A particular need of all human beings, it seems, is the need to be needed. This simple need, the need to be needed, is one which even if not able to be satisfied by ones’ self, is easily satisfied by others. The positive irony of this is that in giving another person the reason to be needed, one becomes needed satisfying the need. Maybe this is what is meant by “good karma”?  Nevertheless, this need to be needed when fulfilled, changes lives, it gives hope to the hopeless and motivates the otherwise unmotivated.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is the answer to much and many of the problems in the world today.  That being said, in certain situations and because of its emotional nature it is also the causes of some of those problems as well. 

We have found that the universe does not revolve around the earth, and that we are not the center of any universe other than our own: we are not ‘needed’ by the universe.  We are not the product of an intelligent designer, we are not the dream of a beneficial God; neither are we given purpose other than the purpose that we create. However, it can be said that we are in part the product of our choice to act intelligently, of the fulfillment of our dreams, and the purposes that we define for ourselves.  But, the need to be needed is inherent in our genetic make-up: we have evolved to procreate; we “need” pass our genes on through the generations.  This is the purpose of evolution by natural selection: survival of genes.  However, this simple purpose does not fulfill the human emotional desire to be needed.  We are animals capable of the sort of intelligence that demands more from need than comes from natural selection: we are the product of purposeless mechanisms, but a product that demands purpose.

Why does evolution by natural selection not satiate our need to be needed: our desire for purpose? One reason might be because evolution by natural selection does not “desire” anything; it does not “need” anything.  It is a blind process of change.  Perhaps it is this total lack of need and purpose that makes evolution by natural selection seem to so many to be a second-rate explanation (or no explanation) of life: it does not fulfill our need to be needed and it does not give us purpose: it does not take into account our need for emotional motivation.  Human beings are motivated by emotion rather than reason, as David Hume has pointed out, and evolution cannot be explained emotionally although it brings out emotional responses from many of us.  The explanation given by modern biology is too rational; it is explained too thoroughly by sound science. In other words, it is not emotional enough.  The need to be needed and the need for purpose are not fulfilled by scientific empiricism and sound rationality.  Our scientific explanations of the universe, and of life itself, are too void of what we are really searching for: emotional appeal.

            Our emotional desires concerning need and purpose are evidently so strong that many are able to disregard “truth”, to redefine it to fit our needs in order to fulfill this mental yearning.  Rather than knowing and broadening that knowledge, we strive to keep alive our personal desires in order to squelch our personal fears that those desires, while fully understandable, are nothing more than emotional appeal.  But, emotion is a strong motivator; it is part of life, and it makes up, at least in part, who we are and why do the things we do.  I believe Hume is right: we act on our emotions not our rational understanding.  But this is not necessarily a negative thing, unless it blinds us to what we need to know (intellectually speaking) in order to fulfill our need to be needed.  These are two different sorts of need.  The one sort can save us from ourselves so to speak, while the other can define who that “self” is that we are saving.

            We need to know the difference between truth and opinion, between theory and hypothesis, between faith, hope and reality, and we need to be needed in order to feel purpose, in order to gain dignity, in order to create pride in ourselves and what we do.  The two are not diametrically opposed, but are often claimed to be, being spoke of in the guise of science and religion.  It is true that science and religion are not compatible: science answers the unanswerable questions of religion while it is claimed by many that religion gives them purpose and meaning: it makes people feel needed.  But, it is not necessary that the need to be needed and the concept of purpose be intertwined in religion. The belief that need and purpose are only possible with religious hope and faith is due to our inherent intellectual fear of losing our belief that we are needed, and the belief that we have a purpose.  Daniel Dennett eloquently wrote that what the religious mind has is a need to believe rather than a belief.  I would add to that excellent author’s proposition that what the religious mind has is a need to believe that it is needed and that it has purpose.  “God” in the religious sense simply defines that need and that need for purpose in an all-encompassing way.

            I believe that the religious reaction to atheism, if this is all true, is due not to the atheist’s rejection of the religious creator, meaning or to religion itself, but to its dismissal of that purpose and need only being possible through religious belief.  This is a problem because the fact that there are atheists is a reminder to theists that there is an alternative theory to a theism that claims that we are needed by an all-encompassing creator and our most important purpose is to prostrate ourselves before that creator. That is, that need and purpose need not be gotten through religious belief.  In other words, atheism offers individuals need and purpose without the need of any “God” figure.  This is problematic to the theist because inherent in his belief is absolutism. Theological absolutism dictates that there is no other way than the dictated method. But, the fact that there are atheists that are happy, that lead fulfilling, purpose-filled lives and feel needed is a direct contradiction to the theistic belief that need and purpose are only possible through their belief in God.  Because theistic belief is emotionally motivated, its reaction to such contradictions will also be emotional by nature.

An atheist, such as myself, does not state that no one be allowed the right to have a religious belief, but that the religious belief be a personal one rather than a public one.  The atheist simply asks to have the right to create need and purpose for himself rather than battle the continuous desire of the religious for religion to define all of our needs as well as purpose universally.  Atheists have the need to be needed, and the need to have purpose in their lives just as all human beings do, but do not have the belief that such need and purpose can be defined universally.  The battle is on the theist’s side: the side of absolute belief and the need to be accepted absolutely.  I have no need that is fulfilled by religious belief, and I have no purpose that is dependent upon a belief in a creator, God.  Yet, as an atheist I do have the same need to be needed.

There is an answer: religious peoples ought to give non-religious people the need to be needed and the non-religious people ought to do the same.  I would ask the religious people that are so intent on making their beliefs law, to stop and ask is it necessary that all peoples define their needs and the desire for a purposeful life in the same way, universally?  The problem between secular and religious viewpoints is that universal answers almost never apply to humanity universally.  We all search for our need to be needed and our purpose, but we do so differently.  Neither is it a question of truth: truth belongs to science and empirical relationships.  Rather, it is a question of being human: of being a thoughtful and intelligent, and emotional animal.