The Third Instinct

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According to Alex S. Key, the author of “The Third Instinct: How Religion Doesn’t Get You”, one of the greatest challenges facing humanity may well revolve around a misunderstanding of human needs. It can lead to frustration, diseases, and even war. In the view of the World Health Organization (WHO), one in 5 people is clinically depressed and it describes depression as the biggest epidemic that the world has ever known. The levels of depressions are far higher than a hundred years ago, even though life today is easier and more comfortable than ever, and despite more psychotherapists being game fully employed than ever! Key says that we are living in a world in which the number one killer on the planet is not cancer, influenza, or hunger. …show more content…

This is a gargantuan challenge that includes television, processed meats, flavour enhancers, video games, adult topless bars, internet porn, contraception, narcotics, shopping, fashion magazines, and even commercials! Add to this huge challenge the fact, that humans have a third basic instinct, which has gone virtually unnoticed, buzzing under the scientific and social radars, and we have a recipe for a very confusing world, filled with philosophical conflicts over women 's rights in Islam, supreme court nominations in the US, family values, and even the definitions of morality and …show more content…

He felt that what is called instinct is often imprecisely defined, and really amounts to strong drives. For Maslow, an instinct is something which cannot be overridden, and therefore while the term may have applied to humans in the past, it no longer does (Maslow, 1954). In this book, Maslow presents several criteria which distinguish instinctual from other kinds of behavior. To be considered instinctual, a behavior must: a) be automatic, b) be irresistible, c) occur at some point in development, d) be triggered by some event in the environment, e) occur in every member of the species, f) be unmodifiable, and g) govern behavior for which the organism needs no training (although the organism may profit from experience and to that degree the behavior is

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