes and ears for each other. A great deal of time spent looking in mirrors, enraptured by what they see. A pre-nuptial agreement is advisable. Off-stage..... farting noises, improper suggestions, and helpless laughter. I expect this comment to be taken down, since "The Devil, proud soul, cannot endure to be mocked".
You are a bit too harsh, but they surely are an example of that youthfull patronizing "know it all" attitude typical for most educated smart brains. If they are lucky, they become wise when older, not only smart.
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@@alena-qu9vj Yes, you're right, I am harsh. Alas, these two, are almost certainly indoctrinated beyond redemption. I certainly wouldn't call either of them particularly smart, and the proof of this is the ease with which Sam Harris took Alex down in a discussion. My real objection is their arrogance, obvious vanity, and incoherence.
presumably for the same reason we are "naturally" scared of heights and snakes and the dark; For the same reason we "naturally" sense beauty and danger and hope. Because once upon a time such senses served our ancestors well, and I certainly don't fault them for it. But thats not to say such senses serve us particularly well anymore, in any given context.
You said it - we naturally have some kind of emotional relationship to things which exist. You just presented the "evidence" of God you atheists so call for.
@@unapologeticsceptic616that’s an outdated materialistic perspective. There’s no reason to believe matter exists independently of consciousness. The brain is just an image or an appearance within consciousness, and its configuration is merely correlated with subjective mental states
My god Alex, we believe in god because we are going to die and we know that! Purpose and everything else is ancillary in respect. We as a species have foresight, imagination, and abstract thinking; yet we need function and be productive in an ultimately meaningless world, the only reconciliation is a made up eternity.
i don't see reasons for the death obsession atheists have. many religions, including 1st millenium BC judaism, didn't really have an afterlife, it was a worldly religion. unclear how fear of death manifests itself in the creation of a religion which is fairly orthogonal to post death questions
I would grieve the loss of a loved one, regardless of their faith, because I am not in a position to judge. I can't fully know their inner beliefs or feelings. My mourning is for the preciousness of their life and the uncertainty of where their soul may rest. Ultimately, it's not for me to decide.
Why is there the need to believe in God? Because believing in God is the real need. But why is believing in God as a need aligned with something that may not exist? Because God is only a substitute for the desire for meaning, security. We are born as children. We cannot survive without parents. Character is formed especially in early childhood. But in this toddler age (unlike with animals) we ask a lot of questions and we always get an answer. So we learn that there is always someone who knows more than us and who knows everything. We've gotten used to it. Therefore, belief in God or any other form of spirituality helps us to satisfy our already lived, experienced and proven feeling for explanation.
So when the omniscient parents no longer exist, we look for and invent a replacement. The fact that there are thousands of different beliefs and types of beliefs shows us that the content of belief is a human invention. What all beliefs have in common is that the actual answer to our existence in this world cannot be experienced directly. That's why we don't need to justify the answer any further. It's a simple solution. The implementation then becomes difficult. And that's where the differences in religious beliefs begin.
It's expected for us to long for things that don't exist, because that's the first step in the process of creation. Easier still is to long for things that are merely undiscovered. Doesn't seem like much of a stretch for people to wish for a powerful sky-daddy to solve their problems, resurrect their friends, etc. After all, the wind is somehow real… 🤔
It was natural , in the past, to believe there was something greater than us that created all this. But now have actual observable scientific evidence of one universe which appears fine-tuned for Life. For me, that points to a creator.
You mourn those who leave because you can not be with them in this lifetime. Given your example, communication with your friend could still be possible, yet communication with the one who died is not until you yourself join them. For both examples, the answer is in the hope to possibly interact while the one who passed you HAVE to wait until you go to heaven
Do they? I think people just want justice and comfort, so when we imagine a figure who is watching over us and who will bring justice to the world, we want to believe it. It’s the same reason people believe in the meritocracy. Humans want to feel like our struggle is going to be worth it in the end, and that we’re not alone. Without that feeling we’d give up. To fulfill that feeling, many of us lie to ourselves and use our imagination. It’s even easier when we convince one another of our lies and come up with religions.
Thirst is a proof of the existence of water. There wouldn’t be a yearning if there was no antidote. Sure maybe some ppl, like the comments state, have never had a yearning for God (but they most likely have had a desire for something abstract and otherworldly), but a large population of humans who have ever existed have.
Because we see things happen and assume there is a cause because thats how we evolved and its helpful to our survival but in reality things that happen are a result of many natural processes. Its more natural to think a being did something rather than nature just happening
"Why Do Humans Naturally Sense God?" Why do the cells in your body behave in ways that keep you alive, even though they are incapable of comprehending that they're part of a gigantic bipedal hivemind organism with a single consciousness? Same answer.
It may SEEM to be that humans have some sense/attraction to a God, but to me, that is an unsupportable assumption, yes? It seems more likely that since most humans fear death AND loneliness, they hope and even come to believe there is some way to escape our mortality... For THAT idea, there is a certain measure of support..One opinion only..
Have you ever heard of the thought experiment "rokko's basilisk" god could be a kind of basilisk were believing in it gives you a evolutionary advantage over somebody who doesn't, as soon as the thought appears in someone
I was born and raised as an atheist and have never had a "sense of god" whatsoever...sounds like ingrained bias from people that grew up with or around religion.
I was born or raised atheist in an atheistic country. I have ever had this "sense of something I need i my life" even if my brain couldn't process it. I found my God (not the god of Old Testament) all by myself in my 40 yrs. Not an easy way, but very rewarding. For those who are blabbering about believers needing God to solve their problems - you are not knowing what you are speaking of. With the realization God exists everything beginns again, and you have to struggle to find your way from the beginning again.
@@360.Tapestry Flip what around? Are you saying that being in the null state without influence to believe in positive (asserted) claims creates bias? The "sense of god" is created via transference of a claim...if no claim is made or held how would that be transferred? If you flip the null you still get null...
we know that brain tries to make sense of things even when it can not make sense of things. nonreal and supernatural things come naturally from that process.
You are mying to yourself if you say you have never sensed God, or you have not lived enough. God is the feeling you get when the expansiveness and complexity of reality crashes down on you caising you to feel a large sense of awe and fear. God is also the small voice that guides you and tells you that you should or should not do this. The craving for truth is contrary to macro evolution, the ability to question and arrive at truths that exist with out pur intervention is in every sense God.
It seems that the human soul really needs God. God has planted it there. Like if you were in a plane that was about to crash, who would you pray to? Or what is your automatic attitude in a situation like that?
i like how alex deeply defends this subject , i really think that if he stops just rejecting the holy spirit it will bring him closer to what he wants . I see that he really wants to believe in god but simply can t because he is too intelectual about it , it s just like trying to paint emotions using math)). If he sees this i would sugest him to ask people (that are actually close to god ) to mention his name in prayer . Some people just don t have the gift of a sincere destroyed broken heart that still has hope . Kinda hyperbolize things but i don t care ))
What is the word Alex says at around 0:14? After what I think sounds like "Muslims have..." then? I tried googling all permutations and combinations of the phonetic (to my ears...). Alex is the bomb-
Didn't Wittgenstein write about this? God as the "totum pole" that binds the community together? Marx of course has plenty of explanations based on alienation "heart of the heartless world" and all that.
wittgenstein gives special treatment to religion, since there are many totem poles in the world (string theory, atheism, ...), beliefs like these aren't just totem poles. wittgenstein's most direct contribution to this conversation would've been his anti-scientism in C&V (cf. pg. 69 - 70,m...) 'Perhaps then a reaction against the overestimation of science. The use of the word "science"†i for "everything that can be said without nonsense" already betrays this over-estimation. For this amounts in reality to dividing utterances into two classes: good & bad; & the danger is already there. It is similar to dividing all animals, plants & rocks into the useful & the harmful.' He didn't think science could answer all the empirical questions, and he was extremely fascinated with religion and its ethics. When he was fighting in WW1, he was nicknamed 'the man with the gospels', he was obsessed with one of Tolstoy's writings on the new testament. He also has a lot of detailed epistemological picture painting in On Certainty and PI which have religious consequences. He is most often portrayed as a 'fideist', someone who doesn't believe faith can be rationally probed, although reality is probably more nuanced.
I wonder if all humans do naturally sense God. If you were born into a Truman Show-esque town where no one was allowed to mention God, religion, or even science to you, what would your natural response be if someone asked, 'Where did the world come from?'
