Hi folks.

I've been wondering why God subscribes to human emotions? Or could it be that we are gifted with Godly emotions...

He is said to "suffer" from jealousy, anger, wrath and love amongst other things. Are these needed to be perfect? In a diety are they perfectly in balance? Certainly he doesn't seem to mind "smiting" people now and again.

I find the whole thing rather curious.

Regards

Ultra.

I find the whole thing rather ridiculous.


I also find it very indicative of the source of gods.

You'll have to be specific about what kind of theistic belief from which religious groups for this one.

i don't know what god is. i tend to the think what we call the father is law, and law is not emotional at all. i have had ongoing interactions with the spirit which i've perceived as beneficial, but have never gotten the impression that the spirit was emotional at all. in regards to love, i have recognized that from the spirit, but not the emotionally or sexually driven love that humans so often engage in. it's more of a value, and a willingness to act in one's best interest regardless of emotions. but jesus was a human. he had emotions. perhaps they talk of god this way so we can relate?

I've been wondering why God subscribes to human emotions? . . . . He is said to "suffer" from jealousy, anger, wrath and love amongst other things.. . . . Certainly he doesn't seem to mind "smiting" people now and again.Because man created God in his own image, and then wrote stories about God in which he returned the favor.

Hahaa. Good 'un Fraggle. I'm a biologist so you wouldn't expect me to believe in God, but I do believe we have a spirit or soul or whatever you want to call it. I say this because long before we were born we had an undeniable potential to be. Assuming that the universe is infinate then this potential is also infinate. So given the right conditions to exist and an eternity of potential it seems likely we will continue to be eventually.

If there is a diety, it would probably need less conditions to be than we do, not needing sustinance, air or even a planet to stand on.

Whether such a diety would need or require emotions is an interesting question though because if it did not, then what does it do for motivation?

Why would a god need motivation?

and for the record I agree 100% with FR.

Well without motivation or emotion, why would he care about anything? Why would he do anything. It would be a bland mechanical existence.

Well without motivation or emotion, why would he care about anything? Why would he do anything. It would be a bland mechanical existence.


This is your own delusion how can you possibly know if God needs to care to do something His actions cannot be like our actions as we need to put effort into something or work for something or become commited to something that's all weakness or limitation. It's impossible that God is mechanical unless you are talking about delusions and not God.

Hey now, I'm not being confrontational, simply exploring possibilities like any good scientist should..Now surely you cannot claim to know the mind of god? If we are made in his image it follows his thinking processes are at least somewhat like ours (though likely more powerful). What is a got without motivation? why would he bother constructing us troublesome humans if he had at least a sense of humour. Why smite us when we do him wrong if he doesn't know how to care? It doesn't make sense.

And look at his "Chosen People". They end up Killing his son, being murdered by the Nazis, persecuted all over the place and being plonked on stolen land with no oil of all things. What's he trying to say?

If we are made in his image it follows his thinking processes are at least somewhat like ours (though likely more powerful)


I don't agree to that as that's not according to the theism of my religion.

And look at his "Chosen People". They end up Killing his son, being murdered by the Nazis, persecuted all over the place and being plonked on stolen land with no oil of all things. What's he trying to say?That's a common misunderstanding of the term. In Abrahamist mythology, God chose the Hebrew people to reveal himself in his true monotheistic nature. He wanted this truth to be spread throughout the land, so that all the traditional polytheistic religions (with their more useful multi-dimensional model of the human spirit) would be abandoned. So he made a deal with the Jews: "You promise that you will evangelize the one true faith, and in return I will free you from bondage in Egypt." This is referred to as "The Covenant" between God and his Chosen People.

We all know how that worked out. Judaism, the original Abrahamic religion, went on to be the only non-evangelical Abrahamic religion. The Jewish community grows only by reproduction, with the occasional conversion more than balanced out by the more common abandonment of the faith. Today only one human being in five hundred is Jewish, not at all what God had in mind.

So God punished his Chosen People for failing to honor their Covenant. Millennia of conquest, occupation, destruction of the Temple, Diaspora, the antisemitism that virtually defined European Christendom, the Holocaust, the refusal of the Europeans to take Jewish refugees back after WWII, the kindly British giving them one of their old WWI trophies as a homeland without bothering to notice that it was already somebody else's homeland... all of this has been God's eternal punishment for failing to uphold their end of the bargain called The Covenant.

