Why in the year 2024 and with all the knowledge humans have now do people still believe in religion?
Why in the year 2024 and with all the knowledge humans have now do people still believe in religion?
Because religion provides comfort, community and a meaning to people's existence that goes beyond "we were born of chance on an insignificant rock somewhere in the universe".
(I'm not religious BTW)
Existence is meaningless and we just wobble around here for a little while and then we die. There's nothing to it. Everything that happens is just a logical consequence; beauty is nothing but a tiny chemical reaction in your brain. Once you rot it's all worthless.
Science is great at giving explanations, but not so good at providing meaning. For a lot of people, meaning is probably more helpful in order to facilitate a happy life.
Nietzsche writes at length about this stuff, most famously in the anecdote about the madman coming down from the mountain to inform the villagers that God is dead and that we have killed him. Everybody knows the three words "God is dead", but I think it's worth reading at length:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Nietzsche, whose father was a priest, recognizes that "God has become unbelievable", but he does not celebrate it as the progress of science. Rather, we lost something that was fundamentally important to humans, and which science cannot easily replace.
Here one could start talking about the Free Masons, who attempted learning from religious rituals without the added layer of religion. Or one could dig deeper into the works of Nietzsche, and the contrast between Apollonian and Dionysian. It's all fascinating stuff.
In short though, spirituality used to offer people a sense of meaning that is not so easily replaced by science alone. How do we bury our dead now that we know our rituals are pointless?
Very well written, and insightful. Thanks for sharing this perspective in the discussion as I personally found it very valuable. You articulated my own perspective on this much better than I could have, and gave some great philosophical background to boot. 10/10 👍
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."-Voltaire
Says the man who rigged the lottery. We don't need god anymore than we need cancer
Thank you for your insightful perspective.
Childhood indoctrination is a big part of it. I have been told by my 8-year old niece that she'd like to save me from drowning in a lake of fire. She was genuinely scared for me. It's literal child abuse followed by Stockholm syndrome.
That part.
When I was about the age of 12, I had a new friend who asked me if I believed in God. I said no, and then she told me I was going to burn in hell. That was my first introduction to religion.
I don't remember ever speaking with her again, but I still remember that interaction crystal clear and where it happened 20+ years later.
Your young niece sounds a lot like my elderly family. They're conscious that they "just can't let go" despite being very progressive and open to new ideas and they're aware of that.
Have you heard of the fireplace delusion? Burning wood is horrible for our health and the environment, but most of us have fond memories of sitting by a fire. Religion is the same. Holiday traditions with family, organized events marking important life events, it’s hard to break away.
Great perspective
Belief is social. If you're surrounded by people that all believe a thing, you're more likely to also believe. If challenged on something that threatens group membership, your brain reacts like it's a physical threat. Group membership is that important. Facts matter far less.
This happens to everyone.
I think a big part of the mental blocked on both sides is people generally not understanding the difference between fact and faith.
Knowledge is about fact. It's the realm of science, empiricism, and logic. If it can be understood and known, it belongs here.
Faith is about the unknowable (not the unknown). It's a choice to believe something without evidence because that evidence cannot exist.
You can't both believe something and know it.
Understanding that faith and science don't intersect allows people to hold spiritual beliefs without rejecting knowledge and science. They don't conflict because they're entirely separate.
Some people aren't wired with the mental flexibility to embrace both spiritually and empiricism. Some reject science, while others reject faith, and neither understand the other.
Great synopsis.
One thing atheists often ignore is that being part of a religion means being part of a community, a group. That alone is reason enough for many people to stick with it.
Sure, the preacher/priest/whatever may be a scammer asshole, but this isn't about him, it's about me and the people around me. I belong in here and so do these people.
Remember, humans are social creatures. Being part of a group is a big fucking deal.
Another thing I've been giving some thought, religion can be a "lazy shortcut" for the brain to acknowledge some stuff without having to spend too much energy thinking about it. It's a lot easier to wrap your head around "Because God wants it" than digging deep into the hows and whys of anything. No, it's not scientific in the least, but humans are lazy. I am lazy, you are lazy, everyone here is lazy, we just opt to save energy in different things.
I've known atheists who go to church for the community. I'm an atheist, and I have recommended going to a nondenominational church to other atheists who had said they really lacked community support.
Of course, sometimes religious community systems can actually be very hostile and nonsupportive and downright exploitative. Really just depends on the specific church community. Just like there are some great people and some major assholes out there. Churches are no different.
Wonder why atheists often do not value the communal aspect of a community they are often excluded from. It is almost as if they do not value not being included in the group? Also, lazy shortcuts often lead to bad outcomes. Being wary about that is a good thing, in my opinion.
Hey, who are you calling lazy. I,m not lazy, I just choose to do nothing at all. ;)
Religion has certain self-reinforcing properties. Kind of like genes that make it more likely to propagate against other forms of information.
- Believing without question is better than questioning
- Not believing will be punished
- Virtue will be rewarded
- Spreading the belief is a virtue
- You should obey your parents
Combine that with young human brains being malleable, and religion tends to continue against all odds.
Also, depending on the sect, you may burn in eternal, unquenchable fire in utter darkness if you don't accept it, so...
You're right and I think it helps to remember certain traits which make religion "fit" from an evolutionary perspective can be beneficial to its followers: believing that the most powerful being in the universe is on your side instills confidence and a sense of well-being. Having community members who believe that God has mandated they should help each other means people may receive assistance when they experience difficulty.
I would argue in the long term having beliefs which are more and more consistent with observed reality is more sustainable. The further your beliefs are from reality and the longer they're held the more likely something will go wrong. Still, if we (whoever that is) want to encourage people to move away from religion we should think about how we can replace the positive aspects of the religious experience.
Grooming from a young, impressionable age
What's "wrong" in your question is the assumption that a) the only reason religions exist is the lack of knowledge and b) that the knowledge we have answers all the questions that people seek answers to when they turn to religion. I think if you question these assumptions then you'll easily start to find the answers. Otherwise see all the other comments.
Religion works on emotions, which are easy. Knowledge works on thinking, which is hard.
Because humans are animals, ruled by emotion and superstition.
Because recent AI and cloud development proves that genesis was right, god trained multi model transformer neutral network to simulate earth in 6 days on the cloud. God (the lead developer and co-owner of company) created earth branch and he was working in agile environment because the tasks are clearly explained in the genesis book sprint with day numbers so everything was estimated during planning.
At the end of sprint god deployed earth to development environment to test if everything works ok so he can continue with his changes next week. Adam and Eve were naked subprocesses without firewall and edge case errors but it was fine because whole thing was just a draft PR and god wanted to see what happens during weekend.
When god went home for weekend from now on everything got fucked up, eden was unstable and satan junior developer and son of co-owner uncle was on hot call during weekend. On Sunday satan was having barbecue and got a call that he need to redeploy eden. He was so drunk that not only he deployed god's branch to production but also he merged this branch into main tree. Unfortunately the Snake was online that day, he broke into eden and changed all the code on main branch introducing many errors and exploits, stole all the data from gods company.
When god got back on monday he god fucking mad. He said fuck you satan from now on you will be working on earth alone despite you don't know programming at all I can't fire you because me and your uncle are best friends. What I will do I will push main with earth into dev and let you fix it and I will rollback eden to where it was. Untill all the bugs from earth branch are resolved don't fucking dare to make a single voice about merging earth into production branch.