Since you mention it, I do have an argument that theists don't exist: 1) for God to be divine, He must be (at least in part) beyond human conception. Otherwise He's just mundane, natural, no different from normal observable data. 2) Humans can obviously only conceive of that which is humanly conceivable. 3) To humans, "God" is only conceivable to the extent that He is within human conception, which to us is mundane, natural and no different from normal observable data i.e. not divine. Any claim that there is more than what we can humanly conceive is itself human conception, and therefore not beyond human conception. Therefore belief in God is contradiction, and theists are not in fact theists.
What if "belief in God" is a bug, not a feature, and is the thing that differentiates humans from other animals? What if a belief in something unseen and, I would argue, non existent, comes from the part of us that drives us to make art and to strive to do the impossible? All animals are "rational" in that they are driven by hungers for things that are real. hungers that can be satisfied. Humans have an extra hunger that can never be satisfied by the natural world. While it makes sense to conclude that, for it to be analogous to hunger for food, a god must exist. It also could be explained by saying that this 'hunger' has no analogy, but maybe it's the piece that makes us different from everything else.
That would not be the case if religion never came into being. The problem for you is that it did… at literally every corner of the earth. Some cultures weren’t explicitly religious, but superstitious thought has permeated throughout humanity for as long as humans could share narrative. To pass it off as “you wouldn’t have a ‘sense for God’ if you weren’t indoctrinated” is just blatantly incorrect.
I would argue that going to mars is not a good analogy. We are upset when someone dies about them missing out on life, that's where the main grief comes from. People separated from their body are incapacitated. An analogy would be if you found out that someone you love was alive but fell in a coma and wouldn't wake up for the next 50 years. You would also feel grief in such a situation. It's not related to someone going out of existence.
Look at the Atheist's conception of the unknown, the shrug, versus the endless lore of theistic tradition when debating the usefulness of the two. Even the most staunch materialist will find that the ingredients to all his science were smuggled out of the pantry of a theist to boil in his broth.
Endless lore with nothing backing it up as actually being true. Middle earth has fascinating lore too, so? The scientific method is in direct opposition to religion which comes to truth via edicts and dogma. That’s why religion tried to stifle it for so long. It allows people to come to conclusions that aren’t what the religion has already decided is true based on nothing.
Why do Humans Naturally Sense God? I think this is one of those questions that require Falsification. Do ALL humans sense God or Have sense God? I would like to see the evidence for this, how do we determine that is it "God" that people are claiming to "sense" and which God are people sensing exactly? Falsification, how do we determine that is Not God that people are sensing??
"....it does seem anthropologically that wherever we look, people tend to have some kind of sense of the sacred, and the profane, and the numinous ..." Wherever and whenever we look - even from this statement it is clear, that the numinous we are yearning for is not some jewish Yahweh, but rather a phenomenon which has nothing to do with him. It would be usefull to define what you understand under "God" whenever you start discussions like this. And Alex should notice that even Buddhists naturally sense "God" and stop falsly arguing that Buddhist are "atheistic". Pantheism is the natural explanation of this inborn knowing - we are just seemingly "exiled" parts of the One/God, every cell of our material body is, and it is impossible not to know it - even if in some cases our brains are trying their best to deny it.
Why did we desire the nectar of the gods? Why do we see an attractive girl or boy and think of a movie star (or porn star), and thenof Aphrodite and Adonis. Why, when we think of Heaven, we all imagine someplace different? C.S. Lewis imagined a country cottage in the English countryside; an Arab nomad a cool garden with flowing fountains. The movie 'This Is the End' presents Heaven as a perpetual rave- whicn Lewis, with his dislike of both music and modernity would probably desribe as Hell.
People make a lot of money in fulfilling our desires for food, drink, sex (even in the abstract), and shelter. We think of a nice safe place we can curl up in, and get looked after- if we do what Daddy tells us (and even the sternest patriarchal God has some aspect of Mommy, who takes care of us , but (lovingly) reproves us and tells us we're breaking Mommy's heart).)..
As a theist I dont think atheists are completely wrong when they say something like men invented God so they can have some delusional friend who fulfill their desires and relieves their anxiety over death by putting them in heaven. There are people who serves God, doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't people who believes that God serves them. I don't think it's this or that, rather both, there are people who align themselves with religious principles and there are people who invoke God only when "NEEDED". It's even possible that both of this trait can be seen in the same person not simultaneously because that would be absurd, rather interchangeably.
Here’s a playful story imagining a conversation between Alex O’Connor (also known as “Cosmic Skeptic”) and an atheist friend in a bar, where they humorously explore the concept of sensus divinitatis-the innate sense of the divine. It’s a rainy evening, and Alex O’Connor walks into a cozy bar to meet an atheist friend who, let’s call him Dave. They find a corner booth, order a couple of drinks, and start chatting. Eventually, the conversation turns philosophical. “So, Alex,” Dave says with a grin, “tell me about this fancy sensus divinitatis stuff I keep hearing about. Isn’t that just a Christian way of saying, ‘I feel it, so it must be real’?” Alex chuckles. “Well, it’s not exactly a ‘feeling,’ Dave. It’s more like an instinct or an intuition that everyone has, like an internal compass pointing toward God.” Dave smirks. “So, you’re saying I’m walking around with this little spiritual GPS? Then why’s mine always ‘out of signal’?” Alex laughs. “Fair question. It’s more like having an old, slightly glitchy GPS. The signal’s there, but maybe it’s got a lot of interference. Think of it like… an app you didn’t download but still occasionally opens up on your phone.” Dave raises an eyebrow. “So, what, I accidentally butt-dial God? Like, every now and then, I feel a twinge and think, ‘Huh, maybe there’s something out there?’” “Exactly!” Alex says, nodding. “According to Calvin, this sensus divinitatis is installed at the factory. Humans are born with it. It’s like having a basic version of Google Maps that constantly tries to redirect you to God.” “But,” Dave objects, “if it’s factory-installed, why do some of us ignore it? Shouldn’t I be getting ‘divine notifications’ like you religious folks?” Alex leans back, amused. “Well, it’s not exactly that simple. Even Calvin thought this ‘app’ could be corrupted by… let’s say, life’s spamware. Our personal ‘settings’ and experiences can tune it out or even suppress it entirely.” Dave looks thoughtful. “So, you’re saying I have an instinct for God… but I keep accidentally muting it.” “Exactly,” Alex laughs. “Or ignoring it like a software update. You know it’s there, but you keep swiping it away.” Dave grins. “So maybe I just don’t have Wi-Fi in my soul. Or maybe I’ve got one of those defective models?” Alex raises his glass. “Here’s to hoping it’s just in need of an update.” They both laugh, clinking their glasses. Dave takes a sip and says, “Alright, alright, you got me thinking. If I start seeing little God notifications pop up, I’ll know who to thank-or blame.” In the end, they part ways, each a bit more thoughtful about the nature of belief. And maybe, just maybe, Dave heads home that night wondering if his “sensus divinitatis” really does need a reboot.
It takes a lot of energy to keep up the veil of Maya and every once in a while it drops and we get a glimpse of what's beyond. We know there's more than meets the eye because at some level of consciousness we are deceiving ourselves and we know it.
I don't think they are looking for a belief in god (looking for something that doesn't exist). I think they are seeking love lost (poor parenting), predominantly generated by a society that throws children into jail for 8 hours a day... I'm currently developing a book project about this concept :)
God is usually conceived of as a personal being, personal beings exist, so a desire for god is no different to the desire for a 'perfect woman' who may not actually exist. Even if god is more of an experiential thing, the idea that we belong to something more and all that, we belong to an existence that is imperfect and where we feel disconnected, so we are able to feel for an existence that lacks those aspects that we dislike or feel out of place in. So I don't think this argument is really as strong as you're putting forth.
Natural human curiosity for the unknown. Natural desire to seek truth. Natural wish for spiritual assistance in time of hardships. It is possible there are multiple answers to this question. However, a sense of something (eg. fear, anxiety, doom) in truth, can range anywhere between complete rationality to complete irrationality. Also, we can seek answers but we may never ever know.
Would a desite to seek truth, unknown etc. be "natural" if there were no ruth and unknow? Of course this is the same. We cannot "naturally" have a yearning for something that is nonexistent.
There are plenty of natural yearnings humans have which we may never reach a definite conclusion. Examples: Can we prove there’s an afterlife? Do ghosts exist? Will humans ever reach the edge of the universe? Can we go through black holes and survive? Can we go back in time or into the future? Natural yearnings doesn’t equate to natural existence or a definitive answer.
