Freud's 'Oceanic Feeling'

[The Joker]

Evening all.

I initially posted this in the philosophy forum then realised I might have better luck with it here. Please help!

In Civilisation and its Discontents, Freud attributes the 'oceanic feeling' experienced by religious people (and posited by them as proof of God's existence) to something vestigial left over from infancy. At the stage of development where the infant cannot properly separate itself from what it perceives of the world around it (its mother's breast, its bed, the room etc.), the infant feels 'oneness' with its surroundings and this is the source of the 'oceanic feeling' which gives rise to religion.

Are there any religious people out there who would like to weigh in? Not being particularly religious myself, I wasn't aware of there being a visceral feeling associated with religiousness (is that a word?) and certainly wasn't aware that this was taken to be proof of God's existence. Basically, I'm wondering how important/prominent this feeling is in religious people and whether they take it, as Freud says they did in his day, to be proof of God's existence.

Postscript: We're all civilised people here. Any unsolicited religion-bashing/atheist-bashing will be taken as proof of your intellectual smallness, poor self-image, premature hair loss etc. etc.

[YesNo]

See Justin Barrett's "Born Believers: the science of children's religious belief" for evidence that children recognize agency prior to social conditioning. This would mean that religious belief is basically biological and not cultural. That is something that should be obvious because religious cultural expressions seem to be everywhere. They must be grounded on something universal to our species and hence biological. It takes social conditioning (aka education) to move away from it.

Whether that initial belief is childish and therefore false is another question.

[Whifflingpin]

Just possibly, religious people may be divided into those whose religion derives primarily from the visceral feeling and those who religion derives primarily from social conditioning. I stress that this is not a division between religions, but a division between religious people so, in any church or temple there will be people saying the same words, performing the same actions, professing the same beliefs, but for whom the ground of their religion is utterly dissimilar.
For myself, I acknowledge that the ground of my religion (whatever that is) is the 'oceanic feeling' wherever it comes from. I don't think it merely emotion (though I'd find it hard to justify that statement) but rather a sense of connectedness with a vast apparently orderly and organic universe, infinitely complex and interrelated in all things that can be experienced or known, be it the cosmic round or a blade of grass or a community. I don't think of that as a "proof" of God. "God" is the name given to whatever might account for it all, (or "whoever" since it is almost impossible to think of it other than anthropomorphically.)
Those for whom religion stems from social conditioning are more likely, I guess, to emphasize forms and doctrines, to seek for "purity" within their religion, or to disparage the religions of others. No-one who experiences the 'oceanic feeling' is likely to quibble (except from an exuberance of joy at being able to do so) over the number of angels who might sit on a pin.

[The Joker]

YesNo: looks like you've been reading some interesting stuff, I'm intrigued. Could you please clear up what you mean by the term 'agency'? Whifflingpin - great name. What's the reference? Also, I agree with your idea of divisions. Very interesting, I hadn't thought of there being differing ways of being religious. So you subscribe to the 'visceral' crowd? I suppose that's how I imagine Blake and Coleridge to experience their religion. They were the first glimpse I had of their being more to religion than pure doctrine (I'm Scottish - over here, religion is very much a bleak observance). I'm not convinced that a "connectedness with a vast apparently orderly and organic universe", however, is sufficient for considering oneself religious. I feel that myself but wouldn't go so far as to say I was religious. Perhaps you're missing something in your definition - or perhaps I should start reconsidering my agnostic status.

[YesNo]

YesNo: looks like you've been reading some interesting stuff, I'm intrigued. Could you please clear up what you mean by the term 'agency'?

Agency is the ability to make a choice. A child can separate agents (parents) from non-agents (toys) and, if I understood Barrett, the agents need not have bodies which leads to the religious aspect of this.

I don't think Freud claimed he ever had an oceanic feeling but that doesn't mean he understood what it was. I would think such a feeling occurs when one is simply aware of what is out there. So he had to have experienced it. He just took it for granted.

[Whifflingpin]

"I'm not convinced that a "connectedness with a vast apparently orderly and organic universe", however, is sufficient for considering oneself religious." No, probably not. Within my terms, at least, an agnostic would probably regard the universe as orderly and consider that, while it would not be frivolous to question what might underlie that order, it would be pointless to spend much effort on the question. The "connectedness with a vast apparently orderly and organic universe", however, is a sufficient starting point (among others) for religion and maybe a possible end point. In between, the religious part is where a person tries to define why the universe might be orderly and what part a human should fulfil, and actually start doing something towards achieving that part. Being religious requires effort and action arising out of the original oceanic feeling. (If social conditioning is the starting point, then the religious person might accept the definitions or doctrine ready-made and still put equal effort into carrying out the appropriate actions.)

