Ierrellus wrote:Why should I research a fable about what brains do?
Fable??
I gave you links to scientific evidence and it is not practical to provide you every thing there is on this research. I know there are lots of research going on re this topic thus my suggestion you research on it to establish its truth.
1. Is the potential to suffer existential pains proof that everyone experiences them? If not this is a special case about which universals cannot be claimed.
The potential is a universal one because it is embedded in the human DNA.
That the majority of humans are religious i.e. 6+ billions out of 7 indicate they had to rely on religion's soothing juices to relieve those existential pains [majority subliminal and otherwise].
2. What majority? This has not been proved. Are there some who do not suffer in this way and yet their brains produce feel good juices for various reasons?
Note my point above re majority.
As I had stated the brain has an independent function that produce feel good juices for various reasons, i.e. sex, food, security, existential, etc. Religion is related to the existential reason.
3. Not all seek solutions to something as complex psychologically as existential angst.
The potential of the existential angst is universal and it is active in the majority of humans. The majority of these tend towards religions while others resort to secular work, etc. and many turn to various drugs, hallucinogens and this is why there is an abuse of opioids to relieve the brain pains which cannot be pin pointed precisely.
4. If the brain can create both God and no God as religious solutions to the problem ,it has little to do with creating religion except in the special case as noted above.
The brain creates God and the related feel good juices to relieve the existential angst. The brain do not create a no-God state but rather it is just indifferent to a God-solution. Those who are indifferent to a God idea turn to other means as stated above to relieve their mental pains.
The point is there is no pre-existing real God waiting out there for humans to believe and cling to it.
The real thing is humans invent the idea of God to relieve their inherent and unavoidable psychological pains.
Your theology is akin to Milton's who claimed God allowed us to be sinful in order to give us a redeemer--all part of a cosmic salvation plan based on felix culpa. So, apparently our brains are constructed in such a way that their chemical activities can be seen as giving theistic solutions to existential problems.
Looking at the brain with its neurons, neurotransmitters and endocrines, it seems almost comical to suggest that Some God has emerged from the hardwire and software interplay of mental/chemical activities. Nice fable, but no real proof. A good atheist will not accept your spurious proofs from googled ideas.
As one critic neatly put it, there is nearly a 100%correlation between storks and babies arriving at the same time in Stockholm. So beware of the ramifications of supposed correlations such as between neurochemical activity and psychologized theology.
Note it is very common for people with mental discomforts to invent imaginary beings to relieve the discomfort [children imaginary friends] or promote pleasure [sexual fantasies in the mind] and also cling to various beliefs and ideologies.
Note your alternative, i.e. God exists as a real being out there and for a majority, God is a being who can promise them eternal life in Paradise and for some with a bonus of virgins thrown in. From there the claims for God get more and more ridiculous, irrational and absurd.
Top it all no one has been able to prove God exists convincingly since the idea of God emerged.
As I have shown with proofs and evidences the idea of God was conjured to trigger soothing juices to relieve the inherent existential pains.
I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.