@@johnwho4794 You have to understand first that a believer is no scientist. He "deals" with the immaterial, not with matter. He knows (or should know) that in the realm of immaterial there are no objective truths or definitive answers - in that you kick the open door. We speak of "yearning, sensing" - that are by definition SUBJECTIVE emotions relative only to the respektive subjects. And so are the "answers". A believer KNOWS when his questions are answered, and needs no scientifical objectivization - what an absurd notion in this context. But anyway, the point is there cannot be a natural yearning for something that doesn 't exist.
@alena-qu9vj, I’m not arguing why people naturally have senses and yearnings. More the issue that there is a jump in logic that natural yearning/sense implies a truth at the end. None of us on Earth knows the truth at the end of this curiosity topic. Even if there was a higher being, there could be 4 Gods instead of 1. Or there could be another God that had created our God, who suddenly decided to give us a visit after we spend 100 years in heaven. The possibilities of “what ifs” are abundant. Even if there is an after-life, we’d still likely to ask further questions which ultimately will lead to further questions.
@@johnwho4794 BUT WE ARE NOT speaking about material logic and material objective truth. How should I stress it for you to hear me?? Faith IS NOT an objective thing underlying to scientific objectivism. It is admittedly a subjective, illogical, emotionally based phenomenon relative to the respective individual. So, of course, every believer is perfectly free to believe in as many gods as he pleases, and in any spiritual conception he SUBJECTIVELY feels "true". Spiritual truth is "autheniicity" in other words, without regard on what your Church says. You really have to stop understanding faith or God in the way your Sunday school teacher wanted you to, to understand what "theist" or "faith" really means. You have to realize that America and/or dogmatic Christianity have no authors rights on anybodys faith.
Why do we have an innate sense that gravity waves exist? Oh, wait. We don't. Why do so many cultures believe in things like dragons and elves and ghosts? Because they exist? Arguments from pervasive yearning or belief are pretty rickety.
There's a very obvious and plausible answer to the question of why we sense the divine, that is rooted in evolutionary biology. We're social creatures; we're members of tribes. The humans that did not assume that at any given moment they might be observed by a member of their tribe would probably be more likely to perform actions that would get them ostracized from their tribe, and thereby weeded out of the gene pool. That is to say, assuming that at any given moment someone might be watching you, and therefore you should behave morally, was probably a trait that was naturally selected, and therefore, over time, became prevalent in the gene pool. Here's a question I invite atheists to spend some time seriously considering: is your chief objection to theism really a lack of evidence, or is it that you resent having limitations placed on your behavior? The most devout atheists I know are also, coincidentally, total hedonists. Are you driven primarily by the pursuit of truth, or by your love of pleasure? It's a rhetorical question. I don't need your answer. I just want you to be honest enough to answer the question for yourself.
Watch the first 30 seconds- “it does seem anthropologically that wherever we look, people tend to have some kind of sense of the sacred, and the profane, and the numinous, and the religious.” I don’t have it, you don’t have it, fine. That’s not the question.
I don't either. As a kid, I did try to call out to God/Gods because I was told that he/they exist, but I never really felt a 'divine embracement', nor have it been anymore useful to me than interpersonal exchanges, music, art, or some good sleep. Looking back, most of the time, all I needed was an escape, an assurance, or a temporary suspension of worry. I don't need God for that.
@@aneurinellis3926I don't sense it because it's a load of nonsense, not because, as you so dishonestly imply, I refuse to. You know what it says about your religious belief if you need to reflexively dishonestly accuse people of things you have no basis for? Yeah...
I think it is a mere extension of our tendency to ascribe agency to unexplained phenomena (which has evolutionary advantage) and the fact and constancy of the horizon of ignorance. After staving off the immediate demands of survival, any thoughts around the unknown will result in the postulation of an unseen powerful agent.
The Catholic has the perfect counterargument to this. We don't know we'll be in Heaven, we hope and are given hope, but even faithful Catholics who have gone before us may still be in purgatory for undefined periods of time. Mourning is the soul's natural response to this to remember our loved ones and pray for them that they may see paradise. Happy All Souls Day!
I’m going to hell because I left the monastery after being a monk for 10 years. Don’t waste your precious time praying for my soul….i am truly condemn to eternal pain and suffering because God is a loving Father and I disobeyed him by being a critical thinker. God is just and true and. Loves to see us bad guys burning in hell.
@@terrlaw328 There is nothing inherently damnable about leaving the monastery, as a supposed former monk you should know that. What is damnable is your clear attitude of rebellion and resentment towards God and towards the Church. Will pray for you, if anything that our Lord heals your wounds which are clearly having a hugely negative effect on your soul.
It was thru fear that the sensus divinitatis ultimately evolved . As consciousness and self awareness evolved , a sense of vulnerability started to set in . Fear of the unknown . Appeasing anxiety . Sense of protection in a world of randomness with constant deadly threats. The sense that “luck” or that the circumstances would favor them ( (think of the experiment with pigeons and superstitious behavior). The sense that it would always be someone else , and not you , who would perish . A sense of special protection Our 2 most innate drives are survival and the reflex to recoil from pain and suffering.
it seems that alex is steadily becoming an "agnostic" whom neither theist or atheist arguments can any longer satisfy... what will he do next? a trip to the amazon? a year in tibet?
It is scary how little online atheists know that religion is a product of evolution. For some reason, it is much easier to pretend that religion is just for the sake of answering scientific questions. Why is that? Why not just go with the explanation that all evolutionary psychologists give?
Nobody is "pretending". It's true. Religion provides ready-made, pre-scientific answers. So far as "religion is a product of evolution" - the concept at the centre and origin of religion might pass down through the generations, because it is advantageous, like the language instinct, but religions come and go and can't possibly fit into any model involving the biological adoption of physical constants.
@donthesitatebegin9283 I think you slightly misread my comment. I said "just". As in, one or the other. It's a very strange claim that religion exists to explain scientific phenomenon. If you already accept that religion is a product of evolution, what's the point of believing that it also stems from scientific inquiry? I understand that 2 things can be true at once but what is your evidence for such a bold claim? Just because some religions has explanations on how the material world functions doesn't mean those explanations are the driving factor.
@@donthesitatebegin9283 I'm not too sure where your confusion lies. I didn't address your one point about physical constants because it didn't really had anything to do with what I was saying. But I address everything else.
Given my own practice and experience with Christianity, I don't personally like the word "God," but for the sake of argument, I will say... I have a God-shaped hole in my heart. I have a painful longing for the Divine that I can not find in this world, for I am surrounded by mere facts and logic. I hate being an atheist... I want a relationship with Lucifer or Odin or Shiva. 😢
It is because we are filled with his spirit and he wrote it on our hearts. Not recognizing your soul is denying 1/3 of your being. It's not a small thing.
If I have a yearning about God, it's for him to disappear from humanity. We have enough complications in life without having to deal with nonsense about God.
What do you me complications in life if there is no God?? There is no complication in a survival of the fittest world. There is no evil or bad in that world.
Wow, that title is a seriously loaded question . Certainly some of us claim to sense something that they call god, but that's about the best you can do.
Its about the best you can do before the "vague sensation" gets validated. Of course I speak about a subjective validation, the only possible way in the matters of faith. Thats why all this smart talk of the "philosophers" without any relevant experience in this field is so funny.
If we have evolved a "religious " part of our mind. looking at the marxist/matirialist thought should we disregard religion as governing bodies ruling on the idea that all things evolved physically and socially.
It’s called fitra. Mentioned multiple times in the Quran. It’s the natural disposition that we ALL have but some choose to ignore/disregard or just question but it’s there.
The two guys do not seem to have had a mystical experience and debate from a position of not knowing. I would recommend they become more connected with the ideas of Carl Jung and Plato. Get in touch with the Unconscious through dreams. Learn to interpret them.
It is precisely the fear from the Unconscious which drives these smart logic types and their "atheism". All their "logic" and "rationalism" are just desperate efforts to keep the illusion of control over the uncontrollable. Yes, they should try some Jung, before the dam mightly brokes and causes uncontrolable damage.
Every generalization is wrong (yes, including this one). "Why Do Humans"?? I am a human. I do not "sense" any gods. Never did and I am old as f""""k. In your title the word "humans" is a generalization and it is wrong. And, by the way, no one "senses" any gods. Their confirmation bias may lead them to think they do, but they don`t. Do they? Deities only exist in the minds of those who believe them to exist after they have been put there by other humans through blackmail and fear (indoctrination). They are not real. They are imaginary. Some humans are led to believe deities are real but many are not. So you can not include all of humanity on the title.
Alex: I mustache you a question
I would argue that that we do not have a desire to seek god, but a desire to seek answers and certainty, and God is one tool that people use to fulfill that need by providing answers to questions which otherwise cannot be answered
Seeking God for ANSWERS to questions that couldn't otherwise be answered?? What would be some examples of such answers that ONLY god could provide, friend?