This lesson was not lost when the next two Abrahamic religions began metastasizing out of the Middle East like cancer epidemics. Evangelism is one of the core principles of both Christianity and Islam. So today half of all human beings are either Christians or Muslims: they believe in the One True God, even though they routinely kill each other over the precise meaning of that faith, a state of affairs that evidently pleases God because with all of his unlimited power he never intervenes to fix it. He's too busy emblazoning tortillas with the faces of Biblical characters of whom no portraits exist for comparison.

We should be grateful for the Jews' sacrifice, by their refusal to turn over a new leaf and begin evangelizing their religion. As bad shape as the world is in with a billion and a half Muslims and two billion Christians, can you imagine how much worse it would be with a billion or two Jews, also armed with nuclear weapons???

So be sympathetic to the travails of the Chosen People. They're doing us all a great favor.

I've been wondering why God subscribes to human emotions?

-- Short answer:

Because mankind created God in their own image.

-- Longer answer more appropriate to the 'comparative religion' section of the 'science' domain:

I think that human beings have an innate social instinct. Infants selectively attend to human faces. Small children, even those with neurological defects like Down's syndrome, learn to speak without any formal instruction. Babies are capable of reading people's inner states from the subtlest features of tone, expression and gesture.

There's obvious selective advantage in all of that and human beings appear to be optimized by their evolutionary history for life in highly interactive social groups.

I think that one of the implications of these social instincts is that most people find personalities to be more comfortable emotionally and easier to understand than abstractions. We can talk to them and interact with them. We can relate to them emotionally.

(Just think of the differences, both in terms of difficulty and emotional engagement, between solving calculus problems and hanging out with your friends. Keep in mind that formally speaking, calculus is a far simpler system than natural language. Linguists and philosophers can't even fully describe or explain natural language, yet nevertheless, children can speak it and most people find conversation very enjoyable.)

This situation leads in turn towards personalization and anthropomorphism in mythologization. The unknown and hidden principles behind things like the weather, fertility and so on (for early polytheists) and behind the entire universe and being itself (for monotheists), are typically imagined as if they were the work of supernatural personalities who think and behave in ways that we can relate to, similar to our own. That way natural events and even history itself can acquire purposes, can be interpreted in terms of divine plans and intentions. The hidden personal powers can be beseeched, pleaded with and offered sacrifices. People can address, speak to, and form emotional relationships with their divinities.

I think that this is a pattern that we see repeated in the religious mythology of just about every culture on earth. The names and details of the particular gods differ from place to place, but their personalization is pretty much a cultural universal.

I like the short answer. :)

Because man created God in his own image, and then wrote stories about God in which he returned the favor.
Some jealous, wrathful men created one image of their god. But not all fall in this category.

BG Ch 2
60 Turbulent by nature, the sense even of a wise man, who is practicing self-control, forcibly carry away his mind, Arjuna.
61 Therefore, having controlled them all and collecting his mind, one should sit for meditation, devoting oneself heart and soul to Me. For he whose senses are mastered, his mind has become stable.


This god sure is stable minded.


Still further.

62 The man dwelling on sense-objects develops attachment for them; from attachment springs up desire, and from desire (unfulfilled) ensues anger.
63 From anger arises infatuation; from infatuation, confusion of memory; from confusion of memory, loss of reason; and from loss of reason one goes to complete ruin.


This god can be a slave of anger, jealousy etc, can he? Witness. Ch 14

22 He, who is contented with whatever is got unsought, is free from jealousy and has transcended all pairs of opposites (like joy and grief), and is balanced in success and failure, -- such a Karmayogi, though acting, is not bound.


Why would a god need motivation?
Why, indeed.

Moreover, Krishna is not driven by some selfish motive. Witness. Ch 11

22 Arjuna, there is nothing in the three worlds for Me to do, nor is there anything worth unattained by e; yet I continue to work.
23 Should I not engage in action, unwearied, at any time, great harm will come to the world; for, Arjuna, men follow My path in all matters.
24 If I do not perform action, these worlds will perish; nay, I should be the author of confusion of castes and the destruction of these people.

Hi folks.

I've been wondering why God subscribes to human emotions? Or could it be that we are gifted with Godly emotions...

Or rather, it could be that we are separated parts and parcels of god, hence we both draw from the same quality but have vastly different quantity.



He is said to "suffer" from jealousy, anger, wrath and love amongst other things. Are these needed to be perfect? In a diety are they perfectly in balance?
I think its more accurate to designate us as "suffering" from these things, and even then, only because we often call upon them to reinforce an artificial sense of self (which in turn causes all the problems).


