Summary
Title: The Psychological Roots Of Religious Belief: Searching For Angels And The Parent-God
Author: M. D. Faber
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1591022673
Pro:
• Interesting arguments and analyses of human development
Con:
• Many probably won’t even read this, much less consider its arguments
Description:
• Psychological analysis of religious beliefs
• Argues that we are “primed” to adopt religion and theism by our psychological development
• Compares belief in angels & gods to our attachment to parents and caregivers
Book Review
The conflict between naturalism and supernaturalism is one that plays out in many scientific fields, but perhaps none with more rancor than when it comes to the origin and nature of religious beliefs. Even naturalistic explanations for the origin of humanity and life are less threatening to believers than naturalistic explanations for their own religions.
Into this conflict steps M. D. Faber, who focuses on comparisons between typical religious narratives or stories and experiences humans typically have during the first decade of life. This is not so much a scientific study as it is a cultural study, but no less interesting for it.
- “I offer the reader a psychodynamic model of human development with special emphasis on the first years of life, the years during which the seeds of religious belief are sown. Ultimately, I am looking for connections between religious belief as it emerges through narrative, precept, metaphor, and symbol, and psychological proposition as it emerges through clinical, therapeutic practice, through recent neuropsychological investigations of the human mind-brain and through related anthropological study of magical behavior. ...[T]he book depends entirely on the reader being struck by the details of the analysis, by the unmistakable, even amazing correspondences between the religious and psychological materials I bring to bear.”
What sort of connection is Faber trying to make here? It’s a long and complex argument, one that relies more heavily on analogy than experiment, but the simplest summary may be “Ask, and ye shall receive.” From infancy, we human beings are primed to establish relationship with “higher powers” (our parents) to take care of our needs.
As infants we are helpless and have to make many demands on the world, but our parents are always there to feed us, comfort us, and keep us warm. It’s not possible for this not to leave a lasting impact on our psyches. We are “primed” in the sense that we continue to seek out comforting, and anything that looks like it provides that comfort will be received as a new “parent,” an ersatz caregiver who has only the best intentions for us.
Religious beliefs in supernatural beings provides us with something we vitally need on a fundamental level, something we’ve relied upon since we first drew breath. Because our brains are so flexible and pliable, we easily adapt to the new circumstances and adjust in ways that allow religion to develop.
- "We may perceive here, I believe, the answer to a fascinating, fundamental question: Why do millions upon millions of people require a Parent-God to feel centered in themselves, to feel secure, attached, happy, joyous? Why cannot the self derive these emotional benefits simply by communing with itself, self to self, mind to mind, subjectivity to subjectivity? Why must a Parent-Deity be there at all?”
- "The solution goes like this: Our foundational oneness (or selfhood or integration) turns out to be a twoness, the twoness that characterizes our early development as we attune with our creative provider, the one who not only gives us life but who is fated to be internalized into our mind-brains at the synaptic level such that we cannot feel (or experience) ourselves without feeling (or experiencing) the other. ...Our Parent-God is a facet of our brain function, a facet that becomes integrally tied to our longing for security and attachment in ourselves. Thus, our religious narratives and rituals with the Parent-God at the center (prayer and the Eucharist above all) continue the style of communion, or connection, that defines [us]...”
Given the enormous importance of religion not only for human history but also the human present, anything that allows us to better understand religion can be very useful. Whether Faber’s ideas are accurate or not is an open question, but they certainly have an air of credibility — at least, they will to those who can accept naturalistic explanations of religious beliefs. People committed to supernaturalistic explanations are unlikely to take the book as seriously as it should be.
