*Detective Fiction and the God-Need*

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Research in neuropsychology/physiology in the last 15-20 years has led some in the field to suggest that the evolution, ( in the last 50,000 years particularly ), of "fluid intelligence" in humans, which is concerned with assigning agency, ascribing cause, pattern recognition, and creating meaning out of "chaos", may have produced, as a kind of by-product, a "god-need".

The theory is that our tendency to seek for patterns, meaning, agency, etc, can not be completely satisfied by our finite understanding of the universe, and this creates a kind of hunger/thirst, for a first cause, for a fundamental meaning/significance, which can, ( in those most "afflicted/blessed" with this tendency, or without the kind of activity which might largely absorb/exhaust it ), cause "discomfort", depression, anxiety, etc.

NB. I actually think that a better name for it would be "need to believe in god", because it is the "belief", in god, which makes the difference.

For a few hundred years science, and cultural attitudes generally, have made it increasingly difficult for anyone who prides themselves on their "rationality" to believe in god. What the "god-need" theory provides is a rational reason to choose to believe in god. For the effects that holding such a belief have, not out of any irrational arguments for god's existence.

But this is a relatively recent idea. For over a hundred years belief in god has been perceived, and presented, as fundamentally irrational, and this has virtually made it "taboo" for anyone who values the objectively logical/rational/reasonable.

So I am wondering whether the increasing, almost compulsive, consumption of detective fiction, ( books, films, and TV ), which began in the late 19th century and has become so pervasive that hardly an evening's TV does not have some kind of detection as entertainment, and every bookstand has many different kinds in stock, is some sort of dummy/pacifier of this "god-need", because detection fiction provides a vicarious experience of successfully seeking and "finding"/ascribing of cause and agency, etc, which is what belief in god otherwise provides.

But detection fiction is ultimately unsatisfying, because it does not provide much, if any, meaning outside of itself, and has to be returned to like a drug, to repeat the high, the tranquilising effect. What do you think?
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Last edited by ouinon on 01 Dec 2008, 4:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

It sounds like we're figuring out better and better how the human mind and psyche work; which is a good thing. That does sound about right to me, what you said about our attaining the apparatus of symbolic thought and what that's done in terms of shaping how we think.

The only thing I'll add to that though, there's still no proof or disproof regarding the spiritual, religious, or at least anything quantifiable outside of personal experiences. Regarding all this information, my gut instinct is to say yes, its all there, its all correct, we evolved, while our fulfillment of full scientific knowledge of reality is still a ways from fruition I would say that I would not dispute anything that's been carefully reasoned through and done under proper control (ie. the majority of it). For me this simply means that once again, we're doing something set in motion by the church back in renaissance times, to analyze 'God's creation' so to speak and its as if when someone tunnels too deep into analyzing it and doesn't take a break, its easy to lose perspective. Rather than seeing the whole forest they have a piece of bark in a lab that they have under microscope, are testing under all kinds of chemicals, checking its plant dna sequences, trying to figure out if they can drill into the quantum physics level of this 'bark', and they do it all day. In close conjunction our world is changing in that direction, general knowledge is becoming far greater, but strangely enough it lays out a lot of false perceptual assumptions. I think when people such as Dawkins feel that this disproves a higher power what its really saying is, under further analysis, 'feels' like it should if we're to take what religion 'feels' like to us after years of growing up with it and many of its proponents and teachers not being the most articulate people on earth. I think that much is merely a perceptual trap - one that I do have a lot of sympathy for because I've been there myself and I know how easy it is to fall into.

Referring back to 'No One Sees God' our inherent desire for justice and things of that nature is brought up quite a ways. I concur that if we're able to show that this is only in us because of a shift in evolution, whether it just hit Cromagnon man back around 40,000 years ago or whether it was through cross breading with Neandrethals, I can see where this would at least diminish its worth as an argument for theists. At the same time though it won't be a nail in the coffin for many either, one can argue that our understanding of the religious and metaphysical is much like a science and that people make a mistake in assuming that our understanding of it is fixed; plenty of room for acceptance of evolutionary explanation in that regard. Overall, the atheist/theist/deist argument will probably go on for a long time where one side is describing something like a bunt cake pan looking at it from the outside as domed upward with a core that bends downward and the other is describing it from the inside as concave and hollow with a core that bends upward - that's the fascinating thing about it though, there's a lot of ground that still needs to be covered and its a worthwhile argument just in terms of how much we can learn about ourselves, about life, enrich our global philosophies and how articulate our understandings of the world are (ie. turning out higher and higher quality of thought on all sides).

Heh, hope that explanation didn't get too carried away?

wouldn't it be the same thing as praying or going to a religious service?

That might be true for people who rely on others to do their religious thinking for them, but if take responsibility for one's own beliefs, for own understanding of the world, then religious services etc, are, if anything, more likely to have the opposite effect, by encouraging you to hand that over to the priests etc.

