Psychological Roots of Religious Belief: Searching for Angels and the Parent-God

By Melvin D. Faber

In this insightful new study, M.D. Faber, whose previous work on the psychology of religion has won widespread critical acclaim, offers a comprehensive, naturalistic explanation of religious experience from the intertwining perspectives of neuroscience and developmental psychology. Faber here argues that belief in God, the powerful sensation of his presence, and the heartfelt assent to the reality of the supernatural are all produced by the mind/brain's inherent tendency to discover in religious narrative a striking, memorial echo of its own biological development. Although Faber maintains that we are not "wired" specifically for God (as many contend), our brain is so constructed as to make us profoundly susceptible to religious myths. These myths encourage us to map our early, internalized experience onto a variety of supernatural narratives with the figure of the Parent-God and his angelic assistants at the center.A key point of Faber's analysis is the connection between the onset of infantile amnesia during childhood's later years and the evocative power of religious mythology. Although we cannot explicitly recall our earliest interactions with our parents or other caregivers, religious narratives can and do jog these implicit emotional memories in an uncanny way, which prompts us to accede to religion's central tenet--namely, that we are in the care of an omnipotent parental provider who watches over us and ministers to our needs. In the final analysis, religious experience attempts to recapture, and to reinstate in an idealized form, the symbiotic union of the early parent-child relation.This pioneering, highly original work takes the reader to the neurological-psychological bedrock of religious experience.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591022673
• ISBN13: 9781591022671
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 245 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

can help explain: why religion?

I have a physics degree and have paid attention to writings by or about Richard Feynman and other scientists and one theme that comes up is: why religion? It is easy to see that in the past, people used religion to deal with anxiety and fear. The workings of the world were not known so....people made up stories and beliefs and superstitions (which might be something more simple, like a behavior). But why now, when science has explained so much? This book provides a good explanation. I would not say it is definitive. I would say that it combines psychology, neurology, and the history and meaning of religion to produce an explanation. He says that religion reminds people of their earliest years, unconsciously, which is why probably every culture has some version of God. As people grow up, some learn to disregard these beliefs. They are not necessarily 'more advanced' than religious people but they will learn something like science and decide religion is not for them. Or - and this happens for a lot of people - they grow up and just lose interest. I asked a therapist who has background in studying comparative religion about this and she skimmed a little bit and said she thought the sources and quotes sounded good. If religion reminds people of their early years, trying to tell them to be scientific instead is not going to work. At the same time a lot of people who were raised religious/devout drop it when they get to adulthood. Religion can also be about power and control and/or establishing an in-group and out-groups. A lot of people don't like that. The view of angels as messengers from other parts of the brain makes sense to me too. They are hallucinations but meaningful ones. Other hallucinations can also be messages but they may not be comprehensible, whereas visitations from angels may carry a clear message that the person feels is very significant to self and/or others. Other people say that there is too little narrative and too many quotes. I would agree with that and I also think this book was unfortunately named. It is rare that I blank on a book title and yet I consistently cannot remember the name of this one. I now remember the subtitle. Maybe I will remember the name. It seems to me then, that if science wants to 'make its case' - and I don't view science as opposed to religion but that they are two different ways of looking at the world - the way to do it is not to contrast religious/superstitious beliefs with scientific ones, even if you want to replace a religious belief with a scientific one. Not at first anyway. The way, or one way, to do it is to read this book and maybe others and then try to think about how science education can draw on the same types of soothing feelings and experiences that religion now triggers. This will not happen directly b/c it is not about science trying to become a religion. It is about figuring out how to convey to people emotionally that science can tap into these feeling

"Turn Around, What's that Sound, Back from Where You Came"