@@Bill..N Any question? there would be no need to guess. If god knows everything we could know everything thru him.
I quite like what @sordidknifeparty is saying, i would add that a desire for god could also be explained by our survival instincts and impulses. I think those could bring about desire for immortality and for a god which can grant us that immortality.
Again, to answer your first question better, see what i think about survival instincts and desire? That's what i think but i have no way to know this is 100% true. @sordidknifeparty is saying only god could grant answers to these kind of questions with 100% certainty.
Possibly, but if you were to ask believers certain questions like “why did God allow such and such to happen” or why did God create us in the first place, most will tell you that they don’t know or that while they don’t know they trust God. So it seems like belief in God doesn’t necessarily provide answers to everything.
@@Bill..NAnything really. Different thing is that God is the actual answer
“what should i do?”
I always find the Skyrim Bandit Explanation compelling. You know how Skyrim Bandits go:"Must have been the wind!" when you miss them with a shot and they cant find you? And then you kill them?" So false negatives are way more detrimental then false positives. Looking for something thats not there is better, then not looking and something is there. Especially if predators are around.
I've never had a natural sense for a god or gods. I have, however, always liked media that presented a character who seemed infallible - like the cowboy with the fastest gun or the superhero with the greatest powers. I like these characters because they can face any danger and yet always feel safe. A similar type of character is the priest or holy man whose faith is strong enough to endure any torment because he has God to back him up. His belief in God, regardless of its truth, lets him live with less anxiety and a feeling of safety. I tend to look for an earthly protector, but that's just me.
I sense bromance in the room, I have never seen alex smiling this much.
Lol 😂
he might be hitting onto a new friend...each of us have needs.. only a guess of course.
Nice video. I believe „fitra“ is true. There is „innate knowledge“ we have. Religious behavior was one of the first behaviors of modern humans 30,000-50,000 y ago. And since then belief in afterlife/God hasn‘t disappeared. I don‘t think we should ignore this and this is one reason why I believe it is possible to know God/afterlife
For me the question of theists being sad at the point of death is easier to understand if you have a personal experience of death that actually emotionally moved you. Its not just a sadness of not seeing someone again. Theres the shocking finality in the physical -for our lifetime - sake of a loss of legacy and possibility, never being able to make a different choice or take back any mistakes or hurt or do things different, and a shattering of the academic idea that we all die with the very real experience of sudden loss. Emotions have a logic to existing, but do not need formal logic to be justified and happen in spite of our intuitions. So i dont find Alex's line of reasoning about theists "not really believing what they say they do" to be wholly satisfying.
Thoroughly enjoyed the full video of this discussion, though. It was very entertaining and turned me onto Unsolicited Advice and his channel, so thank you
If theists actually believed what they said they did, they wouldn't have these thoughts- anymore than you would when your friend was going to Hawaii a week before you, but you'd see them a few days later. But they don't really believe.
@@michaelnewsham1412 Do you think that religious people just assume that they all go to heaven? Don't you think that would be a little presumptuous?
@michaelnewsham1412 the logic is there and i have little issue withe substance of the point, but that's really just re-stating Alex's objection rather than adding detail to the matter. Truthfully I think this is a reflection of people just not taking the matter of death seriously, like the guy at the bar who thinks he is an amazing fighter or would be having watched MMA, but not actually being in fights. People (imo) tend to think imagining something makes them capable in the moment of thinking and acting "correctly". When the reality hits, the experience is usually a different animal and hits in different ways than wr can often imagine.
Doesn't change the fact that a theist grieving is still indulging in foolishness, of course. I am happy to accept that. It just doesn't really say all that much about the intellectual integrity of the person, IMO, so much as a blind belief in the sense of being.
Anybody who has read the divine pymander and has gone through the experiential transformation described there will be in no "doubt" about any of this. Purify the mind open the heart and the beauty above all other beauties arrives.
As an ex-Catholic attending Catholic Elementary schooling I shared that feeling during Communion. After the schooling turning me into an Atheist, I have found many other ways to achieve a similar and greater high. No god needed.
What other ways in particular have you found to achieve a similar and greater high?
Have you ever gone to a library and openned a biology book to study how creatures work? That is one of the most enlightning feeling you can get@@TremendousSax
Doubt it
You are just distracting yourself with earthly things to try to fill the void in your heart, but it can only be filled with the absolute one
I attended a Catholic school and in my teenage years became an atheist which lasted for decades. The universal fine-tuning argument (NOT Creationism or ID) made me think again. I think a creator of some type set up the universe for Life.
I’ve never experienced such a thing and don’t know anyone who has.
Julian Jaynes in his book “the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind” hypothesizes about this as remnants of our brain development from the times when we were not conscious.
Since our most basic instinct is to survive, we seek security. We understand intuitively that there can be no absolute security in this world, but if it's suggested to us that there is another world in which a Guarantor of absolute security can be found, our imaginations are fired. There's this rush of joy, a spike of hope that we can easily misconstrue as contact with something otherworldy: a divine visitation, if we've been so primed.
We can do controlled physical experiments about the existence of food and whether humans actually physically need it or only think we do.
That experiment has been performed literally billions of times, and we absolutely know the answer to that question. Are you trying to compare that to something? Perhaps to something which has never been demonstrated even a single time?
We can do that with reality too. Nietzsche lamented the devaluation of a uniting collective belief in a higher purpose, and said it would lead to societal destabilization into chaos. [looks around] I think we've run that experiment. Pretty sure the Soviets and Maoists did too.
@@sordidknifeparty Perhqaps listen to them discuss it instead of blind response to me?
Religion of all shades has one aim only..to extend the individuals life.. that is all people care about. Good luck. Amen
I think religious types can still justifiably be sad at a death because they will lose access to that person, atleast for now, but also, they don't REALLY know if that person, or if they, will in fact go to heaven. So they don't really know they will have access to that person again, even if they believe in heaven.
The "religious types" is hilarious. Everyone is religious
Sure, but in the context of the afterlife, it won't matter.
It's said that we will not be the same people in the afterlife as we are here in the present moment. If a person goes to heaven but their family member goes to hell, the person in heaven will not dwell or despair about the family member in heaven. They will be enjoying eternal bliss and joy.
Philosophical reasoning can explain away why we long for God. IF we were just existing and trying to explain nature and existence from our observation through science, logic, reasoning, and speculation.
But I guess faith stem from God actually intervening in His creation and giving us reasonable evidences for His existence in the life of Jesus Christ.
Yeah you can debate whether or not He was God in the flesh depending on your stance, but majority of both religious and secular scholars agree Jesus as a person existed in history.
Now, the Old Testament prophesied His coming, how He would be born, how He would live, and how He would die and rise again. Hundreds of years before He came. Predicted how He would die by crucifixion on the Cross hundreds of years before Crucifixion was even a thing.
What are the odds of that happening?
Thomas who was the most sceptical of the disciples didn't believe Jesus rose. Yet after seeing Him, he committed his life and later died in service of the Gospel.
Then there are things that can be debated such as the authenticity of possession stories, miracles, testimonies, whether supernatural encounters are legit or just psychological etc etc.
But I think the prophecies written hundreds maybe even a thousand years before and the fulfillment of it in the life of Jesus Christ who came and lived and died as it was foretold is good evidence of the divine and why we have a reason for our faith.
(Agnostic here: this is extremely short because I honestly forgot all I was going to say, sorry!)
This was sort of mentioned in the video, but I think the idea of God could also potentially have been seen as a stand-in explanation simply for what we don't know based on WHAT we know (knew). We naturally recognize patterns, and if we are missing information then of course our theories and ideas from those patterns will be naturally errant in some way. The theist might of course argue that the sense and theory we have today is too complex, but in return it is important to note that (I'm about to butcher some historical research here, so forgive me please as I am much understudied in this area) if I remember correctly the history of religion seems to leave a progression from (oversimplifying here) faiths from animism to polytheism to monotheism as we know it - with each iteration growing in strength and complexity. This seems completely natural given the normal evolution of human ideas and technology. Over time, these conclusions snowball into theism as we know it today in the mainstream world. This would be a decent challenge/explanation for the "sense of the divine" simply from how humans pick up ideas over time.
Just a thought! I know I missed a lot there so I apologize.
Everybody wants to be Nigel Thornbury.
As Hitchens said, “We are pattern seeking primates, half a chromosome away from a chimpanzee. We’ll take a bad explanation over none at all.”