In that sense I can see how religious organisations may act to create dependency on them of their followers, and yes, it might not be much better than a regular diet of detective fiction.

But belief in god needn't involve such dependency. Knowledge/insight acquired, ( while exploring/noticing the effects of belief in god ), is relatively permanent, like data which updates one's programming so that whole outlook/experience is gradually transformed, and do not need, such frequent, booster shots to keep it going.

If the data, ( which "belief in god" makes visible/available to you ), really enters the system/your mind, it will continue to act on your thoughts/experience without further stimulation.
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I was just thinking though, that perhaps detection fiction is not necessarily only a dummy/pacifier of the "god-need", but can be a training ground, an experience which encourages and nurtures it, for a while, until increasing dissatisfaction, with the solutions given within its structure, provokes a desire for something more.

I have loved detective stories since childhood. Sherlock Holmes was one of my first heroes, and I have read, or watched, hundreds of detective stories since then. But as time passed I became increasingly unsatisfied with the endings. They almost never lived up to the excitement and suspense of the searching process.

My own experience is that belief in god is the only "solution" which more than lives up to the preceding search/detection process. It illuminates the whole of life, just as the solution in a crime story is supposed to illuminate all the previous muddle, mystery and confusion etc, but so often feels like an anti-climax.
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Why must Science and Religion be at odds with each other? The two opposing poles have sought collateral damage if not mutally assured destrution for so long now, and I'm asking why science considers itself the "antidote" to God. And likewise the most insular aspects of relgionist thought consider themselves the antidote to science and rationalism.

The discoveries made and knowledge gained by science further and furthrer illumines a rigorously ordered universe, do they not? The level of order and sophistication in Nature, to me, is precisely how the Creator reveals Himself to the created. If you begin to see it here, you see it there, and then everywhere.

I think it may be because, in the West at least, the Church became corrupted, used for worldly power, and became a source of oppression, against which people rebelled, with another power, that of our power over the objective world. Scientific discoveries were made the champions which would overthrow this dominance; scientific knowledge was used as a weapon to weaken the Church's hold on people, and science has remained stuck in this role until very recently.
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i think inherit the wind does a decent job of illustrating how the struggle really started and how it really exists to most extents.

I disagree.

The play was based only loosely on a case of Church prosecution of scientific teaching, and was intended more as a portrayal of the inquisitional tactics of McCarthyism than of the struggle for dominance that went on in the 17th and 18th centuries between the Church's power-corrupted organisation and those who resented or criticised its power, and who opposed it with whatever seemed most likely to topple it, which just happened to be science.

Until science was adopted as the champion of its opponents, ( who sought to reduce the power of the church and increase their own ), religion and science had a very good relationship. The Church funded and supported most of the scientific activity of the time.

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Last edited by ouinon on 01 Dec 2008, 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i think it exemplifies the modern church archetype of trying to define reality and suppress other sources that contradict their world view. that same thing can be seen today with the modern church's view on birth control methods (specifically, the abstinence only crowd) and with issues that they have no basis to form an opinion on like with their absolutist stance on any form of cloning (including therapeutic).

It occurs to me that science, or scientific research/study, actually might seem like an antidote to "god" for the same reason that I am suggesting detection fiction may act as a pacifier of the god-need. In that the searching for cause, agency, patterns etc of science is satisfying something of the same need.

It temporarily reduces the "tension" generated by unsatisfied "god-need". Which would also explain something almost "driven" about scientific "progress", the need to keep finding new causes, agencies, and patterns, because otherwise become conscious of the god-need again.

Hmm. Interesting relationship between the two. The more "new agencies, causes etc" that science can come up with, the more mysteries it can keep discovering to solve, the more it silences the god-need. But it has to keep coming up with new ones.

What has often been lacking, since the schism caused by power struggles in the 16th century onwards, is a healthy balance between them, ( which is what "virtue" is ). Too much of one is destructive.

But I get the impression that perhaps there is a move now towards a midground, with work like that of neurophysiologists/psychologists which creates increased scientific understanding of the widespread need for belief in god; accurate observation of subjective reality/experience leading to comprehension of its value and importance.

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The God-Need. This, I think, is a basic componnt of our human psychological makeup. Evidence of it, ie. religions and philosophies, can be found in all cultures, all societies. It's like the need for a parent, the need to be loved. If this need is denied, something else takes its place. If I had no awe & reverence for a supreme Creator in my life, what instead gets my awe & reverence? Myself? Money? Technology? Sex? Power?

My point is, everyone needs something to believe in, even the most hardened of skeptics. If there is no God in your heavens, I submit that you will have found some thing, some idea, some golden calf here on Earth.

What about those of us who haven't?

In my experience at least very few of those with the mental fortitude and courage to live in a cold uncaring universe feel the need to replace God with something else to worship.

Why deny a greater God offering greater rewards and safety in favor of things that will not save you from death or give meaning to meaningless existence?