Imaginary gods do they really work?

[Wordy]

Confusing question but read at this link and you maybe see my take on it?
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/brain/dn13782-religion-a-figment-of-human-imagination.html

Religion a figment of human imagination
28 April 2008 * NewScientist.com * Andy Coghlan
...

Humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination.

That's the argument of anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists.

Instead, he argues that first, we had to evolve the necessary brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't physically exist, and the possibility that people somehow live on after they've died.

Once we'd done that, we had access to a form of social interaction unavailable to any other creatures on the planet. Uniquely, humans could use what Bloch calls the "transcendental social" to unify with groups, such as nations and clans, or even with imaginary groups such as the dead. The transcendental social also allows humans to follow the idealised codes of conduct associated with religion.


Maybe his most important words for this thread is this:

"What the transcendental social requires is the ability to live very largely in the imagination," Bloch writes.

What that text takes for granted or imply without spelling it out is that to the believers they most likely don't see their relation to God as imagination at all.


Unless they talk in code??? When they say to each other.
"You gotta have faith" which could be translated to. "You've have to use your imagination".

To them God is real. More real than you and me in this thread. :)
But my purpose for this thread is to ask all of us as an atheist to other atheists but theists are also welcome. Is it possible to live an imaginary life? Is it something one could defend doing?

Suppose his theory is a good model of human capacity to act within an imagined world. A kind of "Second Life" but played out in reality at free time?

Suppose me would take the BattleStar Galactica text as a model to try out.

Imagining me have an inner Cylon to converse with. How real would it be. Would my ability to suspend disbelief need outer attributes like looking at the BSG on DVD and then the few seconds it last in my brain me would say.

"So say we all" a few times to feel part of the imagined world.

This is a kind of "thought experiment" but social and not philosophical.
Psychological and practical and maybe artful more than intellectual?

Any kind comments hopefully?

[Gladrags]

Imaginary gods do they really work? They work for people who have no belief in their own abilities and capabilities. These people don't believe in themselves or believe they deserve the things that come their way. And therefore they fail to take the credit for their own success.

[Wordy]

Then I wonder where you place yourself in that scenario you painted?

Where do you place me?

I've tried to get what religion is since me ten years old and that means for more than 50 years. Reason is that my Mom and Dad had big clashes over this. He was very sure in his Atheism and she emotionally sure of that her feeling was worthy to follow but intellectually she had no words for what they are about. She just felt them. Enough for her but not for Dad and not for me so I decided at ten years old to be an Atheist.

So I became an atheist out of intellectual reasoning. At forty years old me realized my body had chosen to hide that it copied or mimicked or mirrored or imprinted my Mom's religious feelings in it's brain long before me was intellectually ready for such stuff. (Most likely me took over or inbedded her religious body language at age 2 to 4 or up to 5? )

My body felt like her but me as atheist had no faith in that those feelings was anything more than natural feelings.

But that didn't make them go away.

So based on you take on it.

1.) They work for people who have no belief in their own abilities and capabilities.

Do you say I have no " belief in their own abilities and capabilities. "

2.) These people don't believe in themselves or believe they deserve the things that come their way.

How is that related to me? Sure me have a low self esteem now
that is certainly true

but when I had a higher such "belief in me" then me lied about what I was capable of. during those twenty years of self grandeur me from 20 to 40 years old I did think me had capacity to have success. But looking back it is obvious that was a big lie. I lured myself and others.

Not a very ethical thing to do and a disaster from reality point of view.

3. And therefore they fail to take the credit for their own success.

But I don't have successes as far as I know. I have failure upon failure.
I've lost all friends. Due to my lack of capacity for social relations.

What are you saying in your text and how is it related to you and me.

I guess you don't include yourself among these people? Do you include me?

But I don't believe in gods, I see them as imaginations and my question is
Imaginary gods do they really work?

title would be too long if I included that I also wonder if it is possible for us atheist to let them work for us.

I examplified with the BattleStar Galactica series where they have a ritual and say.

"So say we all" and me and other atheists maybe jokingly use it when we see that tv series. More like a Football Team maybe doing pep talk among themselves.

I also use it in relation to the "Inner Cylons" some of the roles in that tv series have.

