Hi, Raphael.
Raphael writes:
I am familiar with the idea of the father complex. However, this psychological phenomenon is more proof for there being a God than against. Think of it this way. We each have an innate desire/compulsion and real need to eat food. Food exists. Doesn't make sense that food would exist, given that we naturally crave it? The same goes for many things in life. Water. Sex. Belonging. Love. This is the same idea. The father complex (which we all have to some extent or another) is the innate desire to be fathered and all the ideas/assumptions/learned ideas about what that means. But at a base level, we all desire to be fathered. Does it not logically follow that this need is based on a reality? And, in fact, we find that it is. We all have a father. So what does this prove? It proves:
This innate desire for a father, and the subsequent projection of this need, is based on reality; we all have a father that exists/existed. Therefore, this seemingly innate desire to think about God, create Gods, worship God, know God personally, and create religions around God also is based on reality. That which fulfills this desire, the food to our hunger, is the real, actual, God, YHWH.
As I understand it, the basic argument unfolds as follows:
- People only experience yearning for things that actually exist.
- People experience yearning for God.
- Therefore, God exists.
I'm not prepared to accept this argument at face value. For example, you included "belonging" and "love" in your list of things that are yearned for. These are good examples of things that might be exclusively psychogenic. If they are, then that would be pretty good evidence that people frequently yearn for things that only exist in their minds.
Also, I haven't studied psychology, but I never understood a "father complex" to be a "yearning for a father," but more of an influence of one's relationship (or lack thereof) with their father on their relationships with other people. So, I'm not entirely sure it's really an example of what you're looking for. Even if it is, are we sure it's an "innate" yearning, like hunger? How do we know it isn't an acquired yearning, with culture and experience priming us for it?
Another observation is that a "father complex" often means one has erroneously projected feelings onto someone who is not their father. So, how do we rule out the possibility that belief in God is not a similarly erroneous projection of some other yearning (e.g., yearning for a "father figure," some sort of "Cosmic Truth" or feeling of "Belonging")?
I'm generally in agreement with you that our biology favors yearning for things that are biologically and socially "real" over yearning for things that are not "real." However, I'm not convinced that human psychology is so tidy that it can be used to reliably diagnose reality.
-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.
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