Why do athiests think hitchens is so smart and clever
@ Have you ever seen any of his debates? He was a master of elocution and rhetoric. Even if you disagree with him, there are scarcely few orators that could match his wit.
sounds like hitches has completely missed the wood for the trees
@@jacksonelmore6227 smart and clever doesn t mean wise by far
A child runs to his mom for advice, protection and love. When they outgrow that , the mechanism has been established in the subconscious and the supernatural becomes your new mom. Amen
I was wondering if it’s possibly the same process by which people make generalizations based on particular things.
The way these two are grinning at each other. It's like they're both having their first gay experience together.
Ok but you cant lie, the gentleman on the right is (As a non-gay man) insanely attractive. Like even a straight man can see that that guy is a girl magnet
@@JocoseJokes Some women may find him attractive but many others may not, so I don't think you can say that he's objectively attractive, I guess you can really only make up your own mind. I personally think Alex is far better looking but maybe that's because I'm british. You're probably right though in the sense of the average opinion of women because he does exude that kind of confidence.
@@readysoldier6799 brother what💀
Listen, there is something severely wrong if you decide to comment THAT on the comment that i made that wasnt even remotely gay. That my friend is called projection
A clean explanation that works for me is that humans neccessarily project our theory of mind onto the world around us. When civilised humans try to anthropologise the universe as a whole, this projection sometimes takes on the (imagined) persona of a God.
I had a teacher in my childhood, explain that the oldest religions started with anthropomorphic aspects of nature. E.g. Talking mountain faces, ancient vengeful trees, monkey kings, etc. The stories we told each other often involved merging natural phenomena with heightened fantasies to teach lessons through analogy.
This evolved into tribally distinct and reverential fables. I.e. polytheism. Which was refined into monotheism.
I imagine that an ability to project internal thought onto external beings evolved alongside our complex social skills, leading to rich shared experiences such as empathy and even language.
Or our ability to anthropologise and speak may be why we are able to process complex concepts internally. It's like we have complex inner 'images' of people that we can have sort ofshadow conversations with. One of those images is of ourself, which we use to test social scenarios and plan for the future.
What I'm saying is that evolving speech leads to a tendency to project human personality onto non-human things. God is just that projection on a really big scale. It's why people's conception of God sometimes mirrors their personality.
Oh, belief in an ultimate authority is helluva useful thing; it can create bonds and communities, relieve you of responsibility, bring comfort on a number of existential issues.
No wonder why a trait like this would develop. Honestly, I'm baffled it's such a "gotcha" statement! And I'm not even a hardcore atheist!
"..relieve you of responsibility.."
You apparently do not know what you are talking about. I have never felt such heavy responsibility before I found God. Your infantile image of god as punishing authoritative father might originate from your false religious upbringing, but in no way conforms with what a mature theist perceive as God. But I give this to you , it must be difficult to realize it in the fundamentalist christian countries.
“He has set eternity in the hearts of men”
Well, I actually can't answer that question, because I have no idea what this desire is like.
Is this anything like sensing the pizza delivery guy even when bad weather is preventing deliveries that night?
People will believe whatever helps them in their life. From bending the truth in their mind to believing in unprovable things such as religion people will just cling on to what makes them feel the best. So the belief in a religion does satisfy the comfort people strive for or the meaning they couldnt find otherwise
When I was a kid I would wait for my parents in an after school program. If they took too long I would really feel truly in my heart that they died. How could I have had a sensus myparentsdyingtatus if they’re still alive?
i think any conversation should start with acknowledging the massive bias that for generations, we have been grown in a world where there is a clash between different religious Gods, and even denominations about the truth surrounding of the same apparent God(s). the only way to know if humans naturally do this would be to do it uninfluenced/unbiased, which would mean not teaching them about anything except language, discluding specifically the idea of Gods or religion.
forgetting about religious biases, it's quite obvious that any reasonable and non-speculating position could only certainly say as much as "there is more to the universe than just me alone". discluding false reality theories, it is quite evident that we come from our parent's parents, that they are a product of all life on Earth, and that the Earth is a product of all matter in the universe.
i personally believe that the main reason people find this trippy is because our intelligence allows us of all animals to finally thing about an ultimate beginning, but this is where i believe one must be careful in their thought. start with a non religious deity? okay, not a bad position philosophically, but there are still alternate possibilities to consider, and one shouldn't jump to a belief position regardless as this is not something that can be proven.
now once one begins making claims, or believing in unproven universal fundamental claims that their alleged deity wants certain things? nah, that's bad philosophy.
A further installment of the mutual admiration duo, that just ADORES being, well....simply wonderful. There's absolutely no room, even for a purely theoretical God, in the self -worshipping narcissism of these two, who only have eyes and ears for each other. A great deal of time spent looking in mirrors, enraptured by what they see. A pre-nuptial agreement is advisable. Off-stage..... farting noises, improper suggestions, and helpless laughter. I expect this comment to be taken down, since "The Devil, proud soul, cannot endure to be mocked".
You are a bit too harsh, but they surely are an example of that youthfull patronizing "know it all" attitude typical for most educated smart brains. If they are lucky, they become wise when older, not only smart.
@@alena-qu9vj Yes, you're right, I am harsh. Alas, these two, are almost certainly indoctrinated beyond redemption. I certainly wouldn't call either of them particularly smart, and the proof of this is the ease with which Sam Harris took Alex down in a discussion. My real objection is their arrogance, obvious vanity, and incoherence.
Theoretically, how much food can you save for later in a moustache?
🤣
presumably for the same reason we are "naturally" scared of heights and snakes and the dark; For the same reason we "naturally" sense beauty and danger and hope. Because once upon a time such senses served our ancestors well, and I certainly don't fault them for it. But thats not to say such senses serve us particularly well anymore, in any given context.
You said it - we naturally have some kind of emotional relationship to things which exist. You just presented the "evidence" of God you atheists so call for.
@@alena-qu9vj Uh huh. So god "exists" in the same way "danger" exists, i.e. as a product of our imagination. Deep thoughts, bro.
@@ericb9804 Danger is a product of your imagination? So is love, compassion, empathy etc?? How do you have an imagination in the first place?
@@whiplashTM Yes, every emotion and reaction to sensation is the product of the brain. You can literally see it in action on brain scans.
@@unapologeticsceptic616that’s an outdated materialistic perspective. There’s no reason to believe matter exists independently of consciousness. The brain is just an image or an appearance within consciousness, and its configuration is merely correlated with subjective mental states
My god Alex, we believe in god because we are going to die and we know that! Purpose and everything else is ancillary in respect. We as a species have foresight, imagination, and abstract thinking; yet we need function and be productive in an ultimately meaningless world, the only reconciliation is a made up eternity.
i don't see reasons for the death obsession atheists have. many religions, including 1st millenium BC judaism, didn't really have an afterlife, it was a worldly religion. unclear how fear of death manifests itself in the creation of a religion which is fairly orthogonal to post death questions
I would grieve the loss of a loved one, regardless of their faith, because I am not in a position to judge. I can't fully know their inner beliefs or feelings. My mourning is for the preciousness of their life and the uncertainty of where their soul may rest. Ultimately, it's not for me to decide.
Why is there the need to believe in God?
Because believing in God is the real need.
But why is believing in God as a need aligned with something that may not exist?
Because God is only a substitute for the desire for meaning, security. We are born as children. We cannot survive without parents. Character is formed especially in early childhood. But in this toddler age (unlike with animals) we ask a lot of questions and we always get an answer. So we learn that there is always someone who knows more than us and who knows everything. We've gotten used to it. Therefore, belief in God or any other form of spirituality helps us to satisfy our already lived, experienced and proven feeling for explanation.
So when the omniscient parents no longer exist, we look for and invent a replacement.
The fact that there are thousands of different beliefs and types of beliefs shows us that the content of belief is a human invention.
What all beliefs have in common is that the actual answer to our existence in this world cannot be experienced directly. That's why we don't need to justify the answer any further. It's a simple solution.
The implementation then becomes difficult. And that's where the differences in religious beliefs begin.
It's expected for us to long for things that don't exist, because that's the first step in the process of creation. Easier still is to long for things that are merely undiscovered. Doesn't seem like much of a stretch for people to wish for a powerful sky-daddy to solve their problems, resurrect their friends, etc. After all, the wind is somehow real… 🤔
It was natural , in the past, to believe there was something greater than us that created all this. But now have actual observable scientific evidence of one universe which appears fine-tuned for Life. For me, that points to a creator.