Clearly my use of "starting point" is wrong; what I mean by "starting point" is something like "that component which comes to dominate." It's obvious enough that a greater or lesser degree of social conditioning is essential in determining the religion that anyone may adopt, if only in the negative sense that no-one could adopt a religion that he had never encountered.

As "a possible end point," the oceanic feeling may well remain after one has realized that the meaning of the universe is too great to be contained within any doctrine devised or learned by humans. The religious actions may well still continue as a response to that feeling or as a way to enhance it, even if the individual no longer accepts the specific doctrinal reasons for the actions.
(As an aside, the advice is given to religious people to continue the actions associated with their faith especially at times when that faith seems weakest. Any person in growing up is likely to go many times through the processes of rejecting a current belief, changing an attitude or whatever. In the religious life it is possible to believe something implicitly, then reject it utterly, then to realize its truth in a totally different way. This process is helped by keeping up with the forms and practices of the religion through times of doubt or unfaith.)

[Ecurb]

See Justin Barrett's "Born Believers: the science of children's religious belief" for evidence that children recognize agency prior to social conditioning. This would mean that religious belief is basically biological and not cultural. That is something that should be obvious because religious cultural expressions seem to be everywhere. They must be grounded on something universal to our species and hence biological. It takes social conditioning (aka education) to move away from it.

Whether that initial belief is childish and therefore false is another question.

The logic here is flawed. First of all, not everyone is religious. Second, all human cultures have language. Can we infer from this fact that language is "biological" instead of cultural? Would a child brought up with no human contact be able to speak? Would he be religious?

Most important, reductionist explanations such as Barrett's (as Yesno describes it in one paragraph; I've never read the book) seem "profound", but tend to have little actual value. They may explain, in some very general and vague way, why humans have a propensity for religion, but can they explain why humans practice the particular religions that they practice? The variety of religious practices and beliefs suggests that religion cannot be based on some universal, biological similarity between humans. Some religions talk about powerful Gods; others are atheistic (etc., etc.). In the other thread on this page, someone suggested that we discuss "themes" in literature because of some biological imperative. As with Barrett's theory, this may be true, but it's trivial. It has no explanatory value. Even if there is a biological propensity for religion, where does that get us in terms of understanding religion?

IN general, that's the problem with reductionist explanations for complicated phenomena. Barrett may well be right in some trivial way, but to understand Christianity we have to study theology, literature, and history, not biology (or even psychology). We might criticize Hamlet by saying, "Humans have become aware of the future and past, and therefore have an obsession with death. That explains the appeal of the play." It's all true, except that it doesn't explain the appeal of the play. It's trivial truth. Same with (it seems to me) Barrett's "explanation" of religion (or Freud's, for that matter, although Freud at least had the excuse of originality and genius).

[YesNo]

The logic here is flawed. First of all, not everyone is religious. Second, all human cultures have language. Can we infer from this fact that language is "biological" instead of cultural? Would a child brought up with no human contact be able to speak? Would he be religious?

The problem is not so much logic as empirical evidence. We would have to examine Barrett's text in detail to critique the science involved. Also Barrett is providing a summary of other people's research. I don't have the text in front of me but I would be willing to discuss it after the holidays.

(Edit: Regarding language being biological, I would think our ability to communicate the way we do has some biological foundation precisely because most of us can do this regardless of our culture. It is a skill our species has. Note, I am not saying this is a skill our genes have. That would be reductionist.)

Culture does add something to the biological motivation for religious expression just as culture adds to the ways we engage in sexual activity. Culture can even try to suppress both the religious (spiritual?) foundation as well as try to convince people not to have sex. That suppression does seem to work on some people, but if our species is innately disposed to have sex or to express religious emotion, it is a questionable thing to try to do.

There are two things I like about Barrett's research survey:

1) Religion, like sex, has a biological foundation. To really suppress religious expression you would have to destroy the human species.

2) Atheistic belief systems that maintain that the child is a blank slate who has been socialized by the child's parents or culture to have a spiritual disposition are false. Some atheistic belief systems even call such socialization "child abuse" based on their false belief in the non-spiritual disposition of the child. This conveniently allows them to promote their own social construction agenda. Atheism is the belief system that requires social construction (aka education, brainwashing, peer pressure).

Most important, reductionist explanations such as Barrett's (as Yesno describes it in one paragraph; I've never read the book) seem "profound", but tend to have little actual value. They may explain, in some very general and vague way, why humans have a propensity for religion, but can they explain why humans practice the particular religions that they practice? The variety of religious practices and beliefs suggests that religion cannot be based on some universal, biological similarity between humans. Some religions talk about powerful Gods; others are atheistic (etc., etc.). In the other thread on this page, someone suggested that we discuss "themes" in literature because of some biological imperative. As with Barrett's theory, this may be true, but it's trivial. It has no explanatory value. Even if there is a biological propensity for religion, where does that get us in terms of understanding religion?