"Religion doesn't work because it's true," said William James, "but is true because it works." The reason it works, according to MD Faber, is because religious notions tap into our deepest feeling-state, which is the symbiotic relationship we had with our primary caregiver during infancy. As he says in the middle of the book, "we turn to God as a child in distress turns to its mother." While he acknowledges Freud's insights about the connection between infancy and the religious impulse, he advances Freud's basic argument by highlighting the role of the primary caregiver (usually the mother) and by fruitfully linking psychology and neuroscience. Drawing upon such close observers of infant behavior as DW Winnicott and Margaret Mahler, Faber leads us carefully through the developmental phases of early childhood, with the goal of tying the affective states of this life period to the feelings induced by religious rituals. Infancy is a period when we go through thousands of instances where we want something and someone provides what we need. During the earliest phases of life, we don't distinguish our self from the caregiver; later we see our self and our caregiver as a symbiotic team, working with one purpose and one all powerful will. We may not be "wired for God" as the famous phrase has it, but since "repeated patterns strengthen synaptic connections'" our brains are wired for asking and receiving from a caregiver who appears omnipotent to our childish eyes. Then, amazingly, we forget this powerful formative experience, a process labeled infantile amnesia. (That we can't recall infant experiences is corroborated by imaging studies that demonstrate that the structures needed to form memories aren't functioning in babies.) Prayer and religious ritual become means of getting back to a preverbal sense of primal dualism - just us and our caregiver, in complete accord. Belief in God allows us to return to the state of bliss we had as infants, when we lived under the hallucinatory impression that an omnipotent caregiver could divine our every need and minister to our every want, just because we wished it to be so. Once the toddler begins to separate in earnest from the caregiver, joy in his increasing powers is mitigated by feelings that he's losing his tight connection with the caregiver. The anxiety caused by separation from the parent can linger for a lifetime, and Faber posits the inner tussle between separation and connection as a major source of adult stress. Religion pours balm on this stress by allowing us to be ourselves but be under the care of an all-powerful, all-knowing protector. Other psychological aspects of early childhood get tied to religious practices. For example, infants and children are able to evoke imaginary companions to share in their behaviors and discoveries. As Edward Taylor says, animism - belief in unseen forces such as ghosts, souls, fairies and angels - is part of every religion in every culture in the

Profoundly important book

This book finally solved the deeply personal conundrum of why I have been so deeply drawn to religion despite my intellectual many objections. The draw was so strong in me and I had several religious experiences so intense that I was being convinced by experience that there was a level of knowing far deeper than the intellect. Having no explanation that fully satisfied for the intensity and shape of this yearning and these experiences was the last remaining very sturdy thread that religious belief or at least being convinced there was something very real to this stuff hung by. Now I understand. The missing long sought piece to the puzzle has been found. The fit is perfect. I can't thank the author enough.

GIVES THE BACK-STORY ON BELIEF AND CONFLICT

Experts from diverse fields are forever trying to understand the connection between religious belief and human life. For example, Alexis de Tocqueville says: "At the time when Christianity appeared on Earth, Providence, which no doubt was preparing the world for its reception, had united a great part of mankind, like an immense flock, under the Caesars. ... One must recognize that this new and singular condition of humanity disposed men to receive the general truths preached by Christianity, and this serves to explain the quick and easy way in which it then penetrated the human spirit." And in "The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy and the American Future," Joshua Mitchell gives this gloss on Tocqueville's meaning: "The real-life condition of the Romans `disposed' the people toward a religious idea that recapitulates what their lived experience already avowed. They could easily come to think Christianity because the life they lived already evinced the Christian pattern. Being precedes consciousness; real-life conditions ... dispose thought to accept certain religious notions." Nowhere is the idea that, "being precedes consciousness" and disposes thought to accept certain religious notions more clear and powerfully expressed than in the fascinating book, "The Psychological Roots of Religious Belief: Searching for Angels and the Parent-God," by M.D. Faber. The idea that gods, goddesses and even great leaders like the Caesars influence us as parent substitutes is nothing new, but Faber bases his argument on the new "intertwining perspectives of neuroscience and developmental psychology," which traces belief not to our connection to great and powerful leaders, as Tocqueville suggested, but to our relationship - lost to memory but hard-wired into our brains - with our first care-takers, the people who magically showed up when, in our distress, we cried out for them. To keep this review at a manageable length, let's fly past the psychological studies and cut to the core of Faber's thesis: "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