Even if they do question, it’s not like they are in a safe environment to do so openly. They have to be prepared to give up community, friends, family, potentially their physical safety, and a worldview that says exactly who to be and how to live to be living a good life. That’s a huge step.
I know for a fact there are religious people going through the motions because the alternative is too frightening, just like people stay in bad marriages.
Right. Throughout human history, if someone was cast out of a community, they didn’t survive. We’ve been trained through evolution to go along with the tribe because it’s unsafe to question anything and get cast out.
Survival of the fittest. Evolution does not value truth or mortality, so for example secret rapists are a highly successful adaptation regardless of the morality of the action. If evolution is a correct model of reality, this pesky religion and moral agency will diminish with time. True progress. Maybe we can start counting the years from the big bang instead of that Jesus event or w/e!
OP this is why people believe in religion, and it's nearly impossible to get them out of it, you can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into in the first place
I find this a seemingly straight-forward point I've never gotten a religious person to acknowledge.
99.99999% of people follow the religion they do because their parents did. Not because it's true. That Christian, that Hindu, that Jew. It's just because they were told it was true at birth.
If their religion was actually the Truth, why would that be the case...?
My search for truth in my early 30's led me to study the world's religions, having grown up secular and feeling like something was missing. But don't let this anecdote or others like it get in the way of your logic. You're doing pretty good for a hairless monkey!
Education fails to instil scientific temper in them
Islam used to be the forefront of scientific and mathematical discovery. Believing in god have nothing to do with science or math, it's superstition, something that cannot be proven or unproven, it's that irrational thought that make us human.
Islam used to be the forefront of scientific and mathematical discovery.
People of all religions have contributed to scientific growth.
The average religious person and the person discovering scientific/mathematical stuff are generally different tho.
Universal basic education has gained focus in many parts of the world, only relatively recently.
I think improved scientific temper would obviously clash with many mainstresm religions.
Presence of some supreme creator may not be proven or disproven, but I think the anti-evolution stuff and similar things in most mainstream religions would face more questions when scientific temper improves.
And I'm not saying that non-religious people are safe from similar stuff too. Just that it is easily spread and maintained when you have a community on it.
Presence of some supreme creator may not be proven or disproven, but I think most of the anti-evolution stuff and similar things in most mainstream religions would face more questions when scientific temper improves.
And religions can evolve with this (or die from declining membership), as long as the leaders don’t stick to the “These actually scientifically proven facts are lies sent by the Devil” line.
Islam used to be the forefront of scientific and mathematical discovery.
No, Islamic COUNTRIES did. They didn't achieve excellence in science because Islam benefitted science.
They achieved excellence in science compared to Christian countries in large part because their religious authority figures didn't stand in the way anywhere near as much. Not because religion helped.
Believing in god have nothing to do with science
Not true. They are polar opposites. That's why scientists are disproportionately atheist and agnostic: the evidence based mode of thinking employed in science doesn't mix with the superstitious and unquestioningly convinced thinking of religion without some SERIOUS cognitive dissonance.
it's that irrational thought that make us human
No. That's not being human, that's being brainwashed and/or obedient to authority.
You're right that it's irrational and that irrationality is an inherent part of being human, but the SPECIFIC irrationality of religion is learned and enforced, NOT inherent.
No, Islamic COUNTRIES did. They didn't achieve excellence in science because Islam benefitted science.
No one claiming it is.
They achieved excellence in science compared to Christian countries in large part because their religious authority figures didn't stand in the way anywhere near as much, not because religion helped.
Not sure how much difference is by changing "Islam" to "Islamic countries", because the fact still remain that Muslim make scientific discovery and excel in mathematics despite being religious. Again, no one claiming Islam benefitted science.
Not true. They are polar opposites.
You just contradicted your last point. Also science are not religion, how can an apple be polar opposite to orange? One can believe in santa clause and ghost while excel in science. It's not mutually exclusive.
That's why scientists are disproportionately atheist and agnostic: the evidence based mode of thinking employed in science doesn't mix with the superstitious and unquestioningly convinced thinking of religion without some SERIOUS cognitive dissonance.
Science are a broad subject, unless they purposely went and look for god, which they wouldn't find, there's like a huge load of subject that doesn't have anything to do with god. Also your impression of religion is like, wrong lol. There's more to religion than just praising god.
No. That's not being human, that's being brainwashed and/or obedient to authority.
Thank you, I think people often overlook how faith and scientific thought can be complimentary. In any case, for questions of religious/spiritual matters, people are basically just running with a hypothesis that works for them. As long as they're capable of being self-critical and aren't pushing their beliefs on people who aren't interested, then it seems fine to me.
Because belief is intrinsic to humanity even if we don't believe in religion.
I believe in a lot of human concepts, including kindness, altruism, democracy and humanism. They are all still effectively made up human ideas.
I also believe when I sit down that the chair below me really exists but I cannot truly trust my own senses 100% either. So effectively I "believe" what my sensory organs and brain interpretation tell me, but the reality is the brain and its interpretations can be wrong.
Look at the USA, the founders of the nation are often treated with a reverence akin to that of religious figures.
People have all kinds of delusions. People worship all kinds of weird things. Religion is just one of many.
Finally, someone like Ayn Rand shows that a human can have pretty reprehensible and hypocritical beliefs even if they are an atheist. She promoted bullshit "great men" theories of humanity and argued that selfishness could be used for good.
She also died penniless and on government benefits while spending her whole life preaching against things like government benefits.
People are deeply irrational even without religion.
As an atheist who is not anti-religion, I wholeheartedly agree. The religious do not have a monopoly on irrationality, or weaponizing ideology.
I see many atheists on forums proposing the idea that if we could only just get rid of religion, the world would be a harmonious and rational place. As if human beings wouldn't still be perfectly able to come up with new and interesting ways to rationalize conflict and division amongst themselves.
Humans are emotional creatures. We can’t change that. Even when we’re being rational we’re still basing every decision we make on emotions. “I’ve researched this and I feel this is the right decision.”
We believe in those things because they're practices we can observe and measure. The real question is why do theists not have the same standard of evidence for theistic claims.
I also believe when I sit down that the chair below me really exists ...
Your trust (or "faith") in the chair existing and supporting your weight is because of your experience with chairs in the past. I don't think many people would say they have "absolute certainty" the chair exists and would hold them.
If you had a history of hallucinating you might have a higher standard of evidence, but it's still there to be tested. The problem with religion is it seems like you need a standard of "none at all" to accept theistic claims.
Finally, someone like Ayn Rand shows ...
"They do it too" doesn't really get us to an answer, just another "why" question. She believes her claims with little to no evidence, theists believe their claims with little to no evidence, but like...why?
Meaning and Purpose: Religion can offer a framework for understanding the universe and our place in it. It can provide answers to big questions about life, death, and morality.
Community and Belonging: Religious communities can provide social support, a sense of belonging, and shared values. This can be especially important during difficult times.
Comfort and Hope: Religion can offer comfort in times of grief or hardship. It can also provide hope for the afterlife or a better future.
Tradition and Identity: Religion can be a core part of a person's cultural heritage or family identity. People may feel a connection to their ancestors or cultural background through their faith.
Ethics and Morality: Many religions provide a moral code that guides people's behavior. This can be helpful in making decisions about right and wrong.
I don't believe, but I can see why people stick with it and don't look beyond it. You can get all these things without religion, its just not something that's taught/passed down in the same way as religion is. Additionally, deconstructing is very difficult. You're raised to believe something to be real and you're expected to just drop it and step out of Plato's cave? You'd look like a madman to any friends/family who aren't willing and ready to step out and look around.
The one point I can really agree with is the meaning and purpose part. I’m not religious and the whole what happens after death part really fucks me up quite a bit. It’d be really damn nice if I could just go “I’ll go to Heaven” and be done
Personally I don't see what the afterlife has to do with your purpose or sense of meaning in this life. For me, I figure my purpose is whatever I find fulfilling in life while hopefully helping others do the same. Anything that comes after that is a bonus.
Part of the identity crises that comes with(out) religion is the ultimate question of purpose: why are we suffering, surely it has a reason? Some of us are content to accept that there is no purpose, and therefore we must define our own; others need a purpose greater than themselves and/or to have one defined for them, and look to religion for that purpose. There is no right answer, and the struggle of identity and purpose are well documented in religion, fiction, history, and philosophy.
My partner and I had a difficult conversation recently about how we plan to handle her brother when her mother passes.
Her mother is obviously religious and raised him religiously Christian.
He is a sweet man with a severe developmental disability. Things literally take a very long time for him to learn. He still acts like a teen and he's pushing 40. That's not his fault, that's just life. We love him.
The thing is though...
We don't believe in religion, but we also think that when his mother finally passes, it would not be wise to try to turn him from Christianity.
He struggled and still struggles years later due to the passing of his father. The idea of being able to see his father in heaven is big to him.
At one point, he panicked because he was playing DOOM 2016 on his game console, and he asked my partner (his sister) if he was going to go to hell for playing it. She reminded him that the Doomslayer kills demons and loves bunnies and reminded him the themes of the game say demons are bad, even if the game itself is violent.
We don't think it's worth it to try to break his brain when he's over 40 and his mom finally passes. Hell, she's in good health, he could be over 50 when it happens. He has a learning disability and it would literally be unfair to him to try to force a change in belief on him at such a late stage with such a disability.
It's not worth it to wreck his mental health so we can feel better about being "truthful" with him. We're focusing on trying to relate healthy interpretations of Christianity to him.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I believe in a religion because I've found it to be personally beneficial.
I was a pastor for many years and saw much of the best and worst religion had to offer. I haven't stepped foot inside a church since COVID broke out and don't know that I ever will again.
My personal beliefs are still a significant part of my life, but I understand why someone would ask the question that spawned this discussion.
I think that does answer the question - for a lot of people, the reason they're religious is because they find it personally beneficial for one reason or another.
I guess I'm putting emphasis on the word "believe" and you seem to be seeing religion as a way to find comfort. This is why I feel you are not actually answering the question that OP posed.
Perhaps I'm taking the question too literally.
Adding more to this. The question is why do you believe in religion, not why you are religious. To me, there's a difference between the two of these.
There is a significant difference, but, in my limited experience, many people are religious, but don't actually believe, but they think they do believe. When the rubber hits the road you find it what a person actually thinks is
true.
I'm not religious at all. But in responding to your question OP: we don't have to understand why people believe. Religion just isn't for us, and that's fine. Other people find it has value, and that's fine too. The fact that religion has lasted this long with this many people is proof in itself that there's some value people get out of it. We don't have to get it to understand that.
All the comments here that explain religion solely as dumb or irrational are just as closed minded as the people they're criticising.
The year has little to do with it. The only things we've really undeniably progressed in over the past century are scientific knowledge and the level of technology. Existential philosophy hasn't exactly made breakthroughs recently, to my knowledge.
Each person still needs to find their own answer to the fundamental questions of "why am I here" and "wtf is death and how do I deal with it".
Our mechanical, scientific understanding of reality provides fairly depressing answers to these questions. Religion? Sunshine and roses.
Also, on a more practical factor: childhood indoctrination and cultural inertia. Most people are raised in religion and they find it "good enough", so religion continues.
I find it more depressing that there is a God that decides what is good and what isn't and gives us "free will" just so He can torture us for eternity if we dont do what He wants... kinda fucked up ngl
Fortunately I don't need any more reasons to live than enjoying my day to day, being with the people I love, doing my little projects etc.
Oh, continuing down that line of thinking leads to far worse then "kinda fucked up." If the judeo christian deity exists and is accurately described by their books than it is a total monster not worthy of praise or devotion...
What I understand about the judeo christian god is that they are believed to have created everything that has ever been or will ever be. They have total knowledge of everything past present and future, and they "knew me" prior to them creating me, knew what kind of person I would be, and knew without doubt that I wouldn't believe in or worship them... so they created me with full knowledge that I'll spend eternity being tortured in hell. What kind of benevolent deity brings a creature into existence just so they can be tortured? If that's not full blown fucked up, then I don't know what is.
This isn't about responsibility, it's about preventing suffering. If you could prevent a genocidal leader from being born, which you knew would save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, why wouldn't you? Because it's that person's "responsibility" that all of those innocent people died after all?
For the same sort of reasons there are (generally) 12 months in a year and there are 7 days on a calendar, and for the same reason that "John" is a name, and why London is placed where it is, and etc?
Because some dudes decided some stuff, and some other dudes decided some stuff influenced like that, and so on. And some stuff got changed, and some stuff was inconvenient to change or there was no real reason to change it.
The year is ironic in the exact context you quoted I guess. But the days of the week and many months were named for other mythologies.
What I was actually saying is that the same reasons for belief apply whether it's 2000 BCE or 4000 CE. Humans remain human, and religion fills an inherent need.
There's other religions than Christianity - large ones - that do not consider the birth of Christ as particularly meaningful. The fact that we're using it as a point of reference is meaningful - the Christian religion has been very influential - but it is hardly some grand irony you seem to imply.
In some religions walking away from the church means being excluded from family, social, and business contacts. So cutting ties with everyone you know basically.
You can just like, say you do. I think a lot of people who check “Christian” in the US have little to no involvement in it beyond saying “thank God” occasionally.
I remember reading a story in my Spanish lit class about a guy who wasn’t attending church, and his mother was freaking out, so the family priest went to talk to him. And the priest was like, “I totally get it. After all the evil I’ve seen I don’t really believe either. But I continue in this because it is my life, and I can provide comfort to people. Consider attending because you love your mother and it will help her.”
In 2024 life is hard and you can't do anything about it in most cases. Religion gives you an excuse for why it must be so, so that you can keep grinding away.
This is a pretty broad question, it really depends on what you mean by "believe in religion":
Believe that a particular holy book is literal, historical truth.
Believe in the moral teachings of a particular holy book and follow its practices.
Believe in the existence of a universal higher consciousness (God)
1 is a vocal minority, and the reasons have been sufficiently explained elsewhere in this thread.
2 is much more common, and can derive from a number of reasons. Cultural identity generally determines which holy book (and interpretation thereof) you follow, but the attraction to moral framework is deeper than cultural identity. Having a set of guidelines to inform moral behavior, and a method of alignment and focus (prayer) is very valuable.
3 is a metaphysical consideration, and pops up even in 2024 because consciousness is still a mysterious phenomenon. Every explanation leads to roughly the same conclusion: if consciousness is an emergent property of complex interconnected systems, then it stands to reason that the most complex interconnected system (the universe) is more likely than not to be conscious; if consciousness is some external force that complex systems can "tune into" like a radio, then it stands to reason that "consciousness" permeates the universe; if consciousness is something else which defies scientific description, then it stands to reason that there exists some agency to dictate the rules.
Those are, broadly, the rational explanations of consciousness of which I'm aware, and they all imply a universal consciousness of one variety or another. If you can think of another I'd love to consider it.
If you meant something else by "believe in religion", let me know.
Gives a sense of community and cultural connection that other things don't quite provide.
I've met a not so inconsequential amount of people in my life that when pressed admitted, they don't believe in god, don't believe in the moral teachings, but attend a place of worship because they think there is no replacement for the interwoven community and cultural connection their place of worship provides. Many people simply like the community connection of their root culture. This is especially true in minority groups (black church, synagogue).
This is me and my family right now. Two days ago we had lunch with our pastor to discuss the design of the church's nursery and I came out as atheist and my wife came out as Buddhist. The pastor didn't challenge us on any of that and we ended talking about what drew us to social justice causes. We believe in each other and that is enough.
None of the things by themselves fully justify "belief" in a religion yet many people claim they are without a true belief in the entire system. It's the problem with such a vague question. By a narrower definition very few people attending a place of worship are true believers. Someone can believe in god, but not really believe in the rules, and still say they are "religious". Someone can believe in the rules, but not god, and say the same. I think if you are practicing the religion to some extent then you have a right to call yourself religious if that's how you view yourself regardless of your true beliefs on god, rules, etc. Cultural impact matters more than we give it credit for.
It's very rare that you find anyone on Lemmy/Reddit that actually takes more than eight seconds to critically think about the significance of "religion," and not just immediately monkey brain into "religion is for idiots." Alas, I hoped that this particular group think would've stayed behind.
A belief is not a religion, and a religion is not a belief. Any one person can be varying degrees of "religious," and any one person can hold varying levels of belief in a higher power.
I don't have much else to add because your comment was pretty well thought-out.
Your understanding of their reasoning comes from a fundamental assumption that your choice is the correct choice for every person. They willingly made the wrong decision, therefore they must have been manipulated into doing so.
Many people do just become religious without outside influence. On a large scale, every society will create its own version of religion without fail. Clearly, they have something to gain psychologically by doing so.
While religious indoctrination obviously exists and obviously is a problem, it doesn't discount the actual benefits that religion seems to have, and by extension the reasoning with which some people become religious.
We all do.
When I said "start", it was in reference to the process of changing your religious identity, not your life as a whole.
I stand by what I said and painting it as absolutes is arguing in bad faith.
This I agree with. Looking back, you were more careful than I thought you were to specify you were not talking in absolutes.
I will however double down that you are still making a fundamental assumption that your option is the correct one, and you make it more clear by arguing that all benefits of religion are possible without religion. If all benefits of religion can be attained without risking the detriment, then religion is the worse option by far.
However, thinking of this made me realize I'm just making the opposite assumption. Just like you, I've constructed a strongly held belief about religion based on my life experiences, which are entirely anecdotal and effectively meaningless.
How would you even get evidence that most people are manipulated into becoming religious? How would you get evidence that most people don't? How would you get evidence that religion does or doesn't benefit people? How would you even define benefit in the first place?
I don't have a strongly held belief regarding the existence of any gods.
The strongly held belief I'm referring to isn't a belief in a god or lack thereof, its a belief that religion is a net negative for society.
I'm surprised you're not aware of this.
To say I'm not aware of this is again to argue in bad faith. I have mentioned myself that religious indoctrination of course still exists, and is a problem.
As for the assessment of benefits, there's a great deal of research into what people do with their lives and why.
Yes there is research into how religion affects society, but it isn't very useful for this purpose for multiple reasons. There is no instance of a society without religion, so the difference between a religious and non-religious society can't be studied. There can be no consensus on what is beneficial and what isn't, as morality itself isn't objective.
There is not and there never will be definitive evidence as to whether or not religion is beneficial for society.
There is nothing to suggest we need religion for any of the benefits that religious people say they obtain from it,
There is also nothing to suggest the opposite, because this can't really be determined. You would have to so create a set of all the benefits religious people claim to get, which in and of itself would be a monumental task. Then, you would have to demonstrate that nonreligious people can achieve all of the exact same benefits.
This is why I've come to the conclusion that this argument is pointless, and neither of us know anything beyond our personal experience.
Never personally met an atheist that had found religion or heard about one, other than in American evangelical stories, but I've met a few non-religions people who have later in life found religion. Although I live in a quite atheaistic country, so there is a lack of peer pressure or need to talk about such things.
They are drawing that distinction for a reason. They literally said everyone is everything on the internet. I don't how else you could possibly read that.
I left my church because they wouldn’t just let me attend. They wanted me to commit to actively proseletyzing outside the church, to bring more people in.
It didn’t feel right. I think if a thing is good enough, nobody else needs to nag you to sell it. You just want to tell people about it because it’s been so good for you.
Like it or not, people who went to prayer house or religious gatherings socialise more than people who stay indoor and only interact with limited amount of people. Assuming there's no fishy business going on with that particular chapter, they tend to be happier considering the fact human are social animal and the feeling of loneliness due to lack of human to human interaction is the build-in alarm system to warn us against solitude. It's this reason religion is so success because it's enforce togetherness and make you feels like you're part of something.
If we're going into a utopian world where human doesn't need to work anymore and social security is guaranteed, religious will be something even bigger than today.