What is "reductionist" about this view? The particular religious traditions are cultural creations. We have enough free will to reject or accept them. Is sex reductionist as well?

(Edit: Regarding where this gets us in understanding religion, it makes obsolete the belief that religion is nothing more than a means of social control, an opiate of the people used by those in power to control the masses. Similarly, recognizing the pair-bonding disposition of our species explains the babying females engage in and the protectionist attitudes of males as enhanced child-rearing dispositions rather than a social construction of gender that one can monkey with at will. Similarly, seeing a homosexual's sexual preference as a brain organization removes being gay as an ethical choice that one can be socialized into or out of. It does not mean that we are totally determined. It does not mean culture has no role to play or that every cultural expression has been good.)

IN general, that's the problem with reductionist explanations for complicated phenomena. Barrett may well be right in some trivial way, but to understand Christianity we have to study theology, literature, and history, not biology (or even psychology). We might criticize Hamlet by saying, "Humans have become aware of the future and past, and therefore have an obsession with death. That explains the appeal of the play." It's all true, except that it doesn't explain the appeal of the play. It's trivial truth. Same with (it seems to me) Barrett's "explanation" of religion (or Freud's, for that matter, although Freud at least had the excuse of originality and genius).

Barrett's position is not about Christianity. Children are not born Christians nor born Muslims nor born Buddhists. They are born believers which would make them welcome such cultural creations.

What children are not are born atheists.

[Ecurb]

2) Atheistic belief systems that maintain that the child is a blank slate who has been socialized by the child's parents or culture to have a spiritual disposition are false. Some atheistic belief systems even call such socialization "child abuse" based on their false belief in the non-spiritual disposition of the child. This conveniently allows them to promote their own social construction agenda. Atheism is the belief system that requires social construction (aka education, brainwashing, peer pressure)....

What children are not are born atheists

This is simply incorrect (not the part about how some atheists have bizarre beliefs, but the part about atheism "requiring" social construction). God is the cultural construct (or perhaps, an existential truth of which we only become aware through learning of the cultural construct). All children are atheistic before they learn the concept of God, just as they are apolitical, amoral, and non-verbal, . How could it possibly be otherwise? You can't have a political position until you learn what politics are. You can't have a moral position until you learn what morals are. And you can't be a theist until you learn what "God" means. It is true that some "strong" atheists do understand what God means, and specifically reject His existence. However, no young children are (or can be) theists -- therefore they are atheists (in a general sense).

Humans are biologically disposed toward language. Nonetheless, they are "alingusitic" until they learn a language. The same is true of religion (except that the extent to which humans are biologically disposed to become theistic is more dubious).

[YesNo]

This is simply incorrect (not the part about how some atheists have bizarre beliefs, but the part about atheism "requiring" social construction). God is the cultural construct (or perhaps, an existential truth of which we only become aware through learning of the cultural construct). All children are atheistic before they learn the concept of God, just as they are apolitical, amoral, and non-verbal, . How could it possibly be otherwise? You can't have a political position until you learn what politics are. You can't have a moral position until you learn what morals are. And you can't be a theist until you learn what "God" means. It is true that some "strong" atheists do understand what God means, and specifically reject His existence. However, no young children are (or can be) theists -- therefore they are atheists (in a general sense).

Humans are biologically disposed toward language. Nonetheless, they are "alingusitic" until they learn a language. The same is true of religion (except that the extent to which humans are biologically disposed to become theistic is more dubious).

As I understand Barrett's research survey, your position has been falsified. I will be back in mid January from vacationing with my family. If you want to look at the text I will be able to discuss it in more detail then.

How could your position be wrong? If God is real, it is possible that children could know this prior to any socialization process.

You seem to be assuming two things that might not be correct.

(1) You may be assuming that God is not real and so there can't be any evidence like that presented by Barrett. That would mean that if such evidence existed then God is real. I wouldn't go that far. All I am claiming is that atheism is not the natural state for a child but requires socialization.

(2) You may be assuming that God cannot be known except through socialization, specifically language. I don't think we know enough about language to say much here. For all I know, dogs and cats could know God should God be a reality.

Assuming Barrett's evidence is correct, an atheist could still say that this knowledge that children have is childish and it needs to be thrown away like one might throw away our common sense notions that the earth is flat or that we are actually touching something solid when we walk. Then again just because we have a naive perspective does not mean that it is wrong.

(Edit: I think the main problem is with the second assumption. Can one be theistic without a language based concept of God, no matter how vague that concept is? More generally, can one know something without language coming in prior to that knowledge? As I see it language comes late in the knowledge process and helps clarify our knowledge and exchange that knowledge with others. That social exchange can also involve social manipulation through lying or confusing metaphors. An example of knowledge that comes before one has conceptualized it through language comes from presentiment studies that measure changes in the body to see if someone can predict a future event. Another example is our knowledge of what it is like to be us. See Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" We know this before we can express it in language and if we attempted to express it in language we probably would not be able to.)

