Why do so many people believe in a God?

Jim Rockford · 16-07-2014 2:13pm

Dades wrote: »

That might hold water if those billions of people didn't all believe in 1000s of different gods. In fact all that's telling us is that people want to believe in something and it doesn't really matter whether it's true or not.

People can ignore all sorts of logic if it helps them hold onto a cherished belief.

Or logically it could be one god with different incorrect versions, or no god at all. 80% of theists believe in one of three versions, not 1000's. The real logic is realising no one really knows, and working out how to come to terms with the fact that other people can have different opinions to your own.

Czarcasm · 16-07-2014 2:15pm

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

Fear...

We want to feel important...

The truth is nothing notices we exist and if we ceased to exist nobody would notice. Life makes no sense.

An awful lot of projection and waffle in your post there Az, which you can only say is true from your perspective, no different than billions of other people who inhabit this planet who are surrounded by people who are aware of their existence, and if they ceased to exist, the people that surround them would of course notice.

Life makes sense for most people, otherwise humanity would never have evolved to the point we are at now, and continue to evolve, because contrary your assertions, people are not only self-aware, but they can't help but be aware of other people, and graduate towards those people with whom they share a common interest.

If anything holds an individual back, it is their lack of understanding of how co-operation and communities work together to achieve a common goal.

Azwaldo55 · 16-07-2014 2:25pm

Czarcasm wrote: »

An awful lot of projection and waffle in your post there Az, which you can only say is true from your perspective, no different than billions of other people who inhabit this planet who are surrounded by people who are aware of their existence, and if they ceased to exist, the people that surround them would of course notice.

In centuries to come you and everyone you know and love will be dust or heaps of bones. Your headstone worn down by rain and wind will long since have fallen over and broken into pieces and been swallowed by weeds. Nobody will know or care that you even existed. In time this planet will be swallowed when the sun swells up to the size of a red giant.

Life makes sense for most people, otherwise humanity would never have evolved to the point we are at now, and continue to evolve, because contrary your assertions, people are not only self-aware, but they can't help but be aware of other people, and graduate towards those people with whom they share a common interest.

But for what? To be born, to live and to die and what then? Living a happy life and loving other people and doing good is not enough for most people. We all will decline and die. All that suffering will be for nothing if we do not enjoy eternity. Which is why people become religious. Especially so as they witness friends and family die around them. The beautiful body of a young woman becomes the withered wrinkly shrunken bent figure of an old hag. Strength gives way to feebleness. Laughter and singing die and go silent.

If anything holds an individual back, it is their lack of understanding of how co-operation and communities work together to achieve a common goal.

Look around you and you will see the ruins of societies that passed away. Nothing but moss covered stones and humps in the ground and the odd skeleton or axe head tell us that they even existed. The fact so many lived and died before us is a matter of extreme indifference to most people.
It is only when we face the horror of the oblivion of death that people turn to faith. Nobody despite what people say nobody has a lovely death.

nozzferrahhtoo · 16-07-2014 2:33pm

Czarcasm wrote: »

if they ceased to exist, the people that surround them would of course notice.

I think you and I may be reading his post differently. Or at least reading the meaning of "we" in his post differently. How you are reading it does indeed render the post "waffle".... rather than just mundane.

When he said "IF we cease to exist" I do not think he meant us as individuals.... because as you point out clearly those around us would notice. My partner and daughter would certainly be wondering where I am.

I read the poster as meaning if we... our species in its entirety.... ceased to exist then there is no one there to notice (that is to say no god). There simply would be no one left to do the noticing.

A lot of people do derive value in their life and actions from others. How others view us, respond to us, laud praise on us for our achievements or cajole us for our failures. For many their self worth is mediated upon the worth they have to others.

And if some people derive value in this way... from the observations of others and their awareness of us.... it is indeed a small step to wishing this for our species as a whole. And this is a mentality I experience in theists often..... what value is human life if there is not some great observer out there to whom it all somehow _matters_.

Essentially the poster is just getting at the theme of the ultimate futility and meaningless of human existence that exists when we do not invoke a divine creator to infuse it with one.

smacl · 16-07-2014 2:34pm

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

We want to feel important, we want to believe that the sun and the moon and the stars were set in the sky just for us. We want to believe that God shines on us, our family, our community, our nation, our species and our planet because we want to believe we were chosen.

Perhaps people believe in God because doing so supports just this kind of Mittyesque self delusion, where God is always on their side, understanding their hardships and why they're right and everyone else is wrong.