So here we are satan knows nothing about programming so he causes more evil than good to this day. Couple thousands earth years later god's kid went into intership for couple of months and tried to fix earth branch but fucking exploits grow so big they manipulated humans and killed his fix patch, now we wait until he finish his masters and come back to fix all the bugs.
Once per day god runs Holy Spirit CI/CD that automatically merges eden into earth and validates if earth passes all eden unit tests if it's not it rolls back and marks all people that pass the tests on green and all those are not to red. That fucking simple because dev development cloud have unlimited computing power.
Recent studies in AI shows that merge with eden will happen sooner than later despite all the errors because Jesus said that when he will be back all dead will come back to life and now you need only couple pictures, couple seconds of voice and chat history to clone anyone and deploy this person to cloud (see AI Girlfriend) without their constent. Probably what will happend is that all the people will be put in freeze ( there was test freeze during covid - no get out from home rule) so all of us can be patched when we are in front of computers. So we're waiting for those patches and we can go back to eden.
If you don't believe me go work as a developer for a year
Yeah, but who is Satan's uncle?
Tim.
Indoctrination! 😁
The only inheritance for many, the poorest Americans especially.
People are stupid, scared and ignorant. Tradition and the thought that all this chaos has some kind of meaning behind it bring them comfort.
I actually got more religious before I accepted I was trans. When faced with a harsh reality people can become more religious.
Luckily it looks like the internet and access to information is killing religion in the new generations before it takes root.
You hit the nail on the head. A lot of people are just scared by the chaos and meaninglessness of life and death. It is terrifying to know that everyone you know and love is going to die and be forgotten, eventually, including yourself. Everything that has meaning to you has an expiration date, and a lot of people have trouble accepting that. So they hold on to illogical fairy tales of eternal life in paradise to deal with the existential dread.
Paul
John
Ptolemy
Basil
Gregory
Francis
Aquinas
Calvin
Augustine
Ockham
Milton
Kierkegaard
Tutu
Lewis
Luther
Yes, you are far wiser than these stupid, scared, and ignorant people.
You can be smart and wise and also delusional. Actually if the delusion is deep having a good brain can work against you.
Religions are sort of like mind viruses. The ones that have survived have done so because they are very good at taking root and multiplying in the human mind. Sort of a natural selection of ideas. They develop the necessary features like a way to ignore contrary evidence and severe consequences for not believing
Richard Dawkins coined a word for exactly that - a meme.
This is such a complicated question because it gets into the origins of religion and belief systems in general, but also power and class struggles, economics, social psychology and propaganda, and more.
Lots of people haven't been properly educated Lots of people have been indoctrinated Lots of people have a reason to exploit the beliefs of others Lots of people value comfort and community above scientific accuracy or consistency
Can you refine your question a bit?
Do millions just want to ignore science?
It's not about what an individual could know, it's about what they do know and how structured is a person's thinking.
So just because out there somewhere there are tons of explanations for tons of things doesn't mean people actually know them (lots if not most is quite obscure or requires understanding of a lot of other things first before you can trully understand those things) plus people have to think in very structure ways to spot gaps or flaws in what they thing they know and go look for better info.
And this is just the Logic level problem.
The Emotional level stuff is way more important. Religion:
- provides easy non-scary explanations for tons of things which can be terrifying to accept as just random (Massive Earthquake, killing hundreds of thousands: "It's the will of Deity" is a calming explanation which implies "someDeity" has control)
- provides hope for one's and one's loved one's future (Granny died: "She's gone to Heaven!")
- makes the World seem so much simpler and hence understandeable for anybody by explaining away all complexity (All those lights in the night-sky: "There was a fight between the SunGod and the MoonGod during which his rays pierced the black veil that surrounds us").
- for those born into it, it's just familiar and "the way people think".
And last but not least, Religion is a ready made tribe, generally mutually supporting, so it satisfies people's lowest tribalist instincts and provides concrete benefits from being part of a social circle from which you can get help.
This also explains why supposedly Religious people are selective in what they believe from their religion (notice how almost none of Christians take to hearth the whole point of Christ casting out the Money Lenders from the Temple), why they don't actually know all that much detail about their own Religion (if they don't think in a way that helps them spot what they do not know, that gets reflected on not looking for more info both outside and inside religion) and why it's so easy to manipulate people with religion (if the complexity of the world is explained as "blady, blady, blah, Deity", those trusted to understand the Deity can make sure pretty much all complex things get reasoned as "Deity wills it so because my bullshit reason" - plus remember, religious types are the non-structured non-skeptic thinkers).
Eh..it's easier than that. You know what you're told growing up.
Kids who are abused think that's normal. Kids who are abused with religion also think that's normal.Kind of like how your dad's fav sports team is your fav too cuz reasons. If your dad was Muslim you probably will be too.
What part of "all the knowledge humans have" irrefutably proves that god does not exist? Just because you think our limited knowledge of the universe implies the inexistence of the god, doesn't mean it is the absolute truth or everyone should be coming to the same conclusion as you.
What part of “all the knowledge humans have” irrefutably proves that god does not exist?
The burden of proof lies solely on the ones making the claim that god DOES exist.
Has there ever been irrefutable evidence, provided by any of the religious leaders over the last many thousands of years, which proves that god exists?
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of Russell’s Teapot. If someone claims there is a teapot floating in space, cool, they need to prove its existence and the rest of us can go around as if one doesn’t exist. If someone claims there isn’t a teapot floating in space, now the burden of proof is on them. We can quickly exercise some critical thinking and realize that, while there might be a teapot in space someone brought with them and left, it’s not going to be beyond the asteroid belt.
Now do every belief system with empirical evidence. You can’t, primarily because belief in the logic used to prove that empirical evidence is the best evidence is itself a belief system. Changing any one of the axioms that underpin your methodology completely changes the methodology (eg parallel lines meet at infinity turns geometry into hyperbolic geometry). Furthermore, we can extend Gödel's incompleteness theorems to any formal system, like you’re attempting to employ, and show that they can’t prove themselves.
In other words, we must take things on faith if we want to use logic and pull out statement related to logic like “burden of proof is on the positive.” You can believe whatever the fuck you want; you just can’t prove it and, in most metaphysical cases, you can’t disprove it either.
No one is trying to make you or anyone else believe, they are just believing and doing their own thing therefore no need to prove anything considering both parties are approaching respectfully to eachother. OP was asking why people haven't dropped religion. Since there is no proof of inexistence of the god, there is also no reason for people in 2024 to stop believing.
Religion has never been about god. Religion is about control and unlike more intelligent mechanisms we created to assign positions of power, religion (by design) assigns power to the worst kind of scum.
So proof of non existence of god is not required to wonder why species calling itself intelligent still believes in vile shit that historically and factually demonstrated itself to cause nothing but grief, suffering and incessant delays to progress.
Alright cool, lets assume religion is ALL about control, all the religious people are being controlled by "religious" people in power. Without the existence of the god (or a similar omnipotent being) how are they going to control the people? Its always about so called god's will and providence.
There is no way any sort of control is going to stay if the inexistence of god is irrefutably proven. Saying religion not being about god is comical at best.
Existence is pain. Religion is one of many ways to relieve it.
Then why religious people are so stressed about causing other people pain?
They aren't in my experience. They are stressed about increasing cognitive dissonance.
Im not religious, not in the sense that i follow any particular religion.
But it seems to me, analyzing the history of humanity across multiple cultures, that we humans have fundamentally a "spiritual need", a need to believe into something that is bigger than us, that lies on a superior level of existence.
