Could religion be genetic and not a choice for some?

Originally posted by searching4truth
So, it is curious to me how I would end up extremely religious, and my siblings the complete opposite, perhaps there is genetic component.

Funny thing...atheism is, in some respects, a belief as well, seeing as there are no hard facts to discount spirituality. It is, if I may be permitted, a leap of none-faith. Agnosticism means not knowing...a fair bet for one who does not feel equipped to embrace a tenet based on faith...either way.

What you do not factor in is whether each of them acknowledge a spiritual element to their lives, whether it takes a form immediately familiar to you or is more personal to their own self. Again, I tend to think that Man's innate spirituality tends to take the form one gives it. On the other hand, I suspect that quantum physics could explain away much of what we attribute to 'God', which is to say we are trying to explain away phenomena when all that we perceive are shadows.

It is an unfortunate adjunct to most organised religions that any other belief system is false, or even evil in nature. That's why I put more credence in the manner of the walk, rather than the talk.

reply to post by halfoldman


I think you're on the right track, but it seems to me that all humanity has been genetically modified by the Annunaki to be a slave race, and therefore, worshipers of sorts. True salvation is coming to this realization and joining with the pro-human Annnaki (Enki) to achieve liberation.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
That would apply to a particular belief system, but in my humble uneducated opinion, I think humans are hard wired for spirituality and as a front porch philosopher, I think that spirituality tends to take the form one gives it.

It's important to back track to a time when mankind had very little understanding of the world around him. Events and phenomena that were beyond his understanding -- in short, the unknown -- were attributed to the various meanderings of a higher set of beings (ex. the Greek gods, Allah, Jehovah, etc.). Of course these gods were based upon mankind's experiences up to that point resulting in them being fashioned in the image of man.

That said, it stands to reason that we're not necessarily hard-wired for spirituality, but for a need to understand the world around us. Two distinctly separate things. In my opinion, our sense of spirituality is based not on our genetics, but upon the external influences found within our environment such as religious upbringing, culture and personal experiences.

I do agree with your assessment that our personal spirituality does indeed take the form that we give it.

reply to post by maria_stardust

And to add to that we have the ethno-botanist perspecitve. They would argue that our brains, religions and perhaps even civilization itself developed from psychedelic plants. Once again the hallucinogens taken in the Greek mystery schools; the Acacia and lotus flower in Egypt and the Semitic lands; the Soma in India, and the countless plants in the Americas had no evolutionary explanation. OK, maybe some feeling of group cohesion was involved, but otherwise they exposed people to the elements and left them defenseless.
Or did the first people unite to enjoy the "spiritual" experience in safety?