The truth is nothing notices we exist and if we ceased to exist nobody would notice. Life makes no sense.

Why do you feel you have to be noticed for life to make sense? I ask because I suspect that using a belief in God as a long term psychological crutch essentially engenders insecurity as the belief gets eroded. I'm not convinced this insecurity would exist in the first place where religion is not introduced at an early age.

bnt · 16-07-2014 2:38pm

Have a look at this piece by Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon strip. (Which doesn't make him an expert on anything, as he happily says all the time.) He uses a metaphor of religion as a "user interface to reality", a friendly overlay to help us make sense of a complex and uncaring universe. Which would be fine if it got the desired results, but ... ISDN*

* It Still Does Nothing. Scott used to support Pacific Bell's ISDN (digital phone line) services before he made it big as a cartoonist.

Azwaldo55 · 16-07-2014 2:52pm

smacl wrote: »

Perhaps people believe in God because doing so supports just this kind of Mittyesque self delusion, where God is always on their side, understanding their hardships and why they're right and everyone else is wrong.

Why do you feel you have to be noticed for life to make sense? I ask because I suspect that using a belief in God as a long term psychological crutch essentially engenders insecurity as the belief gets eroded. I'm not convinced this insecurity would exist in the first place where religion is not introduced at an early age.

Humans want to be loved, they want to be recognized and remembered and they don't want their bones scattered.

Why does this classic scene from Jaws engender so much horror terror and fear? Because thousands of men aboard the Indianapolis died agonizing lonely deaths in the Pacific Ocean. 70 years on most people don't know or care.

The idea that a living breathing human being with what many people believe has a soul is lost at sea or consumed by a creature and they have no grave and nobody to mourn for them is too much.

This is why people pray.

I read about a WW2 pilot who saw a neighboring bomber's belly doors open and spill its bombs accidentally right on top of a plane directly below and both planes vanished in a giant explosion. Nothing was left of twenty men. Gone. Blown to smithereens. After seeing that he stopped being a carefree kid who want to dance with girls and drink and screw around. He became religious and thanked God that he could bounce his grandchildren on his knees thirty and forty years later.

Czarcasm · 16-07-2014 2:53pm

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I think you and I may be reading his post differently. Or at least reading the meaning of "we" in his post differently. How you are reading it does indeed render the post "waffle".... rather than just mundane.

...

Essentially the poster is just getting at the theme of the ultimate futility and meaningless of human existence that exists when we do not invoke a divine creator to infuse it with one.

Spot on assessment nozz, that's exactly the way it came across to me - as a meaningless monologue, oft rattled off by teenagers who are trying to sound intellectual or interesting amongst their peers.

I mean practically word for word!

nozzferrahhtoo · 16-07-2014 2:56pm

bnt wrote: »

Have a look at this piece by Scott Adams

Or "Captain Sock Puppet" as he is known to many.

smacl · 16-07-2014 3:07pm

Jim Rockford wrote: »

Or logically it could be one god with different incorrect versions, or no god at all. 80% of theists believe in one of three versions, not 1000's

Really? Which three are we talking about, because the last Pew research poll of 2010 would suggest not. You certainly can't lump Hinduism in with Christianity and Islam in terms of worshipping a different version the same deity.

The real logic is realising no one really knows, and working out how to come to terms with the fact that other people can have different opinions to your own.

I would suggest that the real logic is realising that any societies adherence to religious belief is very dynamic with Christianity currently in rapid decline in Europe. To my mind, traditional religious belief in Western society has more to do with tradition than belief, where the belief part is a residual artefact from a more primitive past.

smacl · 16-07-2014 3:19pm

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

The idea that a living breathing human being with what many people believe has a soul is lost at sea or consumed by a creature and they have no grave and nobody to mourn for them is too much.

This is why people pray.

I read about a WW2 pilot who saw a neighboring bomber's belly doors open and spill its bombs accidentally right on top of a plane directly below and both planes vanished in a giant explosion. Nothing was left of twenty men. Gone. Blown to smithereens. After seeing that he stopped being a carefree kid who want to dance with girls and drink and screw around. He became religious and thanked God that he could bounce his grandchildren on his knees thirty and forty years later.

Really all that this says to me is that when called upon to deal with the grittier and more unpleasant aspects of reality, religious people duck out and turn to a preferred fantasy instead. I'm baffled as to why someone who witnessed massive and tragic loss of life on the battlefield would be moved to start worshipping the supposedly omnipotent deity that caused said destruction. The converse would seem more logical.