Edit: forgot to mentioned, am atheist and give no shit to skyman, but somehow on the internet atheist can't have opinion that's not shitting on people with faith.
We don't need religion, we did at one time. When we didn't know why or how people got sick, why sometimes crops would be plentiful and other times famine or why the ground shook sometimes or even just figuring out morals
But we know those things now and when we encounter something we don't we have the knowledge and tools to figure out what's up.
We don't need churches for a common social place, we have parks, libraries, community centers and community wide events to invest in. We can socialize and learn other cultures around the world in an instant. We don't just have random villages and tiny cities any more, we have large and diverse cities so we everyone can have a little of everything they're interested in.
At this point, all religion does is serve as yet another thing to divide us.
Like it or not, people who went to prayer house or religious gatherings socialise more than people who stay indoor and only interact with limited amount of people.
While this statement is true, its also true even if you're not religious. I was not raised religious at all but always got together with family/cousins/friends nearly every weekend.
... they tend to be happier considering the fact human are social animal and the feeling of loneliness due to lack of human to human interaction is the build-in alarm system to warn us against solitude. It’s this reason religion is so success because it’s enforce togetherness and make you feels like you’re part of something.
Kinda. This study [0] of 3,942 19-year-old in Sweden put it best:
... religion and religiousness per se have little impact on happiness. In particular, we find that social networks tend to be positively associated with happiness, and that this effect is driven by co-organizational membership among friends.
So while religious upbringing can force people to socialize, that doesn't mean the lack of religiosity will have a negative impact as the lack of religion does not dictate that you will not congregate/gather with peers/friends/family and feel the same level of "belonging" to a group - even if its not a well defined group.
If we’re going into a utopian world where human doesn’t need to work anymore and social security is guaranteed, religious will be something even bigger than today.
I'd say this claim is unfounded. Why must we turn to religion? There are clubs, groups, meetups, friends, events and niches of never ending categories that easily fulfill the need of "belonging" to a group - it's actually one thing humans are really good at - forming "in" and "out" groups.
Yes, i do agree on all the thing you said, what i'm saying is it's not mutually exclusive. Religious people can and will go to religious meetup and all the other non-religious gathering too. I know that because i have some friend that do both. It's not the case of black and white, this or that, do and don't.
The issue i have with OP's question and a lot of atheist is they tend to put religious people as a one dimension entity and think highly of themselves because they "aren't like that", that irrationality is what they accuse religious people have. It's that sort of tribalism that cause a lot of conflict, and i fear tribalism more than i fear religion.
It is very difficult to accept mortality if you don't believe in an afterlife. Religion brings comfort, and comfort improves mental health (at the cost of some delusion).
Ignoring the inherit assumption that religion is de facto an issue or backwards, and ignoring the fallacy that "progress" is co-liniar with the passage of time, logic is not in of itself a perfect humanistic process of thought, rather it has been developed by humans over the millennia.
There is great comfort in the process of growing into and exploring one's faith. Growing up in a theologically liberal Christian church, I was invited to find ways to meld the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man is such a way that I find purpose and vocation within my life. Religion also offers a place for community among people committed to a mission, be it good or bad. These communities preserve and honor cultural traditions, again, the good and the bad. These are just a few reasons I think people are now, and will remain well into the future, religious.
How do you account for tolerance found within religion and religious communities throughout the world and throughout history, then? How can intolerance be inherent to religion if it is not universally observed?
And for clarity, I’m not trying to no-true-scotsman out religious communities that harbor hatred and shut off diversity and the like. They totally exist and they are a problem. But to suggest religiosity itself is the issue, to me at least, is missing a sound foundation.
The text they rally behind as a fundamental part of their religion, in no uncertain terms, promotes violence against gay men and tells you women are worth a fraction of men and can't be trusted to preach. Not to mention the endorsement and regulation of slavery.
It's not that they're a monolith of bigotry or anything, it's that they start from a pretty messed up place and have to mould that out of their understanding of their religion, and plenty of them don't.
But the real issue is that you can justify just about any sort of prejudice when that is your foundation. There's no shortage of Christians who cite Leviticus to tell me my sexuality is an abomination, yet they dismiss the parts about slavery because "that's the old testament." The Bible also doesn't say anything about trans people and it doesn't oppose abortion rights, yet the majority of the Christians in my state are opposed to both.
Firstly, I am assuming that “they” is referring to Christians, which the op did not specify, and my subsequent commentary is interpreted to generalizing to all presentations of religion. While I explicitly pointed to Christianity, that was because I was referencing my personal faith journey.
Secondly, we are in agreement that the Pentateuch, in its literal form, calls for and endorses a society which does not privilege equality for all races, genders, or creeds. I would assume we are also in agreement that the epistles of Paul and Timothy and other early Christian writers have some pretty messed up opinions of who God is and what God wants.
But you yourself drew attention to the agency Christians, and all other faithful people, have. There is choice, and people do choose, to interpret scripture as non-literal. By the virtue of this existence, one cannot simply label all religious expressions as backwards or at issue, as I originally posited.
That's true, they can mould their interpretation however they need to so it conforms to their own morality, but that doesn't come from the religion.
If you gave an alien any of the abrahamic holy texts and then dropped it on earth it'd probably behave pretty abhorrently. In order to behave more civilly it'd have to learn from the society it was dropped into, not the religion.
Most churches and other theists do a pretty good job of doing that and that's a great thing, but the way I see it, the religion itself is inherently problematic until people mould it into something resembling secular morality.
The social aspect might be underappreciated. My guess is people are mainly introduced by family and friends and it becomes a big part of their identity. It becomes difficult to separate the individual elements.
Gods are literally just a psychological comfort blanket to explain the unexplainable. Most religious people don’t put that much thought into what they believe, challenging concepts are just tucked nicely away in the “Gods will” box and they move on. I think everyone copes with those brain shattering concepts in their own creative way or risk getting buried alive in anxiety.
Indoctrination and ignorance, notice how a big chunk of its members are old people. Younger people are less interested, thankfully. Also, for some people, it is a social club.
I thought about that as well. I'm not religious and i don't know anyone who is, but i talked to some elderly people of whom i knew they are religious about it. And surprisingly, they pretty much gave up on it. One couple told me how ass their childhood was because they were scarred into believing in fire and brimstone when they don't behave. The other lady who was very Christian, said that she wished she didn't basically wasted all theis time with Christianity, even tho she liked the whole community aspect of it and the "tradition."
And like i said, religion isn't part of anyone's life that i know, especially in my age group. But for the last 2 years or so it started popping up on tinder that Christianity somehow is still going. Not strong or anything, but it went from nothing to seeing two or three jesus freaks a month or so.
How do you know that the real creator(s) are documented?
You’ve been threatened and Stockholm’d through fear, likely as a child or when vulnerable into seeing 1 alternative, when the alternatives are infinite
I think you missed the point here. To the believer, evidence is not the main concern. Many Christians talk about their connection and relationship with god, which is subjective. To them, god exists because they have faith, not evidence, that it exists. Where's that faith coming from? As many others explained in this thread, it's about finding the sense of community and comfort in knowing that somebody higher us knows best in the world of uncertainty.
The alternative is absolutely unfathomable. Like I am an atheist and the fact we exist in any capacity is insane. Where did everything come from? Where will it go? People
believe in religion because it's easier.
When I have an existential crisis over it I sometimes wish I was religious.
Because the lowest common denominator is much MUCH lower than you think it is.
This means it's easy to indoctrinate and easy to maintain that for a massive number of people.
Scientific illiteracy is extremely high, and actual "6th grade reading comprehension" is the highest level of literacy for > 50% of a country like the U.S. and ~20% are low literacy or actually illiterate.
This means that half of everyone in the U.S. can read and understand what they read at or below a 6th grade level. This isn't "reading big words", it's "tell us about what you read", "what is the relationship between x & y" type questions.
This comment for example, up to this point only, would be difficult to understand & comprehend for > 50% of people in the U.S. (it demands an 11th grade reading comprehension). And may be misread, misunderstood, or not understood at all.
People are driven to religions to cults and alt conspiracy theories when they don't understand how the world works around them. They latch onto extremely simple often misleading or incorrect ideas of how the world works because they can understand it and it "makes sense" within their sphere of ignorance (we all have one, this isn't meant to be a disparaging term).
This means that the problem is that humans are just not smart enough to escape religion yet. It's the simplest answer, and it appears to be correct.
I'm an effort to get you an answer that isn't dismissive:
Youth indoctrination, social conformity, and cultural isolation. If your parents, friends, and most of your community tells you something is true, you are unlikely to challenge it for a variety of reasons including trust (most of what they've taught you works for your daily life), tribal identity, etc
People naturally fear death, and one coping strategy for the existential fear of death is to convince yourself that the death of your body is not the end of your existence. Science does not provide a pathway to this coping strategy so people will accept or create belief systems that quell that fear, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Relieving the pressure of that fear is a strong motivator.
Release of responsibility. When there is no higher power to dictate moral absolutes, we are left feeling responsible for the complex decisions around what is or isn't the appropriate course of action. And that shit is complicated and often anxiety inducing. Many people find comfort in offloading that work to a third party.
Humans psyche is a meaning inference recursive engine, semiotically I mean, following Charles Sanders Peirce's Theory of Signs, it generates meaning and thus needs a story to explain it, or simply to tell itself.
The story doesn't need to hold sound logic or any objectivity true to reality, it only needs to convey the meaning that it generated so that the mind can believe it more than questioning its validity.
Long story short, humans really likes being told and believing stories, and often they are the ones telling the story right to themselves.
I, for real, want to know if there are any religious/spiritual people here commenting because yikes. I think a lot of people also interpreted your question to be about organized religion, and specifically christianity of the US variety. Please seek out other religious thoughts - I've found much Jewish thought on religion to be of interest. For myself, I'm not christian and not Jewish.
I'm religious because growing up, I adopted the values of the religion I was taught - values of kindness, openness, and inclusion. It's as core a part of my being as my ways of cooking or socializing. To not be religious would feel like hiding parts of myself.
The routine of following the practices, as well as religion/spirituality being able to help us face the unknown we still have in our lives. It can provide internal strength and belief in our ability. I also find the routine a way to connect to my family, my culture, and to my day-to-day. My religious time is more a time of internal reflection on my own actions and if they align with my values. Do folks without a routine religious/spiritual practice do the same?
The community aspect some touched on is huge. I read a book, Palaces for the People, where it mentioned that those with strong social connections fare better in times of crisis. While there are institutions that are getting to the same influence of religious institutions, they are still far less impactful.
I guess this is all less a belief and more why do people still engage with religion. But why do we believe, what is the act of believing? I don't have to believe that the sun will rise every morning, but, I do still believe it will rise every morning. Belief is a whole area of study alone I'm sure.
I think there's something that always seems to get left out of these conversations and that's that "when I practice my religion, I feel something that I don't feel otherwise" is frequently a true statement for the religious.
I've often heard self-described atheists say that, often when conversing/debating with religious folks about why they believe, the conversation comes to a point where the religious person will say "I've just had a personal experience" and the atheist, unable to relate to that, really has no way to advance the conversation beyond that.
Were I opposite some fundamentalist Christian or something in such a situation, my response would be "yeah, me too! That's totally normal."
I think the beligerantly nonreligious either can't relate to religious experiences or don't want to admit to having had them for fear of embarassment or maybe rhetorical concessions. And the religious typically haven't had such experiences outside the context of their religious practices, or if they have they still attribute it to their religious beliefs, and so take it as proof of their beliefs.
And these religious experiences are very real and very normal. Probably some people are more prone to such experiences than others. But despite how the religious tend to interpret them they have little to no relationship to one's beliefs. One can have experiences of anatta ("no-self" in Theravada Buddhism) or satori (sudden, typically-temporary, enlightenment in Japanese Zen Buddhism) or recollection (a term from Christian mysticism) or kavana (Jewish mysticism) or whatever without accepting any particular belief system. There are secularized mindfulness and meditation practices that can increase one's chances and frequency of experiencing these states.
But, unfortunately, the history of these experiences has been one of large religious organizations claiming and mostly exercising a monopoly on such experiences.
These experiences feel very deep and profound and can be a very positive (or negative!) thing, even affecting the overall course of one's life. And they can be kindof addictive in a good way.
All that to say that I think any conversation about why people believe in religions today is incomplete without taking into account that for many people, their religion is their means of connection with some extremely profound and beautiful experiences. Though people only accept beliefs along with those experiences because they don't know these experiences aren't actually exclusive to any one religion or any set of beliefs. And those experiences are 100% real and tangible to them. (Whether they correspond to anything real in consensus reality is a whole other conversation, but the experiences themselves are a normal human phenomenon like orgasm or schadenfreude.)
Just some followup thoughts:
Like I alluded to earlier, meditation can be dangerous. Do your research first and know the risks.
If you want to know my personal beliefs, my beliefs are that beliefs don't matter. Personal experience does. "But do you believe god exists?" Honestly it'd take me a good hour or more to give a proper answer to that question. Let's go with "neither yes nor no" for the short version.
Every culture has these experiences. Humans likely have had them since humans have existed.
There's a western meditation guy named "Daniel Ingram" who I have a certain amount of respect for. He readily answers questions about the risks and benefits of meditation-related things as well as the subjective experience of them. But any time he is asked about the "real world" (like, the metaphysical implications of these experiences), he responds that he's "a pragmatist" and won't speculate about the nature of reality or the existence/nonexistence of entities or powers.
(That said, there is one and only one story he tells that seems to have made him believe certain supernatural claims about the real world. He was "practicing magic" and drew an amber pentagram in the air and someone who hadn't been present at the time later walked into the room and said "you just drew an amber pentagram in the air right here." Or at least that's roughly how he tells the story. And he does seem to believe there's something to that beyond the natural.)
I'm not quite the purist he is. I don't think it's necessary to straight up refuse to believe anything about the real world or the nature of reality. And I don't think that there's nothing that can/should be gleaned about metaphysics from subjective ("religious") experiences. (My experiences with contemplative practices has definitely changed my mind about some metaphysical things. The nature of conscious and of reality, the existence of capital-G-"God" (though the answer I find most compelling now definitely isn't "yes" or "no"), etc.)
But it's also important to keep it in perspective. Some of these experiences can feel like the most important thing every to happen to anyone. (That's probably how many/most religions start, honestly. Someone has a mind-blowing experience and tells everybody about it and everybody else grossly misinterprets it because these experiences are ineffable -- can't be put into words -- and before you know it you have the crusades and witch burnings and abstinance-only sex ed.) But a contemplative practice, done well, will tell you not to hold too closely to, well, anything really (potentially "except god"). Coming to some belief and holding it as the most important thing ever or basing your whole personality on it is absolutely problematic.
My advice is to hold any beliefs you come to from a religious experience (and any other beliefs you have for that matter) "loosely". And I think this is helped by not restricting yourself to one religious system. Borrow from both western and eastern religious traditions. Monotheistic, pantheistic, pagan, etc. Indigenous spiritual practices. Even left-hand-path stuff. The more you do that, the better you drive home to your reptilian brain the point that nobody has a monopoly on religious experience and often those experiences even contradict each other.
I guess one other thing to mention is that adpting a particular set of religious beliefs can potentially be a boon to one's contemplative practice. But for the reasons above, it can be dangerous.
Thank you for taking the time to write this out, I probably would've been busy for a couple of hours trying to formulate my fairly similar take!
Maybe to add another aspect for - I think that the sheer ability of humans to have religious experiences in all denominations, which are often described as feelings of connectedness, does not necessarily mean that there is a higher being or reality "out there" that is being connected to in those moments.
But it does mean that our brains have religious experience as an in-built function (which, as you described, has been needlessly enshrined in religious institutions), which might mean that being able to have these experiences is an important part of being able to survive, or maybe even to thrive, as a human being, which also means as a community.
But it does mean that our brains have religious experience as an in-built function (which, as you described, has been needlessly enshrined in religious institutions), which might mean that being able to have these experiences is an important part of being able to survive, or maybe even to thrive, as a human being, which also means as a community.
And that's a take that I couldn't have put as well as you did, and I wholeheartedly agree with.
I think whatever cognitive faculties separate us from "the animals" (or at least some animals) comes at a cost. Most animals live very in the moment. We're largely the only creatures that have panic attacks because of some imagined future event, and we worry constantly. The default mode network and the internal monologue let us plan for the future, but also makes us worry for the future, which is definitely maladaptive.
Religious experiences let us greatly mitigate that by showing us, even if only temporarily (and sometimes people can achieve permanence in this), by suspending the DMN and internal monologue.
Suspending worry for the future might be a plausible function for religious experience as an evolved feature of the human mind, yes.
I would also point towards the biological fact that while the existence of a higher being, consciousness or reality, is still ineffable, even after having had an experience that felt like there might be one, there is also an empirically true, measurable interconnectedness for humans that can be tapped into.
We live, and have evolved, in and through ecosystems that highly depend on interconnected species and processes that are so complex and intricate that we are still working on fully grasping them, and still discovering new connections (unfortunately, it's becoming more and more because we have disrupted the connections by environmental damage, and the ecosystems start to fail due to that, making the connection obvious only after it ceased to exist). Connection between humans in the form of love in its many forms is also the ultimate glue that keeps societies together, and if that capacity diminishes due to circumstances, bad things tend to happen.
The myriad of connections we need to live, and to thrive and to feel like we are whole - all of this fully seen and experienced in their abstracted totality could in my eyes be one of the bases for religious experience.
And if that is true, it gives also another function - then, religious experience is the anchor and has a rebalancing function that makes sure that we don't get lost in our own heads and human constructs, and keeps reminding us that we are part of the ecosystem, too, and keeps us from using it in a self-destructive manner. There are several deeply spiritual, nature-connected societies that only became so after a local environmental crisis caused by themselves. Tapping into the interconnectedness through religious experience has helped them find another, arguably better way.
(Of course, it doesn't seem to be a hard, global fail-safe in human history, given the current state of the world, so I don't know how direct this function would be.)
I disagree with your last line. A hypothesis is a great analogy for faith. It’s a belief that something is true. Science involves testing the hypothesis, just as faith can be tested.
It’s important to remember that science, by definition, does not prove anything either. There are only supported and unsupported theories.
I think what I'm saying there is that faith is more of an on-off switch. You see an astronaut who's returned from space and he's holding a pencil and he lets go of it in the air, goes and does something, and returns to the place where he let it go expecting the pencil to still be there.
It's not there, but he BELIEVED it would be, because he had no doubt. It surprised him that it wasn't there.
Hypothesis is quite a different thing. If I hypothesize there are crackers in the pantry, all I have to do is go and open the pantry and look and see if there's crackers. That's testing the hypothesis.
One does not talk about the existence of things like love, or truth, or God, in the same way one talks about crackers in the pantry. They are metaphysical, and they are different.
Close. You’re comparing a repeatable phenomenon to an unrepeatable one. Unrepeatable phenomena are where science is equal to religion, in that there may only be a hypothesis supporting the theory.
For example, according to the current scientific theory of creation, two masses collided in the Big Bang. The laws of physics state that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. There are scientific theories on how the masses came to exist, and what set them in motion, but there is no way to test an unrepeatable phenomenon. Interference-based creation is just as possible.
I like how all these answers involving science fail to realize that the scientific method was used exclusively by many scholars and students who had no historical evidence of giving up their religion.
Empirical evidence is as old as humans, and afaik the modern scientific method has been in use since the Islamic golden age if not older.
The key here is that many of these people did not consider religion an empirical issue but a philosophical and ethical one. Particularly with the monotheistic religions, this would make sense because you can easily argue that it would be impractical to test for the existence of God.
I think a better question would be why do people believe in their respective religion if it contains a glaring contradiction(s).
Or Islam, Judaism, Hinduism or any other major religion.
But no, suddenly I am the maniac for believing that – in reality – we are pink elephants, hopping on the moon and imagining life as we believe it to be true. No one can prove I am wrong. But uh oh, sky grandpa mad.