Adama talk to his late wife at times. she argue with him.
Soul Tigh talk to his late wife too.
Gaius Baltar has much problem with his inner "Caprica Six cylon" and his inner "Baltar teasing him".

I don't remember that all of them have such though.

When me read Science Fiction at 12 or so me had an Imaginary Friend sort of. A space girl my age visiting me but me being a loser and not having great imagination failed both to see her and to hear her. I got her name though. ElNine. I dropped her when me was older. I felt embarrassed me ever had one. And I was not good at doing it either so no great help doing it. Kind of useless then.

But now when I maybe have only five or ten or at most 15 years left to live and there is no real human here around that stands my present then I wonder if it is possible to have imaginary "gods" or inner persons for a rational but emotional atheist like me?

no I don't want to get a Dog or Cat or Ferret or other animal. They are happier with other owners than me.

[Gladrags]

Wordy,

Now I understand your question. I have a favourite saying for people who accuse me of 'magical thinking'. I say, "Don't take away other people's illusions, they may be all that is keeping them alive." So, in the sense that I now understand your question, I say believe whatever you want. But continue to seek the truth and work to stay positive. I see no harm in having imaginary 'friends/gods' so long as you realise that they are imaginary.

[Wordy]

Thanks, but most of us atheists and me too tend to see such behavior
as I maybe describe here as bad and not moral behvior.
To have imaginary friends while being grown up is not to be encouraged.

Maybe it could be done in "Art" or "Play" or "Game" as in Live Role Play.

Or as the Gamers do when they shoot enemy and maybe have online
imaginary friends among the other Gamers. They don't really know the
others so they have to take their descriptions as a "suspended disbelief"

The person who claim to be a middle age man could be a young teen girl
wanting to explore her manly sides? To fit in among the other gamers without
getting stalked if they knew her real identity?

the word "Friend" is not easy to use here cause it has many connotations.

A friend is someone one should be able to trust. You can't trust imaginary friends

So it breaks up functionally already there. But the intuitive sense remains.

Maybe one need to find formulations or descriptions that solve such realizations.

I've thought of reformulating it as "The inner You" but that sounds kind of crazy
too.

"Inner Guide" sounds too much of New Age Woo.

Many religions or some or a few religions or "spiritualities" have terms
similar. "Your inner Self". but me as an atheist don't want to use words
that is easily mistaken to be what they refer to. Which most likely is not
what I refer to.

"Inner Representations" sounds a bit too clinical or academic?

"Inner Role Models" too functional like a list of roles in a Role Playing Game.

Michael Gazzaniga has tried to find a name for it in Neuro Science. Interpreter module IP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gazzaniga

Michael S. Gazzaniga (born December 12, 1939) is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind.

In 1961, Gazzaniga graduated from Dartmouth College. In 1964, he received a Ph.D. in psychobiology from the California Institute of Technology, where he worked under the guidance of Roger Sperry, with primary responsibility for initiating human split-brain research. In his subsequent work he has made important advances in our understanding of functional lateralization in the brain and how the cerebral hemispheres communicate with one another.
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/~gazzanig/

“interpreter module,”

Within Neuro Science the idea of "modules" is controversial but maybe works as models to do more research based on. Future will tell what better models there is.

Personally I find it helpful to see it as a “interpreter module,” within me.

Until they come up with better models I chose to see that one as best for now.

So this “interpreter module,” is a kind of imaginary "Friend" but it is obvious you can't
trust it. It lies to you. If it lies knowinly of out of habit me don't know.

But real physical "Friends" do tend to lie too. See this true life scenario.

Head role in real life ask best "Friend". Do I look ok in this clothes.
"You look great in them" the trusted friend says. Me looking from outside
of it all don't agree. The "Friend" lie to her. She look kind of ok but she
doesn't look great at all but the "Friend" care more about how she feels
then the literal truth about what common fashion trends say is great or
ugly looking. Some twenty years later it is high fashion to look like she does now.
Retro look was out of fashion when she wore it but could be very in now
twenty years later.

[Wordy]

Post too much of a derail so I moved to here
http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?p=48589#post48589

[lpetrich]

As a species, we've been willing to spend a Hades of a lot of resources on various figments of our imagination. Storytelling is an art as old as our species, I think.