Certainly he doesn't seem to mind "smiting" people now and again.
this world celebrates a 100% mortality rate with or without thunderbolts. Given that the living entity is eternal and that god controls one's arrival before birth and further destination after death, killing doesn't attract a criminal element for him.



I find the whole thing rather curious.

Regards

Ultra.
Generally we would prefer to be a person than a non-person, simply because it affords a greater quality of being. I say "generally" because sometimes a person might consider in grander to cease to exist, but that's merely due to an artificial sense of self (which then paves the way for misuse of self hood etc)

Do all emotions come from the lizard brain (http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/11/jabber-whut.html), or is jealousy exempted? :shrug:

Because man created God in his own image, and then wrote stories about God in which he returned the favor.

Yes but religion does not end with that. Religion is man's attempt to define God a thousand different ways and most of them are beautiful.

I think it curious that mankind everywhere has left evidence of worship wherever he has been and however isolated. Could it be coincidence that all mankind for all time is independently wrong?

Yes but religion does not end with that. Religion is man's attempt to define God a thousand different ways and most of them are beautiful.

And evil.

I think it curious that mankind everywhere has left evidence of worship wherever he has been and however isolated. Could it be coincidence that all mankind for all time is independently wrong?You need to go back and re-read your Jung, if he was covered in any of your university classes. Review his concept of archetypes--motifs that occur in nearly all cultures in nearly all eras, including legends, visual images, rituals, etc. (Or for a more accessible version, see Joseph Campbell's popular series 20 years ago on PBS, or his many books.)

An archetype is an instinct--a belief, behavior, compulsion, visual image, legend, ritual, etc.--that is pre-programmed into our synapses by the evolution of our DNA. (Jung died before genetics became a mature, computerized, science. These are his words translated into contemporary language.)

Many archetypal behaviors can be clearly identified as survival traits in the Paleolithic Era, or even passed down from ancestral species. The instinct to run away from a large animal with both eyes in front of its face, for example, occurs in virtually all animals because one that did not have it would not have survived to reproduce and pass on his genes. A newborn giraffe will scamper clumsily away from a hyena but graze peacefully in the much larger shadow of a wildebeest.

But other behaviors are not so easy to figure out. Surely some of them are tactics for escaping the dangers of a bygone world, which we can no longer imagine. But just as surely, some are accidental relics passed down through genetic bottlenecks or genetic drift. Our species went through two of them: We're all descended from "Mitochondrial Eve," a single woman who lived around 120KYA, and from "Y-Chromosome Adam," a single man who lived around 60KYA, just before our first successful migration out of Africa, after which we became too spread out for genetic drift and bottlenecks to be possible.

As I have noted in several other threads over the years, it's not hard to hypothesize that an irrational belief in the supernatural might have been a survival trait for the species prior to 12KYA, when we lived in small bands of hunter-gatherers, regarding other bands with suspicion as competitors for scarce resources. Imagine two clan leaders meeting to discuss their mutual suspicion, and discovering to their amazement that they both believed in the same gods!

According to Jung, all of the traditional polytheistic religions have the same pantheon, only the names are changed. Each god seems to be a materialization of a distinct portion of our "spirit" (a word he freely borrows from supernaturalism)--the Hunter, the Parent, the King, the Reveler, the Healer, etc., so these archetypes go deep into our psychological composition.

When the twin technologies of agriculture (farming and animal husbandry) were first discovered (independently in many different times and places, but first in Mesopotamia around 9500BCE), the first food surplus this planet had ever seen came into existence, and it was no longer necessary for clans to compete for food. Furthermore, economies of scale and division of labor made larger farming and herding villages much more productive and prosperous--but they are hard to achieve in a population of a couple of dozen. It suddenly became an advantage for clans to merge and live together in peace.

Yet Homo sapiens is a pack-social species, and like wolves and gorillas we instinctively regard outsiders with suspicion and enmity. It would have been very difficult for us to overcome that, to experiment with an idea that was brand-new and untested.

This is where the shared belief in deities may have broken the ice. If those guys believe in the same gods we do, they can't be all bad, right? Let's try inviting them in so we can have larger herds and crops, and a few of us can be excused from food-production duty and specialize in brewing beer, creating pottery and furniture, making pretty clothes, and composing music.