(/s I don't believe anything. Just making a sarcastic point.)
I think that for most people it's nothing more than a social club. I have always been skeptical ever since hearing absurd stories about arks and being eaten by whales, but every once in a while (especially after sobering up) I went into various churches to see if I might have been missing out on something. Invariably I just found a social club of people just looking for excuses to feel better about themselves. Anything good that happens is a direct blessing from a doting god; anything bad is always the devil....personal responsibility is never part of the answer. Many are just uneducated and dont know how to think; they accept whatever Grandpa says as truth without any consideration, and this extends to pastors.
I am atheist; my wife is a devout believer...but more and more she sees something horrible happen and can't deny it when I point out that religion did that. She still has her higher power but is starting to see the brainrot and brainwashing in her friends and family and can't understand why they do what they do while calling themselves 'christians'. It's not faith; it's just social self-service.
I'd say it's partly to find some comfort with life's many uncertainties, and one of several ways to achieve a sense of purpose when struggling for some.
Religion dissolves uncertainty. Why does….? Because the sky man said so. How does….? Because the sky man made it that way. What should I do with my life and how should I live it? Here’s a book written by the sky man and it has all the answers. No more thinking… I suppose it’s probably of great comfort to many.
Dear (my) god, you folks are irrational. If someone acts a certain way, judge them for it! But judging anyone with faith just because you don't believe in that!? I can't prove God exists any more than you can prove they don't. If a religious person acts kind, fair, and rational, you shouldn't have anything against them, should you? But this post isn't about American right-wingers, or extremist Islamic Muslims, is it? It's about anyone who has any faith at all, just because you don't believe the same thing. Caring Christians literally building homes for people internationally, Sikhs feeding anyone, no matter their beliefs...
I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but that's literally small-minded.
It’s a post asking why people believe in religion. People who don’t believe in religion or spirituality really have no reason to comment other than to condemn. The arrogance of atheists on Lemmy is very disappointing.
What would you think of someone who goes door to door trying to convince you a blubbery clown rules the universe from planet zebulon?
Is that a normal person just doing normal person things?
For the non-religious, there is no difference between the person above and a relgious believer.
I think it's reasonable to ask why people still hold unfounded beliefs with the greater interconnectedness of the world making it pretty plain that not all these religions can be divinely inspired truth, so many of them are necessarily imaginary.
Ignores the atrocities and genocide committed in the name of “religion” ✅
You are quite literally the pot calling the kettle black with your “small minded” comment. Nobody here was persecuting religion, but specific implementations that have committed mass murder, or engage in obnoxious displays (screaming at people at events (some events designed to support groups of people), going door to door, shaming vulnerable people trying to get medical procedures, etc etc)
The day you widen your view to see others perspectives and history of abuse is the day you’ll actually be on the right “religious” track. Humanity is the religion.
proceeds to generalize all religious people as the worst of religion
Most religious people do acknowledge all the stuff you're talking about, and agree with you on how terrible they are. Most of the time when you meet a religious person, you won't think there's anything different until you ask them.
People are very easy to condition via association.
Religion teaches people to associate all good with god, all evil with mankind. Therefor they think only people who believe in their god can be trusted.
Because (Christian) "Faith" is a unique, arguably delusional, cyclical belief system based on feelings. It's similar to the anti-vaccine mentality of "that's just your opinion" when it's not. The biggest difference being that there is no proving or disproving the existence of God.
And Faith is built on this self-referential system of "you gotta have Faith in God because God is real and God is good and strong Faith will help you continue believing in God when you are otherwise challenged, and weak Faith is a sign that you are straying from God and you should strengthen your Faith by believing in God harder because God is real and God is good..."
I used to be more religious and also thought "believe in whatever you want to believe in as long as you don't be a dick about it," but that's really been changing a lot lately.
Christianity has fallen so far and so many self-diagnosed Christians are just the worst type of people that I just couldn't relate to them anymore and felt the need to distance myself.
There have probably been (speculation because I don't feel like looking up details right now) more deaths in the name of Christianity and the Christian God than any other religion and that continues to this day.
I contribute modern day deaths from pregnancy complications deprived of needed health care, general lack of other health care for low income families, LGBTQIA2A+ suicides or other deaths, and more to "traditional Christian values".
Christian Nationalists can go fuck themselves and rot in their own hell they hate so much.
For me, I just do. It's just who I am and what I feel. I don't really talk about it outside of my church friends, but I just believe. I don't think the Bible is terribly accurate and regard it much as I do Arabian Nights, a book of fantastic stories based loosely on events. I also think it has much to offer in teaching you how to treat others and live your life as a good person, and that's what I take away from it. I find Jesus honestly a touch creepy, but I never stop believing in a higher power of sorts.
Also I honestly have made the best friends I've ever made in my church life. Horrible homophobic Christians aside, there's some really excellent people who genuinely love you and do good things to meet there.
I mean... In my life I've gone from a (naive child that took my parents words for fact) theist, to agnostic atheist, all the way to whatever the fuck I am now. It's all a matter of perspective.
You go deep enough into metaphysics you can trip yourself the fuck out.
In short, I evaluated the arguments, then realised that the arguments for Christianity were far better than the arguments against. The main argument for atheism is the standard of proof, but anyone can present them with all of the proof they'd like and they can still say "not enough". There were people around in Jesus' time who still didn't believe yet saw the miracles and His resurrection
It's like a parasite, and our mind is the host. It competes with other mind-parasites like other religions, or even scientific ideas. They compete for explanatory niches, for feeling relevant and important, and maybe most of all for attention.
Religions evolved traits which support their survival. Because all the other variants which didn't have these beneficial traits went extinct.
Like religions who have the idea of being super-important, and that it's necessary to spread your belief to others, are 'somehow' more spread out than religions who don't convey that need.
This thread is a nice collection of traits and techniques which religions have collected to support their survival.
This perspective is based on what Dawkins called memetics. It's funny that this idea is reciprocally just another mind-parasite, which attempted to replicate in this comment.
“Fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and the tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations - and after a while everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there were`t any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do. And from those humble beginnings we learn to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favours the paranoid. Even here in the 21st century we can make people more honest just by scribbling a pair of eyes on the wall with a Sharpie. Even now we are wired to believe that unseen things are watching us.”
I guess a part is that science seems to meticulously avoid the question "why do we live", in a non-technical way, in a way that actually gives people a sense of meaning.
That and mental inertia, i.e. some things change very slowly.
Humans are tribalistic, like leaders who are assertive and charismatic, like simple answers, are easily swayed by emotions, fall victim to logical fallacies, and a plethora of other things that all work just fine if you're operating on a tribal level as we did for most of human history, or rather prehistory. Now that we are in a different phase of technological growth, which has brought with it massive social change, getting rid of all of that superstitious nonsense is very difficult because of aforementioned characteristics. What were beneficial as it tribal species, and arguably even after that, is now a liability. Or at least more of a hindrance to progress.
Because it's been the way it always has been, because people also hate change, are lazy, and tended to prefer both avoiding cognitive dissidents and minimizing effort to achieve desired results, getting rid of religion is a nightmare hassle. Even when the evidence is right there in front of them, people don't care. At least not enough of them. They'd rather listen to their authority figure, or do what all their friends are doing. Which if you're doing what all your friends are doing it just turns into a circle jerk. But since they're in that circle jerk, they tend to just stay in it, and because the people in it are their friends or family, they defend it because it's their tribe. We're kind of hardwired that way.
Because they're convinced it's true. Given that billions of people in the world ( I strongly expect it's the majority) would claim to be religious - perhaps the better question is: "why does anyone not believe in religion?"
Simple, if any religion was true and objectively based in reality, why the fuck do they need missionaries to spread it?
If any religion was true, it would have measurable, verifiable, and predictable traits that would be discovered in isolated societies. If all of mankind's knowledge was erased, we would eventually rebuild our understandings of physics, biology, chemistry and mathematics as they are today. If all knowledge of religions were erased, we would never get the same religions back.
I am not even remotely religious. But I take science pretty seriously.
Please tell me, scientifically, why you are so sure that people of faith are wrong?
There is some decent science that prayer does not work. I am not aware of anything offers anything at all testable concerning God.
And if we are simply pushing our preferences on others, I think a more important question is what makes people that claim to be evidence driven to adopt such strong opinions on things ( without evidence ) that they feel comfortable publicly slamming the preferences and values of others ( again with no evidence at all ).
As a science fan, you can say that absence of evidence means you do not have to believe. Correct. You cannot say that an absence of evidence proves your guess correct such that you can treat people who believe otherwise as stupid. Incorrect.
And “they have to show me the evidence” is a moronic stance. As a fan of the scientific method, evidence is YOUR burden of proof. For people that adhere to a religion, their standard is FAITH. So, they are holding up their end and you are dropping the ball. So what gives you the right to be the abuser?
So, I guess my answer to “why do people believe in religion would be”, “well, people still have faith and tradition and science has not produced any evidence that credibly calls that into question”.
Why are people not arriving at this conclusion on their own in 2024? Why have we failed so badly to explain the scientific method that people can still make wild pronouncements like this one.
I don’t like religion because it makes people easy to manipulate. People that treat science like a religion exhibit the same problems. I am not a fan of that.
It works on my system - We are shaped by our experiences. To someone who had their life turned around by a religious order (or a religious individual), it would make sense to follow their teachings.
Opium of the masses - Life is filled with suffering. It is nice to imagine that there is someone looking out for you. An afterlife free of suffering is even better.
Just following orders - If you want to do something, but don't think your community will support you, it is easier if you say 'god told me to do it'. It might also make it easier to justify the action to yourself.
Church of England - You don't care much either way, but it's too much of a hassle to leave. Plus meeting your friends and neighbours every week is fun.
Because they have enough evidence to satisfy them that they should, if they're rational; because they were taught to and never questioned it through self-examination, if they're not.
Note that evidence is not the same as proof; other users have pointed out examples of evidence such as 'testimony from trusted authorities such as parents' and 'personal spiritual experiences' and since those answers were very detailed I won't repeat them here.
Religion is an old form of it is what is, hope, direction, tradition, and community.
Can't explain a thing or understand it God's will or only God knows. Can't do anything to help a person because they are in surgery pray or talk to God to wish for good outcomes.
Don't feel loved or know what to do or wanted. God loves you, will show you the way, and wants you.
Most traditions and communities in the west were founded on a religion so you have hundreds of people to connect with at a church and maybe millions world wide that will help. Those raised on books of wisdom or what is right and wrong still tend to keep the values even after they move away from the religion but realize they can have values without divine beings
Lastly control. Just like businesses it is easier to control people under a religion so if you can get people indebted, traditionalized, and ostracized otherwise. You can control people easily. Lots of people don't know what to do and why trust another human being but if a human being says wisely God said this it is easier to accept and gain a direction
Because we're more akin to LLMs than we might be comfortable to admit. Or at least parts of us, subsystems of our psyches... Brains are belief engines more than they are objective parsers of reality.
First of all, I want to make it clear that I'm glad to answer genuine questions made in good faith (no pun intended), but I won't argue with anyone.
I'm a practicing Hellenic Polytheist and this is my personal experience. I do not only worship deities with names and myths, but also the twinkling of stars, the waves of the ocean, the colors of a sunset, the kindling of a fire on a cold winter day, and the rustling of leaves in the treetops. Sometimes I look at the sky and see stars so far away that we will (probably) never reach them, and that feels divine to me. There's something that can't be described with words that is too great for a human to understand, and I find that something so beautiful that I will worship it.
Got a bit poetic there, but I also think that my relationship with religion has also been influenced by the good old autism a lot. I find the psychology behind religion very fascinating, and I think that for some people, especially those who have been raised in a certain faith, it is a "home" that provides comfort in difficult situations. For some people, the thought that a recently deceased loved one is now in Heaven or has been reincarnated as someone/something else is probably a lot easier to accept than that they don't exist anymore in any shape or form.
That being said, I also want to state that I always try to maintain a healthy sense of scepticism with my beliefs, whether they be religious, moral, or political, because blind belief never leads to anything good. I think that sadly the darker aspects of religion, such as cults and using religion to justify unjust power structures (the patriarchy or the divine right of kings for example) are hard to get rid of.
Research shows that we have the innate (ie. without being externally influenced) belief that there is a higher power. So we are socialized/influenced into NOT believing in God.
Atheism and secularism are big now but this only started to be so in the recent hundred years.
Personally I find my religion logically making sense more than what atheistic ideologies bring forth and their misuse of science illiteracy.
The scripture is preserved and I had the chance to learn the original language which allows to assess it firsthand.
Because it can't truly be proven that there either is or isn't a god / gods.
You can laugh at people for believing in a god, but at the same time I'm willing to bet you can't prove that there there isn't one.
In my mind, atheism makes just as much sense as religion - they are both total assumptions based on incomplete data. Agnosticism is the only sensible way.
Atheist here. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Atheism is merely about trusting what's been proven, or has some evidence backing the claim that can be verified without doubt. Being agnostic is being indecisive about everything, even things that are completely made up.
One can argue that agnosticism is more scientific in that what cannot be verified, however improbable, remains possible.
What set the large masses in motion to collide in the Big Bang? What created that matter to begin with? There’s still room for the possibility of interference-based creation without contradicting modern science.
I agree with your second paragraph but take issue with your first.
Atheism is not the belief that God categorically does not exist; it's the position that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that God exists, and that therefore there is no reason to believe in him/her/it. It's a subtle but important distinction because the first is not logically consistent whereas the latter is.
Agnosticism, on the other hand, tends to either be the view that the likelihood of God existing is more or less equal to that of God not existing, or the view that we will probably never know so we cannot come down on one side or the other.
Technically speaking, there are gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists. Someone who calls themself agnostic believes in the possibility of a god(s). Self-identified atheists are typically gnostic atheists who believe with certainty that there is no god. They could also just be agnostic, and unaware of the difference in terminology.
There are many gnostic atheists commenting on this post with the “burden of proof” argument, and likening god to an invisible unicorn. They are quite confident in non-existence.
Gnostic atheists are only a thing on paper; I've never met or heard of another atheist who ascribes to this view. As the link you provided states, this academic definition of atheism is not one ascribed to by the vast majority of self-described atheists.
Or, to quote the American Atheists organization:
Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system. To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods. Source
On this basis, any invisible unicorn/intergalactic teapot/flying spaghetti monster argument that invokes "burden of proof" is not an gnostic atheist position. The argument is based on the idea that until evidence for an invisible unicorn exists, there is no reason for it to have any bearing on our behavior.
This is different from saying that because no evidence of an invisible unicorn exists, that we must conclude that it categorically does not exist. You cannot logically prove the non-existence of a non-existent entity.
Then why are so many atheists commenting on this post using said arguments against another person’s beliefs, if not to discredit them and convince them their beliefs are impossible? No one here is trying to convince others that “their god” is correct, so it’s clearly not in defense.
That’s the behavior of someone who is trying to convince another of non-existence, therefore, it is safe to consider them gnostic atheists.
It's not so much saying that someone's religious beliefs are logically impossible, more highly unlikely. When I typically see this rhetoric, it's generally along the lines of "how on Earth did you weigh up all the evidence (or lack thereof) and come to the conclusion that God exists?", or more impolite words to that effect.
I personally don't browbeat the religious, so I'm not condoning it, but that's why this line of argument generally isn't gnostic atheism.
If, on the other hand, someone is actually saying that the existence of God is logically impossible, a priori, then that would be gnostic atheism. But, like I said before, that generally isn't what most atheists believe or argue for.
You don’t need proof where science doesn’t have any either. The beginning of creation remains a mystery. There is currently no explanation for the motion of the masses that collided, or the source of the matter. If science can hypothesize the events leading to the Big Bang, so can religion.
Science tests hypothesizes and never claims they're true until there's mountains of evidence to indicate so.
Religion on the other hand takes a book written by bronze age goat herders and claims it to be true, damn the evidence stacked against it and contradictions within.
You’re making large assumptions. There are more religions than you know. The way one practices also may not be familiar to you. You’re demonstrating intolerance through ignorance. Maybe you should be asking questions in this post about religion, or abstain if you’re not interested in understanding it.
Are you familiar with Baruch Spinoza? His take is fascinating. His higher power did not concern itself with the fates of mankind, but is responsible for the lawful harmony of existence. It also does not discount or displace science in any way.
Are you familiar with Baruch Spinoza? His take is fascinating. His higher power did not concern itself with the fates of mankind, but is responsible for the lawful harmony of existence. It also does not discount or displace science in any way.
That's basic deism but I would disagree and say it does conflict with science. Science is evidence-based, if you claim something exists you must present evidence to support it. I can't just claim there's a 5-ton diamond in my backyard and say "trust me bro". Nobody would believe me, so why should anyone believe in any god without evidence?
A hypothesis requires no evidence. It’s then tested through repeatable controlled experiments. The events leading to the Big Bang have no evidence. If science can hypothesize, why can’t religion?
Have you read string theory? It’s no different than Spinoza’s god.
It’s then tested through repeatable controlled experiments
repeatable controlled experiments are only one aspect of evidence gathering to falsify a hypothesis. Here are a few other methods:
Observational Astronomy
Modeling and Simulations
Indirect Experiments
Lab Experiments
Historical Data Analysis
By combining these methods we can still falsify a hypothesis, thus allowing "science to happen".
The events leading to the Big Bang have no evidence.
Correct! There is no evidence for what lead to the big bang because we can't gather any data before it started. But we have mountains of evidence that all point to a "big bang" happening - down to a fraction of a second shortly after it started! [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] .
If science can hypothesize, why can’t religion?
Science is willing to discard ideas that lack evidence or aren't falsifiable. Is religion ready to stop preaching because faith, by definition, is a lack of evidence?
Have you read string theory? It’s no different than Spinoza’s god.
The difference between string theory and Spinoza's god is the falsifiable part. String Theory, being a scientific theory, makes predictions that should be able to be tested through experiments (although testing will likely be a challenge much like Astrophysics and will instead depend on other scientific methods to gather evidence for/against it). Spinoza's God is a philosophical concept and not directly falsifiable through scientific methods. Spinoza's god is the equivalent of me claiming I'm friends with a telepathic unicorn from another dimension, both useless and irrelevant.
Making up whatever you want is exactly how science works. It’s called a hypothesis. In science, that hypothesis is tested repeatedly. This is why science is best suited for repeatable phenomena.
In this case, neither science nor religion can test said hypothesis. Why is science correct but religion is not in this situation?
I don't disagree that religious people need to prove their beliefs. They are the ones making up insane stories that all contradict one another, and it is absolutely up to them to prove that there is a god, or miracles, or whatever.
Atheists on the other hand can say "look, there is no god... See?" That doesn't make them correct. More correct, maybe, as they aren't the ones making up the stories in the first place, but I'm fairly sure history and science have proven time and time again that humans know less than we think.
This has become a misunderstanding of language and wording.
When I say agnostic, that includes "agnostic atheists". Does that clear things up?
I swear some people (i.e. self proclaimed "atheists") get offended at the thought that they might be associated with anyone religious by accepting the fact that their beliefs are, by definition, agnostic.
I'm tapping out of this thread, didn't come here to argue about English. Also, please don't take my last paragraph as an attack - it's a general observation.
Atheists on the other hand can say "look, there is no god... See?"
The language is irrelevant, you're claiming something that's just untrue for 99% of atheists. You going on to distinguish "agnostics" from "atheists" isn't the real issue.
The overwhelming majority of atheists are agnostic. Actually I cannot say I have ever once heard of a gnostic atheist, i.e. someone who would want to “prove no gods exist”. You (and afaict, all atheists) agree that that would be absurd, because for all we know some god is hiding under a rock somewhere. We can’t claim certainty until we’ve checked under every rock.
Agnostic atheism is where people generally land when they realize that none of the theists have found anything, either. Why believe in something prior to the point of there being any valid reason for the belief?