Azwaldo55 · 16-07-2014 3:27pm

smacl wrote: »

Really all that this says to me is that when called upon to deal with the grittier and more unpleasant aspects of reality, religious people duck out and turn to a preferred fantasy instead. I'm baffled as to why someone who witnessed massive and tragic loss of life on the battlefield would be moved to start worshipping the supposedly omnipotent deity that caused said destruction. The converse would seem more logical.

Yet this is precisely what people do when they are in such situations. There is film called Unbroken coming out soon about Louis Zamperini, an Olympiad who excelled at track and field and then became a bomber crewman during WW2. His plane was shot down and he survived for weeks in a life raft only to be captured by the Japs who treated him brutally in captivity. He survived this hell on earth and later became a born again Christian. Zmperini died only a few days ago at the age of 97.

I cannot imagine the horrors that poor man went through the hellish nightmares he must have experienced for the remainder of his life.

His faith helped him to forgive and when he met his Japanese captors, men who treated him with merciless cruelty, years later he embraced them and told them he loved them to their astonishment.

I am not religious but it is no mystery why Zamperini became religious. He would have gone insane otherwise.

Vivisectus · 16-07-2014 3:38pm

smacl wrote:

I'm not convinced this insecurity would exist in the first place where religion is not introduced at an early age.

Funny anecdote/rambling observations on this subject: my youngest is being brought up without religion, in a vague and agnostic sort of way: we explain religious concepts when they come up, but we make it very clear that religion is something that everyone has to make their own mind up about. We do not push our own opinions on her with any emphasis, and I always point out that while I have come to some conclusions based on what I have seen so far, it is up to her to make up her own mind about it.

It is funny how few of the religious concepts seem to actually matter to her. They just do not seem to really touch on her life or the questions she has. She has no real issue with mortality. The budgie, our dog, and Grandpa are now part of the plants and the trees in the cemetery, and that is good enough for her. Loss is sad, but there is not a lot of dread of non-existence that I can detect.

Dinosaurs, now THAT she has questions about. And how plants grow. And how to handle having accidentally wronged someone in a way that is fair to all parties.

She is the most deeply moral person that I know, and she is extremely imaginative, perceptive and one of the brightest kids I have seen so far. But she does not seem to have any religious impulse that I can detect.

That said, she DOES half-believe in fairies and gnomes, because she likes to. That seems to be reason enough for her, and I see no reason to interfere with that.

Azwaldo55 · 16-07-2014 3:46pm

Vivisectus wrote: »

Funny anecdote/rambling observations on this subject: my youngest is being brought up without religion, in a vague and agnostic sort of way: we explain religious concepts when they come up, but we make it very clear that religion is something that everyone has to make their own mind up about. We do not push our own opinions on her with any emphasis, and I always point out that while I have come to some conclusions based on what I have seen so far, it is up to her to make up her own mind about it.

It is funny how few of the religious concepts seem to actually matter to her. They just do not seem to really touch on her life or the questions she has. She has no real issue with mortality. The budgie, our dog, and Grandpa are now part of the plants and the trees in the cemetery, and that is good enough for her. Loss is sad, but there is not a lot of dread of non-existence that I can detect.

Dinosaurs, now THAT she has questions about. And how plants grow. And how to handle having accidentally wronged someone in a way that is fair to all parties.

She is the most deeply moral person that I know, and she is extremely imaginative, perceptive and one of the brightest kids I have seen so far. But she does not seem to have any religious impulse that I can detect.

That said, she DOES half-believe in fairies and gnomes, because she likes to. That seems to be reason enough for her, and I see no reason to interfere with that.

Major Randolph Churchill (1911-68), of Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford (failed BA), on first reading the Holy Bible, having been persuaded to do so by the writer Evelyn Waugh, incredulously said, "Isn't God a sh*t?"

smacl · 16-07-2014 4:14pm

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

I am not religious but it is no mystery why Zamperini became religious. He would have gone insane otherwise.

Could be argued that becoming religious when struggling with extreme hardship corresponds to going slightly insane. I think Hollywood also realises that good ol' fashioned God fearing heroes sell more seats in than their godless counterparts, and find that much mainstream American media has a very similar bias.

