Serious answer:
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I believe in a religion because I’ve found it to be personally beneficial.
I was a pastor for many years and saw much of the best and worst religion had to offer. I haven’t stepped foot inside a church since COVID broke out and don’t know that I ever will again.
My personal beliefs are still a significant part of my life, but I understand why someone would ask the question that spawned this discussion.
Yas queen. COVID’s not over! And even so, God and your soul aren’t important enough to risk contacting the common cold lol
Because we are convinced it is true.
The vast majority of people believe whatever the fuck they’re told to believe.
I don’t. My religious beliefs are something I came to myself. There is lots of evidence for a very early church, and the core story around Jesus hasn’t changed much, unlike other legends that evolve through history. The New Testament is pretty reliable as a historical document and many times atheist critics have been wrong, and their arguments are usually very easy to debunk.
How did you come to your faith?
In short, I evaluated the arguments, then realised that the arguments for Christianity were far better than the arguments against. The main argument for atheism is the standard of proof, but anyone can present them with all of the proof they’d like and they can still say “not enough”. There were people around in Jesus’ time who still didn’t believe yet saw the miracles and His resurrection
So what you’re saying is that here in 2024 we’ve got it all figured out?
*Note that: 2024, everything figured out.
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” -Shakespeare
There’s physics. And there’s metaphysics. One does not come to Faith the same way one produces a hypothesis.
I disagree with your last line. A hypothesis is a great analogy for faith. It’s a belief that something is true. Science involves testing the hypothesis, just as faith can be tested.
It’s important to remember that science, by definition, does not prove anything either. There are only supported and unsupported theories.
I don’t really get why people think it’s “science or religion”. Although there are some things to consider:
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If there are laws in the universe, it may be proof that there’s a law giver of some kind?
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The beginning of the universe was a recent discovery in science, previous non Christian belief was that the universe had always existed.
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Here are a few reasons people believe:
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Meaning and Purpose: Religion can offer a framework for understanding the universe and our place in it. It can provide answers to big questions about life, death, and morality.
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Community and Belonging: Religious communities can provide social support, a sense of belonging, and shared values. This can be especially important during difficult times.
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Comfort and Hope: Religion can offer comfort in times of grief or hardship. It can also provide hope for the afterlife or a better future.
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Tradition and Identity: Religion can be a core part of a person’s cultural heritage or family identity. People may feel a connection to their ancestors or cultural background through their faith.
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Ethics and Morality: Many religions provide a moral code that guides people’s behavior. This can be helpful in making decisions about right and wrong.
I don’t believe, but I can see why people stick with it and don’t look beyond it. You can get all these things without religion, its just not something that’s taught/passed down in the same way as religion is. Additionally, deconstructing is very difficult. You’re raised to believe something to be real and you’re expected to just drop it and step out of Plato’s cave? You’d look like a madman to any friends/family who aren’t willing and ready to step out and look around.
As a large language model, I cannot endorse any one religion
Come on, this list of reasons was written by an LLM
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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.
Education fails to instil scientific temper in them
Islam used to be the forefront of scientific and mathematical discovery. Believing in god have nothing to do with science or math, it’s superstition, something that cannot be proven or unproven, it’s that irrational thought that make us human.
Islam used to be the forefront of scientific and mathematical discovery.
People of all religions have contributed to scientific growth.
The average religious person and the person discovering scientific/mathematical stuff are generally different tho.
Universal basic education has gained focus in many parts of the world, only relatively recently.I think improved scientific temper would obviously clash with many mainstresm religions.
Presence of some supreme creator may not be proven or disproven, but I think the anti-evolution stuff and similar things in most mainstream religions would face more questions when scientific temper improves.
And I’m not saying that non-religious people are safe from similar stuff too. Just that it is easily spread and maintained when you have a community on it.
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.
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…?
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!
Maybe you haven’t noticed it, but many people are deeply irrational.
I’m an effort to get you an answer that isn’t dismissive:
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Youth indoctrination, social conformity, and cultural isolation. If your parents, friends, and most of your community tells you something is true, you are unlikely to challenge it for a variety of reasons including trust (most of what they’ve taught you works for your daily life), tribal identity, etc
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People naturally fear death, and one coping strategy for the existential fear of death is to convince yourself that the death of your body is not the end of your existence. Science does not provide a pathway to this coping strategy so people will accept or create belief systems that quell that fear, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Relieving the pressure of that fear is a strong motivator.
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Release of responsibility. When there is no higher power to dictate moral absolutes, we are left feeling responsible for the complex decisions around what is or isn’t the appropriate course of action. And that shit is complicated and often anxiety inducing. Many people find comfort in offloading that work to a third party.
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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.