To further illustrate, do you believe in unicorns? No, right? Does that mean you say you can prove there aren’t any? Also no, right? Same situation with agnostic atheists.
Sorry if I’m over-explaining, it’s a commonly misunderstood topic
Requiring someone to provide evidence to back up a claim is not the same as taking a position that the claim isn't true. This is the root component of the burden of proof and the stance many people have towards a god claim: they aren't convinced the god exists due to a lack of evidence provided by the person claiming the god does exist. Until there's actual evidence it's rational and reasonable to withhold judgement.
The unicorn (or other mythological beings) are used as a similar case to illustrate to a theist that they have the same kind of attitude towards the idea of a unicorn existing as an atheist does to any gods. They're both neat concepts, but without evidence showing they actually exist, they're nothing more than an idea for stories and art.
I’d respect that opinion if this were a post about debating the existence of god. This is a post asking religious people why they are religious. Atheists were not under attack, nor were any religious people asserting that others should believe their faith. Actively attempting to discredit the beliefs of another is just as self-righteous as attempting to convert without request.
This is the fundamental problem that Einstein had with the arrogance of atheists. As a self-identified agnostic, this is why he was offended when he was referred to as an atheist.
“fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics”.
Yes, really! I endorse Azimir’s explanation fully.
To potentially address some confusion:
If you said there are no gods, that would be a claim that requires proof. You would then have the burden of proving that there are no gods. Exceptionally difficult, as one could be hiding anywhere.
If you claim there is at least one god, then you have the burden of proving that.
Where would you land if you believed neither claim could be proven? Well, it turns out, you could actually be either an atheist or a theist! All we have learned so far is that you are agnostic.
This is where the story ends for the agnostic atheist. They have no reason to believe either claim, and therefore they do not believe there is at least one god, and therefore they are an atheist.
The agnostic theist however has additional work they must perform in order to become a theist from this position. They must believe in at least one god to be a theist, but they have no evidence that would compel such a belief. So they must take it on faith.
This leads to additional questions such as: is faith a good reason to believe in things? Can’t you use faith to believe in literally anything, thereby making it useless?
This is generally why the atheist is involuntarily forced to withhold belief. I phrase it that way because often people forget how beliefs work, they are compulsions. They can’t choose to look past these thoughts and believe in a god any more than you could choose to set aside your better judgement and believe, and I mean really believe, in unicorns.
I understand if you also can’t choose not to be offended by the unicorn comparison, btw. I didn’t like hearing it the first time when I was young and involved with the church. It made me think “surely that’s a step too far, and these two concepts are incomparable. Billions of people worship, they can’t all be that wrong”. It inspired me to go look and see what all of my fellow religious people had to offer in that regard. And to be honest, I still love hearing from them, but the truth is so far nobody has any evidence whatsoever. Most religious people themselves will even admit that. So it really does just come down to faith in the end.
By definition, science has proven nothing. There are only supported and unsupported theories. Yet you believe in science, but expect religion to have proof.
That is not my claim. I’m stating that the scientific method is not a proof. There are only supported and unsupported theories. Science is best suited for testing a hypothesis of repeatable phenomena. An untested theory is no different than religion.
Interference-based creation can be considered a hypothesis. It is a theory that a supreme being or entity created and set the masses in motion that caused the Big Bang. Science also has unsupported theories about creation prior to the Big Bang.
My point is that a truly scientific person would accept all possible theories, no matter how improbable, until data is provided to believe otherwise.
Sure, and so as an atheist and an otherwise “scientific person”, I do accept that god is a valid hypothesis. And I will remain an atheist until any evidence pops up to support that hypothesis.
At some point I think you may have gotten confused by terminology. It is indeed similar to various other scientific ideas, which are believed only after being tested. You do not accept every hypothesis as being the truth until proven otherwise. That is the essential difference between conducting science and exercising one’s imagination.
He very clearly spoke against organized religion and dogma. However, he maintained that he himself was agnostic. He labeled atheists to be just as arrogant as religious zealots for their absolutist views.
He said he believed in “Spinoza’s God” – referring to Baruch Spinoza, a 17th-century Dutch thinker – “who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind”.
On another occasion, he criticised “fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics”.
He took offense to being labeled as an atheist. Not because of his Jewish roots, but because he believed that there was a possibility of a divine creator.
Ah okay, we’re on the same page now - you were referring to their last bit, not necessarily the first when speaking of Einstein. That lines up with what I knew about his beliefs
Ignorance and indoctrination. Especially back then people that don't understand science needed an excuse of why certain things worked that way in the world. Is easier to say that everything happens thanks to a big guy above us.
For me its a combination of learning it since childhood and experiencing minor things that i can't explain differently.
For example once i had a thought in my mind that i should go home that evening when i see the clouds.
Later at the bbq i remembered that and looked into the sky and saw some clouds in the distance and just knew that these were the clouds. But it didn't looked like it should rain, and the weather forecast was also clear. So i stayed.
Later when i went to the train, a huge number of people from a heavy metal concert that just finished came, and enough people wanted to take the last train that day that some didn't make it inside. If i had gone home when i saw the clouds, i wouldn't have been in that overcrowded train.
Also for me my faith looks consistent internally and with other stuff that i see.
Ah yes, how childish of OP to wonder why the majority of English speaking countries believe in answers to life's greatest questions with little to no evidence. What a naive little question, that one.
To each their own, but personally that sounds like a bad reason to stop pursuing life's greatest questions. Plenty of my family has passed away, but that doesn't make faith seem like a reliable pathway to truth.
I'd love to believe they're in an eternal paradise, but I'd also love to believe my next paycheck will be $1,000,000. The time to believe I'm a millionaire is when I have evidence for it, not when I'd be heartbroken otherwise.
Because there is no downside. I mean, the only thing that atheist think is appealing is that they can reason themselves out of religion. What makes you think that 'reasoning yourself out of religion' is attractive, desirable or a worthy goal? It just isn't. It leads to existential crisis in most if not all cases. And then atheist take pride in surviving that crisis. Which, sure, admirable... But attractive? Of course not.
You can be religious and do anything in the world. Literally. I know that atheist love to focus on dumb fucks and literalists, and on how religions are being abused. But the truth is that religion is deeply personal and peoples relation with religion is completely their own. It's extremely simple to pick and choose from the myriad of options within religion. Most religious people are not literalists.
And then you get connection with people, see them regularly, participate in rituals, celebration days, rules for engagement with life.
Plus, don't forget, an extremely old and mystic piece of human history. The attempts of people to live in a world that has a God. Their struggles, their victories. In essence a reflection on the human condition. And you get to be part of that. Atheist are often too fast to explain religion as a sort of 'failed science', while it's absolutely not. And of course if you can't figure that out you're going to ask why people want to believe in something like that.
There will never be a rational reason for the human condition. Religion will never ever not be part of humanity. As the only way in which the human condition can be contextualised is in a world that is created, and religions are the keepers of that knowledge.
Since here the answers are split between edgy kids and people repeating a bland, stale narrative about comfort and fear of death, I will try to bring a different perspective.
For context: I grew up in a Catholic country but in a very secular family and in a very secular region. I've had an edgy atheist phase that lasted between 8yo and probably around 30yo.
I studied a STEM discipline and have always been surrounded by mostly atheist or agnostic people.
I was afraid of death up until I was 27/28yo, but the cope was gnostic transhumanism, not Abrahamitic religions. At some point I took acid, my gf at the time told me I was going to die, I cried my eyes out for a few minutes and then I was fine and I'm still fine. I had a near-death experience in the hospital that further consolidated the idea that I'm going to die, and it's chill: if you're sick, you have a bunch of people looking after you, everybody gives you attention, you spend all your day chilling in bed on drugs. Dream life death.
I was still agnostic at that point. I started approaching spirituality later on, not much because of an emotional need, but because further studies both in STEM disciplines and Philosophy highlighted the limit of reason to explain and understand the world. Reason is a tool among others, with its limits. Limits that can be reasoned about using reason itself. You cannot investigate or explain what lies outside though, let alone change it, something for which you need different tools: faith, spirituality, trust. I got closer to what Erik Davis calls "Cyborg Spiritualism", but it doesn't mean much since it's not an organized movement, but more of a shared intuition and meaning-making process to which, in the last 60 years, more and more people arrived. Especially people dealing with disciplines like system theory, cybernetics, system design, and information theory, but also people disillusioned with the New Age movement or other Western Gnostic practices. Mixed in it there's plenty of animism.
Atheists believe that all religions are about speaking to God, and hoping for an answer, while many religions are about listening to God because they are already talking to us all the time.
Atheists religiously repeating the word "science" long enough that they trick themselves into believing they have explained the origins of the universe. And thus there is no reason for anyone to believe in God.
Certainly science has achieved a lot. However we are no closer to explaining the origins of the universe as before. As the origin has not been explained why is everyone somehow so confident in the falsehood of a creator?
Agnosticism (not being sure about a creator) is totally fine. However Atheists have a weird obsession about being absolutely certain of something they cannot prove an their alternative for. Atheism runs on pure faith that "science will figure it out in the future". It is a religion in itself.
The "largest minds" of Atheism are all too often based on pure emotion. As we find with Richard Dawkins, the man so smart that he can explain the universe away... and also believes Israel is not committing Genocide in Gaza.
Atheism is certainty of the nonexistence of a creator.
As clearly demonstrated in this thread by people certain of their atheism so much you would be hard pressed to find a religious person so arrogant in their beliefs.
Atheism is certainty of the nonexistence of a creator.
This is wrong. The only thing required to be an atheist is lacking a belief in theistic claims. You don't need to make the claim that God doesn't exist, and most atheists don't.
The only thing we're certain of (not absolutely, but fairly certain) is that theists haven't met their burden of proof.
You highlighted the A without any understanding of what the prefix a- means. It means not, or without.
I'm not a theist because they haven't convinced me of any theistic claims. I don't claim no gods exist. I just don't know of any gods that exist, therefore I am without theism. A-theism.
If both parties achieved mental and physical maturity then what's wrong.
Ask your grandmother at what she - or people her age - married at.
This is likely to get downvoted, I say this because mentioning downvotes in your posts/comments usually prevents them from being downvoted (a little psychological thing probably)
Then let's talk facts and logic, why is an older person marrying a younger person bad? because you're an educated Atheist/Agnostic (I guess), you must've questioned what you were taught at childhood, unlike those brainwashed and spoon fed Christians.
"Minimum age of marriage", who came up with concept? it surely isn't common sense since it only appeared less than a century ago, so what is it? Some may say that young marriage is a mere relic of the ancients, a result of their underdeveloped logic and science, and that our advanced logic is better and is infallible.
But wait, your people, just mere a century ago saw people 2 centuries a ago the exact same way, and so did those before them, so using our logic, we can deduct that our logic is illogical.
How about statistical data we can speculate, a mere century ago, how did the world look like? there was certainly very little employees, even Christians believed in their book, Javascript did not exist (alhamdulillah), young people were treated as adults, and people older than Israel who to this day live under bombing by your morally superior society were being born; How does something like the depression rate among their youth compare to today? It is reportedly much lower, so how did your generation fail? Surely with all that development of medicine and the like, your people should "logically" be much happier. Are you really strictly superior to the ancients?
"But statistics back then were biased and limited", I see your point, unlike the "infallible" statistics of today, those statistics were surely awful, so let's move to broader ideas.
At childhood, you were spoon fed many ideas, like "Slavery is unacceptable", "The old marrying the young is awful", and "Humans evolved from monkeys". By using the fact that our logic is illogical, we can conclude that these aren't concrete facts. How is slavery involved with almost every product in the average American household? how did the ancients grow up to be healthy adults? Again, ask your grandmother. How is there not, to this day, concrete evidence of humans evolving from anything but slightly taller humans?
How is slavery unacceptable in your eyes, yet you can't live without it? Is the average McDonalds worker treated better that how Islam treats slaves?
How did the ancients grow up to be healthy individuals? Is insisting that you're much better than the ancients truly your way of avoiding depression?
Why is anything that goes against the theory of someone named Darwin, of whose book you know nothing, and whose theory's shortcomings you are ignoring, and whose teachings you were fed in school, and whose ways you never questioned, mere ancient fables?
But there stands, the teachings of Islam, Allah's divine revelation to us, it never failed, for 14 centuries it stood unchanged, yet who reads it could never tell, that this book wasn't written by a scholar of today, how could it so accurately describe today? how did our caliphate, only a mere century from today, stand strong? How didn't we truly fail, until we forgot the words and called it a day?
//////////end
I got a little peotic at the end.
You guys just look at Christians and decide that religion is dumb.
I thought of finishing with some miracles like the 360 joints, the beating of alcoholics and adulterers, and camel milk+urine, but the articlesouth_park_remark reply got too long.
I realize these miracles can be individually dismissed, it is not their individual traits that will persuade, it is their collected wight. It is the fact that the prophet, peace be upon him, never claimed anything that is wrong, unlike scientists of a mere decade ago, and that his medicines did nothing but heal, unlike scientists of a mere decade ago.
This is likely to get downvoted, I say this because mentioning downvotes in your posts/comments usually prevents them from being downvoted (a little psychological thing probably)
I look at religion and decided it's silly...wish you'd stop putting words in my mouth. And you can stop defending slavery/pedophilia or whatever, I'm not having that convo with you troll
Here's the problem with English: I can not use the word "you", and still have people know whether
I am talking to them, or to people like them in general. Some of my "you"s were plural, some were singular. I need some way of coping with this language.
You replied to only 1 paragraph of mine, and decided I am a troll just for suggesting pushing that slavery/"pedophilia" might not be bad, unlike what you were taught.
Although you've been lied to, it's not the lies that's the problem. As an adult, you can a lot of
the times tell when the media is manipulating you, especially in the last past decade it's gotten
so obvious even a Boomer could see it. But what you don't see is how when you were lied to (or
told selective truths) as a child, you didn't have the same BS-detector, and that allowed a lot of
deep-seated impressions about the world to be formed. So a lot of people who don't believe
anything the media says now (rightly) are still mind-cucked. They accept the programming and
differ on the details.
I will give you this hint. Basically all of your programmed emotional responses are your enemies.
There was an old Moldbug blog post where he talked about even far after "awaking from his dogmatic
slumber," he still was surprised that if he saw a group of Nazi LARPers, he would reflexively have
a pang of emotional stress, but if he saw Stalinist LARPers, he wouldn't have the same kind of
emotional reaction. I think everyone raised in the West has that same programmed reaction. You
might know with your head that the communist death count is supposed to be higher and the
suppression wider, but it doesn't click because you weren't made sensitive to it.
Edit: no, actually, English isn't the problem, since I appended "guys" to my statement about looking at religion and deciding it's silly, you should know that I wasn't talking about you personally.
I think the biggest flaw is assuming you're among the atheist/agnostic crowd, but even then, I appended that claim with "(I guess)" to indicate that I am indeed putting words in someone's mouth. Maybe you're among the Christian crowd, or maybe you're a... Zionist Jew? Hindu?
For any passing people, the original reply isn't edited, so I am safe from that side of accusations.
I see, English isn't your first language. You made (and continue to make) false assumptions. The media has had no influence on my viewpoints on religion (Christianity in particular), my personal experiences are more than sufficient. My first comment was based on Mohammeds youngest wife and how it's accepted/ignored by Muslims. We have (somewhat?) similar action in the US, there was a republican GOP member in New Hampshire that was pushing to keep legal marriage set at 16 rather than 18, described the 16 year-olds as "ripe"...super creepy
It isn't really about edginess. People tend to continue believing in whatever religious preference (or none) they have unless something convinces them otherwise in whatever direction.
To an atheist's point of view, it legitimately doesn't make sense why someone would be religious when what they see is nonsense. It is a genuine confusion and not necessarily meant to be rude.
This isn't just an atheist thing that happens, religious people can often not understand why someone would ever choose anything other than their religion. It doesn't make sense to them either.
I suppose it's better than following a standard of evidence that enables homophobes/transphobes, and opens the door to preachers feeding their politics to you.
Maybe you haven't noticed it, but many people are deeply irrational.
Happy cake day!
Thanks!
They are taught about it from childhood and many of us don't questions stuff we've learnt in our childhood.
Education fails to instil scientific temper in them
Lack of proper mental health awareness and support.
Even if they do question, it’s not like they are in a safe environment to do so openly. They have to be prepared to give up community, friends, family, potentially their physical safety, and a worldview that says exactly who to be and how to live to be living a good life. That’s a huge step.
I know for a fact there are religious people going through the motions because the alternative is too frightening, just like people stay in bad marriages.
Right. Throughout human history, if someone was cast out of a community, they didn’t survive. We’ve been trained through evolution to go along with the tribe because it’s unsafe to question anything and get cast out.
Survival of the fittest. Evolution does not value truth or mortality, so for example secret rapists are a highly successful adaptation regardless of the morality of the action. If evolution is a correct model of reality, this pesky religion and moral agency will diminish with time. True progress. Maybe we can start counting the years from the big bang instead of that Jesus event or w/e!
I agree. The support aspect is very strong. Can't go against it, unless you are lucky and/or skilled. Or very brave.
in one single word >> Indoctrinated
OP this is why people believe in religion, and it's nearly impossible to get them out of it, you can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into in the first place
I find this a seemingly straight-forward point I've never gotten a religious person to acknowledge.
99.99999% of people follow the religion they do because their parents did. Not because it's true. That Christian, that Hindu, that Jew. It's just because they were told it was true at birth.
If their religion was actually the Truth, why would that be the case...?
...
I wouldn't make it that high. A large amount of Christians I know of are converts.
My search for truth in my early 30's led me to study the world's religions, having grown up secular and feeling like something was missing. But don't let this anecdote or others like it get in the way of your logic. You're doing pretty good for a hairless monkey!
Islam used to be the forefront of scientific and mathematical discovery. Believing in god have nothing to do with science or math, it's superstition, something that cannot be proven or unproven, it's that irrational thought that make us human.
People of all religions have contributed to scientific growth.
The average religious person and the person discovering scientific/mathematical stuff are generally different tho.
Universal basic education has gained focus in many parts of the world, only relatively recently.
I think improved scientific temper would obviously clash with many mainstresm religions.
Presence of some supreme creator may not be proven or disproven, but I think the anti-evolution stuff and similar things in most mainstream religions would face more questions when scientific temper improves.
And I'm not saying that non-religious people are safe from similar stuff too. Just that it is easily spread and maintained when you have a community on it.
And religions can evolve with this (or die from declining membership), as long as the leaders don’t stick to the “These actually scientifically proven facts are lies sent by the Devil” line.
No, Islamic COUNTRIES did. They didn't achieve excellence in science because Islam benefitted science.
They achieved excellence in science compared to Christian countries in large part because their religious authority figures didn't stand in the way anywhere near as much. Not because religion helped.
Not true. They are polar opposites. That's why scientists are disproportionately atheist and agnostic: the evidence based mode of thinking employed in science doesn't mix with the superstitious and unquestioningly convinced thinking of religion without some SERIOUS cognitive dissonance.
No. That's not being human, that's being brainwashed and/or obedient to authority.
You're right that it's irrational and that irrationality is an inherent part of being human, but the SPECIFIC irrationality of religion is learned and enforced, NOT inherent.
No one claiming it is.
Not sure how much difference is by changing "Islam" to "Islamic countries", because the fact still remain that Muslim make scientific discovery and excel in mathematics despite being religious. Again, no one claiming Islam benefitted science.
You just contradicted your last point. Also science are not religion, how can an apple be polar opposite to orange? One can believe in santa clause and ghost while excel in science. It's not mutually exclusive.
Science are a broad subject, unless they purposely went and look for god, which they wouldn't find, there's like a huge load of subject that doesn't have anything to do with god. Also your impression of religion is like, wrong lol. There's more to religion than just praising god.