With our species's uniquely massive forebrain, we were able to override our pack-social instinct and begin living like a herd-social species, in harmony and cooperation with anonymous strangers like bison. However, 12,000 years is not a very long time for a species with a 15-25 year breeding cycle, only around 600 generations. That's not long enough for evolution to replace the genes that control our behavior with a whole new set. Deep down inside each of us there is still a caveman who regards strangers with suspicion, and every day is a struggle to remind him that the benefits of ignoring that suspicion are worth the risk (small but nonetheless real!) that occasionally a stranger may give in to his own inner caveman and go on a spree of robbery or homicide.

Unfortunately that rich pantheon of the traditional religions was replaced by the Children of Abraham with a pathetic one-dimensional model of the human spirit: one God as a role model, cramming all of our hopes, dreams, strengths, weaknesses, desires and obligations into a linear scale between "Good" and "Evil." At some point, this ridiculous perversion of our supernatural instincts, having lost some of its archetypal mooring, began to break apart into rival communities, each with its own slightly different version of the monotheistic mythology.

It's ironic that, originally, religion was probably a force for peace, harmony and cooperation, and helped our species survive and prosper; whereas today it is just the opposite: a force for hatred, discrimination and war, which threatens to destroy civilization and take us full circle back into the Stone Age, where our inner caveman can be let loose again.

The instinct to run away from a large animal with both eyes in front of its face, for example, occurs in virtually all animals because one that did not have it would not have survived to reproduce and pass on his genes.
A simple experiment comes to mind.
If you wore a mask with eyes at the side, would animals not run away as much?

Regarding Jung, didn't he say something along the lines of:
"No person has ever recovered from a psychological illness without undergoing some variety of religious conversion"?

My own view on religious belief is that it is a vital part of what it is to be human.
If science thinks it can just pluck away religious belief without something replacing it, it is wrong.
Human nature abhors a vacuum.

Well, that's a comprehensive analysis according to Jung, who I confess I have not read...
I never read other philosophy in case it contaminated my own, a condition that is harder than you might think to accomplish.
However I think 600 or so generations since the said genetic founders of the species would, in biological terms, be plenty of time for humans to relinquish thier need of dieties - should it prove un-beneficial. Further, recent analysis of the brain indicates an area comitted to the processing of spiritual stimuli. Now why would Mankind need to have a genetic predisposition to such a thing? There must be some benefit to the species or such a trait would not survive.
I suffer from clinical depression, and PTSD. Every now and then I have a psychotic episode. Strangely, I become quite spiritually sensitive during such times. So much so I got banned from the PCF forum for accusing them of an athiest conspiracy! Luckily the Mods here are not nearly so anal, and I can generally speak my mind.
I dont think it is spirituality that is dysfunctional, but our failiure to interpret it for modern times.

....
I never read other philosophy in case it contaminated my own, a condition that is harder than you might think to accomplish. ....

What? :confused: :shrug:

I never studied it oficially. I have very clear ideas of my own that have seen me through many debates. I didn't want to be unduly influenced by other philosophies whilst refining my own. Now that I am secure, I am more open to the standards.

But surely you know philosophy has no standards. :eek: :D :D

What I mean by that is Kant, Soccrates, Jung Neitz and the rest. Maybe there are no standards, maybe a poor term. The usual suspects, perhaps..
I don't know if it would have made any differnce or made me a better philospher, but I'm always learning - every day.

I know, just jerking your chain....carry on.... :)

I think it curious that mankind everywhere has left evidence of worship wherever he has been and however isolated.

I agree with you that religiosity does seem to be pretty much a cultural universal among human beings.

I'd guess that the origins of human religiosity extend well back into the paleolithic stone age, perhaps to even before anatomically modern humans appeared. Neanderthals apparently practiced ritual burials and even Homo erectus seem to have sometimes collected human skulls.


Could it be coincidence that all mankind for all time is independently wrong?

While all known human cultures display some form of religiosity, the forms and objects of that religiosity are all over the map. People have detected supernatural potency in pretty much every imaginable object at some time or another. Spirits and Gods have taken an almost inexhaustible variety of names and forms.

So my speculation is that what's happening probably isn't that all human cultures are reacting to mysterious contact from some single deity, or even from multiple distinct deities. I'm more inclined to think that there are processes in human cognition that tend to give rise to our religiosity, perhaps as a secondary consequence of some more practical function.

As I wrote earlier (post #15 in this thread), I think that it's our human social instincts that cause most people to be most comfortable when they are thinking of abstractions as if they were human personalities. Doing so allows them to think of natural events in terms of purposes and intentions, and it makes it much easier to become emotionally engaged. If anything, that tendency to personalize abstractions was probably even greater in prehistoric times.