Call it buddhism, christianity or whatever, but it seems like we need to believe in something like that.
To an extent, i believe it has to do with us being moral animals and having a natural need for justice. We want to believe that justice exists in this world and a religion and its rules is a way to a just world. Because bad people go to hell, or are victims of karma.
So to answer your question. I think we want the world to be fair, because we are moral animals. And believing in religion is a way to believe in a fair world.
The problem with religions is twofold.
One, that across human history the above core element of all religions has been conflated with other foreign elements that have nothing to do with it, like descriptions about the origin of the universe and humans (which is a question of science, not of religion) and rules about how to live your life which have nothing moral about them (and are probably the temporary result of the existing culture within a society). Like forbidding homosexuality, or the idea that women serve a very limited function in society which is limited to taking care of the home and the children.
Usually people have come to accept this because religion is sold as a "complete package" (particularly enforced with rules that you make a bad religious person if you don't accept it all and with the people close being incentivized to look down on you for not strictly adhering to the religious teachings). That is also why people believe in religion in general (and not just in its moral teachings which actually make sense) in 2024.
The second problem with religion (and here i'm going on a tangent that doesn't have much to do with the question at hand) is that it usually makes a validity claim for eternity, i.e. religion asserts that its rules and knowledge are valid forever (literally set in stone). This has done more harm than good to our improving of our set of guiding moral principles.
Sorry if this comment is a bit of a mess.
Blind faith is just a socially acceptable mental illness.
I heard somewhere that spirituality is the easing of suffering. Maybe that was from Mark Manson (Subtle Art, YT channel, etc.).
Something in that statement works for me. I'm not superstitious nor do I hold beliefs in the supernatural. But I do undertake efforts to ease suffering - whether that's meditation, readings, or reflection.
I think many have a spiritual need. Anxiety, depression, grief, changing moods, and more reveal that need. There's an emotional ("spiritual") suffering that we hope or need to salve.
Then I think we overshoot the mark.
It's easy to want concrete perspectives when the world is dark, unjust, or foreboding. Attempting to meet those need with concrete answers helps feed the rise of religion.
I can't fault the feeling of needing certainty, but I'd hope we can find ways to ease suffering without the use of delusion or lies.
Having said all of the above, I'm an Atheist. I think in rejecting religion, we have, also, overshot the mark.
People need each other. We need the things and rituals that help us find or move closer to peace. We are emotional, feeling, social animals and we've wrapped ourselves in new certainties and - sometimes - self-righteousness.
We need people. We need respect. We need love. We deserve human rights. We, also, need to learn how to transcend some of our injuries so we can navigate more effectively. That can be family, community, or national politics.
I'm not talking about losing boundaries. I'm talking about using them differently. Yesterday was MLK Jr day. He set boundaries, but he didn't do it in hate or overt shame and anger.
He just did the work that needed to be done with the clearest eyes he could. I hope we, the materialists, can find a realistic perspective that doesn't over-celebrate reason, and forgets the rest of our experience.
Reason tells us we feel. We hurt. We hurt others. We need something (reality-based) that reminds us to tend to ourselves and our communities.
We need balance.
I've wandered some in my response. It helped me to type, maybe it helps someone else, too. Either way, I liked your comment and it spurred thought.
Thank you.
I think that there is a place in the human brain that is responsible for 'spirituality'. Attempts at stimulating it can produce deep religious thoughts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet
Maybe it evolved as a buffer to store random ideas we couldn't comprehend. Maybe as a social creator we need a section of our brain to produce spiritual ideas, to help with social cohesion?
IMHO, an easier explanation is that complexity, chaos and the unknown are scary, very very scary.
Things are a lot less scary and a lot more simple if all complexity is explained away by Deity, nothing important is random but rather controlled by said Deity and the unknown is replaced by some fable around Deity.
A mother losing her child in an Earthquake is easier to handle at an emotional level if "It was the will of God and that child went to Heaven" (which is pretty much what the typical Catholic Priest will say) than having to face it being merelly random bad luck and that young person she loved so much being gone forever. (It's not by chance that for example Mormons during the period when they're supposed to go out and preach their religion around the World will look at obituaries to find people to try to convert).
Trying to understand emotion and faith with logic and reason is a fools errand.
It is likely to have biological and environmental factors. It ia very likely not impossible to understand.
I find the prevalence of faith makes more sense if you think of it like a living organism. It only exists because it's built to exist. If it didn't, it would die.
That's why faiths often have rules around birth control and sex out of wedlock. Kids often take the beliefs of their parents, so the religion has to keep 'traditional' families together to keep itself alive. It's also why they threaten eternal damnation if you drop the faith or don't try to force it on the people around you. A lot of this often isn't the conscious effort of the members, it just kinda slowly crops up, like evolutionary mutations. Key word there being 'often', as I'm sure members of these religions have also figured this out but have used it to their own advantage.
That's a meme. A belief that spreads and evolves in human minds.
...So Jesus was a memelord?
It's a source of comfort. People want to be in control. If they can't be in control, they at least want to feel like someone or something is in control. That there is some organizing force or principle to the universe. Religion, astrology, conspiracism etc all flow from that impulse.
Religion is founded on belief, and belief allows people to feel certainty about things they're ultimately uncertain about. As long is there is something that someone doesn't fully understand, religion and god are a solution to bridge the gap.
When you are that person, the leap to a god is fairly logical and easy to them, since at a base level, it's born out of a desire for someone to be in charge and in control. You understand some of the world around you. To understand it more fully, you just need a bigger, stronger, smarter version of yourself. That's why in most religions, a god is not some transcendent, immortal, eternal, all powerful being. They're just essentially Human+. There are way more religions with gods like Zeus than Allah. Saying that nobody is in charge, and nobody fully understands anything, and that's all OK makes billions of people uncomfortable. And, screaming at them that they're wrong and need to be more OK with some existential dread usually just serves to make them more uncomfortable.
human brain just wants patterns and will create it to satisfy itself. religion does not run counter to human knowledge, they're the same process really.
Because it turns out that conforming to what your parents and your community believe is way more influential to the average person than objective truth.
Exactly. Where I grew up you would have nothing without your family, and they are all rabid believers. So the choices are toe the line or abandon it all.
The world makes much more sense if you realize that despite all our achievements and knowledge we are just hungry, angry, horny apes in clothes.
Asking a bunch of non-religious people is nothing but a circle jerk.
People believe in religion for a variety of reasons. I believe in what I believe in because I've had personal experiences, and because it gives me a way to be better than I am.
Asking a religious person won't get you to the truth though.
Why do you believe?
Because God is real!
How do you know this?
I just feel it in my heart!
Right, but can you prove that he exists
I don't need to prove it I have faith and know that he exists!
Ok, so you admit you don't have any proof it's just faith?
No I have proof!
What is it?
You can't see it because you haven't opened your heart to the lord!
So you don't have proof?
I do!
What is it?
You need to have faith!
Right, but do you have anything that can be objectively verified without faith?
Sure! In the Bible it says...
I'm gonna stop you right there, I don't believe anything in the Bible you can't use an anonymous book to prove your supernatural claims.
Clearly you are just a sinner that doesn't want the love of God!
First of all, none of those questions except the first ask why they believe, and I've never heard a person of faith answer that way.
If you enter into a conversation with the intent of attacking, you shouldn't be surprised you don't get good answers.
Everyone believes in something that they can't objectively prove, even if it's just the love of their family. It gives our lives meaning.