See? Human ARE irrational.
Thank you, I think people often overlook how faith and scientific thought can be complimentary. In any case, for questions of religious/spiritual matters, people are basically just running with a hypothesis that works for them. As long as they're capable of being self-critical and aren't pushing their beliefs on people who aren't interested, then it seems fine to me.
Because belief is intrinsic to humanity even if we don't believe in religion.
I believe in a lot of human concepts, including kindness, altruism, democracy and humanism. They are all still effectively made up human ideas.
I also believe when I sit down that the chair below me really exists but I cannot truly trust my own senses 100% either. So effectively I "believe" what my sensory organs and brain interpretation tell me, but the reality is the brain and its interpretations can be wrong.
Look at the USA, the founders of the nation are often treated with a reverence akin to that of religious figures.
People have all kinds of delusions. People worship all kinds of weird things. Religion is just one of many.
Finally, someone like Ayn Rand shows that a human can have pretty reprehensible and hypocritical beliefs even if they are an atheist. She promoted bullshit "great men" theories of humanity and argued that selfishness could be used for good.
She also died penniless and on government benefits while spending her whole life preaching against things like government benefits.
People are deeply irrational even without religion.
As an atheist who is not anti-religion, I wholeheartedly agree. The religious do not have a monopoly on irrationality, or weaponizing ideology.
I see many atheists on forums proposing the idea that if we could only just get rid of religion, the world would be a harmonious and rational place. As if human beings wouldn't still be perfectly able to come up with new and interesting ways to rationalize conflict and division amongst themselves.
I like to say "Humans aren't rational creatures, humans are rationalizing creatures."
We can rationalize nearly anything and justify it, in our own minds.
Thank you for being honest.
Humans are emotional creatures. We can’t change that. Even when we’re being rational we’re still basing every decision we make on emotions. “I’ve researched this and I feel this is the right decision.”
I like this explanation most
We believe in those things because they're practices we can observe and measure. The real question is why do theists not have the same standard of evidence for theistic claims.
Your trust (or "faith") in the chair existing and supporting your weight is because of your experience with chairs in the past. I don't think many people would say they have "absolute certainty" the chair exists and would hold them.
If you had a history of hallucinating you might have a higher standard of evidence, but it's still there to be tested. The problem with religion is it seems like you need a standard of "none at all" to accept theistic claims.
"They do it too" doesn't really get us to an answer, just another "why" question. She believes her claims with little to no evidence, theists believe their claims with little to no evidence, but like...why?
Here are a few reasons people believe:
Meaning and Purpose: Religion can offer a framework for understanding the universe and our place in it. It can provide answers to big questions about life, death, and morality.
Community and Belonging: Religious communities can provide social support, a sense of belonging, and shared values. This can be especially important during difficult times.
Comfort and Hope: Religion can offer comfort in times of grief or hardship. It can also provide hope for the afterlife or a better future.
Tradition and Identity: Religion can be a core part of a person's cultural heritage or family identity. People may feel a connection to their ancestors or cultural background through their faith.
Ethics and Morality: Many religions provide a moral code that guides people's behavior. This can be helpful in making decisions about right and wrong.
I don't believe, but I can see why people stick with it and don't look beyond it. You can get all these things without religion, its just not something that's taught/passed down in the same way as religion is. Additionally, deconstructing is very difficult. You're raised to believe something to be real and you're expected to just drop it and step out of Plato's cave? You'd look like a madman to any friends/family who aren't willing and ready to step out and look around.
As a large language model, I cannot endorse any one religion
Come on, this list of reasons was written by an LLM
It makes people feel better, not in general but better than others, most religions are about "this is how I'm better then you heathen"
The one point I can really agree with is the meaning and purpose part. I’m not religious and the whole what happens after death part really fucks me up quite a bit. It’d be really damn nice if I could just go “I’ll go to Heaven” and be done
Personally I don't see what the afterlife has to do with your purpose or sense of meaning in this life. For me, I figure my purpose is whatever I find fulfilling in life while hopefully helping others do the same. Anything that comes after that is a bonus.
Part of the identity crises that comes with(out) religion is the ultimate question of purpose: why are we suffering, surely it has a reason? Some of us are content to accept that there is no purpose, and therefore we must define our own; others need a purpose greater than themselves and/or to have one defined for them, and look to religion for that purpose. There is no right answer, and the struggle of identity and purpose are well documented in religion, fiction, history, and philosophy.
Also, it can depend on certain other factors.
My partner and I had a difficult conversation recently about how we plan to handle her brother when her mother passes.
Her mother is obviously religious and raised him religiously Christian.
He is a sweet man with a severe developmental disability. Things literally take a very long time for him to learn. He still acts like a teen and he's pushing 40. That's not his fault, that's just life. We love him.
The thing is though...
We don't believe in religion, but we also think that when his mother finally passes, it would not be wise to try to turn him from Christianity.
He struggled and still struggles years later due to the passing of his father. The idea of being able to see his father in heaven is big to him.
At one point, he panicked because he was playing DOOM 2016 on his game console, and he asked my partner (his sister) if he was going to go to hell for playing it. She reminded him that the Doomslayer kills demons and loves bunnies and reminded him the themes of the game say demons are bad, even if the game itself is violent.
We don't think it's worth it to try to break his brain when he's over 40 and his mom finally passes. Hell, she's in good health, he could be over 50 when it happens. He has a learning disability and it would literally be unfair to him to try to force a change in belief on him at such a late stage with such a disability.
It's not worth it to wreck his mental health so we can feel better about being "truthful" with him. We're focusing on trying to relate healthy interpretations of Christianity to him.
Serious answer:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I believe in a religion because I've found it to be personally beneficial.
I was a pastor for many years and saw much of the best and worst religion had to offer. I haven't stepped foot inside a church since COVID broke out and don't know that I ever will again.
My personal beliefs are still a significant part of my life, but I understand why someone would ask the question that spawned this discussion.
You find it personally beneficial, but you haven't actually answered the question.
I think that does answer the question - for a lot of people, the reason they're religious is because they find it personally beneficial for one reason or another.
yup, religion has made me mentally stable so I guess it's beneficial to me at least.
I guess I'm putting emphasis on the word "believe" and you seem to be seeing religion as a way to find comfort. This is why I feel you are not actually answering the question that OP posed. Perhaps I'm taking the question too literally.
Adding more to this. The question is why do you believe in religion, not why you are religious. To me, there's a difference between the two of these.
There is a significant difference, but, in my limited experience, many people are religious, but don't actually believe, but they think they do believe. When the rubber hits the road you find it what a person actually thinks is true.
Think of your closest friend or family member. Do you "believe in" them?
Yas queen. COVID's not over! And even so, God and your soul aren't important enough to risk contacting the common cold lol
I'm not religious at all. But in responding to your question OP: we don't have to understand why people believe. Religion just isn't for us, and that's fine. Other people find it has value, and that's fine too. The fact that religion has lasted this long with this many people is proof in itself that there's some value people get out of it. We don't have to get it to understand that.
All the comments here that explain religion solely as dumb or irrational are just as closed minded as the people they're criticising.
For the same reasons they always have.
The year has little to do with it. The only things we've really undeniably progressed in over the past century are scientific knowledge and the level of technology. Existential philosophy hasn't exactly made breakthroughs recently, to my knowledge.
Each person still needs to find their own answer to the fundamental questions of "why am I here" and "wtf is death and how do I deal with it".
Our mechanical, scientific understanding of reality provides fairly depressing answers to these questions. Religion? Sunshine and roses.
Also, on a more practical factor: childhood indoctrination and cultural inertia. Most people are raised in religion and they find it "good enough", so religion continues.
I find it more depressing that there is a God that decides what is good and what isn't and gives us "free will" just so He can torture us for eternity if we dont do what He wants... kinda fucked up ngl
Fortunately I don't need any more reasons to live than enjoying my day to day, being with the people I love, doing my little projects etc.
Oh, continuing down that line of thinking leads to far worse then "kinda fucked up." If the judeo christian deity exists and is accurately described by their books than it is a total monster not worthy of praise or devotion...
What I understand about the judeo christian god is that they are believed to have created everything that has ever been or will ever be. They have total knowledge of everything past present and future, and they "knew me" prior to them creating me, knew what kind of person I would be, and knew without doubt that I wouldn't believe in or worship them... so they created me with full knowledge that I'll spend eternity being tortured in hell. What kind of benevolent deity brings a creature into existence just so they can be tortured? If that's not full blown fucked up, then I don't know what is.
Here is a nice visualisation of the logical paradox:
God knowing what you will do does not remove your responsibility of the decision you made.
This isn't about responsibility, it's about preventing suffering. If you could prevent a genocidal leader from being born, which you knew would save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, why wouldn't you? Because it's that person's "responsibility" that all of those innocent people died after all?
Here is the answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VoX-IkHVTE
The irony. Why exactly does the entire world accept the current year as being 2024? What are we 2024 years away from?
For the same sort of reasons there are (generally) 12 months in a year and there are 7 days on a calendar, and for the same reason that "John" is a name, and why London is placed where it is, and etc?
Because some dudes decided some stuff, and some other dudes decided some stuff influenced like that, and so on. And some stuff got changed, and some stuff was inconvenient to change or there was no real reason to change it.
The year is ironic in the exact context you quoted I guess. But the days of the week and many months were named for other mythologies.
What I was actually saying is that the same reasons for belief apply whether it's 2000 BCE or 4000 CE. Humans remain human, and religion fills an inherent need.
There's other religions than Christianity - large ones - that do not consider the birth of Christ as particularly meaningful. The fact that we're using it as a point of reference is meaningful - the Christian religion has been very influential - but it is hardly some grand irony you seem to imply.
In some religions walking away from the church means being excluded from family, social, and business contacts. So cutting ties with everyone you know basically.
So better start believing in some magic men.
You can just like, say you do. I think a lot of people who check “Christian” in the US have little to no involvement in it beyond saying “thank God” occasionally.
I remember reading a story in my Spanish lit class about a guy who wasn’t attending church, and his mother was freaking out, so the family priest went to talk to him. And the priest was like, “I totally get it. After all the evil I’ve seen I don’t really believe either. But I continue in this because it is my life, and I can provide comfort to people. Consider attending because you love your mother and it will help her.”
In 2024 life is hard and you can't do anything about it in most cases. Religion gives you an excuse for why it must be so, so that you can keep grinding away.
You're definitely not gullible right?
Not religious either.
Indoctrination.
This is a pretty broad question, it really depends on what you mean by "believe in religion":
Believe that a particular holy book is literal, historical truth.
Believe in the moral teachings of a particular holy book and follow its practices.
Believe in the existence of a universal higher consciousness (God)
1 is a vocal minority, and the reasons have been sufficiently explained elsewhere in this thread.
2 is much more common, and can derive from a number of reasons. Cultural identity generally determines which holy book (and interpretation thereof) you follow, but the attraction to moral framework is deeper than cultural identity. Having a set of guidelines to inform moral behavior, and a method of alignment and focus (prayer) is very valuable.
3 is a metaphysical consideration, and pops up even in 2024 because consciousness is still a mysterious phenomenon. Every explanation leads to roughly the same conclusion: if consciousness is an emergent property of complex interconnected systems, then it stands to reason that the most complex interconnected system (the universe) is more likely than not to be conscious; if consciousness is some external force that complex systems can "tune into" like a radio, then it stands to reason that "consciousness" permeates the universe; if consciousness is something else which defies scientific description, then it stands to reason that there exists some agency to dictate the rules.
Those are, broadly, the rational explanations of consciousness of which I'm aware, and they all imply a universal consciousness of one variety or another. If you can think of another I'd love to consider it.
If you meant something else by "believe in religion", let me know.
Another big reason is reason number 4
I've met a not so inconsequential amount of people in my life that when pressed admitted, they don't believe in god, don't believe in the moral teachings, but attend a place of worship because they think there is no replacement for the interwoven community and cultural connection their place of worship provides. Many people simply like the community connection of their root culture. This is especially true in minority groups (black church, synagogue).
This is me and my family right now. Two days ago we had lunch with our pastor to discuss the design of the church's nursery and I came out as atheist and my wife came out as Buddhist. The pastor didn't challenge us on any of that and we ended talking about what drew us to social justice causes. We believe in each other and that is enough.
That's another big reason to practice for sure, but I think it's a stretch to call that belief.
None of the things by themselves fully justify "belief" in a religion yet many people claim they are without a true belief in the entire system. It's the problem with such a vague question. By a narrower definition very few people attending a place of worship are true believers. Someone can believe in god, but not really believe in the rules, and still say they are "religious". Someone can believe in the rules, but not god, and say the same. I think if you are practicing the religion to some extent then you have a right to call yourself religious if that's how you view yourself regardless of your true beliefs on god, rules, etc. Cultural impact matters more than we give it credit for.
It's very rare that you find anyone on Lemmy/Reddit that actually takes more than eight seconds to critically think about the significance of "religion," and not just immediately monkey brain into "religion is for idiots." Alas, I hoped that this particular group think would've stayed behind.
A belief is not a religion, and a religion is not a belief. Any one person can be varying degrees of "religious," and any one person can hold varying levels of belief in a higher power.
I don't have much else to add because your comment was pretty well thought-out.
This 👉🏼 #3 👆🏼
They are raised with it and old habits die hard.
The fact that some people start as atheists and later become religious demonstrates there has to be more reasons than just that.
Your understanding of their reasoning comes from a fundamental assumption that your choice is the correct choice for every person. They willingly made the wrong decision, therefore they must have been manipulated into doing so.
Many people do just become religious without outside influence. On a large scale, every society will create its own version of religion without fail. Clearly, they have something to gain psychologically by doing so.
While religious indoctrination obviously exists and obviously is a problem, it doesn't discount the actual benefits that religion seems to have, and by extension the reasoning with which some people become religious.
When I said "start", it was in reference to the process of changing your religious identity, not your life as a whole.
This I agree with. Looking back, you were more careful than I thought you were to specify you were not talking in absolutes.
I will however double down that you are still making a fundamental assumption that your option is the correct one, and you make it more clear by arguing that all benefits of religion are possible without religion. If all benefits of religion can be attained without risking the detriment, then religion is the worse option by far.
However, thinking of this made me realize I'm just making the opposite assumption. Just like you, I've constructed a strongly held belief about religion based on my life experiences, which are entirely anecdotal and effectively meaningless.
How would you even get evidence that most people are manipulated into becoming religious? How would you get evidence that most people don't? How would you get evidence that religion does or doesn't benefit people? How would you even define benefit in the first place?
This argument is meaningless.
The strongly held belief I'm referring to isn't a belief in a god or lack thereof, its a belief that religion is a net negative for society.
To say I'm not aware of this is again to argue in bad faith. I have mentioned myself that religious indoctrination of course still exists, and is a problem.
Yes there is research into how religion affects society, but it isn't very useful for this purpose for multiple reasons. There is no instance of a society without religion, so the difference between a religious and non-religious society can't be studied. There can be no consensus on what is beneficial and what isn't, as morality itself isn't objective.
There is not and there never will be definitive evidence as to whether or not religion is beneficial for society.
There is also nothing to suggest the opposite, because this can't really be determined. You would have to so create a set of all the benefits religious people claim to get, which in and of itself would be a monumental task. Then, you would have to demonstrate that nonreligious people can achieve all of the exact same benefits.
This is why I've come to the conclusion that this argument is pointless, and neither of us know anything beyond our personal experience.
Never personally met an atheist that had found religion or heard about one, other than in American evangelical stories, but I've met a few non-religions people who have later in life found religion. Although I live in a quite atheaistic country, so there is a lack of peer pressure or need to talk about such things.
Well congratulations, now you have. It isn't quite as rare as you might think.
Everyone is everything in the internetz.
What about the internet makes this easier to lie about? I could tell you the same thing to your face and you still couldn't fact check it.
They aren't calling you a liar, they're saying they never met someone like that in person.
They are drawing that distinction for a reason. They literally said everyone is everything on the internet. I don't how else you could possibly read that.
I left my church because they wouldn’t just let me attend. They wanted me to commit to actively proseletyzing outside the church, to bring more people in.
It didn’t feel right. I think if a thing is good enough, nobody else needs to nag you to sell it. You just want to tell people about it because it’s been so good for you.
Like it or not, people who went to prayer house or religious gatherings socialise more than people who stay indoor and only interact with limited amount of people. Assuming there's no fishy business going on with that particular chapter, they tend to be happier considering the fact human are social animal and the feeling of loneliness due to lack of human to human interaction is the build-in alarm system to warn us against solitude. It's this reason religion is so success because it's enforce togetherness and make you feels like you're part of something.
If we're going into a utopian world where human doesn't need to work anymore and social security is guaranteed, religious will be something even bigger than today.
Edit: forgot to mentioned, am atheist and give no shit to skyman, but somehow on the internet atheist can't have opinion that's not shitting on people with faith.
Nah, I like my community without the side of eternal suffering that so many religions like to threaten you with for varioua reasons.
I'd put my money on huge adoption of D&D in the utopian future before I put it on religion.
I too don't like my community centered around religion, but everywhere i look, religion tend to be the biggest community gathering around the world.
Maybe true, I don't pay much attention. All I know is most studies and censuses I have seen show religious affiliation falling fairly rapidly.
🤷♂️
We don't need religion, we did at one time. When we didn't know why or how people got sick, why sometimes crops would be plentiful and other times famine or why the ground shook sometimes or even just figuring out morals
But we know those things now and when we encounter something we don't we have the knowledge and tools to figure out what's up.
We don't need churches for a common social place, we have parks, libraries, community centers and community wide events to invest in. We can socialize and learn other cultures around the world in an instant. We don't just have random villages and tiny cities any more, we have large and diverse cities so we everyone can have a little of everything they're interested in.
At this point, all religion does is serve as yet another thing to divide us.
While this statement is true, its also true even if you're not religious. I was not raised religious at all but always got together with family/cousins/friends nearly every weekend.
Kinda. This study [0] of 3,942 19-year-old in Sweden put it best:
So while religious upbringing can force people to socialize, that doesn't mean the lack of religiosity will have a negative impact as the lack of religion does not dictate that you will not congregate/gather with peers/friends/family and feel the same level of "belonging" to a group - even if its not a well defined group.
I'd say this claim is unfounded. Why must we turn to religion? There are clubs, groups, meetups, friends, events and niches of never ending categories that easily fulfill the need of "belonging" to a group - it's actually one thing humans are really good at - forming "in" and "out" groups.
Source: [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275143707_Faith_or_Social_Foci_Happiness_Religion_and_Social_Networks_in_Sweden
Yes, i do agree on all the thing you said, what i'm saying is it's not mutually exclusive. Religious people can and will go to religious meetup and all the other non-religious gathering too. I know that because i have some friend that do both. It's not the case of black and white, this or that, do and don't.
The issue i have with OP's question and a lot of atheist is they tend to put religious people as a one dimension entity and think highly of themselves because they "aren't like that", that irrationality is what they accuse religious people have. It's that sort of tribalism that cause a lot of conflict, and i fear tribalism more than i fear religion.
Based on what evidence lmao
Classic.
What based on what evidence?
Your first sentence. What actual statistical evidence do you have for this.
You need statistic to proof socialising more is better than socialising less?
You’re purposefully dancing around the point.
You’re claiming religious people are more social than anyone else. That’s a ridiculous claim and you know it.
Not going to spend anymore time engaging in your games lol
It is very difficult to accept mortality if you don't believe in an afterlife. Religion brings comfort, and comfort improves mental health (at the cost of some delusion).
Ignoring the inherit assumption that religion is de facto an issue or backwards, and ignoring the fallacy that "progress" is co-liniar with the passage of time, logic is not in of itself a perfect humanistic process of thought, rather it has been developed by humans over the millennia.
