The God Gene

[thehat 0]

The God Gene - An old but interesting article from Times Magazine:

 

link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101041025-725072,00.html

 

[Ravindran Kesavan 0]

Dear Thehat,

This approach is technically known as biological determinism. This approach holds that everything about us ( living beings) - our feelimgs, thoughts and behaviours is determined biologically. Hence the idea of god is no exception to this rule. Genetic code and evolution histry dectermines everything about us. This is one of the three approaches of scientific psychology.

 

There are other two approches to expplain everything about us: Psychic determinism and Environmental determinism. In psychic determinism the cause of everything - our feeling thought and behaviour - is the unconscious mind .Freud developed this theoritical perspective. In this approach too god and religion have explanation based on the unconscious factors. In Envirnmental determinism our thought, feelling and behaviour are explained by the conditioning. In this approach, developed by behaviourist school ( Pavlove, Skinner and Bandura), reinforcers (social rewards and punishment) are the determining factors. Belief in god and religion , in this approach, are simply conditioned behaviour patterns, socially learned.

 

These are the three major approaches in psychology to explain human behaviour.

 

Regards,

K.Ravindran

[srikanthdk71 0]

Interesting link indeed. Thanks thehat.