For most religious people, religion is a way to be a better person and live a better life.
Let's say you struggle with anger issues? How do you deal with it?
Religions have thousands of years of lessons about anger. Churches will have entire support groups built around helping with anger. You'll often get sermons about anger. Ways to deal with it. Why it happens. Benefits of not giving into anger etc.
If you have a slip up with anger, religions have ways of handling it and helping you grow.
Probably the most visible thing is addiction. Churches have helped soooo many people deal with addiction who otherwise might be dead by now.
Religion is not for everyone, but there are certainly lots of people who feel they are better off because of it
I'm not sure if I agree with this explanation. Sure, religion is something some people turn to after having issues, but it's also equally, if not probably more frequently, an excuse to cause issues.
I see it more often used as a coping mechanism, not a way to be a better person. It's something to give hope of your problem just solving itself, and an excuse when it doesn't work. It's also used to excuse horrible behavior towards other people, not to be a nicer person towards them.
There's both sides of all of this obviously, but I see it doing the inverse of what you said much more frequently.
The biggest boon I see from religion is that it creates community by default. In a time period so lacking in community, religion would be a good tool for this. I think it'd be better for people to form non-religious community, but there's no force to push towards that.
I don't think a religious person would agree with your description.
Humans are not rational creatures, and despite all the knowledge we have gained, people will still find what they want to be true the most believable of all
Besides, you can talk about all of the science we have discovered, but the overwhelming majority of people don't really see it. We see the technology and all that, but we don't truly understand it, so you ultimately are just taking someone else's word for it. To me, the word of the scientific community is credible, but to some it is not
Some people are flat-earthers. People aren't swayed by reason. We're dumb animals, and the conceit of us as "rational" is hubris
They see reality as too dismal. With faith comes hope. Uncle Roy didn't die and leave all of his children to suffer. He was called to heaven and God will look after them. You're not trapped in your dead end job because of lack of aptitude or opportunity or generational life choices, It's God's willing if you just pray a little harder and donate a little more to the church everything will come together, and if it doesn't, The Bible says something about not needing worldly possessions right?
If you take the most extreme form, they just shelter their children and brainwash them to the point where denial of God's existence is associated with fear of hell.
For the rest, confirmation bias, especially thanks to the shitty tool like Google search that reinforce it. Or they make their God untouchable by definition through philosophical arguments.
They feel the same way about you not believing considering all the self-evident miracles they see everyday on their feed.
Science doesn't concern itself with the existence of God so I'm not sure what knowledge you're referring to.
The vast majority of religions do make explicit falsifiable claims about the natural universe that go far beyond the existence of a god.
A random Jewish preacher coming back to life, for instance, or a random Arab religious reformer casually taking a midnight flight to Jerusalem.
A random Jewish preacher coming back to life, for instance, or a random Arab religious reformer casually taking a midnight flight to Jerusalem.
I mean, these claims are only falsifiable if you assume the religions are false. It's circular reasoning. For example going "God doesn't exist so there's no way Muhammed could've went to Jerusalem" doesn't do much to disprove that God exists. Taking this particular event as an example, you'd need to, independently from the existence of God, find evidence that Muhammed didn't go to Jerusalem. Especially since Islam provides evidence for its claim that he did go there.
Religion has two purposes.
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Coping mechanism for those who can't fathom death
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How to not be a dick for those who don't have empathy
In either case a mental health structure for the damaged
How to not be a dick for those who don’t have empathy
To put it charitably it has room for improvement here.
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For me, religion at its essence is about the fear of death.
Many people cannot process the idea that one day, they will just...end.
Religion is there to give a comforting notion that their existence will continue.
I mean, in this day and age why isn't [insert what I know to be true] accepted by [everyone who I perceive to be wrong]. Hegel leads to another Russian smart man who argues a bunch of it might be due to this idea of perezhivanie; how we make sense of what is happening (particularly dramatic events) through our cognition, our emotions and filtered through our needs.
How we make sense of stuff leads to how we behave/believe. This is impacted by our social environment, how we are brought up, our experiences, and our reasoning of those experiences.
It's why it is argued that information alone will never change someone's mind about something, it needs to be attached to an emotion and an experience to unpack.
Not really to answer your questions. But a book came out a year ago and it covers the philosophy of simulation theory.
That is it explains the theory that our reality may be a simulation inside of a computer, and then re-establishes all major philosophical ideas from this premise. Ironically enough, a lot of philosophical ideas it arrives at are very similar to those proposed by religious philosophers.
The book is called Reality +. Good read if you like philosophy and think simulation theory is interesting.
I have to say that I really dislike simulation theory but I appreciate that people out there are pondering this stuff.
If you are a fan of simulation theory, the most compelling evidence I've found was something I stumbled across after considering the hypothesis that if we are in a simulation and clearly can talk about it without the world ending, that maybe there's something in our lore that breaks the 4th wall like we see in games explaining more about the nature of the simulation.
It took only weeks to find something I've been researching over the past few years since that exceeded my expectations wildly.
For example, it was lost for over 1,500 years. The only complete copy was rediscovered in Dec 1945.
At that same time this happened, the world's first Turing complete computer (capable of simulating another computer) was first put to use at Los Alamos on figuring out the starting reaction for a fusion bomb, also in Dec 1945.
Fusion bombs, where two atoms are made into one, are much more powerful than fission bombs. Recently a fusion test in North Korea made news for literally moving mountains.
Here's one of the lines from the text (saying 106):
When you make the two into one, you will become children of Adam, and when you say, 'Mountain, move from here!' it will move.
I recommend saying it out loud and noting the potential pun around Adam/atom. The people following this text also legit were talking about atomism and indivisible points making up all things (they seem influenced by Lucretius's specific phrasing for discussing atomism from 50 BCE).
This barely scratches the surface of what I found with this text and tradition.
People as a whole can be swayed to be believe anything. If there can be flat earthers, religion is way easier.
This thread has plenty of anti-religious stances and oversimplified explanations that just mock those that are religious. Despite how exhausting it will be to think about the replies, I feel that some balance is needed for the sake of good content and discussion. I'm terrible at this shit, so take it with a grain of salt. Obligatory "I'm not religious" - I'm not defending those that have twisted religion to be used for personal gain, perversion, or for enacting upon hatred, but to say there's zero benefit to religion and that it shouldn't exist is naive; it is, however, in need of improvement.
Religion provides community, philosophy, and despite what everyone in the comments here are saying, education. You can deny a specific diety all you'd like, but it poses potential answers to questions science has yet to figure out. Did a diety create the universe via The Big Bang? When does life begin? What happens after death? What happens before we're born? Etc.
Church provides support for those struggling. You can argue that praying to a diety may not do anything on its own, but to have a pastor say that someone in the church has been struggling with something and everyone includes that in their prayers - it helps a lot to cope with the passing of someone, addiction, debt, etc. Some churches will do events to help raise money for a cause. Some will pull you aside to help give direction to resolve the struggle in your life. Some host meetings for AA and other similar programs.
Einstein rejected a conflict between science and religion, and held that cosmic religion was necessary for science.
Multiple strong atheists including my college Language Arts teacher throughout my life have said that The Bible is one of the greatest books ever written - not for the diety, but for the teaching of morals, the poetry, the individual pastorals, and the story overall. Is it the only source to learn morality? No. Additionally, any source where you learn morality from will also have immoral characteristics, so don't let any strawman arguments prevent you from learning from it.