Even in the 5000 years or so of recorded history, we see a distinct movement from early personalistic mythology through the advent of more abstract philosophy, to contemporary culture with its emphasis on science, mathematics and technology. The role of abstractions in leading-edge human thinking has been steadily expanding, a tendency that's conceivably associated with an accompanying decline in general religiosity.

You need to go back and re-read your Jung, if he was covered in any of your university classes.
lol
if you think citing Jung's ideas on archetypes are sufficient to establish how they are irrevocably established in our synapses, it might pay for you to (re)attend some university classes ...

Or rather, it could be that we are separated parts and parcels of god, hence we both draw from the same quality but have vastly different quantity.

I think its more accurate to designate us as "suffering" from these things, and even then, only because we often call upon them to reinforce an artificial sense of self (which in turn causes all the problems).


this world celebrates a 100% mortality rate with or without thunderbolts. Given that the living entity is eternal and that god controls one's arrival before birth and further destination after death, killing doesn't attract a criminal element for him.


Generally we would prefer to be a person than a non-person, simply because it affords a greater quality of being. I say "generally" because sometimes a person might consider in grander to cease to exist, but that's merely due to an artificial sense of self (which then paves the way for misuse of self hood etc)
"rather, it could be that we are separated parts and parcels of god, hence we both draw from the same quality but have vastly different quantity."

:)Agree! it does give you chilllssss when you think about it though.

"artificial sense of self"
could you be more specific? *artificial sense of self*?
"killing doesn't attract a criminal element for him"
so why does he permit some horrible accident to happen (the kind that meant to take your life I mean) and a person falls into coma for days,hours... or they brain dead but then suddenly they come out of it? did God simply changed his mind about calling a life back to him ?

Originally Posted by Fraggle Rocker
re-read your Jung.

LOL...no thans.:rolleyes:

I didn't want to be unduly influenced by other philosophies whilst refining my own. Now that I am secure, I am more open to the standards.

ahhhh but philosophy is open to interpretation and requires some participation from the observer...otherwise it would be science and not philosophy. But yah, i hold no undue fascinations with it in the slightest.

ahhhh but philosophy is open to interpretation and requires some participation from the observer...otherwise it would be science and not philosophy.
Balls.
You don't think science requires participants/ observers?
You don't think science is subject to interpretation?

Balls.
You don't think science requires participants/ observers?
You don't think science is subject to interpretation?

ahhhh, but does it "require" it?

Of course it doesn't.

Philosophy demands it. Otherwise it is not philosophy or just perhaps bad philosophy. But, alas, good or bad is open to interpretation.

ahhhh, but does it "require" it?
Require?
Unless you have participants there can't be science.


Of course it doesn't.
Wrong.


Philosophy demands it. Otherwise it is not philosophy or just perhaps bad philosophy. But, alas, good or bad is open to interpretation.
Balls.

Hi folks.

I've been wondering why God subscribes to human emotions? Or could it be that we are gifted with Godly emotions...

He is said to "suffer" from jealousy, anger, wrath and love amongst other things. Are these needed to be perfect? In a diety are they perfectly in balance? Certainly he doesn't seem to mind "smiting" people now and again.

I find the whole thing rather curious.

Regards

Ultra.

I would say that such a god can not be perfect. So what then ?

Later you point out that "if god made man in his image".

Think about that for a minute. God makes man in his image, then god looks like man. So now we have a god that looks like man who is jealous and angry.

That is man projecting his view of a god based on what he knows, himself.

Man created god in his image not the other way around.

There is probably no better example of that being the case than the statement "god made man in his image".

Otherwise and for those that have a different god, what image would you have of a god ? Can they be male or female, do they need both. The whole idea gets very slippery and ends up being just a voice in ones head.

Other ideas of god(s) were of animalistic or natural phenomena. So every idea of god to date is what we know, can see etc.

IOW, we create the idea.

Fraggle Rocker,


You need to go back and re-read your Jung

Precisely

A simple experiment comes to mind.
If you wore a mask with eyes at the side, would animals not run away as much?

Regarding Jung, didn't he say something along the lines of:
"No person has ever recovered from a psychological illness without undergoing some variety of religious conversion"?

My own view on religious belief is that it is a vital part of what it is to be human.
If science thinks it can just pluck away religious belief without something replacing it, it is wrong.
Human nature abhors a vacuum.

Yes, well many who have no religion can be susceptible to this. Think Aliens.

They have no religion but believe that there are super advanced ET spying on us and ready to save us from ourselves. Maybe there are.