You mourn those who leave because you can not be with them in this lifetime. Given your example, communication with your friend could still be possible, yet communication with the one who died is not until you yourself join them. For both examples, the answer is in the hope to possibly interact while the one who passed you HAVE to wait until you go to heaven
Do they? I think people just want justice and comfort, so when we imagine a figure who is watching over us and who will bring justice to the world, we want to believe it. It’s the same reason people believe in the meritocracy. Humans want to feel like our struggle is going to be worth it in the end, and that we’re not alone.
Without that feeling we’d give up. To fulfill that feeling, many of us lie to ourselves and use our imagination. It’s even easier when we convince one another of our lies and come up with religions.
Thirst is a proof of the existence of water. There wouldn’t be a yearning if there was no antidote. Sure maybe some ppl, like the comments state, have never had a yearning for God (but they most likely have had a desire for something abstract and otherworldly), but a large population of humans who have ever existed have.
Not convincing nor an apt analogy.
@ it certainly doesn’t lead to certainty, but it points towards agnosticism rather than atheism (which is arguably far more rational than atheism)
Because we see things happen and assume there is a cause because thats how we evolved and its helpful to our survival but in reality things that happen are a result of many natural processes. Its more natural to think a being did something rather than nature just happening
"Why Do Humans Naturally Sense God?"
Why do the cells in your body behave in ways that keep you alive, even though they are incapable of comprehending that they're part of a gigantic bipedal hivemind organism with a single consciousness?
Same answer.
The answer to the latter is "I don't know," and to the former my answer is, I don't think we do as I never have.
So, not quite the same answer.
What makes you think human organism has a single consciousness rather than, say, two who don't get in each other's way?
This was explained over 15 years ago by Anderson Thomson in his book _Why We Believe in God(s)_ (foreward by Richard Dawkins).
I believe in a creator because of science not Religion. The universal fine-tuning argument points to a creator of sorts.
It may SEEM to be that humans have some sense/attraction to a God, but to me, that is an unsupportable assumption, yes? It seems more likely that since most humans fear death AND loneliness, they hope and even come to believe there is some way to escape our mortality... For THAT idea, there is a certain measure of support..One opinion only..
once you learn the truth, you'll realize that our small mortality (which is literally everything to us) means nothing
@360.Tapestry Interesting.. I think It MEANS something to us, friend, BUT only while we are alive..
Have you ever heard of the thought experiment "rokko's basilisk" god could be a kind of basilisk were believing in it gives you a evolutionary advantage over somebody who doesn't, as soon as the thought appears in someone
I was born and raised as an atheist and have never had a "sense of god" whatsoever...sounds like ingrained bias from people that grew up with or around religion.
flip that around on yourself
I was born or raised atheist in an atheistic country. I have ever had this "sense of something I need i my life" even if my brain couldn't process it. I found my God (not the god of Old Testament) all by myself in my 40 yrs. Not an easy way, but very rewarding.
For those who are blabbering about believers needing God to solve their problems - you are not knowing what you are speaking of. With the realization God exists everything beginns again, and you have to struggle to find your way from the beginning again.
@@360.Tapestry Flip what around? Are you saying that being in the null state without influence to believe in positive (asserted) claims creates bias? The "sense of god" is created via transference of a claim...if no claim is made or held how would that be transferred? If you flip the null you still get null...
we know that brain tries to make sense of things even when it can not make sense of things. nonreal and supernatural things come naturally from that process.
You are mying to yourself if you say you have never sensed God, or you have not lived enough. God is the feeling you get when the expansiveness and complexity of reality crashes down on you caising you to feel a large sense of awe and fear. God is also the small voice that guides you and tells you that you should or should not do this.
The craving for truth is contrary to macro evolution, the ability to question and arrive at truths that exist with out pur intervention is in every sense God.
I would say that we do not sense god. We think we sense god. But we can’t sense something that doesn’t exist.
It seems that the human soul really needs God. God has planted it there. Like if you were in a plane that was about to crash, who would you pray to? Or what is your automatic attitude in a situation like that?
Surely the presence of the unconscious mind could be thought to be an external god?
Or vice versa.
Not "God" but a First Principle.
i like how alex deeply defends this subject , i really think that if he stops just rejecting the holy spirit it will bring him closer to what he wants . I see that he really wants to believe in god but simply can t because he is too intelectual about it , it s just like trying to paint emotions using math)). If he sees this i would sugest him to ask people (that are actually close to god ) to mention his name in prayer . Some people just don t have the gift of a sincere destroyed broken heart that still has hope . Kinda hyperbolize things but i don t care ))
What is the word Alex says at around 0:14? After what I think sounds like "Muslims have..." then?
I tried googling all permutations and combinations of the phonetic (to my ears...). Alex is the bomb-
Fitrah. John hoover has a video explaining the concept
@@zakariakhan7221 Thank you so much. Appreciated :)
Didn't Wittgenstein write about this? God as the "totum pole" that binds the community together? Marx of course has plenty of explanations based on alienation "heart of the heartless world" and all that.
wittgenstein gives special treatment to religion, since there are many totem poles in the world (string theory, atheism, ...), beliefs like these aren't just totem poles. wittgenstein's most direct contribution to this conversation would've been his anti-scientism in C&V (cf. pg. 69 - 70,m...)
'Perhaps then a reaction against the overestimation of science. The use of the
word "science"†i for "everything that can be said without nonsense" already betrays this
over-estimation. For this amounts in reality to dividing utterances into two classes: good &
bad; & the danger is already there. It is similar to dividing all animals, plants & rocks into the
useful & the harmful.'
He didn't think science could answer all the empirical questions, and he was extremely fascinated with religion and its ethics. When he was fighting in WW1, he was nicknamed 'the man with the gospels', he was obsessed with one of Tolstoy's writings on the new testament. He also has a lot of detailed epistemological picture painting in On Certainty and PI which have religious consequences. He is most often portrayed as a 'fideist', someone who doesn't believe faith can be rationally probed, although reality is probably more nuanced.
I wonder if all humans do naturally sense God. If you were born into a Truman Show-esque town where no one was allowed to mention God, religion, or even science to you, what would your natural response be if someone asked, 'Where did the world come from?'
I don't; never have.
I think DMT naturally guides us to faith. But not any one particular faith.
Since you mention it, I do have an argument that theists don't exist:
1) for God to be divine, He must be (at least in part) beyond human conception. Otherwise He's just mundane, natural, no different from normal observable data.
2) Humans can obviously only conceive of that which is humanly conceivable.
3) To humans, "God" is only conceivable to the extent that He is within human conception, which to us is mundane, natural and no different from normal observable data i.e. not divine.
Any claim that there is more than what we can humanly conceive is itself human conception, and therefore not beyond human conception. Therefore belief in God is contradiction, and theists are not in fact theists.
What if "belief in God" is a bug, not a feature, and is the thing that differentiates humans from other animals? What if a belief in something unseen and, I would argue, non existent, comes from the part of us that drives us to make art and to strive to do the impossible? All animals are "rational" in that they are driven by hungers for things that are real. hungers that can be satisfied. Humans have an extra hunger that can never be satisfied by the natural world. While it makes sense to conclude that, for it to be analogous to hunger for food, a god must exist. It also could be explained by saying that this 'hunger' has no analogy, but maybe it's the piece that makes us different from everything else.
The sense of the divine exists in you if you've been religiously indoctrinated.
That would not be the case if religion never came into being. The problem for you is that it did… at literally every corner of the earth. Some cultures weren’t explicitly religious, but superstitious thought has permeated throughout humanity for as long as humans could share narrative.
To pass it off as “you wouldn’t have a ‘sense for God’ if you weren’t indoctrinated” is just blatantly incorrect.
I would argue that going to mars is not a good analogy. We are upset when someone dies about them missing out on life, that's where the main grief comes from. People separated from their body are incapacitated. An analogy would be if you found out that someone you love was alive but fell in a coma and wouldn't wake up for the next 50 years. You would also feel grief in such a situation. It's not related to someone going out of existence.
Yeah I was about to comment pretty much the same thing.
Look at the Atheist's conception of the unknown, the shrug, versus the endless lore of theistic tradition when debating the usefulness of the two. Even the most staunch materialist will find that the ingredients to all his science were smuggled out of the pantry of a theist to boil in his broth.
Endless lore with nothing backing it up as actually being true. Middle earth has fascinating lore too, so?
The scientific method is in direct opposition to religion which comes to truth via edicts and dogma. That’s why religion tried to stifle it for so long. It allows people to come to conclusions that aren’t what the religion has already decided is true based on nothing.
@@Emperorhirohito19272 look up who created the scientific method
@@JM-zt8vq look up an estimate of the percentage of the population that were religious at the time
Why do Humans Naturally Sense God?