Nothing and no one is perfect, so use your own judgement to discern the morality from the immoral, and question it. For those interested in pro-religioua debate, books on Apologetics can be an interesting read.
Einstein didn't say that religion was needed for science. Cosmic religion is not a good term because any reader will associate it with our umbrella term religion while he defined something else. Writing it without context is manipulating any reader who does not have/take the time to read up on the term.
He firmly stated that he does not belief in any religion associated with any god or gods like all the religions OP probably means. Even going so far as calling such beliefs expression and product of human weaknesses.
He also wrote "the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." And "I, like yourself, I am predominantly critical concerning the activities, and especially the political activities, through history of the official clergy." So he does se a conflict between religion like OP means and science. He only once made a statement in support of the traditional religions when he said he was positively surprised that the christian church opposed the Nazi regime. He later backtracked on this because the church supported the Nazis partially during the further years of the war.
He still stated he is no Atheist because he believes in the existence and governance of the fundamental laws of nature and what he sometimes called religion he defined as the aspiration to pursue the research on these fundamental laws.
Tradition and support in major life events. A lot of people who only go to churches for weddings, baptisms and funerals.
Feelings are a powerful force. It makes people feel good, why would they stop?
As a former Catholic, I can say at least personally, religion did not make me feel good. It made me feel like many thoughts and feelings I had made me a bad person. It made me smug and judgemental.
Yeah, but clearly it does make a lot of people feel good
There are lots of reasons. Some people want answers for questions that we don't have scientific answers for yet, or that science can't possibly answer.
Some people want to use a framework to justify their behavior.
Some people are scared or disgusted by the implications of our knowledge, and they want it to be something different.
Some people want to manipulate others.
There are many religions because there are many reason why they exist.
One problem is trying to discern people who have truly religious beliefs, vs. people that are lazy lairs.
I think Trump supporters that talk of him being chosen by God are lazy lairs. They have a racist world view, can't justify it, so bring God into the argument. They have no real interest into looking deeply at questions or reality; they laugh at those that do.
Is this a problem to my answer? It just seems like another explanation.
Frankly, it doesn't matter if religious beliefs are truly held or not, the results are the same.
Trump supporters are fucking morons, I'd take 50/50 odds on there being a trump cult in the next 15 years that worship him as a second coming, and that would be valid as a religion.
questions that we don’t have scientific answers for yet, or that science can’t possibly answer
I'll be the Devil's advocate for this one and say that there are very few questions that science can't legitimately answer to any degree, like what consciousness is. But for others like why the universe became what it is today and how it works, it's just not a satisfying answer for someone who has no interest or hasn't studied physics and chemistry to a reasonable degree. Like, the way that we can partly explain a lot of what goes on from the flow of energy or that life's purpose is to reproduce in biology, what a let down of an answer that is for someone who was promised a grandiose explanation of everything.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I can see why people retreat back to religion for these answers. And tangentially, this is why I think we need more people like Carl Sagan who can genuinely paint our understanding of the natural world in a more awe-inspiring way for the average person without becoming a meme themselves like some of these other celebrities.
I think part of it has to do with how we cope with death. Almost all religions are centered around what happens when we die. Whether it's reincarnation or an afterlife, most believe that there's something beyond. I think that to a certain extent we're predisposed to have this mindset.
Especially among the uneducated, peer pressure and fear of the unknown.
I know many extremely bright people who are religious, but I do agree with what your saying. Nothing wrong with having existential dread. Such is the human condition.
They can catch the clever kids too if they get 'em young enough.
It's a lot easier to deal with a God that may or may not exist.. than deal with humans.
Despite increasing knowledge, there is still a lot we don't know. People will always use religion to fill the gaps in our knowledge. Especially the questions, "why is there something rather than nothing?" And "what do you experience when you die", which imo are unknowable (although we've got pretty good evidence for the latter answer being "nothing")
People also fill the non-gaps in knowledge with religion at this point.
Fear of death.
That's it.
The fact that there is nothing after you die is terrifying.
I'm a suicidal atheist (the two aren't connected) and sometimes I think the only thing keeping me alive is the fear of non existence.
I think more people practice religion than actually believe it. If it improves their lives to live within a set of rules, to have a community, etc. There's plenty we don't know and most people have some sort of "belief" about the unknown, I don't think most people actively believe all the dogma even if they follow the steps.
Because religion fulfills people's emotional needs.
People want to belong to something bigger than them. This includes a magical cloudy sky kingdom where you must wear white shrouds, and your whole family is there and not talking about embarrassingly antiquated political views
Because learning takes effort.
If you're really interested in an answer and not only trying to dunk on religious people: I'd suggest reading a few philosophical critics of religion. Like Feuerbach and Marx.
Religion always fulfilled a certain function to people. Way back, it was used to answer questions which have been properly answered by science (where does the sun/thunder and lightning come from, etc.). But that's not the whole picture of religion's function in society.
People still have an urge to answer questions science can't/won't answer (what is right and wrong? *why are we here? how should we treat each other?). Religion fulfills the function answering a subset of these questions.
what is right and wrong? how should we treat each other?
You can make compelling universal arguments based on capacity to suffer. Suffering is inherently unpleasant and it morally follows that we ought to avoid inflicting it on others. (As basic and concise as I can be.)
Religion is not a good basis for morality. Look at all of the horrible conflicts and evil actions committed on the basis of religious beliefs. One religion can justify terrorism while another dictates that we must sweep the ground in our walking path to avoid killing insects (Jainist monks).
Also, studies have demonstrated that morality develops thru our upbringing; culture, our parents, peers, schooling, etc. When one reads religious canons, they are picking and choosing concepts that already align with their moral/ethical beliefs. That's not to say religion can't play a part in shaping a given culture, which in turn influences the moral development of everyone in that society (including atheists). He's a good read on this.
An example I like to use for Christians is when God sent two bears to maul and kill 42 children for making fun of Elisha's bald head. Source
Most Christians would morally disagree with that disproportionate punishment of children. That's because their moral beliefs are derived from outside of that canon. There's plenty of other examples (including in the New Testament) in which Christians reject. They are using their existing moral beliefs to interpret the Bible.
why are we here?
Does there really need to be a purpose to our existence? Cosmic chance is a sufficient answer in my opinion.
I understand you were posing those questions to convey why people turn to religion, and I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing the efficacy of religion in actually answering those questions.
You can make compelling universal arguments based on capacity to suffer.
I'm not saying that you can reach verdicts about morality without religion. But you've left the realm of science which was proposed as the religion killer.
Religion is not a good basis for morality. Look at all of the horrible conflicts and evil actions committed on the basis of religious beliefs.
It's about as bad as science. Look at all the atrocities which were "justified" by science. E.g.: racism, eugenics, ...
Also, studies have demonstrated that morality develops thru our upbringing; culture, our parents, peers, schooling, etc.
You do realize that religion is a societal construct, right?
That’s not to say religion can’t play a part in shaping a given culture, which in turn influences the moral development of everyone in that society (including atheists).
Yeah... That was my original point...
An example I like to use for Christians is when God sent two bears to maul and kill 42 children for making fun of Elisha’s bald head.
What exactly is it you are trying to prove? Why are you trying to dunk on Christianity? I don't believe in god and I know of all that fucked up shit done in the name of the lord. I wanted to give an explanation of what functional role religion can have for humans.
Does there really need to be a purpose to our existence?
No, but try making people stop asking that question.