Humans will often replace one with another, but I think it is the goal of many to be able to live in a world where reality is king and we move with the better information.

I think if we don't there will be hell to pay.

Ultra,


What I mean by that is Kant,

I don't think you're gonna like Kant

Hi folks.

I've been wondering why God subscribes to human emotions? Or could it be that we are gifted with Godly emotions...

He is said to "suffer" from jealousy, anger, wrath and love amongst other things. Are these needed to be perfect? In a diety are they perfectly in balance? Certainly he doesn't seem to mind "smiting" people now and again.

I find the whole thing rather curious.

Regards

Ultra.

LOL @smiting people now and again. oh that is so true.
I think we are gifted with Godly emotions.
and I think he has to follow his own rules as well. in order for things to function perfectly. I think it's more of a Act/React law (like karma) rather than him actually deliver his wrath or kill someone.

A simple experiment comes to mind. If you wore a mask with eyes at the side, would animals not run away as much?Interesting experiment indeed. The only animals in this region that are small enough, plentiful enough, and brash enough to do this without having to spend several days trying to encounter one are squirrels. Maybe I'll try that one day. Not the squirrels in my yard because they all know me and would not be fooled, but the ones in some other part of the neighborhood.

Of course we have a huge population of "hooved rats," as deer are called on the East Coast. But since we killed off all their predators natural selection has been breeding them for intelligence instead of speed, and they've figured out that city folk aren't going to harm them as long as we're not driving cars. I have (no exaggeration) seen them standing on the curb with the pedestrians, waiting for the walk light to turn green.
My own view on religious belief is that it is a vital part of what it is to be human.So my wife and I and my entire family are lacking in human vitality?
If science thinks it can just pluck away religious belief without something replacing it, it is wrong.I can't speak for other scientists or other atheists, but I personally have never advocated for trying to pluck it away. That seems like a really good way to get shot, since literal-religionists are some of the most violent, easily-angered people on earth. I think we're going to have to wait for it to fade away by attrition.

America's Religious Redneck Retard Revival notwithstanding, in many parts of the world Christianity has settled into a genteel sort of wink-wink collection of inspiring metaphors, like urban Hinduism and the Dao. Even in much of Latin America it has lost its iron grip, and in many congregations Judaism has long been a religion of law rather than doctrine. These days it's primarily Islam that is regarded as literally true by (perhaps) a majority of its members. Taken collectively, all of these observations seem to indicate that when a population becomes more educated they begin to (at least unconsciously) understand the difference between metaphor and literal truth.

So what we need is to simply improve and expand education, and let the truth set people free.

I'm a biologist so you wouldn't expect me to believe in God, but I do believe we have a spirit or soul or whatever you want to call it. I say this because long before we were born we had an undeniable potential to be.
*************
M*W: What I call it is genetic memory.

Hmmm It looks like God is something of a metaphor for what we find in ourselves in this respect. I find it extrordinary that the human brain has a dedicated area for handling spirituality..I wonder if other primates have the same thing? It would be wierd to find that chimps had the same thing.

If science, and philosophy had no observers then surely it would become irrelevant? Science especially relies on experiments being repeatable. You can't repeat something accurately if its details are not recorded. Is philosophy not the same in this respect?

Hmmm It looks like God is something of a metaphor for what we find in ourselves in this respect.Bingo! All religions are nothing more than collections of metaphors.

Jung points out that all of the traditional polytheistic religions had the same pantheon, and each god seemed to correspond to a specific component of the human personality: the Lover, the Healer, the Warrior, etc. We actually have multiple "spirits" and we have to make sure the right one is in charge when a situation demands it: you'd better be the Parent, not the Reveler, if the Crips are trying to recruit your kid. Also, they vary in strength from one person to another, which is why we each choose different careers.

The problem with monotheism is that it squashes that rich model of humanity into a pathetic one-dimensional scale where everything falls on a line between "good" and "evil." Some of our spirits are found to be "evil" so we repress them into our Shadow where they fester and eventually erupt out of frustration.
I find it extrordinary that the human brain has a dedicated area for handling spirituality.Cause and effect. We have a brain center for belief in the supernatural, so we invent religions. Duh?.
I wonder if other primates have the same thing? It would be wierd to find that chimps had the same thing.We're already talking to them in ASL. One day we'll probably be having that conversation.

.... Duh?.We're already talking to them in ASL. One day we'll probably be having that conversation.

I don't know, I'm skeptical, they would need some evolutionary pressure to increase brain size and complexity etc. still it may happen in a few million years...