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.
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
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.
They are taught about it from childhood
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 find this a seemingly straight-forward point I’ve never gotten a religious person to acknowledge.
because they don’t see it that way, they have their own understanding of free will, religion sells itself as test ( for the most part ), if you pass the test ( temptation or whatever you wanna call it ) you’re qualified to enter heaven, so in a way even if you’re born christian or a Muslim you still going to get tested, so in their view it doesn’t change anything, but from our perspective, it changes everything because we bet that if their parents didn’t make them that way, they would never go that route on their own…
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.
That’s why we must address the root cause of all this, which is religion, in Islam for example “Prophet” Mohammed piss be upon him, said
“Every child is born in a state of fitrah, then his parents make him into a Jew or a Christian or a Magian.” (Agreed upon)
As you can see, Mohammed doesn’t apply his own observation on his beliefs and because people glorify him, they will never dare to question his reasoning, which is also their own reasoning now…
You can tell a religious person to criticise everything and everyone, and they can, tell them to redirect their critism to their own belief, and suddenly they’ll become intellectually handicapped
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.
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.
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.
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.
Indoctrination at a young age.
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.
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 to say “Humans aren’t rational creatures, humans are rationalizing creatures.”
We can rationalize nearly anything and justify it, in our own minds.
I believe in a lot of human concepts, …
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?
I like this explanation most
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.
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.
I feel the same way when I think about how when ever you get a whole bunch bunch of stuff together in one spot, it frickin warps time and space and that’s why I’m standing and not floating.
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.
Hard disagree. Religion has a measurable impact on people voting against the rights of minorities, and it deserves every bit of scrutiny it has coming its way.
It’s not like Bigfoot or flat earth. This shit is having serious consequences for others, physically and mentally.
Religion itself? Or man using religious dogma to justify the uglier natures of their internal belief systems and cherry-picking religious quotes to shoehorn their false righteousness into moral discussion? Religion is a powerful tool and it can be used to drum up donations for an orphanage, or leveraged and wielded by people who aren’t seeking to enlighten themselves at all apart from learning how to use religion to control people.
Both. Texts like the Bible tell you how to conduct slavery, endorses violence against men who have gay sex, and in no uncertain terms (and in many different ways) tells you women are worth a fraction of men and shouldn’t be trusted to preach.
Yet there are things that aren’t endorsed in the Bible are far too commonly preached by Christians. Like being against trans people, opposing abortion rights (in fact the Bible tells you how to induce an abortion and that you should do it if your wife cheats on you)… and like you said, some drum up donations for the express purpose of leveraging control over others, or to buy private jets, in spite of the life Jesus led and in spite of his teachings.
I agree with you. Using religion to manipulate people for political reasons is not really a religion problem. If you eradicate religion, there are many other levers to pull. In fact, manipulating religious groups these days also requires using these other weaknesses against people and then convincing them to ignore the conflict with their religious teachings.
Ahh yes, agreed. Like prosperity Jesus wanting you to be wealthy despite saying in the Bible “it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Or a year round favorite: “Love thy neighbor” (unless they’re people we don’t like, such as LGBT, immigrants, liberals etc. )
Let’s say we agree.
Do you find this post more scientific or more religious?
Because I will agree with you if we can agree that the position being taken here is driven by treating science as a religion ( one they poorly understand ).
The question itself isn’t scientific or religious. And nobody in this thread is conducting science, but the majority of us here definitely trust the scientific method over faith.
That’s not to say we take scientific claims as gospel like theists do with theistic claims. Science is about updating our understanding as new evidence is presented. Religion is about being handed the truth.
On point, additionally religion has also effectively associated itself with spirituality. It’s also associated itself with caring for others, volunteering, community, togetherness and acceptance. Additionally it’s a great place to network and organize communities. Even if belief has faded, tradition is usually important with that group of people.
It’s only recently in the past century or so that serious spirituality in our culture has been able to detach itself from religion, sometimes forming new ones
It’s also a great path to getting people to do what you want. I was already an atheist when my father and I had a philosophical discussion regarding religion when I was an adolescent. He brought up this point early in the discussion. I only need to look around at all the bullshit laws getting passed that religious zealots vote for against their own interest to confirm that this is true.
The Southern Baptist Church just had their annual conference and decided that their position on Invitro Fertilization is against the procedure. How does that help anyone? It doesn’t.
It is just as easy to point to the ideas of the extreme members of the “new atheist” movement as evidence that they are a dangerous cult.
Using the Southern Baptist Church as your example of religion is not a very good argument. Implying that atheists are somehow more rational as a group is not really a great argument either.