There is great comfort in the process of growing into and exploring one's faith. Growing up in a theologically liberal Christian church, I was invited to find ways to meld the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man is such a way that I find purpose and vocation within my life. Religion also offers a place for community among people committed to a mission, be it good or bad. These communities preserve and honor cultural traditions, again, the good and the bad. These are just a few reasons I think people are now, and will remain well into the future, religious.
I definitely get the sense of community aspect of religion.
When it's overwhelmingly the cause of intolerance of LGBTQ rights and opposition of minorities, it arguably is.
Is religiosity the cause of an overwhelming intolerance, or is it, religiosity, the overwhelming citation of the pious bigot?
Both lol
How do you account for tolerance found within religion and religious communities throughout the world and throughout history, then? How can intolerance be inherent to religion if it is not universally observed?
And for clarity, I’m not trying to no-true-scotsman out religious communities that harbor hatred and shut off diversity and the like. They totally exist and they are a problem. But to suggest religiosity itself is the issue, to me at least, is missing a sound foundation.
The text they rally behind as a fundamental part of their religion, in no uncertain terms, promotes violence against gay men and tells you women are worth a fraction of men and can't be trusted to preach. Not to mention the endorsement and regulation of slavery.
It's not that they're a monolith of bigotry or anything, it's that they start from a pretty messed up place and have to mould that out of their understanding of their religion, and plenty of them don't.
But the real issue is that you can justify just about any sort of prejudice when that is your foundation. There's no shortage of Christians who cite Leviticus to tell me my sexuality is an abomination, yet they dismiss the parts about slavery because "that's the old testament." The Bible also doesn't say anything about trans people and it doesn't oppose abortion rights, yet the majority of the Christians in my state are opposed to both.
Firstly, I am assuming that “they” is referring to Christians, which the op did not specify, and my subsequent commentary is interpreted to generalizing to all presentations of religion. While I explicitly pointed to Christianity, that was because I was referencing my personal faith journey.
Secondly, we are in agreement that the Pentateuch, in its literal form, calls for and endorses a society which does not privilege equality for all races, genders, or creeds. I would assume we are also in agreement that the epistles of Paul and Timothy and other early Christian writers have some pretty messed up opinions of who God is and what God wants.
But you yourself drew attention to the agency Christians, and all other faithful people, have. There is choice, and people do choose, to interpret scripture as non-literal. By the virtue of this existence, one cannot simply label all religious expressions as backwards or at issue, as I originally posited.
That's true, they can mould their interpretation however they need to so it conforms to their own morality, but that doesn't come from the religion.
If you gave an alien any of the abrahamic holy texts and then dropped it on earth it'd probably behave pretty abhorrently. In order to behave more civilly it'd have to learn from the society it was dropped into, not the religion.
Most churches and other theists do a pretty good job of doing that and that's a great thing, but the way I see it, the religion itself is inherently problematic until people mould it into something resembling secular morality.
The difference is we have evidence that celebrities exist
I wasn't even disagreeing with you. But rage on, queen.
The social aspect might be underappreciated. My guess is people are mainly introduced by family and friends and it becomes a big part of their identity. It becomes difficult to separate the individual elements.
Indoctrination at a young age.
It's a good coping mechanism.
The Opium of the Masses
This and Parents
Oh what, those pesky moral agents who created you in their image? and to think they're just monkeys from the muck!!
It's really a shitty coping mechanism.
Gods are literally just a psychological comfort blanket to explain the unexplainable. Most religious people don’t put that much thought into what they believe, challenging concepts are just tucked nicely away in the “Gods will” box and they move on. I think everyone copes with those brain shattering concepts in their own creative way or risk getting buried alive in anxiety.
Indoctrination and ignorance, notice how a big chunk of its members are old people. Younger people are less interested, thankfully. Also, for some people, it is a social club.
Weirdly I know quite a few people who converted to being religious as adults. As children, they weren't raised with any particular religion.
I think people just want something to do and some encouraging people around them.
I thought about that as well. I'm not religious and i don't know anyone who is, but i talked to some elderly people of whom i knew they are religious about it. And surprisingly, they pretty much gave up on it. One couple told me how ass their childhood was because they were scarred into believing in fire and brimstone when they don't behave. The other lady who was very Christian, said that she wished she didn't basically wasted all theis time with Christianity, even tho she liked the whole community aspect of it and the "tradition."
And like i said, religion isn't part of anyone's life that i know, especially in my age group. But for the last 2 years or so it started popping up on tinder that Christianity somehow is still going. Not strong or anything, but it went from nothing to seeing two or three jesus freaks a month or so.
More comforting than the alternative. Its one reason why when material conditions worsen people faith goes up.
How do you know that the real creator(s) are documented?
You’ve been threatened and Stockholm’d through fear, likely as a child or when vulnerable into seeing 1 alternative, when the alternatives are infinite
I think you missed the point here. To the believer, evidence is not the main concern. Many Christians talk about their connection and relationship with god, which is subjective. To them, god exists because they have faith, not evidence, that it exists. Where's that faith coming from? As many others explained in this thread, it's about finding the sense of community and comfort in knowing that somebody higher us knows best in the world of uncertainty.
The alternative is absolutely unfathomable. Like I am an atheist and the fact we exist in any capacity is insane. Where did everything come from? Where will it go? People believe in religion because it's easier.
When I have an existential crisis over it I sometimes wish I was religious.
Because the lowest common denominator is much MUCH lower than you think it is.
This means it's easy to indoctrinate and easy to maintain that for a massive number of people.
Scientific illiteracy is extremely high, and actual "6th grade reading comprehension" is the highest level of literacy for > 50% of a country like the U.S. and ~20% are low literacy or actually illiterate.
This means that half of everyone in the U.S. can read and understand what they read at or below a 6th grade level. This isn't "reading big words", it's "tell us about what you read", "what is the relationship between x & y" type questions.
This comment for example, up to this point only, would be difficult to understand & comprehend for > 50% of people in the U.S. (it demands an 11th grade reading comprehension). And may be misread, misunderstood, or not understood at all.
People are driven to religions to cults and alt conspiracy theories when they don't understand how the world works around them. They latch onto extremely simple often misleading or incorrect ideas of how the world works because they can understand it and it "makes sense" within their sphere of ignorance (we all have one, this isn't meant to be a disparaging term).
This means that the problem is that humans are just not smart enough to escape religion yet. It's the simplest answer, and it appears to be correct.
I'm an effort to get you an answer that isn't dismissive:
Youth indoctrination, social conformity, and cultural isolation. If your parents, friends, and most of your community tells you something is true, you are unlikely to challenge it for a variety of reasons including trust (most of what they've taught you works for your daily life), tribal identity, etc
People naturally fear death, and one coping strategy for the existential fear of death is to convince yourself that the death of your body is not the end of your existence. Science does not provide a pathway to this coping strategy so people will accept or create belief systems that quell that fear, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Relieving the pressure of that fear is a strong motivator.
Release of responsibility. When there is no higher power to dictate moral absolutes, we are left feeling responsible for the complex decisions around what is or isn't the appropriate course of action. And that shit is complicated and often anxiety inducing. Many people find comfort in offloading that work to a third party.
Cause a lot of people care more about feeling comfortable than feeling statistically probable.
Lol wut
Humans psyche is a meaning inference recursive engine, semiotically I mean, following Charles Sanders Peirce's Theory of Signs, it generates meaning and thus needs a story to explain it, or simply to tell itself.
The story doesn't need to hold sound logic or any objectivity true to reality, it only needs to convey the meaning that it generated so that the mind can believe it more than questioning its validity.
Long story short, humans really likes being told and believing stories, and often they are the ones telling the story right to themselves.
I, for real, want to know if there are any religious/spiritual people here commenting because yikes. I think a lot of people also interpreted your question to be about organized religion, and specifically christianity of the US variety. Please seek out other religious thoughts - I've found much Jewish thought on religion to be of interest. For myself, I'm not christian and not Jewish.
I'm religious because growing up, I adopted the values of the religion I was taught - values of kindness, openness, and inclusion. It's as core a part of my being as my ways of cooking or socializing. To not be religious would feel like hiding parts of myself.
The routine of following the practices, as well as religion/spirituality being able to help us face the unknown we still have in our lives. It can provide internal strength and belief in our ability. I also find the routine a way to connect to my family, my culture, and to my day-to-day. My religious time is more a time of internal reflection on my own actions and if they align with my values. Do folks without a routine religious/spiritual practice do the same?
The community aspect some touched on is huge. I read a book, Palaces for the People, where it mentioned that those with strong social connections fare better in times of crisis. While there are institutions that are getting to the same influence of religious institutions, they are still far less impactful.
I guess this is all less a belief and more why do people still engage with religion. But why do we believe, what is the act of believing? I don't have to believe that the sun will rise every morning, but, I do still believe it will rise every morning. Belief is a whole area of study alone I'm sure.
This is likely not the best place to get answers for this question.
I honestly think it’s a coping mechanism that is hard wired into us.
Most if not all ancient civilizations independently had some sort of belief in a higher power.
It’s a way to deal with the death of a loved one and your own mortality.
Alternative ways of explaining the world have been around for like a century and a half, and religious conversion is slow.
Why we did religion in the first place instead of just "I dunno where stuff came from or why" is a much more interesting question IMO.
I think there's something that always seems to get left out of these conversations and that's that "when I practice my religion, I feel something that I don't feel otherwise" is frequently a true statement for the religious.
I've often heard self-described atheists say that, often when conversing/debating with religious folks about why they believe, the conversation comes to a point where the religious person will say "I've just had a personal experience" and the atheist, unable to relate to that, really has no way to advance the conversation beyond that.
Were I opposite some fundamentalist Christian or something in such a situation, my response would be "yeah, me too! That's totally normal."
I think the beligerantly nonreligious either can't relate to religious experiences or don't want to admit to having had them for fear of embarassment or maybe rhetorical concessions. And the religious typically haven't had such experiences outside the context of their religious practices, or if they have they still attribute it to their religious beliefs, and so take it as proof of their beliefs.
And these religious experiences are very real and very normal. Probably some people are more prone to such experiences than others. But despite how the religious tend to interpret them they have little to no relationship to one's beliefs. One can have experiences of anatta ("no-self" in Theravada Buddhism) or satori (sudden, typically-temporary, enlightenment in Japanese Zen Buddhism) or recollection (a term from Christian mysticism) or kavana (Jewish mysticism) or whatever without accepting any particular belief system. There are secularized mindfulness and meditation practices that can increase one's chances and frequency of experiencing these states.
But, unfortunately, the history of these experiences has been one of large religious organizations claiming and mostly exercising a monopoly on such experiences.
These experiences feel very deep and profound and can be a very positive (or negative!) thing, even affecting the overall course of one's life. And they can be kindof addictive in a good way.
All that to say that I think any conversation about why people believe in religions today is incomplete without taking into account that for many people, their religion is their means of connection with some extremely profound and beautiful experiences. Though people only accept beliefs along with those experiences because they don't know these experiences aren't actually exclusive to any one religion or any set of beliefs. And those experiences are 100% real and tangible to them. (Whether they correspond to anything real in consensus reality is a whole other conversation, but the experiences themselves are a normal human phenomenon like orgasm or schadenfreude.)
Just some followup thoughts:
Thanks, I had the same hunch but I didn't yet put into proper words and ideas.
Do you think, should we extrapolate those experiences to something beyond or just accept it as part of human nature?
There's a western meditation guy named "Daniel Ingram" who I have a certain amount of respect for. He readily answers questions about the risks and benefits of meditation-related things as well as the subjective experience of them. But any time he is asked about the "real world" (like, the metaphysical implications of these experiences), he responds that he's "a pragmatist" and won't speculate about the nature of reality or the existence/nonexistence of entities or powers.
(That said, there is one and only one story he tells that seems to have made him believe certain supernatural claims about the real world. He was "practicing magic" and drew an amber pentagram in the air and someone who hadn't been present at the time later walked into the room and said "you just drew an amber pentagram in the air right here." Or at least that's roughly how he tells the story. And he does seem to believe there's something to that beyond the natural.)
I'm not quite the purist he is. I don't think it's necessary to straight up refuse to believe anything about the real world or the nature of reality. And I don't think that there's nothing that can/should be gleaned about metaphysics from subjective ("religious") experiences. (My experiences with contemplative practices has definitely changed my mind about some metaphysical things. The nature of conscious and of reality, the existence of capital-G-"God" (though the answer I find most compelling now definitely isn't "yes" or "no"), etc.)
But it's also important to keep it in perspective. Some of these experiences can feel like the most important thing every to happen to anyone. (That's probably how many/most religions start, honestly. Someone has a mind-blowing experience and tells everybody about it and everybody else grossly misinterprets it because these experiences are ineffable -- can't be put into words -- and before you know it you have the crusades and witch burnings and abstinance-only sex ed.) But a contemplative practice, done well, will tell you not to hold too closely to, well, anything really (potentially "except god"). Coming to some belief and holding it as the most important thing ever or basing your whole personality on it is absolutely problematic.
My advice is to hold any beliefs you come to from a religious experience (and any other beliefs you have for that matter) "loosely". And I think this is helped by not restricting yourself to one religious system. Borrow from both western and eastern religious traditions. Monotheistic, pantheistic, pagan, etc. Indigenous spiritual practices. Even left-hand-path stuff. The more you do that, the better you drive home to your reptilian brain the point that nobody has a monopoly on religious experience and often those experiences even contradict each other.
I guess one other thing to mention is that adpting a particular set of religious beliefs can potentially be a boon to one's contemplative practice. But for the reasons above, it can be dangerous.
Thank you for taking the time to write this out, I probably would've been busy for a couple of hours trying to formulate my fairly similar take!
Maybe to add another aspect for - I think that the sheer ability of humans to have religious experiences in all denominations, which are often described as feelings of connectedness, does not necessarily mean that there is a higher being or reality "out there" that is being connected to in those moments.
But it does mean that our brains have religious experience as an in-built function (which, as you described, has been needlessly enshrined in religious institutions), which might mean that being able to have these experiences is an important part of being able to survive, or maybe even to thrive, as a human being, which also means as a community.
And that's a take that I couldn't have put as well as you did, and I wholeheartedly agree with.
I think whatever cognitive faculties separate us from "the animals" (or at least some animals) comes at a cost. Most animals live very in the moment. We're largely the only creatures that have panic attacks because of some imagined future event, and we worry constantly. The default mode network and the internal monologue let us plan for the future, but also makes us worry for the future, which is definitely maladaptive.
Religious experiences let us greatly mitigate that by showing us, even if only temporarily (and sometimes people can achieve permanence in this), by suspending the DMN and internal monologue.
Suspending worry for the future might be a plausible function for religious experience as an evolved feature of the human mind, yes.
I would also point towards the biological fact that while the existence of a higher being, consciousness or reality, is still ineffable, even after having had an experience that felt like there might be one, there is also an empirically true, measurable interconnectedness for humans that can be tapped into.
We live, and have evolved, in and through ecosystems that highly depend on interconnected species and processes that are so complex and intricate that we are still working on fully grasping them, and still discovering new connections (unfortunately, it's becoming more and more because we have disrupted the connections by environmental damage, and the ecosystems start to fail due to that, making the connection obvious only after it ceased to exist). Connection between humans in the form of love in its many forms is also the ultimate glue that keeps societies together, and if that capacity diminishes due to circumstances, bad things tend to happen.
The myriad of connections we need to live, and to thrive and to feel like we are whole - all of this fully seen and experienced in their abstracted totality could in my eyes be one of the bases for religious experience.
And if that is true, it gives also another function - then, religious experience is the anchor and has a rebalancing function that makes sure that we don't get lost in our own heads and human constructs, and keeps reminding us that we are part of the ecosystem, too, and keeps us from using it in a self-destructive manner. There are several deeply spiritual, nature-connected societies that only became so after a local environmental crisis caused by themselves. Tapping into the interconnectedness through religious experience has helped them find another, arguably better way.
(Of course, it doesn't seem to be a hard, global fail-safe in human history, given the current state of the world, so I don't know how direct this function would be.)
Fear of the unknowable
So what you're saying is that here in 2024 we've got it all figured out?
*Note that: 2024, everything figured out.
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” -Shakespeare
There's physics. And there's metaphysics. One does not come to Faith the same way one produces a hypothesis.
I disagree with your last line. A hypothesis is a great analogy for faith. It’s a belief that something is true. Science involves testing the hypothesis, just as faith can be tested.
It’s important to remember that science, by definition, does not prove anything either. There are only supported and unsupported theories.
I don't really get why people think it's "science or religion". Although there are some things to consider:
If there are laws in the universe, it may be proof that there's a law giver of some kind?
The beginning of the universe was a recent discovery in science, previous non Christian belief was that the universe had always existed.
Genesis 1 doesn't have to be taken literally.
I think what I'm saying there is that faith is more of an on-off switch. You see an astronaut who's returned from space and he's holding a pencil and he lets go of it in the air, goes and does something, and returns to the place where he let it go expecting the pencil to still be there.
It's not there, but he BELIEVED it would be, because he had no doubt. It surprised him that it wasn't there.
Hypothesis is quite a different thing. If I hypothesize there are crackers in the pantry, all I have to do is go and open the pantry and look and see if there's crackers. That's testing the hypothesis.
One does not talk about the existence of things like love, or truth, or God, in the same way one talks about crackers in the pantry. They are metaphysical, and they are different.
Close. You’re comparing a repeatable phenomenon to an unrepeatable one. Unrepeatable phenomena are where science is equal to religion, in that there may only be a hypothesis supporting the theory.
For example, according to the current scientific theory of creation, two masses collided in the Big Bang. The laws of physics state that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. There are scientific theories on how the masses came to exist, and what set them in motion, but there is no way to test an unrepeatable phenomenon. Interference-based creation is just as possible.
Good point. I appreciate your insight
We've got way more figured out than what religious people think.
Faith is the rejection of the possibility of producing a hypothesis.
Science is, among other things, the rejection of metaphysics.
And I love science, embrace evolution, and don't have any beliefs that require me to reject any scientific finding.
Science covers the physical world nicely. Materialistically, it's got the goods.
I like how all these answers involving science fail to realize that the scientific method was used exclusively by many scholars and students who had no historical evidence of giving up their religion.
Empirical evidence is as old as humans, and afaik the modern scientific method has been in use since the Islamic golden age if not older.
The key here is that many of these people did not consider religion an empirical issue but a philosophical and ethical one. Particularly with the monotheistic religions, this would make sense because you can easily argue that it would be impractical to test for the existence of God.
I think a better question would be why do people believe in their respective religion if it contains a glaring contradiction(s).
you can be spiritual and religious without believing in structured religion like the church.
i'm wiccan and spiritual and it means a great deal to me.
Sure you can, why though?
You're a what?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca
You heard him he said he’s wicked spiritual these days
Objective reality doesn't matter to you if you close your eyes, cover your ears and insist on living in a fantasy world.
Let's put it this way, if I went around basing my entire understanding of reality on Greek gods, people would rightly think I was fucking nuts.
Do it with the bible though...
Or Islam, Judaism, Hinduism or any other major religion.
But no, suddenly I am the maniac for believing that – in reality – we are pink elephants, hopping on the moon and imagining life as we believe it to be true. No one can prove I am wrong. But uh oh, sky grandpa mad.
(/s I don't believe anything. Just making a sarcastic point.)
I think that for most people it's nothing more than a social club. I have always been skeptical ever since hearing absurd stories about arks and being eaten by whales, but every once in a while (especially after sobering up) I went into various churches to see if I might have been missing out on something. Invariably I just found a social club of people just looking for excuses to feel better about themselves. Anything good that happens is a direct blessing from a doting god; anything bad is always the devil....personal responsibility is never part of the answer. Many are just uneducated and dont know how to think; they accept whatever Grandpa says as truth without any consideration, and this extends to pastors. I am atheist; my wife is a devout believer...but more and more she sees something horrible happen and can't deny it when I point out that religion did that. She still has her higher power but is starting to see the brainrot and brainwashing in her friends and family and can't understand why they do what they do while calling themselves 'christians'. It's not faith; it's just social self-service.