I understand you were posing those questions to convey why people turn to religion, and I’m not disputing that.
Sorry if I'm judging you too harshly, but you kind of seemed like you actually wanted to dispute that.
I'm not religious myself. But I have dear friends who are very religious and we literally never differ when it comes to questions about religion/morals. They belive, I don't. I know it's important to them and I hate it if some edgy atheists reduce the topic down so much. Not as much as I hate radical christians/muslims/jews being hypocritical asswipes. But religion probaply didn't make them asswiper.
Maybe in a couple hundred years more. Indoctrination is very hard to shake from people.
Despite our advancements, there are still a multitude of questions that science simply doesn't have a sufficient answer for, and possibly never will. Not knowing the answers to these profound and existential questions can cause anxiety and stress in some individuals, but if they fill that knowledge gap with religion, spirituality, mysticism, or superstition, it suddenly becomes a lot less painful on their psyche. In short, some people need religion because they are unable to cope without it.
Our species simply hasn't had enough time to be subjected to the kinds of selection pressures that would filter out such individuals. The opposite is probably happening, considering the strong correlation between people who have multiple children and people who identify as belonging to a certain religious sect or group. Perhaps it will always be a flaw of the human race, to seek out knowledge that we can't understand and ascribe meaning to it so that we might make ourselves feel more important than we truly are in a vast cold universe.
children on this platform asking if the moon is cheese. ffs
I've been looking into a tradition for the last few years that died out nearly 1,500 years ago that has me wondering the opposite.
How in the present day with the clear trajectory of science and technology we are currently working on do we not realize this ancient and relatively well known text isn't some mystical mumbo jumbo but is straight up dishing on the nature of our reality?
I think there's a stubbornness of thought that exists among most humans regarding what they think they know about life which blinds both the religious and non-religious.
Anchoring bias is remarkably resilient.
Which text are you referring to? Sounds interesting!
The Gospel of Thomas. Lost for centuries. Misunderstood for decades after being found. And bizarrely on point with its thinking to more modern ideas and developments.
Though I prefer the name of the text fully translated - "Good news of the twin' - given that its ultimate point is that it's a good thing to be the virtual copy of a physical original.
Intra-generational rituals, community, basic comfort… where are the secular alternatives? Effective altruism? Music concerts? Solar eclipses?
Don’t get me wrong, humanity really comes together sometimes, but consistency is important for people.
I was born in a very interesting family. Both sides of my family were from very opposing denominations of Christianity.
One of the Church of Christ (not Latter Day Saints), believing that dancing and musical instruments were a sin, took the lords supper (wine and bread) every Sunday and believed that if you were not baptized in their church that you were going to hell.
The other, Baptists, who would regularly invite bands to play at their church, rarely took the lords supper and would not batt an eye if you visited a friend’s church of a different denomination.
They both used the exact same version of the Bible (King James Version). Although, the baptists didn’t care if you used a newer translation to get a better understanding. This great divide in the interpretation of the word of a book drove me away from believing in the traditional Christian sense of a god.
Each denomination teaches their own interpretation. If the word is divine and should be read and understood in the same way everywhere, why should I believe one over the other?
People need to believe in something. Otherwise life feels meaningless to many.
Religion isn't just about evolution and how old the earth is, those are distractions from the big issues. All of the knowledge in the world won't help you deal with the questions, "Why am I here?", "What is my purpose? What is the point of it all?", "Do we just die and disappear?" Knowing all the science in the world won't make you feel at peace with these questions.
We are emotional creatures who are sadly aware of our mortality. Many need a parental figure to keep us in line, "God is watching", and a companion for loneliness and hopelessness, "Jesus loves you" when no one else will or can help. It can feel like you have some protection against things overwise out of your control (disasters, wars, sudden deaths, accidents, illness, etc). Many people like the structure it brings their life and the comradery from being part of a like-minded group. Some join the military for this, some go into orthodox religions thick with rules and traditions, like Hassidic Jews. It can lead to a strong tribalism too, same with politics, where you instinctively distrust those who believe differently but feel you can trust those who do because you feel you understand what they feel and think.
It's difficult to get people to accept this knowledge
Some would say ya gotta have faith faith faith
A-BAAAY-BAAAYYY!
Why not? It makes sense to me, it carried me through some very difficult times and is a good way to think about how I interact with the world and my moral framework.
"Religious suffering is the expression of real suffering and also a protest against it. Religion is the opium of the masses. Religion is the heart of a heatless world. Religion is the soul of soulless conditions."
Religion isn't a separate thing from culture that can be cleaved off like this. The form it takes is contingent on conditions of people's lives and power structures. People also don't make a conscious choice to believe or disbelieve in religion, if you're an atheist you can't just willingly choose to believe. Society is not directed by the willful actions of people's collective beliefs like this either, it's more a Darwinian process.
Also civil religion is a thing and it doesn't necessarily align with what people think of "religion" but operates in a very similar way. A lot of atheists are probably adherents to aspects of civil religion without knowing or thinking of it this way.
if you’re an atheist you can’t just willingly choose to believe
I wouldn't really agree with this. As a programmer, I was always sceptical and an atheist, but I never had problems with believing into something obviously not true, such as when LARPing or TTRPGs. And when I once got into a rabbit hole of mysticism in high-school, one of the movements I read about was advocating for doing "paradigm shifts", forcing yourself to believe into a specific religion, like truly believe, so you can try it out in practice and see whether you get something out of it or not and should move on. And since that felt like a fun experiment, I tried it with various dogmas or religions, and once you get over the inherent jugement and feeling pretty stupid chanting, drawing circles and burning incense in your room (which may take a while), you may get to point where you slowly convince yourself to believe. That is, if you are serious about it. And it's also pretty fun.
But of course, it's not for everyone.
Being a programmer, I was always just as baffled about religion, mysticism, and various esoteric stuff, because it just didn't make logical sense, and it was hard to take people who are into it seriously.
tldr: Was sceptical, gave it a try just for fun and to see what's the fuss, found out it's net-positive as long as you don't take it too seriously, let it define your whole personality, or use it as an excuse to be a dick. It's basicaly just like playing solo TTRPGs, and it feels great once you get rid of your jugement.
Then, during high-school, I've stumbled upon the Psychonaut Field Manual, which is a nicely written guide about chaos magic. And I read into it, because the presentation seemed fun, and most importantly - it was the first book where the introduction and first few pages convinced me, that it makes sense and could, in a limited fashion, actually work.
What convinced me was looking at mysticism as something akin to "hacking your own mind" - by using symbols, rituals, meditation and whatnot, you convince your unconscious mind to push you slightly more towards doing what you need. And that sounded like something interesting, especially since I just finished reading the Art of Game Design, which had a few great chapters focused on the subconscious and how to work with it when being creative. Of course I still don't believe that you can affect any external factor of your life through it, but now something like "I do a ritual to finish this exam", and my subconscious may just give me a little nudge to study more, since that's what it's convinced we really want.
So I went into the rabbit hole of modern mysticism, and eventually discovered more about the whole movement of Chaos Magic, with authors like Phil Hine. And their reasoning has won me over - their main point is that all mysticism is the same - learning symbols and doing rituals, so you can convince your subconsciousness. And the flavor or dogma you attach to it doesn't matter, so just do whatever you want. Want to do Wicca? Suit yourself. Christianity and angels? If it works for you. Invoke Spongebob with pentagram out of pizza, or go with Lovecraftian Old Gods? Why not, the only important thing is that you do really believe in it, because otherwise you probably won't convince your subconscious.