I think this is one of those questions that require Falsification. Do ALL humans sense God or Have sense God? I would like to see the evidence for this, how do we determine that is it "God" that people are claiming to "sense" and which God are people sensing exactly? Falsification, how do we determine that is Not God that people are sensing??
Anthropomorphism + eoism
"....it does seem anthropologically that wherever we look, people tend to have some kind of sense of the sacred, and the profane, and the numinous ..."
Wherever and whenever we look - even from this statement it is clear, that the numinous we are yearning for is not some jewish Yahweh, but rather a phenomenon which has nothing to do with him. It would be usefull to define what you understand under "God" whenever you start discussions like this.
And Alex should notice that even Buddhists naturally sense "God" and stop falsly arguing that Buddhist are "atheistic".
Pantheism is the natural explanation of this inborn knowing - we are just seemingly "exiled" parts of the One/God, every cell of our material body is, and it is impossible not to know it - even if in some cases our brains are trying their best to deny it.
Why did we desire the nectar of the gods? Why do we see an attractive girl or boy and think of a movie star (or porn star), and thenof Aphrodite and Adonis. Why, when we think of Heaven, we all imagine someplace different? C.S. Lewis imagined a country cottage in the English countryside; an Arab nomad a cool garden with flowing fountains. The movie 'This Is the End' presents Heaven as a perpetual rave- whicn Lewis, with his dislike of both music and modernity would probably desribe as Hell.
People make a lot of money in fulfilling our desires for food, drink, sex (even in the abstract), and shelter. We think of a nice safe place we can curl up in, and get looked after- if we do what Daddy tells us (and even the sternest patriarchal God has some aspect of Mommy, who takes care of us , but (lovingly) reproves us and tells us we're breaking Mommy's heart).)..
You sense God because God is spirit
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
John 4:24
As a theist I dont think atheists are completely wrong when they say something like men invented God so they can have some delusional friend who fulfill their desires and relieves their anxiety over death by putting them in heaven.
There are people who serves God, doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't people who believes that God serves them. I don't think it's this or that, rather both, there are people who align themselves with religious principles and there are people who invoke God only when "NEEDED". It's even possible that both of this trait can be seen in the same person not simultaneously because that would be absurd, rather interchangeably.
How can you say we have a natural sense for God when humans existed for 200,000 years with no concept of God?
Is that anything like how I naturally sense bullshit. Any time someone tries to explains their religion I just naturally sense it.
I also seem to sense that question marks are unnecessary or something.
Here’s a playful story imagining a conversation between Alex O’Connor (also known as “Cosmic Skeptic”) and an atheist friend in a bar, where they humorously explore the concept of sensus divinitatis-the innate sense of the divine.
It’s a rainy evening, and Alex O’Connor walks into a cozy bar to meet an atheist friend who, let’s call him Dave. They find a corner booth, order a couple of drinks, and start chatting. Eventually, the conversation turns philosophical.
“So, Alex,” Dave says with a grin, “tell me about this fancy sensus divinitatis stuff I keep hearing about. Isn’t that just a Christian way of saying, ‘I feel it, so it must be real’?”
Alex chuckles. “Well, it’s not exactly a ‘feeling,’ Dave. It’s more like an instinct or an intuition that everyone has, like an internal compass pointing toward God.”
Dave smirks. “So, you’re saying I’m walking around with this little spiritual GPS? Then why’s mine always ‘out of signal’?”
Alex laughs. “Fair question. It’s more like having an old, slightly glitchy GPS. The signal’s there, but maybe it’s got a lot of interference. Think of it like… an app you didn’t download but still occasionally opens up on your phone.”
Dave raises an eyebrow. “So, what, I accidentally butt-dial God? Like, every now and then, I feel a twinge and think, ‘Huh, maybe there’s something out there?’”
“Exactly!” Alex says, nodding. “According to Calvin, this sensus divinitatis is installed at the factory. Humans are born with it. It’s like having a basic version of Google Maps that constantly tries to redirect you to God.”
“But,” Dave objects, “if it’s factory-installed, why do some of us ignore it? Shouldn’t I be getting ‘divine notifications’ like you religious folks?”
Alex leans back, amused. “Well, it’s not exactly that simple. Even Calvin thought this ‘app’ could be corrupted by… let’s say, life’s spamware. Our personal ‘settings’ and experiences can tune it out or even suppress it entirely.”
Dave looks thoughtful. “So, you’re saying I have an instinct for God… but I keep accidentally muting it.”
“Exactly,” Alex laughs. “Or ignoring it like a software update. You know it’s there, but you keep swiping it away.”
Dave grins. “So maybe I just don’t have Wi-Fi in my soul. Or maybe I’ve got one of those defective models?”
Alex raises his glass. “Here’s to hoping it’s just in need of an update.”
They both laugh, clinking their glasses. Dave takes a sip and says, “Alright, alright, you got me thinking. If I start seeing little God notifications pop up, I’ll know who to thank-or blame.”
In the end, they part ways, each a bit more thoughtful about the nature of belief. And maybe, just maybe, Dave heads home that night wondering if his “sensus divinitatis” really does need a reboot.
Nice, but completely wrong from the first dialogue sentence. What do you think means "real" in respect to immaterial phenomenon such as God?
@ what is real?
It takes a lot of energy to keep up the veil of Maya and every once in a while it drops and we get a glimpse of what's beyond. We know there's more than meets the eye because at some level of consciousness we are deceiving ourselves and we know it.
I don't think they are looking for a belief in god (looking for something that doesn't exist). I think they are seeking love lost (poor parenting), predominantly generated by a society that throws children into jail for 8 hours a day... I'm currently developing a book project about this concept :)
God is usually conceived of as a personal being, personal beings exist, so a desire for god is no different to the desire for a 'perfect woman' who may not actually exist.
Even if god is more of an experiential thing, the idea that we belong to something more and all that, we belong to an existence that is imperfect and where we feel disconnected, so we are able to feel for an existence that lacks those aspects that we dislike or feel out of place in.
So I don't think this argument is really as strong as you're putting forth.
Natural human curiosity for the unknown. Natural desire to seek truth. Natural wish for spiritual assistance in time of hardships. It is possible there are multiple answers to this question. However, a sense of something (eg. fear, anxiety, doom) in truth, can range anywhere between complete rationality to complete irrationality. Also, we can seek answers but we may never ever know.
Would a desite to seek truth, unknown etc. be "natural" if there were no ruth and unknow? Of course this is the same. We cannot "naturally" have a yearning for something that is nonexistent.
There are plenty of natural yearnings humans have which we may never reach a definite conclusion.
Examples:
Can we prove there’s an afterlife?
Do ghosts exist?
Will humans ever reach the edge of the universe?
Can we go through black holes and survive?
Can we go back in time or into the future?
Natural yearnings doesn’t equate to natural existence or a definitive answer.
@@johnwho4794 You have to understand first that a believer is no scientist. He "deals" with the immaterial, not with matter. He knows (or should know) that in the realm of immaterial there are no objective truths or definitive answers - in that you kick the open door.
We speak of "yearning, sensing" - that are by definition SUBJECTIVE emotions relative only to the respektive subjects. And so are the "answers". A believer KNOWS when his questions are answered, and needs no scientifical objectivization - what an absurd notion in this context.
But anyway, the point is there cannot be a natural yearning for something that doesn 't exist.
@alena-qu9vj, I’m not arguing why people naturally have senses and yearnings. More the issue that there is a jump in logic that natural yearning/sense implies a truth at the end. None of us on Earth knows the truth at the end of this curiosity topic.
Even if there was a higher being, there could be 4 Gods instead of 1. Or there could be another God that had created our God, who suddenly decided to give us a visit after we spend 100 years in heaven. The possibilities of “what ifs” are abundant. Even if there is an after-life, we’d still likely to ask further questions which ultimately will lead to further questions.
@@johnwho4794 BUT WE ARE NOT speaking about material logic and material objective truth. How should I stress it for you to hear me??
Faith IS NOT an objective thing underlying to scientific objectivism. It is admittedly a subjective, illogical, emotionally based phenomenon relative to the respective individual.
So, of course, every believer is perfectly free to believe in as many gods as he pleases, and in any spiritual conception he SUBJECTIVELY feels "true". Spiritual truth is "autheniicity" in other words, without regard on what your Church says.
You really have to stop understanding faith or God in the way your Sunday school teacher wanted you to, to understand what "theist" or "faith" really means. You have to realize that America and/or dogmatic Christianity have no authors rights on anybodys faith.
Why do we have an innate sense that gravity waves exist? Oh, wait. We don't. Why do so many cultures believe in things like dragons and elves and ghosts? Because they exist? Arguments from pervasive yearning or belief are pretty rickety.