I'd say it's partly to find some comfort with life's many uncertainties, and one of several ways to achieve a sense of purpose when struggling for some.
Religion dissolves uncertainty. Why does….? Because the sky man said so. How does….? Because the sky man made it that way. What should I do with my life and how should I live it? Here’s a book written by the sky man and it has all the answers. No more thinking… I suppose it’s probably of great comfort to many.
Religion is an opium for the masses. And everyone loves a little bit of poppy in their life!
Dear (my) god, you folks are irrational. If someone acts a certain way, judge them for it! But judging anyone with faith just because you don't believe in that!? I can't prove God exists any more than you can prove they don't. If a religious person acts kind, fair, and rational, you shouldn't have anything against them, should you? But this post isn't about American right-wingers, or extremist Islamic Muslims, is it? It's about anyone who has any faith at all, just because you don't believe the same thing. Caring Christians literally building homes for people internationally, Sikhs feeding anyone, no matter their beliefs...
I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but that's literally small-minded.
It’s a post asking why people believe in religion. People who don’t believe in religion or spirituality really have no reason to comment other than to condemn. The arrogance of atheists on Lemmy is very disappointing.
Disappointing, but not surprising.
What would you think of someone who goes door to door trying to convince you a blubbery clown rules the universe from planet zebulon?
Is that a normal person just doing normal person things?
For the non-religious, there is no difference between the person above and a relgious believer.
I think it's reasonable to ask why people still hold unfounded beliefs with the greater interconnectedness of the world making it pretty plain that not all these religions can be divinely inspired truth, so many of them are necessarily imaginary.
Victimized ✅
Logical fallacy of ignorance ✅
Ignores the atrocities and genocide committed in the name of “religion” ✅
You are quite literally the pot calling the kettle black with your “small minded” comment. Nobody here was persecuting religion, but specific implementations that have committed mass murder, or engage in obnoxious displays (screaming at people at events (some events designed to support groups of people), going door to door, shaming vulnerable people trying to get medical procedures, etc etc)
The day you widen your view to see others perspectives and history of abuse is the day you’ll actually be on the right “religious” track. Humanity is the religion.
proceeds to generalize all religious people as the worst of religion
Most religious people do acknowledge all the stuff you're talking about, and agree with you on how terrible they are. Most of the time when you meet a religious person, you won't think there's anything different until you ask them.
I haven’t generalize anything - I was speaking of this specific instance but see whatever you want to see ig
Because they keep having experiences they can’t or have no interest in explaining.
People are very easy to condition via association.
Religion teaches people to associate all good with god, all evil with mankind. Therefor they think only people who believe in their god can be trusted.
Because (Christian) "Faith" is a unique, arguably delusional, cyclical belief system based on feelings. It's similar to the anti-vaccine mentality of "that's just your opinion" when it's not. The biggest difference being that there is no proving or disproving the existence of God.
And Faith is built on this self-referential system of "you gotta have Faith in God because God is real and God is good and strong Faith will help you continue believing in God when you are otherwise challenged, and weak Faith is a sign that you are straying from God and you should strengthen your Faith by believing in God harder because God is real and God is good..."
I used to be more religious and also thought "believe in whatever you want to believe in as long as you don't be a dick about it," but that's really been changing a lot lately.
Christianity has fallen so far and so many self-diagnosed Christians are just the worst type of people that I just couldn't relate to them anymore and felt the need to distance myself.
There have probably been (speculation because I don't feel like looking up details right now) more deaths in the name of Christianity and the Christian God than any other religion and that continues to this day.
I contribute modern day deaths from pregnancy complications deprived of needed health care, general lack of other health care for low income families, LGBTQIA2A+ suicides or other deaths, and more to "traditional Christian values".
Christian Nationalists can go fuck themselves and rot in their own hell they hate so much.
The existence of one or more gods can't be conclusively proven or disproven. So it makes sense to me that some people believe in it and others don't.
Man believes in stories. Such as religion, or money, or companies.
Ref. Yuval Noah Harari.
It’s useful to do so. It gives a person meaning and purpose in life.
We've proved the popular religions wrong definitively, but the truth's turned out to be unbearably horrifying for most people.
I listened to a great podcast on the subject last week which was super helpful, https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/what-does-it-feel-like-to-believe.
For me, I just do. It's just who I am and what I feel. I don't really talk about it outside of my church friends, but I just believe. I don't think the Bible is terribly accurate and regard it much as I do Arabian Nights, a book of fantastic stories based loosely on events. I also think it has much to offer in teaching you how to treat others and live your life as a good person, and that's what I take away from it. I find Jesus honestly a touch creepy, but I never stop believing in a higher power of sorts.
Also I honestly have made the best friends I've ever made in my church life. Horrible homophobic Christians aside, there's some really excellent people who genuinely love you and do good things to meet there.
I mean... In my life I've gone from a (naive child that took my parents words for fact) theist, to agnostic atheist, all the way to whatever the fuck I am now. It's all a matter of perspective.
You go deep enough into metaphysics you can trip yourself the fuck out.
If anyone wants to humor me, check out this seemingly innocuous video about a comic book villain. Let's debate some metaphysics!
Because they did in 2023
I think it's comfort. That can be if different things for different people and it can be many things at once.
Spiritual comfort that your god loves you.
Emotional comfort that you can do no wrong.
Community comfort that you and the people like you are the chosen people.
Life/death comfort for what happens after death.
Intellectual comfort to know all the answers.
Vindictive comfort to hate the people you want to.
It can just keep going.
Because we are convinced it is true.
The vast majority of people believe whatever the fuck they're told to believe.
I don't. My religious beliefs are something I came to myself. There is lots of evidence for a very early church, and the core story around Jesus hasn't changed much, unlike other legends that evolve through history. The New Testament is pretty reliable as a historical document and many times atheist critics have been wrong, and their arguments are usually very easy to debunk.
How did you come to your faith?
In short, I evaluated the arguments, then realised that the arguments for Christianity were far better than the arguments against. The main argument for atheism is the standard of proof, but anyone can present them with all of the proof they'd like and they can still say "not enough". There were people around in Jesus' time who still didn't believe yet saw the miracles and His resurrection
When you're brainwashed from birth, it's difficult to recognize you've been brainwashed.
I believe in religion. It definitely exists. Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism etc. They all exist. Guaranteed.
How can you not believe in them?
Because religion evolved to thrive in us.
It's like a parasite, and our mind is the host. It competes with other mind-parasites like other religions, or even scientific ideas. They compete for explanatory niches, for feeling relevant and important, and maybe most of all for attention.
Religions evolved traits which support their survival. Because all the other variants which didn't have these beneficial traits went extinct.
Like religions who have the idea of being super-important, and that it's necessary to spread your belief to others, are 'somehow' more spread out than religions who don't convey that need.
This thread is a nice collection of traits and techniques which religions have collected to support their survival.
This perspective is based on what Dawkins called memetics. It's funny that this idea is reciprocally just another mind-parasite, which attempted to replicate in this comment.
“Fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and the tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations - and after a while everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there were`t any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do. And from those humble beginnings we learn to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favours the paranoid. Even here in the 21st century we can make people more honest just by scribbling a pair of eyes on the wall with a Sharpie. Even now we are wired to believe that unseen things are watching us.”
― Peter Watts, Echopraxia
I guess a part is that science seems to meticulously avoid the question "why do we live", in a non-technical way, in a way that actually gives people a sense of meaning.
That and mental inertia, i.e. some things change very slowly.
Humans are tribalistic, like leaders who are assertive and charismatic, like simple answers, are easily swayed by emotions, fall victim to logical fallacies, and a plethora of other things that all work just fine if you're operating on a tribal level as we did for most of human history, or rather prehistory. Now that we are in a different phase of technological growth, which has brought with it massive social change, getting rid of all of that superstitious nonsense is very difficult because of aforementioned characteristics. What were beneficial as it tribal species, and arguably even after that, is now a liability. Or at least more of a hindrance to progress.
Because it's been the way it always has been, because people also hate change, are lazy, and tended to prefer both avoiding cognitive dissidents and minimizing effort to achieve desired results, getting rid of religion is a nightmare hassle. Even when the evidence is right there in front of them, people don't care. At least not enough of them. They'd rather listen to their authority figure, or do what all their friends are doing. Which if you're doing what all your friends are doing it just turns into a circle jerk. But since they're in that circle jerk, they tend to just stay in it, and because the people in it are their friends or family, they defend it because it's their tribe. We're kind of hardwired that way.
TLDR, people are dumb monkeys.
Because they're convinced it's true. Given that billions of people in the world ( I strongly expect it's the majority) would claim to be religious - perhaps the better question is: "why does anyone not believe in religion?"
Simple, if any religion was true and objectively based in reality, why the fuck do they need missionaries to spread it?
If any religion was true, it would have measurable, verifiable, and predictable traits that would be discovered in isolated societies. If all of mankind's knowledge was erased, we would eventually rebuild our understandings of physics, biology, chemistry and mathematics as they are today. If all knowledge of religions were erased, we would never get the same religions back.
Education is the reason
I am not even remotely religious. But I take science pretty seriously.
Please tell me, scientifically, why you are so sure that people of faith are wrong?
There is some decent science that prayer does not work. I am not aware of anything offers anything at all testable concerning God.
And if we are simply pushing our preferences on others, I think a more important question is what makes people that claim to be evidence driven to adopt such strong opinions on things ( without evidence ) that they feel comfortable publicly slamming the preferences and values of others ( again with no evidence at all ).
As a science fan, you can say that absence of evidence means you do not have to believe. Correct. You cannot say that an absence of evidence proves your guess correct such that you can treat people who believe otherwise as stupid. Incorrect.
And “they have to show me the evidence” is a moronic stance. As a fan of the scientific method, evidence is YOUR burden of proof. For people that adhere to a religion, their standard is FAITH. So, they are holding up their end and you are dropping the ball. So what gives you the right to be the abuser?
So, I guess my answer to “why do people believe in religion would be”, “well, people still have faith and tradition and science has not produced any evidence that credibly calls that into question”.
Why are people not arriving at this conclusion on their own in 2024? Why have we failed so badly to explain the scientific method that people can still make wild pronouncements like this one.
I don’t like religion because it makes people easy to manipulate. People that treat science like a religion exhibit the same problems. I am not a fan of that.
I can think of four possible reasons:-
It works on my system - We are shaped by our experiences. To someone who had their life turned around by a religious order (or a religious individual), it would make sense to follow their teachings.
Opium of the masses - Life is filled with suffering. It is nice to imagine that there is someone looking out for you. An afterlife free of suffering is even better.
Just following orders - If you want to do something, but don't think your community will support you, it is easier if you say 'god told me to do it'. It might also make it easier to justify the action to yourself.
Church of England - You don't care much either way, but it's too much of a hassle to leave. Plus meeting your friends and neighbours every week is fun.
Because they have enough evidence to satisfy them that they should, if they're rational; because they were taught to and never questioned it through self-examination, if they're not.
Note that evidence is not the same as proof; other users have pointed out examples of evidence such as 'testimony from trusted authorities such as parents' and 'personal spiritual experiences' and since those answers were very detailed I won't repeat them here.
Religion is an old form of it is what is, hope, direction, tradition, and community.
Can't explain a thing or understand it God's will or only God knows. Can't do anything to help a person because they are in surgery pray or talk to God to wish for good outcomes.
Don't feel loved or know what to do or wanted. God loves you, will show you the way, and wants you.
Most traditions and communities in the west were founded on a religion so you have hundreds of people to connect with at a church and maybe millions world wide that will help. Those raised on books of wisdom or what is right and wrong still tend to keep the values even after they move away from the religion but realize they can have values without divine beings
Lastly control. Just like businesses it is easier to control people under a religion so if you can get people indebted, traditionalized, and ostracized otherwise. You can control people easily. Lots of people don't know what to do and why trust another human being but if a human being says wisely God said this it is easier to accept and gain a direction
Because we're more akin to LLMs than we might be comfortable to admit. Or at least parts of us, subsystems of our psyches... Brains are belief engines more than they are objective parsers of reality.
2024 years since what?
First of all, I want to make it clear that I'm glad to answer genuine questions made in good faith (no pun intended), but I won't argue with anyone.
I'm a practicing Hellenic Polytheist and this is my personal experience. I do not only worship deities with names and myths, but also the twinkling of stars, the waves of the ocean, the colors of a sunset, the kindling of a fire on a cold winter day, and the rustling of leaves in the treetops. Sometimes I look at the sky and see stars so far away that we will (probably) never reach them, and that feels divine to me. There's something that can't be described with words that is too great for a human to understand, and I find that something so beautiful that I will worship it.
Got a bit poetic there, but I also think that my relationship with religion has also been influenced by the good old autism a lot. I find the psychology behind religion very fascinating, and I think that for some people, especially those who have been raised in a certain faith, it is a "home" that provides comfort in difficult situations. For some people, the thought that a recently deceased loved one is now in Heaven or has been reincarnated as someone/something else is probably a lot easier to accept than that they don't exist anymore in any shape or form.
That being said, I also want to state that I always try to maintain a healthy sense of scepticism with my beliefs, whether they be religious, moral, or political, because blind belief never leads to anything good. I think that sadly the darker aspects of religion, such as cults and using religion to justify unjust power structures (the patriarchy or the divine right of kings for example) are hard to get rid of.
Never ever underestimate the amazing dumbness level of humankind.
Research shows that we have the innate (ie. without being externally influenced) belief that there is a higher power. So we are socialized/influenced into NOT believing in God.
Atheism and secularism are big now but this only started to be so in the recent hundred years.
Personally I find my religion logically making sense more than what atheistic ideologies bring forth and their misuse of science illiteracy.
The scripture is preserved and I had the chance to learn the original language which allows to assess it firsthand.
People can have a rich spiritual life and not believe in religion.
Because it can't truly be proven that there either is or isn't a god / gods.
You can laugh at people for believing in a god, but at the same time I'm willing to bet you can't prove that there there isn't one.
In my mind, atheism makes just as much sense as religion - they are both total assumptions based on incomplete data. Agnosticism is the only sensible way.
Atheist here. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Atheism is merely about trusting what's been proven, or has some evidence backing the claim that can be verified without doubt. Being agnostic is being indecisive about everything, even things that are completely made up.
One can argue that agnosticism is more scientific in that what cannot be verified, however improbable, remains possible.
What set the large masses in motion to collide in the Big Bang? What created that matter to begin with? There’s still room for the possibility of interference-based creation without contradicting modern science.
I agree with your second paragraph but take issue with your first.
Atheism is not the belief that God categorically does not exist; it's the position that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that God exists, and that therefore there is no reason to believe in him/her/it. It's a subtle but important distinction because the first is not logically consistent whereas the latter is.
Agnosticism, on the other hand, tends to either be the view that the likelihood of God existing is more or less equal to that of God not existing, or the view that we will probably never know so we cannot come down on one side or the other.
Technically speaking, there are gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists. Someone who calls themself agnostic believes in the possibility of a god(s). Self-identified atheists are typically gnostic atheists who believe with certainty that there is no god. They could also just be agnostic, and unaware of the difference in terminology.
There are many gnostic atheists commenting on this post with the “burden of proof” argument, and likening god to an invisible unicorn. They are quite confident in non-existence.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/
Gnostic atheists are only a thing on paper; I've never met or heard of another atheist who ascribes to this view. As the link you provided states, this academic definition of atheism is not one ascribed to by the vast majority of self-described atheists.
Or, to quote the American Atheists organization:
On this basis, any invisible unicorn/intergalactic teapot/flying spaghetti monster argument that invokes "burden of proof" is not an gnostic atheist position. The argument is based on the idea that until evidence for an invisible unicorn exists, there is no reason for it to have any bearing on our behavior.
This is different from saying that because no evidence of an invisible unicorn exists, that we must conclude that it categorically does not exist. You cannot logically prove the non-existence of a non-existent entity.
Then why are so many atheists commenting on this post using said arguments against another person’s beliefs, if not to discredit them and convince them their beliefs are impossible? No one here is trying to convince others that “their god” is correct, so it’s clearly not in defense.
That’s the behavior of someone who is trying to convince another of non-existence, therefore, it is safe to consider them gnostic atheists.
It's not so much saying that someone's religious beliefs are logically impossible, more highly unlikely. When I typically see this rhetoric, it's generally along the lines of "how on Earth did you weigh up all the evidence (or lack thereof) and come to the conclusion that God exists?", or more impolite words to that effect.
I personally don't browbeat the religious, so I'm not condoning it, but that's why this line of argument generally isn't gnostic atheism.
If, on the other hand, someone is actually saying that the existence of God is logically impossible, a priori, then that would be gnostic atheism. But, like I said before, that generally isn't what most atheists believe or argue for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
You don’t need proof where science doesn’t have any either. The beginning of creation remains a mystery. There is currently no explanation for the motion of the masses that collided, or the source of the matter. If science can hypothesize the events leading to the Big Bang, so can religion.
Science tests hypothesizes and never claims they're true until there's mountains of evidence to indicate so.
Religion on the other hand takes a book written by bronze age goat herders and claims it to be true, damn the evidence stacked against it and contradictions within.
You’re making large assumptions. There are more religions than you know. The way one practices also may not be familiar to you. You’re demonstrating intolerance through ignorance. Maybe you should be asking questions in this post about religion, or abstain if you’re not interested in understanding it.
Are you familiar with Baruch Spinoza? His take is fascinating. His higher power did not concern itself with the fates of mankind, but is responsible for the lawful harmony of existence. It also does not discount or displace science in any way.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/37996/spinozas-god-einstein-believed-in-it-but-what-was-it
All religion is untested made up nonsense, no exceptions.
If you make it up without evidence, it can be thrown out without evidence. Athiests make no claims, there's nothing to throw out.
The real answer to these questions is "we have no idea", everything else falls under russel's teapot.
Are you this arrogant in condemning everything you don’t understand?
If you truly believe “you have no idea,” then how can you be sure every religion is wrong without understanding them?
I do understand that it is something people made up without any evidence.
I am this arrogant about anything without evidence, if you present evidence, then I have a reason to believe.
That's basic deism but I would disagree and say it does conflict with science. Science is evidence-based, if you claim something exists you must present evidence to support it. I can't just claim there's a 5-ton diamond in my backyard and say "trust me bro". Nobody would believe me, so why should anyone believe in any god without evidence?
A hypothesis requires no evidence. It’s then tested through repeatable controlled experiments. The events leading to the Big Bang have no evidence. If science can hypothesize, why can’t religion?
Have you read string theory? It’s no different than Spinoza’s god.
Correct
repeatable controlled experiments are only one aspect of evidence gathering to falsify a hypothesis. Here are a few other methods:
By combining these methods we can still falsify a hypothesis, thus allowing "science to happen".
Correct! There is no evidence for what lead to the big bang because we can't gather any data before it started. But we have mountains of evidence that all point to a "big bang" happening - down to a fraction of a second shortly after it started! [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] .
Science is willing to discard ideas that lack evidence or aren't falsifiable. Is religion ready to stop preaching because faith, by definition, is a lack of evidence?
The difference between string theory and Spinoza's god is the falsifiable part. String Theory, being a scientific theory, makes predictions that should be able to be tested through experiments (although testing will likely be a challenge much like Astrophysics and will instead depend on other scientific methods to gather evidence for/against it). Spinoza's God is a philosophical concept and not directly falsifiable through scientific methods. Spinoza's god is the equivalent of me claiming I'm friends with a telepathic unicorn from another dimension, both useless and irrelevant.