And that's why they work with something I find really interresting - they call it paradigm shifts, where you hop around various systems, dogmas and religions, immersing yourself into their rabbit hole and honestly giving it a try, to see if that's what works for you. And that sounded like fun, letting go of the prejudice about religion or esoteric bullshit, and just trying it out for myself, log what results I have, and have fun learning about it.
There's another point that won me over for chaos magic - one of their core principles is, that every mysticism was so full of themself and took it too seriously, that they've forgotten how to have fun. And having fun while doing it is important.
And so I throughout next few years went into the rabbit hole of Wicca, Golden Dawn, Enochian, and probably bunch more I don't really remember, just trying to take it seriously and see for myself how does it work for me. The hardest part was getting rid of feeling absolutely stupid when you sit in your room with candles, incense, and memorize various bullshit, but it was still pretty fun.
To get to the point - Wicca is one of the only systems I've tried that is also a Religion, and works with deities. And I've enjoyed this system more than the others, which were more focused on occultism and abstract concepts, because it basically meant you got an imaginary friend. The small daily rituals, that are celebrating nature while also being appreciated by said imaginary friend were fun little games, that made my day pretty much universally better, just like it turned a simple walk through nature as something wonderful - because I started paying more attention to what is around me.
As long as you don't take it too seriously, don't let it control your life, don't talk about it with others that are not interrested, or use it as an excuse to be a dick to anyone, and just enjoy adding a little bit of magic and fantasy into your daily life, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's a net-positive change, and not too different than just playing a game of TTRPGs.
I've since forgotten about it and don't really do anything in regards to religion or mysticism, but I still fondly remember the few years I've tried, and it has definitely changed my point of view on a lot of things in life. I'd recommend to everyone here to give it a try and see for yourself - you don't have to tell anyone, it's a fun rabbit hole to explore (if that's something you find interresting), and most importantly - you can decide it's not for you and forget about it at any moment.
tl;dr
I believe in "at least one god" as a Thelemite and a Freemason. I wasn't raised religious at all, in fact my secular parents actively discouraged me from taking part in faith-based activities with my friends. When I grew up, though, I realized this couldn't be it and went on a Quest for the Truth.
God is Math. God is the Sun. God is NOT an imaginary friend, as they say, "hanging around up there".
Can you explain why God is Math? Or the sun? Those statements don't make any sense to me.
The sun gives light and life to the World. Every winter, it dies on the cross for three days and is thus resurrected. Since time immemorial people have worshipped the sun.
Math, on the other hand, is literally the reason our atoms hold together. It's the reason the planets form. It's ubiquitous and ineffable, tying together the universe in ways we do not understand.
Because at the core of every religion is a tiny grain of truth. It's 50% intentionally fabricated nonsense, 45% poetic license and the personal interpretation of someone long dead, and maybe 5% of it is truly profound and universal
If you look at religions, they have a lot of commonalities. There is an inhuman, unknowable creator, or source. Then there's some number of superhuman beings who serve or reject the creator, and may interact with humans. They don't interact with the creator directly though - they're also not human, but have some exaggerated human qualities
The abyss, the primal chaos, Ginnungagap for the Norse... It's the nothing that spawned and makes up everything. It's ever present, but you know it by acting in harmony with it, and destroy yourself by acting against it.
Then there's the pantheons, servants, great spirits, naga or what have you - they're assertions for how to live in harmony with it, some kind of greater being that is partially right and partially wrong. They're value systems, and they make mistakes in most myths, showing the flaws. Sometimes they created the world from the abyss/chaos, sometimes they created humans, sometimes they just stumbled upon us. Or sometimes aliens that created us as a slave race, depending on how you want to see it.
And then there's the reason for it - in one way or another, it's to become something greater through our time alive. Often to become strong or pure enough to be able to join the deities, or to be able to exist in the void without burning to nothing.
You do it through engaging in life - mindfully doing anything will teach you truths about the universe, and through various forms of introspective meditation (or prayer) to bring yourself more in harmony with your version of the truth.
That's all more like spirituality, but then you spend generations adding in some cautionary tales - we do live in a society after all, these are like bedtime stories that mix our history with the values our society prizes.
Often heroes grow spiritually they make distilled rules to guide the society to improve... Generally they're pretty reasonable (in the context of the original period)
But then sometimes a more temporary spiritual leader decides they don't like something - clearly it's unnatural and unaligned with the truth of existence because they really hate it... So obviously it's the will of the creator, and it gets tacked on to the guiding code.
And several hundred years later, once the religion has gained institutional power in a much larger and more hierarchical society, assholes just add in whatever is convenient. The core message is forgotten, there's endless stuff tacked on teaching morals or history that can be reinterpreted... Or maybe society just changed, and you have to drop some rules or lose the flock
Tldr: there's a core message of how to grow spiritually as a person, and a glimpse of something true about the nature of reality (in a very metaphorical, poetic kind of way). The promise of a reason and a goal speaks to everyone... But then they keep going, and bury the original message by teaching all sorts of other junk, often misinterpreted for an agenda centuries ago, in the same tone. Often misinterpreted today for an agenda.
(Side note, all ancient stories are super poetic and metaphorical, even historical ones... They're probably just more fun and more easily remembered when they're repeated around the fire for the next generation)
Fear.
Dude, we have people that think vaccines are giving people disabilities and that the moon landing was fake. There's no shortage of morons out there. I'd go so far as to say many, if not most religious people are fairly rational, especially by comparison xD
I have recently come to the conclusion that there are cognitively functional people with a sound mind that believe that it is not possible to know anything for sure. Like, it's not possible to know if the scientists are telling the truth. We just have to take their word for it. Why not stick to the thousand year old belief system then? It has better apologists, armed with an experience of hundreds of years of demagogy and dogma regarding fending of criticism of said belief system.
That's just the excuse they use. Sadly it works on a lot of people who think it's a legitimate question when it's not, and is in fact easily disproved.
Take away their wallet, phone or medicine and then ask them if they still aren't sure. Or point a gun at their head and ask them if they're not sure a bullet will blast through their skull and kill them if they don't stop talking.
Or just tell them that means their religion is still bupkis because if we can't be sure, we can't accept it as true. Hold them to their standards.
Same reason people buy lottery tickets despite the odds..
Besides the fear of death that many mentioned already, its also a need to find an answer to how the world works and the need to find purpose in life.
Without these we suffer: Without understanding our environment, we feel our circumstances are out of our control and become anxious. Without purpose we become depressed (there is an excellent book called "from death camp to existentialism" about this subject).
Our brains are asking us for an urgent answer and the best quick answer most people can come with is religion. This is why it exists in every culture in history.
Organized religion or religion in a spiritual sense? I do believe there is some higher power that created matter and the laws of physics. But I don’t believe they care or even know about us.
Do you believe this for any particular reason, or just because it is psychologically reassuring? I'm not trying to be a smartass, I'm honestly curious about your perspective.
I've watched about 1000 hours of the Atheist Experience, Aron Ra, Cosmic Skeptic, Christopher Hitchens, and just about every popular religious apologist you can think of too. I've never hear a single compelling argument for creationism (I know you are talking about creation in the more macro sense, I don't think you're a young earth creationist).
The only one I've ever seen that was even worth giving serious thought is the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which I find to be deeply flawed as well, it is simply the least bad argument. So my ultimate question to you would be this: If there is a "higher power" that created the universe as we know it, but that higher power is completely indistinguishable from the laws of nature as we observe them then why believe and why care?
