The Primal Instinct: How Biological Security Motivates Behavior, Promotes Morality, Determines Authority, and Explains Our Search for a God (Gateway Bookshelf)

In The Primal Instinct, Dr. Martin Jaffe argues that the need for security—both physical security and intellectual security, which is assessed as the feeling of self-esteem—is the principle that motivates all human behavior. This behavior includes moral and altruistic behavior, and immoral and evil behavior. He shows that when moral and social philosophy and evolutionary psychology and biology are viewed as manifestations of the quest for security, new understandings of these disciplines unfold.

From the core principle that security is the goal of all human actions a corollary is deduced. This corollary states that whoever controls a person's security controls that person's behavior. This is the basis of authority. God is the ultimate authority. The concept of authority requires that a monotheistic God must provide total security to his followers. This is not possible because, as explained in the book, God is an entity who resides in the imagination where he is imaged and not in the realm of reality where his followers reside. He can provide them feelings of security but not security itself. This results in a placebo effect because placebos occur when there is divergence between security and feelings of security. All faith-based entities—God, the supernatural, heaven—are imaginary and are placebos. For millennia the placebo effect has deceived humans into believing in imaginary gods.

This book establishes a reasoned and evidence-based proof, the first proof ever, that God does not exist. This conclusion has far-reaching implications for the conflict between science and religion and impacts current concerns regarding Islamic fundamentalist extremism.

Martin D. Jaffe, MD, practiced internal medicine in Bay City, Michigan until 2006, when he retired at age seventy-nine to write this book. Earlier he had conducted cardiovascular research, and for the last eight years he has probed basic concepts in the social sciences.