[1] Gravitational Waves: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-cosmic-discovery-could-be-closest-weve-come-beginning-time-180950109/
[2] Redshift: https://socratic.org/questions/how-does-a-redshift-give-evidence-to-the-big-bang-theory
[3] Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/cosmic-microwave-background-proves-big-bang/
[4] Abundance of Light Elements: https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_ele.html
[5] Expansion: https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_exp.html](https://www.space.com/52-the-expanding-universe-from-the-big-bang-to-today.html
[6] Olbers' Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27s_paradox
[7] Quasars Existence: https://www.astronomy.com/science/60-years-of-quasars/
[8] WMAP Survey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_Microwave_Anisotropy_Probe](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wilkinson-Microwave-Anisotropy-Probe
That just leaves you with the conclusion that "there is no current explanation" not that you can make whatever you want up.
Making up whatever you want is exactly how science works. It’s called a hypothesis. In science, that hypothesis is tested repeatedly. This is why science is best suited for repeatable phenomena.
In this case, neither science nor religion can test said hypothesis. Why is science correct but religion is not in this situation?
Because science doesn't assert all hypothesis are true
Who says god’s existence is proven? It’s called a belief for a reason. It’s no different than a hypothesis.
be·lief

noun
an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
"his belief in the value of hard work"
trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.
"I've still got belief in myself"
Which is completely different from a hypothesis, which is that something might be true and we should test it
Okay but here in the real world, those making the claim have the burden of proof.
This is a classic, literally text book example of the logical fallacy of ignorance.
Invisible unicorns exist, and because you can’t disprove it, we should build unicorn fences.
The logic doesn’t follow.
I don't disagree that religious people need to prove their beliefs. They are the ones making up insane stories that all contradict one another, and it is absolutely up to them to prove that there is a god, or miracles, or whatever.
Atheists on the other hand can say "look, there is no god... See?" That doesn't make them correct. More correct, maybe, as they aren't the ones making up the stories in the first place, but I'm fairly sure history and science have proven time and time again that humans know less than we think.
Very few atheists say this. The vast majority of us say we don't know one way or the other.
That's being agnostic, not atheist
Agnostic atheists and gnostic atheists are both atheists. Assuming all atheists are gnostic atheists is like assuming all Christians are Catholics.
Gnostic atheists are rare, and if you want evidence look at this thread.
This has become a misunderstanding of language and wording.
When I say agnostic, that includes "agnostic atheists". Does that clear things up?
I swear some people (i.e. self proclaimed "atheists") get offended at the thought that they might be associated with anyone religious by accepting the fact that their beliefs are, by definition, agnostic.
I'm tapping out of this thread, didn't come here to argue about English. Also, please don't take my last paragraph as an attack - it's a general observation.
No, this was your misunderstanding:
The language is irrelevant, you're claiming something that's just untrue for 99% of atheists. You going on to distinguish "agnostics" from "atheists" isn't the real issue.
The overwhelming majority of atheists are agnostic. Actually I cannot say I have ever once heard of a gnostic atheist, i.e. someone who would want to “prove no gods exist”. You (and afaict, all atheists) agree that that would be absurd, because for all we know some god is hiding under a rock somewhere. We can’t claim certainty until we’ve checked under every rock.
Agnostic atheism is where people generally land when they realize that none of the theists have found anything, either. Why believe in something prior to the point of there being any valid reason for the belief?
To further illustrate, do you believe in unicorns? No, right? Does that mean you say you can prove there aren’t any? Also no, right? Same situation with agnostic atheists.
Sorry if I’m over-explaining, it’s a commonly misunderstood topic
Really? They’re all over this thread citing the “burden of proof” argument and likening god to a unicorn.
Requiring someone to provide evidence to back up a claim is not the same as taking a position that the claim isn't true. This is the root component of the burden of proof and the stance many people have towards a god claim: they aren't convinced the god exists due to a lack of evidence provided by the person claiming the god does exist. Until there's actual evidence it's rational and reasonable to withhold judgement.
The unicorn (or other mythological beings) are used as a similar case to illustrate to a theist that they have the same kind of attitude towards the idea of a unicorn existing as an atheist does to any gods. They're both neat concepts, but without evidence showing they actually exist, they're nothing more than an idea for stories and art.
I’d respect that opinion if this were a post about debating the existence of god. This is a post asking religious people why they are religious. Atheists were not under attack, nor were any religious people asserting that others should believe their faith. Actively attempting to discredit the beliefs of another is just as self-righteous as attempting to convert without request.
This is the fundamental problem that Einstein had with the arrogance of atheists. As a self-identified agnostic, this is why he was offended when he was referred to as an atheist.
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2010/07/26/128769603/the-hidden-dimensions-of-science-vs-religion
Yes, really! I endorse Azimir’s explanation fully.
To potentially address some confusion:
If you said there are no gods, that would be a claim that requires proof. You would then have the burden of proving that there are no gods. Exceptionally difficult, as one could be hiding anywhere.
If you claim there is at least one god, then you have the burden of proving that.
Where would you land if you believed neither claim could be proven? Well, it turns out, you could actually be either an atheist or a theist! All we have learned so far is that you are agnostic.
This is where the story ends for the agnostic atheist. They have no reason to believe either claim, and therefore they do not believe there is at least one god, and therefore they are an atheist.
The agnostic theist however has additional work they must perform in order to become a theist from this position. They must believe in at least one god to be a theist, but they have no evidence that would compel such a belief. So they must take it on faith.
This leads to additional questions such as: is faith a good reason to believe in things? Can’t you use faith to believe in literally anything, thereby making it useless?
This is generally why the atheist is involuntarily forced to withhold belief. I phrase it that way because often people forget how beliefs work, they are compulsions. They can’t choose to look past these thoughts and believe in a god any more than you could choose to set aside your better judgement and believe, and I mean really believe, in unicorns.
I understand if you also can’t choose not to be offended by the unicorn comparison, btw. I didn’t like hearing it the first time when I was young and involved with the church. It made me think “surely that’s a step too far, and these two concepts are incomparable. Billions of people worship, they can’t all be that wrong”. It inspired me to go look and see what all of my fellow religious people had to offer in that regard. And to be honest, I still love hearing from them, but the truth is so far nobody has any evidence whatsoever. Most religious people themselves will even admit that. So it really does just come down to faith in the end.
By definition, science has proven nothing. There are only supported and unsupported theories. Yet you believe in science, but expect religion to have proof.
I’m unconvinced by your claim that science and religion are the same. Can you prove that?
That is not my claim. I’m stating that the scientific method is not a proof. There are only supported and unsupported theories. Science is best suited for testing a hypothesis of repeatable phenomena. An untested theory is no different than religion.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200811/common-misconceptions-about-science-i-scientific-proof
Interference-based creation can be considered a hypothesis. It is a theory that a supreme being or entity created and set the masses in motion that caused the Big Bang. Science also has unsupported theories about creation prior to the Big Bang.
My point is that a truly scientific person would accept all possible theories, no matter how improbable, until data is provided to believe otherwise.
Sure, and so as an atheist and an otherwise “scientific person”, I do accept that god is a valid hypothesis. And I will remain an atheist until any evidence pops up to support that hypothesis.
At some point I think you may have gotten confused by terminology. It is indeed similar to various other scientific ideas, which are believed only after being tested. You do not accept every hypothesis as being the truth until proven otherwise. That is the essential difference between conducting science and exercising one’s imagination.
I agree with you. For what it’s worth, so did Einstein.
Source?
He very clearly spoke against organized religion and dogma. However, he maintained that he himself was agnostic. He labeled atheists to be just as arrogant as religious zealots for their absolutist views.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/04/physicist-albert-einstein-god-letter-reflecting-on-religion-up-for-auction-christies
He took offense to being labeled as an atheist. Not because of his Jewish roots, but because he believed that there was a possibility of a divine creator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein#:~:text=We%20have%20to%20admire%20in,is%20that%20of%20an%20agnostic.
Ah okay, we’re on the same page now - you were referring to their last bit, not necessarily the first when speaking of Einstein. That lines up with what I knew about his beliefs
Ignorance and indoctrination. Especially back then people that don't understand science needed an excuse of why certain things worked that way in the world. Is easier to say that everything happens thanks to a big guy above us.
For me its a combination of learning it since childhood and experiencing minor things that i can't explain differently.
For example once i had a thought in my mind that i should go home that evening when i see the clouds. Later at the bbq i remembered that and looked into the sky and saw some clouds in the distance and just knew that these were the clouds. But it didn't looked like it should rain, and the weather forecast was also clear. So i stayed. Later when i went to the train, a huge number of people from a heavy metal concert that just finished came, and enough people wanted to take the last train that day that some didn't make it inside. If i had gone home when i saw the clouds, i wouldn't have been in that overcrowded train.
Also for me my faith looks consistent internally and with other stuff that i see.
You can't explain a decision having negative consequences without God?
This is one time i know God was involved. Other times things i did had negative consequences just because they were objectively bad decisions from me.
This is a young person's question.
Ah yes, how childish of OP to wonder why the majority of English speaking countries believe in answers to life's greatest questions with little to no evidence. What a naive little question, that one.
You misunderstand. Older people have lost parents, siblings, friends. They don't have to wonder about this question anymore because they've decided.
To each their own, but personally that sounds like a bad reason to stop pursuing life's greatest questions. Plenty of my family has passed away, but that doesn't make faith seem like a reliable pathway to truth.
I'd love to believe they're in an eternal paradise, but I'd also love to believe my next paycheck will be $1,000,000. The time to believe I'm a millionaire is when I have evidence for it, not when I'd be heartbroken otherwise.
Why isn't it possible for a creator to exist?
Because there is no downside. I mean, the only thing that atheist think is appealing is that they can reason themselves out of religion. What makes you think that 'reasoning yourself out of religion' is attractive, desirable or a worthy goal? It just isn't. It leads to existential crisis in most if not all cases. And then atheist take pride in surviving that crisis. Which, sure, admirable... But attractive? Of course not.
You can be religious and do anything in the world. Literally. I know that atheist love to focus on dumb fucks and literalists, and on how religions are being abused. But the truth is that religion is deeply personal and peoples relation with religion is completely their own. It's extremely simple to pick and choose from the myriad of options within religion. Most religious people are not literalists.
And then you get connection with people, see them regularly, participate in rituals, celebration days, rules for engagement with life.
Plus, don't forget, an extremely old and mystic piece of human history. The attempts of people to live in a world that has a God. Their struggles, their victories. In essence a reflection on the human condition. And you get to be part of that. Atheist are often too fast to explain religion as a sort of 'failed science', while it's absolutely not. And of course if you can't figure that out you're going to ask why people want to believe in something like that.
There will never be a rational reason for the human condition. Religion will never ever not be part of humanity. As the only way in which the human condition can be contextualised is in a world that is created, and religions are the keepers of that knowledge.
Since here the answers are split between edgy kids and people repeating a bland, stale narrative about comfort and fear of death, I will try to bring a different perspective.
For context: I grew up in a Catholic country but in a very secular family and in a very secular region. I've had an edgy atheist phase that lasted between 8yo and probably around 30yo.
I studied a STEM discipline and have always been surrounded by mostly atheist or agnostic people.
I was afraid of death up until I was 27/28yo, but the cope was gnostic transhumanism, not Abrahamitic religions. At some point I took acid, my gf at the time told me I was going to die, I cried my eyes out for a few minutes and then I was fine and I'm still fine. I had a near-death experience in the hospital that further consolidated the idea that I'm going to die, and it's chill: if you're sick, you have a bunch of people looking after you, everybody gives you attention, you spend all your day chilling in bed on drugs. Dream
lifedeath.I was still agnostic at that point. I started approaching spirituality later on, not much because of an emotional need, but because further studies both in STEM disciplines and Philosophy highlighted the limit of reason to explain and understand the world. Reason is a tool among others, with its limits. Limits that can be reasoned about using reason itself. You cannot investigate or explain what lies outside though, let alone change it, something for which you need different tools: faith, spirituality, trust. I got closer to what Erik Davis calls "Cyborg Spiritualism", but it doesn't mean much since it's not an organized movement, but more of a shared intuition and meaning-making process to which, in the last 60 years, more and more people arrived. Especially people dealing with disciplines like system theory, cybernetics, system design, and information theory, but also people disillusioned with the New Age movement or other Western Gnostic practices. Mixed in it there's plenty of animism.
Atheists believe that all religions are about speaking to God, and hoping for an answer, while many religions are about listening to God because they are already talking to us all the time.
The origins of the universe have still not being scientifically explained.
Cargo cult atheism has gotten to the point where people now confidently believe we have evidence of things which we do not.
Atheists religiously repeating the word "science" long enough that they trick themselves into believing they have explained the origins of the universe. And thus there is no reason for anyone to believe in God.
Certainly science has achieved a lot. However we are no closer to explaining the origins of the universe as before. As the origin has not been explained why is everyone somehow so confident in the falsehood of a creator?
Agnosticism (not being sure about a creator) is totally fine. However Atheists have a weird obsession about being absolutely certain of something they cannot prove an their alternative for. Atheism runs on pure faith that "science will figure it out in the future". It is a religion in itself.
The "largest minds" of Atheism are all too often based on pure emotion. As we find with Richard Dawkins, the man so smart that he can explain the universe away... and also believes Israel is not committing Genocide in Gaza.
https://raseef22.net/english/article/1095904-et-tu-dawkins-you-refuse-religion-but-support-israel
Atheism is certainty of the nonexistence of a creator.
As clearly demonstrated in this thread by people certain of their atheism so much you would be hard pressed to find a religious person so arrogant in their beliefs.
This is wrong. The only thing required to be an atheist is lacking a belief in theistic claims. You don't need to make the claim that God doesn't exist, and most atheists don't.
The only thing we're certain of (not absolutely, but fairly certain) is that theists haven't met their burden of proof.
That's called Agnosticism.
Atheism means you are certain that god does not exist.
You highlighted the A without any understanding of what the prefix a- means. It means not, or without.
I'm not a theist because they haven't convinced me of any theistic claims. I don't claim no gods exist. I just don't know of any gods that exist, therefore I am without theism. A-theism.
You are free to correct a person in a conversation if you feel so inclined.
Pick up a Quran, read a chapter a day. You will have answers to questions you didn't even think to come up with.
Like how women are basically men slaves for some
Definitely pickup a Quran and read it. It'll correct your error(s).
Like if pedos are accepted in your religion?
Define pedos.
If both parties achieved mental and physical maturity then what's wrong.
Ask your grandmother at what she - or people her age - married at.
This is likely to get downvoted, I say this because mentioning downvotes in your posts/comments usually prevents them from being downvoted (a little psychological thing probably)
I remember SouthPark doing an episode about that exact viewpoint
Then let's talk facts and logic, why is an older person marrying a younger person bad? because you're an educated Atheist/Agnostic (I guess), you must've questioned what you were taught at childhood, unlike those brainwashed and spoon fed Christians.
"Minimum age of marriage", who came up with concept? it surely isn't common sense since it only appeared less than a century ago, so what is it? Some may say that young marriage is a mere relic of the ancients, a result of their underdeveloped logic and science, and that our advanced logic is better and is infallible.
But wait, your people, just mere a century ago saw people 2 centuries a ago the exact same way, and so did those before them, so using our logic, we can deduct that our logic is illogical.
How about statistical data we can speculate, a mere century ago, how did the world look like? there was certainly very little employees, even Christians believed in their book, Javascript did not exist (alhamdulillah), young people were treated as adults, and people older than Israel who to this day live under bombing by your morally superior society were being born; How does something like the depression rate among their youth compare to today? It is reportedly much lower, so how did your generation fail? Surely with all that development of medicine and the like, your people should "logically" be much happier. Are you really strictly superior to the ancients?
"But statistics back then were biased and limited", I see your point, unlike the "infallible" statistics of today, those statistics were surely awful, so let's move to broader ideas.
At childhood, you were spoon fed many ideas, like "Slavery is unacceptable", "The old marrying the young is awful", and "Humans evolved from monkeys". By using the fact that our logic is illogical, we can conclude that these aren't concrete facts. How is slavery involved with almost every product in the average American household? how did the ancients grow up to be healthy adults? Again, ask your grandmother. How is there not, to this day, concrete evidence of humans evolving from anything but slightly taller humans?
How is slavery unacceptable in your eyes, yet you can't live without it? Is the average McDonalds worker treated better that how Islam treats slaves?
How did the ancients grow up to be healthy individuals? Is insisting that you're much better than the ancients truly your way of avoiding depression?
Why is anything that goes against the theory of someone named Darwin, of whose book you know nothing, and whose theory's shortcomings you are ignoring, and whose teachings you were fed in school, and whose ways you never questioned, mere ancient fables?
But there stands, the teachings of Islam, Allah's divine revelation to us, it never failed, for 14 centuries it stood unchanged, yet who reads it could never tell, that this book wasn't written by a scholar of today, how could it so accurately describe today? how did our caliphate, only a mere century from today, stand strong? How didn't we truly fail, until we forgot the words and called it a day?
//////////end
I got a little peotic at the end.
You guys just look at Christians and decide that religion is dumb.
I thought of finishing with some miracles like the 360 joints, the beating of alcoholics and adulterers, and camel milk+urine, but the
articlesouth_park_remarkreply got too long.I realize these miracles can be individually dismissed, it is not their individual traits that will persuade, it is their collected wight. It is the fact that the prophet, peace be upon him, never claimed anything that is wrong, unlike scientists of a mere decade ago, and that his medicines did nothing but heal, unlike scientists of a mere decade ago.
I look at religion and decided it's silly...wish you'd stop putting words in my mouth. And you can stop defending slavery/pedophilia or whatever, I'm not having that convo with you troll
Here's the problem with English: I can not use the word "you", and still have people know whether I am talking to them, or to people like them in general. Some of my "you"s were plural, some were singular. I need some way of coping with this language.
You replied to only 1 paragraph of mine, and decided I am a troll just for
suggestingpushing that slavery/"pedophilia" might not be bad, unlike what you were taught.Here's an article I remembered, it's written by a Christian:
Edit: no, actually, English isn't the problem, since I appended "guys" to my statement about looking at religion and deciding it's silly, you should know that I wasn't talking about you personally.
I think the biggest flaw is assuming you're among the atheist/agnostic crowd, but even then, I appended that claim with "(I guess)" to indicate that I am indeed putting words in someone's mouth. Maybe you're among the Christian crowd, or maybe you're a...
ZionistJew? Hindu?For any passing people, the original reply isn't edited, so I am safe from that side of accusations.
I see, English isn't your first language. You made (and continue to make) false assumptions. The media has had no influence on my viewpoints on religion (Christianity in particular), my personal experiences are more than sufficient. My first comment was based on Mohammeds youngest wife and how it's accepted/ignored by Muslims. We have (somewhat?) similar action in the US, there was a republican GOP member in New Hampshire that was pushing to keep legal marriage set at 16 rather than 18, described the 16 year-olds as "ripe"...super creepy
It's still not too late for you.
Been religious since I was born, still makes sense to me.
I thought the edgy athiests stayed on reddit, sad to know y’all are here too.
It isn't really about edginess. People tend to continue believing in whatever religious preference (or none) they have unless something convinces them otherwise in whatever direction.
To an atheist's point of view, it legitimately doesn't make sense why someone would be religious when what they see is nonsense. It is a genuine confusion and not necessarily meant to be rude.
This isn't just an atheist thing that happens, religious people can often not understand why someone would ever choose anything other than their religion. It doesn't make sense to them either.
Sure, but most answers here boil down to “they’re not as smart as le enlightened atheist”
There is a common circle jerk for sure. Humans gonna human, it happens everywhere. However the question was honest if a bit rude sounding.
The question is completely okay, that’s why I answered it. The second part is only about other comments.
Then study theology and prove them wrong.
No, thank you. Not here to prove anything to anyone.
Don’t let the atheists win.
I suppose it's better than following a standard of evidence that enables homophobes/transphobes, and opens the door to preachers feeding their politics to you.