By the way, I am an atheist. I do no consider my beliefs to be unassailable scientific conclusions though. I recognize that many of my beliefs and preferences lack the robust rational foundation I would like them to. I doubt I am the pinnacle of morality or ethics ( more than doubt - but I am not looking to trash my own reputation here ).
Voting against your own interests or scapegoating others for what you see as damage against yourself or even just plain old hate do not require religion. Humans have lots of ways at arriving at those and being manipulated into them.
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.
Add to that the fact that there are people who use this fact, and try and control people using religion for personal gain.
I agree. At the root of it, people want to feel safe. This is a fundamental need. Religion does this for them because they don’t need to make decisions and they’re promised that if they follow it they will indeed be kept safe. Also spiritual bypass is awesome.
Having been raised in a religious household and having escaped it later in life to become an engineer/science nerd, while being ostracized by my, incredibly, incredibly disappointing parents because they refuse to learn new things or acknowledge scientific studies that conflict with their religious views:
This answer is unequivocally, absolutely, a 100% correct take on humanity and their need for the “simplistic” and incorrect answers religion gives about the world around them.
One popular answer is that sometimes people just experience things that they find scientific answers to not be able to answer adequately. We as a species are still far from knowing everything.
aka “God of the Gaps”
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.
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 don’t find it surprising given that the vast majority of people don’t research the claims that other people make. For example, during the GameStop short squeeze, people came to the conclusion that corruption or collusion was at play, when in reality it wasn’t for the most part.
People would rather listen to a guy who says something confidently than a guy who says “I don’t know.” The former gets to spread their word, and the latter gets ignored.
Yeah, we seem to just be gullible on average, when it comes to certain things.
I believe it started with a sense of security. Don’t worry, there’s a reason and someone is in control of this shit show. Feels better than we’re on this crazy freight train called life that is almost completely out of control, no one knows where we’re going, no one knows how we’re going to get there, and we basically have no control over any of it.
Oh someone is in control don’t worry about that!
That’s just the Catholics. We’re talking about all religions.
If this is referring to Buddhism, I believe that’s considered a philosophy and not a religion. I think you need a god for it to be a religion.
Or both, idk it’s all up for interpretation? Just looked it up and “they” can’t agree. 🤷♂️
There’s a degree of just feeling viscerally like the supernatural is around us, too. Not everyone has that, but some people certainly do. Then yeah, we also want to answers the big questions in a satisfying, even comforting way. Particularly modern monotheism has a deep component of offering a way the world is fair, actually, despite all appearances.
It looks like religion is a thing that started with modern humans, just based on archeological finds, but I don’t know why or if it was adaptive. Some scholars will talk about the beginning of religious finds as a beginning of abstract thought, but it seems to me that even a damn dog can make a creative guess about how the world works, so that’s not it.
but it seems to me that even a damn dog can make a creative guess about how the world works
…it can?
I mean, depending on how profound you need it to be. I had my dog jump into a neighbor’s car once. Clearly, he figured a different one would take him fun places if the usual one did, generalising the concept.
In my view, there are two components to “religion”.
1 - it typically starts with an attempt to explain why and how things are
2 - it becomes a human administration - this becomes more about politics than “religion”
Most of the problems with religion stem from the second part. I see the politics as the far bigger problem there. So people that want to create political movements around “science” are absolutely no better in my view.
If you read the question being asked in this thread critically, do you find it a scientific question? A political one?
Human politics are always going to be human politics. Religion is usually just an excuse to do what everyone wanted to do anyway. Science is what happens when you inquire about how why and how things are honestly and thoroughly, though, so I don’t think the former is harmless.
If you read the question being asked in this thread critically, do you find it a scientific question? A political one?
Probably political, or at least personally motivated. I suppose it’s possible OP genuinely has no ideas, but I think that’s unlikely. I still stand by my answer.
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).
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.
The funny thing is that people believe very specific things about gods, like that there’s only one, or that they’re nice or at least have similar values to us.
Or give a shit at All about you …that one’s hilarious.
Vast incalculable cosmos to rule but God gives a shit about an ant? Ok buddy. U just want my $10 for this week’s plate
Or literally look like a specifically male human. What he does with those two legs when he already exists everywhere, nobody knows. It’s not just the Abrahamic religions either, all the myths of the world have a bit of anthropocentrism to them. That was excusable when we had no better ideas.
My favorite interpretation of that was in Mage: The Ascension. Man being “in God’s image” wasn’t morphological, it was in man’s ability to reshape reality to his whims.
On the subject of fiction, I was thinking about H.P Lovecraft when I wrote this. His whole thing was making a mythology that’s not anthropocentric, and incorporates that character of vast incomprehensibility that our modern science has.
Spoken like a scientist. I doubt that is the answer they were looking for.