Epics. Novels. Plays. Movies. TV shows. Computer games.

Also, much of what we think we know about the world around us is really a mental model of that world -- and much of our mental modeling is done unconsciously. The more unconscious sorts of mental modeling are somewhat buggy, as the existence of optical and other perceptual illusions show, but it is usually reliable.


As to religion, shamans and mystics and the like could say "I don't need Faith; I can directly perceive it." However, there is good reason to believe that their experiences are hallucinations.

I recently blogged on that question over at RnR in Do we perceive God? The argument from religious experience (http://www.rantsnraves.org/blog.php?b=131). I concluded that the epistemological problem was like that of an amputee's phantom limb, where one perceives that limb's presence even despite having a very well-supported model of reality that states that that limb has been amputated. So one has two choices:

The perception of that limb is correct, and the limb-absence model has a flaw somewhere.
The limb-absence model is correct, and the perception of that limb is false.

Applying this to religious and mystical experiences, we would agree with (2), but many mystics come up with some version of (1), claiming that their experiences represent Real Reality and that all our other perceptions are perceptions of an illusory Matrix world.

[Wordy]

I think that it's more likely that we are drawing from motifs and imagery and the like that we already have, but that might be saying what you are saying in a different way. I'm reminded of Xenophanes's Law, that people create gods in their likeness. Xenophanes noted 2500 years ago that people always imagine that the gods that they worship not only look like them, but also have similar styles of clothing.

It's significant that we don't learn anything really new in out-of-body experiences; the same is also true of religious revelations despite claims of such things as prophecy fulfillments and scientific discoveries.
Posted 25 Apr 08 ... by lpetrich

I agree with this. Seems very likely. Very few are able to stand outside of their "Zeitgeist", they mostly create from within what they have experiences of.

But doesn't that start from the other end. Start from God and explain why that particular god have the attributes he or she has.

While me start from the other end.

I or me personally have needs. Not of a god but something I could share with others.
But I don't want to construct something that is doomed to go very wrong. Gods usually do. They are by default omni-gods or wimps.

what I want to construct is more like a super-whimp then an Omni-God.

An imaginary friend maybe will not work. Had it been a working concept then it would have been used already.

So in the other thread me came up with a modest suggestion.
"Inner Dialog Sharing Groups"
http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?p=48589#post48589

Through sharing of "inner dialogs" one get to know others
through their actions and that could make it possible to maybe
get real friends after a while. Not a warranty that it takes place
but a hope that eventually it could work that way if committed to.

"So Say We All" kind of get together but in a totally secular atheistic setting.

Maybe a working name could be "Inner Dialog Sharing Groups"

"Inner Dialog" is not with a God or any fancy New Age channeled "Spirit" or "Guide" either.

It is more biological and basic, our own inner person. What Gazzaniga name the InterPreter module.

Such don't really exist but is how it feels like for us as a subjective experience.

so I thought one could stat applying this in a group setting.

[Wordy]

The funny thing is that nobody has not even made comment on that post. So that could support that gods work cause they are supposed to be super and omni this and that while my approach is a totally natural one and that is of totally zero interest even to atheists.

Or it could be me totally failing to give my idea a readable presentation. I'm sure a loser. :)

[Sinister]

Basically, I view the source of all religions/mythologies as a basic need for answering the unknown. Throughout mankind's existence, there have been forces/gods/heroes. They provide comfort, discipline and structure in the face of mass unknowables. Forces, gods and heroes gradually fall away with knowledge, discoveries and education.

Even in today's enlightened age, we humans struggle with many age old problems. We always face the one inevitable unknown - death. Being conscious of our own mortality answers for much of the "you need god!" sentiment.

I think another factor, for some people, is a need for authority. Religion/belief can be a bit like the military. You have an authority, discipline, clear and concise rules. A lot of people feel cut adrift without such structure in their life. Even though all the discipline and structure actually comes from themselves, they find it more comforting to believe the whole mess is someone else's responsibility. It's always easy for humans to abdicate responsibility, even when they don't care for the rule they end up under. History provides many an example.

ETA: Me, I'm in touch with my inner fish. :D