Religion
In reply to the discussion: how does atheism/materialism account for [View all]LeftishBrit
(41,203 posts)There are scientific accounts of what goes on in the brain when people experience these emotions, or perceive something as beautiful; social psychology experiments that can tell you something about the predictors and effects of friendship or hate; studies that can tell you something about both genetic and environmental contributions to characteristics such as narcissism or altruism.
But I don't think that any studies can provide some sort of 'ultimate cause' that will explain all these characteristics.
Can religion? Well, of course one can say 'God created it'; but that depends on faith, not on explanatory power. Also, while religious people may indeed say that God created love and heroism and beauty, how does one explain the creation of hate and jealousy? (Of course, some people would say 'the devil'; but many religious people nowadays don't believe in a literal devil.)
You will note that I changed the question from 'how does atheism/ materialism account for' these things to 'how does science/materialism account for' these things. This is because atheism is not there to provide an account for anything. Atheism just means NOT believing in a God or gods. It is rejection of one type of explanation; not a statement of some other form of explanation.
I think there is something more basic here. Many (not all) religious people believe that there must be some sort of specific single ultimate cause for our existence; the world's existence; the phenomena that we observe. Therefore, they often assume that atheists must be substituting another single ultimate cause for God. This is not necessarily the case. Many atheists (and some religious people) believe in multiple causes for the world being as it is, or simply are not seeking an ultimate cause.