There's a very obvious and plausible answer to the question of why we sense the divine, that is rooted in evolutionary biology. We're social creatures; we're members of tribes.
The humans that did not assume that at any given moment they might be observed by a member of their tribe would probably be more likely to perform actions that would get them ostracized from their tribe, and thereby weeded out of the gene pool.
That is to say, assuming that at any given moment someone might be watching you, and therefore you should behave morally, was probably a trait that was naturally selected, and therefore, over time, became prevalent in the gene pool.
Here's a question I invite atheists to spend some time seriously considering: is your chief objection to theism really a lack of evidence, or is it that you resent having limitations placed on your behavior? The most devout atheists I know are also, coincidentally, total hedonists. Are you driven primarily by the pursuit of truth, or by your love of pleasure?
It's a rhetorical question. I don't need your answer. I just want you to be honest enough to answer the question for yourself.
I don’t
I'm human, I don't. So false question.
Watch the first 30 seconds- “it does seem anthropologically that wherever we look, people tend to have some kind of sense of the sacred, and the profane, and the numinous, and the religious.” I don’t have it, you don’t have it, fine. That’s not the question.
Excellent answer! From there you can never sense the divine.
@@benjaminnoble-kuchera1876I responded to the title, smartipants
I don't either. As a kid, I did try to call out to God/Gods because I was told that he/they exist, but I never really felt a 'divine embracement', nor have it been anymore useful to me than interpersonal exchanges, music, art, or some good sleep. Looking back, most of the time, all I needed was an escape, an assurance, or a temporary suspension of worry. I don't need God for that.
@@aneurinellis3926I don't sense it because it's a load of nonsense, not because, as you so dishonestly imply, I refuse to. You know what it says about your religious belief if you need to reflexively dishonestly accuse people of things you have no basis for? Yeah...
I think it is a mere extension of our tendency to ascribe agency to unexplained phenomena (which has evolutionary advantage) and the fact and constancy of the horizon of ignorance. After staving off the immediate demands of survival, any thoughts around the unknown will result in the postulation of an unseen powerful agent.
I like the evolutionary argument. A life aligned with God is thr most human life we can live.
The Catholic has the perfect counterargument to this. We don't know we'll be in Heaven, we hope and are given hope, but even faithful Catholics who have gone before us may still be in purgatory for undefined periods of time. Mourning is the soul's natural response to this to remember our loved ones and pray for them that they may see paradise.
Happy All Souls Day!
I’m going to hell because I left the monastery after being a monk for 10 years. Don’t waste your precious time praying for my soul….i am truly condemn to eternal pain and suffering because God is a loving Father and I disobeyed him by being a critical thinker. God is just and true and. Loves to see us bad guys burning in hell.
@@terrlaw328 There is nothing inherently damnable about leaving the monastery, as a supposed former monk you should know that. What is damnable is your clear attitude of rebellion and resentment towards God and towards the Church. Will pray for you, if anything that our Lord heals your wounds which are clearly having a hugely negative effect on your soul.
Because God is Real Christ is King✝️🦇
Amen
@@t2nexx561 There is no God but God, and Muhammed is his Prophet.
It was thru fear that the sensus divinitatis ultimately evolved . As consciousness and self awareness evolved , a sense of vulnerability started to set in . Fear of the unknown . Appeasing anxiety . Sense of protection in a world of randomness with constant deadly threats. The sense that “luck” or that the circumstances would favor them ( (think of the experiment with pigeons and superstitious behavior). The sense that it would always be someone else , and not you , who would perish . A sense of special protection
Our 2 most innate drives are survival and the reflex to recoil from pain and suffering.
it seems that alex is steadily becoming an "agnostic" whom neither theist or atheist arguments can any longer satisfy... what will he do next? a trip to the amazon? a year in tibet?
Maybe the Spunk-mop moustache is a clue.
@@donthesitatebegin9283 two years in a small cabin by the lake it is
It is scary how little online atheists know that religion is a product of evolution. For some reason, it is much easier to pretend that religion is just for the sake of answering scientific questions. Why is that? Why not just go with the explanation that all evolutionary psychologists give?
Nobody is "pretending". It's true. Religion provides ready-made, pre-scientific answers.
So far as "religion is a product of evolution" - the concept at the centre and origin of religion might pass down through the generations, because it is advantageous, like the language instinct, but religions come and go and can't possibly fit into any model involving the biological adoption of physical constants.
@donthesitatebegin9283 I think you slightly misread my comment. I said "just". As in, one or the other.
It's a very strange claim that religion exists to explain scientific phenomenon. If you already accept that religion is a product of evolution, what's the point of believing that it also stems from scientific inquiry? I understand that 2 things can be true at once but what is your evidence for such a bold claim? Just because some religions has explanations on how the material world functions doesn't mean those explanations are the driving factor.
@@wakkablockablaw6025I don't understand your questions, they seem unrelated to my points.
@@donthesitatebegin9283 I'm not too sure where your confusion lies. I didn't address your one point about physical constants because it didn't really had anything to do with what I was saying. But I address everything else.
Given my own practice and experience with Christianity, I don't personally like the word "God," but for the sake of argument, I will say... I have a God-shaped hole in my heart. I have a painful longing for the Divine that I can not find in this world, for I am surrounded by mere facts and logic. I hate being an atheist... I want a relationship with Lucifer or Odin or Shiva. 😢
😀 choose wisely
See you in Valhalla. Odin!
That’s a cop out. Sorry.
@@christopherhamilton3621 Care to explain?
It is because we are filled with his spirit and he wrote it on our hearts. Not recognizing your soul is denying 1/3 of your being. It's not a small thing.
I’ve never had that, ever. I think it is taught, not built in
th-cam.com/video/aOY9WOO0-Oc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=vZvF6zYP6-U7OLfR
For me, this video gives the best explanation for how religion developed.
If I have a yearning about God, it's for him to disappear from humanity. We have enough complications in life without having to deal with nonsense about God.
😂😂 your god is your desires
What do you me complications in life if there is no God??
There is no complication in a survival of the fittest world. There is no evil or bad in that world.
@@Murphydennis2332 There's most definitely evil and bad my guy
@@t2nexx561 who gets to determine what is good or bad in a survival of the fittest world??
Wow, that title is a seriously loaded question . Certainly some of us claim to sense something that they call god, but that's about the best you can do.
Its about the best you can do before the "vague sensation" gets validated. Of course I speak about a subjective validation, the only possible way in the matters of faith. Thats why all this smart talk of the "philosophers" without any relevant experience in this field is so funny.
If we have evolved a "religious " part of our mind. looking at the marxist/matirialist thought should we disregard religion as governing bodies ruling on the idea that all things evolved physically and socially.
Just kiss already
It’s called fitra. Mentioned multiple times in the Quran. It’s the natural disposition that we ALL have but some choose to ignore/disregard or just question but it’s there.
Let me choose to ignore my sense of hearing. Oh wait, nothing has changed.
It’s not mentioned multiple times. The word only occurs once in the Quran in 30:30
@@abdelbaasit1 alluded, inferred or implied if you want to play semantics
@@Lord.alucarD Its amusing although cringe at the same to observe somebody to boast of their handicap.
@@alena-qu9vj If you'd like to elaborate further. Are you saying I'm handicapped because I can't feel God?
Yall are going to find out real soon Jesus is real and yall are going to cry out. May the Lord have mercy on you. Repent and believe the gospel.
Why is Alex O'Conner--- a college graduate with a pretentious persona and affectation-- pushed so much??
The two guys do not seem to have had a mystical experience and debate from a position of not knowing. I would recommend they become more connected with the ideas of Carl Jung and Plato. Get in touch with the Unconscious through dreams. Learn to interpret them.
It is precisely the fear from the Unconscious which drives these smart logic types and their "atheism". All their "logic" and "rationalism" are just desperate efforts to keep the illusion of control over the uncontrollable. Yes, they should try some Jung, before the dam mightly brokes and causes uncontrolable damage.
Plus score some good acid, Always helped me see God.
Every generalization is wrong (yes, including this one).
"Why Do Humans"??
I am a human. I do not "sense" any gods. Never did and I am old as f""""k. In your title the word "humans" is a generalization and it is wrong.
And, by the way, no one "senses" any gods. Their confirmation bias may lead them to think they do, but they don`t. Do they? Deities only exist in the minds of those who believe them to exist after they have been put there by other humans through blackmail and fear (indoctrination). They are not real. They are imaginary.
Some humans are led to believe deities are real but many are not. So you can not include all of humanity on the title.
obviously there is no god lmao.