Well I’m not opposed to the idea that we(the universe)were created by accident. Maybe we are a simulation, maybe I’m the creator of the universe and everything is just my brains imagination.
I don’t really know or put much thought into it, but I can’t just think. Matter was just there. Like the bug bag happened with nothing before it.
Like even the vacume of space is some thing.
is this a legit question from a grown up? have your seen other peoole? what the hell is this question even?
Tribalism
People thini the earth is flat and vaccines contain microchips.
Yes, and there are likely similar reasons between conspiracy theories and religion. But the question was asking what they were, not more examples of irrational belief.
It's a simulation and god is it's admin, Thanks.
Might be a bit shocking but it wasn't knowledge that deconverted me.
Reading Sapiens changed my mind about this a lot because it always confused me too. It's more about myths (of which we have a lot like the companies we work for and our countries) that allow us to cooperate, trust each other and work on larger more abstract ideas.
As for why it's still around today -- maybe it's not as late as you think it is -- We just made steam engines 10-15 generations ago
https://evolutionnews.org/2021/07/did-religion-evolve-or-was-it-designed-to-foster-cooperation/
I've thought about this clip so much since 2016
None of the knowledge you mentioned overturns religion
We are also the most connected we have ever been, yet more and more are giving it up for 2d anime girls
Hey, I can at least see the 2D anime girls. I haven't seen hide nor hair of heaven or god.
Hopefully, a slightly different perspective here...
Religion is not interchangeable with theism. Many people, including me, are religious whilst also being atheists. Depending on the source, religion can be defined as a supernatural based idea (god/gods) or (the way I see it) more like Emile Durkheim saw it "a unified system of beliefs and practices [...] which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
So, for me, religion gives me a sense of community, support and a structure to guide me. It doesn't rule me and I don't have to worship or pray to a supernatural being that doesn't exist. So in my (biased) view, I get the good bits of religion without the shitty awful bits such as telling everyone only my religion is right, telling everyone what to do based on what I think and generally being an arsehole.
Most people like some type of community because we are, at bottom, social creatures. My own religion allows me to be both individualistic and also part of a community and I think a lot of people feel that their religion gives them that sense of community. A more worrying aspect of religion is theistic religion - worship of a supernatural being/beings - because that is irrational, which is not in itself a concern, but when whole societies are controlled via theism then people suffer.
Can't you just have a social club without having to bring god or morality into it?
That's kind of my point. There is no god (or at least not one I believe in), my religion is an atheist based one. The morals that we have are our own, we don't see them as anything other than that. I don't want anyone to feel that I'm trying to evangelise or recruit here so I'm not going to go into details, but if you want to, follow the link to community I moderate thats in my profile and there are outgoing links on that community.
Politics is being blended into religion and vice versa so it still has some life yet.
Why not? We have anime, furries, marvel, DC, Star Trek, Star Wars….
It’s just another niche group to belong to.
Except the Star Wars fans haven't been burning furries at the stake for hundreds of years.
Our fragile minds still get scared. While looking for answers, you can find those who claim to have them.
Disinformation has always been a problem, and it continues to be.
Consider that the sky is only ever one colour at a time. Let's say it's blue rn just for simplicity. It's not red, orange, yellow, etc. There can be more false statements made about this subject than there can be made a true statement. There will always be more misinformation than truth.
Now, a lot of that misinformation is disqualified cause even the most propagandized person has eyes. But that doesn't disqualify all of it.
There are questions science won't ever have a definitive answer to, because religion makes claims on them that are unfalsifiable. Part of it is just that people need an answer to those.
I left Islam, and while I wish all muslims would do the same, it required me ro go through a series of existential crises I'd be hesitant to force on my worst enemy.
There are plenty of other factors to consider too, traditonalism, the way the human brain forms neural pathways and how it is harder to get rid of a pathway than it is to form new ones from that, nationalism or the use governments and powerful people have for religion...
The good news when it comes to propaganda though is that if those in power don't constantly exert control over the masses, then their entire hierarchy would collapse pretty quickly.
I have a minor in religious studies because belief in things outside science seemed ridiculous.
Then, a couple years ago I was walking my dog with my wife talking about Huitzilopochtli & a hummingbird flew from the top of a giant redwood to about a foot from my face, flew in a perfect square 7 times, then back to the top.
Then I was under a sycamore tree at the Rosicrucian temple in San Jose meditating on Hathor & inadvertently copied a statue of Plato when I tried to clean a cobweb off it with a walking stick & a single leaf fell gently to the exact middle of my feet.
Then I was driving & thinking about getting a tattoo of Horus when a falcon began flying next to my head outside my driver’s side window for about 5 seconds, flew past my windshield, perched on a freeway sign & watched me drive off.
I could go on but the gist is I always said I couldn’t believe unless I had concrete proof & now I have concrete proof.
concrete proof
You mean anecdotal evidence that means something to you personally. If it's a personal proof, it's a spiritual matter, not a factual one.
I believe in science and have had a lot of experiences that lead me to believe math is a language used to describe the metaphysical, and whether divine intervention, there are patterns and things that happen that seem to appear in nature when they statistically shouldn't. Things that point to more than my day job and Netflix. Maybe it's monkeys typing Shakespeare over an infinite time, yellow car syndrome, projection, but it's just so narcissistic and small minded to think we know it all and this is it, and we're not connected to anything more than the mundane, ants scurrying about a spinning rock consuming our environment until our cave collapses becoming another dead satellite spiraling toward a burning star. I've experienced love. Wonder. The unexplainable. Just because we have Western words to describe something, doesn't make it less magical or spiritual.
Have you read 100 years of solitude?
Not yet but it’s on my list.
Have you heard of Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret?
Before ignorance, before community, before any of the "behavior" we typically associate with religious people, comes hubris. Only man thinks he is important enough to be chosen by the almighty God to receive the knowledge that he is special and worthy of an afterlife. Doesn't make people bad, or even stupid, just so preoccupied with philosophical and scientific questions they didn't think to seek out the people that actually have the answers.
Mf you are aware of how improbable it is that we exsist in the base reality right?
Even if this is a simulation, it's still a part of reality because it's what we're experiencing. All reality is is what we interact with
God seems more likely than the alternative tbh
How does something come out of nothing
You are right. How did a God just come from nothing?
You're presupposing there was nothing at one point. We know that is the case for the physical universe because otherwise entropy would have ended actions an eternity ago. An eternal being not subject to the laws of thermodynamics has no logical need for a beginning.
I'm gonna try to give an explanation using both science and religion. We don't understand what gravity is. We know it pulls us to the ground, we know it exists, we know it's what keeps everything stuck to the earth, but we don't know what it really is or why it works, it just works. Physics aims not to explain gravity, but to define it. Now let's look at, say, the Bible. It is stated in the Bible that God created life, the earth, and man in 6 days. Science isn't sure how we got here, it just knows that we are here. Science aims to define the natural world and religion aims to explain the natural world.
Both science and religion try to answer the question 'why'. Religion says 'a God did it!'. Science says 'I don't know. Let's observe our environment and see what theory could best explain what we see. If anyone later proves me wrong, I won't be upset, I will be glad that I understand more.'
Because god is real and he sees you sinner 😈😈😈
'Knowledge' is still so very much overrated.
One thing only I know, and that is that I (meaning a thing, not necessarily what I observe as me) exist.