[Ecurb]

"All men are philosophers," said Aristotle. But he was wrong. Pre-linguistic children (and unborn fetuses) are not philosophers. Philosophy is "the study of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning." In other words, philosophy involves the study of knowledge, rather than knowledge itself. And that study (as well as the "logical reasoning" on which it is based) is facilitated through language.

Nobody doubts that if God exists, people (and animals) can have "knowledge" of Him that is not based on language. He could, for example, appear in a burning bush to a baby or to a dog. However, the baby or the dog would not have a theoretical (and hence linguistic) framework with which to interpret that knowledge. They would not say, "That must be God in the bush." They wouldn't know the word (or the concept) "God", so how could they think it was God in the bush?

Instead, they would simply know that something had said, "Set my people free" out of a bush. Indeed, depending on the theoretical framework with which that "knowledge" is parsed, an adult might think, "Hmmm, must be swamp gas," or, "I must be hallucinating", or "some magician must be using prestidigitation," or, "It's God!" The knowledge of the experience is identical, but the theoretical framework is different.

So, no, I'm not assuming God is not real, nor am I assuming God cannot be "known" except through cultural constructs. Instead, I am assuming that "theism" is a philosophy, and that philosophies (as opposed to "knowledge") involve language. I agree with you that knowledge precedes language. Clearly, dogs can "know" things about reality. We might even say (incorrectly), "My dog is a hedonist", or "My dog is a pragmatist". We would be using the words imprecisely, however. We would mean, "My dog acts in ways that would be consistent with hedonism or pragmatism". But the dog could NOT be a hedonist or a pragmatist because those are philosophies explaining and arguing WHY people SHOULD act in way consistent with hedonism or pragmatism, and dogs (and small children) are incapable of explaining or arguing, both of which involve language.

So its certainly possible to have experiences with God without being a "theist", just like it's possible to act pragmatically (like my dog does) without being a "pragmatist". However, it is impossible to hold a philosophic position (like "theism") without having some understanding of what that position involves. In the case of "theism" it involves understanding the words "belief" and "God". The dog who sees God in a burning bush and starts barking at Him is not a "theist", because he is not a philosopher. He has no belief in "God" (which is an abstract and linguistic concept) -- he believes merely in his own perceptions.

[YesNo]

As I recall Barrett is not saying that children are born philosophical theists. They are born believers.

I was thinking today that children could not be born "atheists" for the very reasons you are giving. Atheism requires the concept of "theism" which children don't have. So they can't even have a position against it.

If atheism were true, one would expect children not to have any inclination toward believing at all. That they do requires explanation, if one is an atheist. If one is a theist, it offers no problem. Because of that I plan to reread that text when I get back. The evidence seems like it might be as significant as out of body experiences, psi experiences, or near and shared death experiences.

[Ecurb]

Actually, as I said before, some definitions claim "atheism" to be a positive claim that there is no God (in which case my argument does indeed apply to atheists). Other definitions simply claim that atheists do not believe in god (i.e. "a" = "are not" and "theists"). I have no idea what it means to be "born a believer", but it sounds whacky. How about unborn fetuses, are they "believers" too? How about zygotes? How does anyone know what babies (or dogs) "believe", or even what it means to "believe" to someone with the consciousness of a baby or a dog?

Also, I don't know where you get your "expectations". There are a number of quite obvious advantages to society conferred by religion and religious faith. Beliefs that are "useful" may tend to become widespread; beliefs that are "true" might become widespread only when they are useful. Children are "inclined" to believe what they are expected to believe and rewarded for believing. (We can't actually know what anyone else believes, we can only know what they SAY.) So there are a great many explanations of juvenile "belief".

[YesNo]

After discussing this with you I want to get a better understanding of what Barrett is referring to. This research looks more significant than I originally thought.

Regarding "how does anyone know" is an important question and from memory I can't answer it. The research comes from child developmental psychologists and so unborn fetuses and zygotes are not included.

The idea that "atheism" is a positive term sounds "whacky" to me perhaps like "born believer" sounds "whacky" to you. It assumes that the initial starting point is atheism, but that is exactly what Barrett's evidence puts into question.

[Ecurb]

Well, maybe it does. My public library doesn't have the book. Maybe I'll try the U of O. As far as atheism being a "positive term, that's generally referred to as "strong atheism" -- the firm belief that there is no God (rather than a simple lack of belief in God). How can a blank slate (like a baby or a zygote) "believe" in anything -- whether God, or gravity? That's what I don't understand. Of course as kids develop, they start believing in lots of things, including God.

The only reason I assume that atheism is the starting point is that all "beliefs" develop as kids learn. Kids aren't strong atheists, they just don't have an opinion about God one way or the other until someone suggests they form one.