Azwaldo55 · 16-07-2014 4:37pm

smacl wrote: »

Could be argued that becoming religious when struggling with extreme hardship corresponds to going slightly insane. I think Hollywood also realises that good ol' fashioned God fearing heroes sell more seats in than their godless counterparts, and find that much mainstream American media has a very similar bias.

I would agree.
Ira Hayes was one of the men who planted the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima and he died from alcoholism and despair.

smacl · 16-07-2014 5:00pm

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

I would agree.
Ira Hayes was one of the men who planted the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima and he died from alcoholism and despair.

Again, this very much relates with an inability to deal with reality, whether past or present. I'm not sure that either Jesus or Jack Daniels is much of a solution for what we'd now consider post traumatic stress. I reckon John Prine hit the nail on the head with this one.

Dades · 16-07-2014 6:00pm

bnt wrote: »

Have a look at this piece by Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon strip. (Which doesn't make him an expert on anything, as he happily says all the time.) He uses a metaphor of religion as a "user interface to reality", a friendly overlay to help us make sense of a complex and uncaring universe. Which would be fine if it got the desired results, but ... ISDN*

That's a really interesting concept.

Unfortunately he stops short of mentioning where people are trying to forcefully install their OS on other people's hardware. That's the main reason why Linux users might be speaking out against Windows Vista users.

equivariant · 16-07-2014 9:41pm

Tomblyboo wrote: »

I'm a Christian now. The things that drove me crazy growing up was how everyone works at fault-finding with different religions. The people I don't understand are atheists. I go surfing and snow boarding and I'm always around nature. I look at everything and think, 'Who couldn't believe there's a God? Is all this a mistake?' It just blows me away.

We've had the ontological argument, the teleological argument, the cosmological argument and now ... the argument from snowboarding. Still I suppose its about as convincing as those others

recedite · 17-07-2014 12:17am

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

In centuries to come you and everyone you know and love will be dust or heaps of bones.

We'll all probably have descendants or some kind of relatives still living.

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

But for what? To be born, to live and to die and what then? Living a happy life and loving other people and doing good is not enough for most people.

That's because they have been lied to. And in the back of their mind there is always a slight suspicion that heaven is just a con.
If you think you have won a voucher for a free 3 course meal, and someone else tells you the restaurant will only give you a 2 course meal, you won't be happy. If you knew it was a 2 course all along, you will be quite happy with that.

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

We all will decline and die. All that suffering will be for nothing if we do not enjoy eternity. Which is why people become religious.

You don't get rewarded for suffering. You get rewarded for achieving. If a fish flips out of the water, and slowly bakes to death on the hot concrete, it does not go to fishy heaven just because it has done something stupid.

So just try to enjoy yourself a bit more. Take positive steps

Vivisectus · 17-07-2014 8:58am

Living a happy life and loving other people and doing good is not enough for most people.

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

Akrasia · 17-07-2014 10:15am

pqdvdplayer wrote: »

For a moment, I don't want to argue over whether or not a god exists--I want to know why so many people believe that one does. I usually receive generalized answers to this--"it comforts people," or "they were indoctrinated into the belief," and such related answers.

It doesn't baffle me so much that people believe that a god exists, but rather that a lot of people believe that a god exists. I could understand it if a portion of the population were theists, but I'm surprised the theist/atheist makeup of the population isn't at least around equal parts. Instead, the majority still believes in the existence of a god.

To think about why a person would believe in a god just confounds me. Everything about life, everything we know so far about existence, tells me that one most likely does not exist. Even with a fair analysis of the arguments for and against the existence of a god, the arguments against one existing are clearly superior. I'm not belittling the person who believes in a god, I am simply expressing my inability to understand why they believe it.

It is true that belief in a god and religion provides comfort to those people...but surely the understand that, just because you believe something to be true and it gives you comfort, does not actually mean that it IS true? I mean, if people at least considered this possibility, then they would move on to examine the legitimacy of their beliefs. And thus, I would expect more and more theists to lose their beliefs, but instead they maintain them.

Here's my working definition of faith

Faith is a combination of hope and trust. People who have reasonable faith first have trust, then back this up with hope. People with unreasonable faith first have hope, and follow this up with trust.

Most People who have reigious faith first hope that god exists, and then trust the authorities who tell them that god is real. Hope is a powerful emotion that people can cling to even when the odds are very much against their belief being true. (I say 'Most people' because there are also people who belief in God out of fearn rather than hope, but there are still elements of hope and trust, eg, I hope that by praying towards mecca 5 times a day I will do enough to get on god's good side and I trust that the Mullahs know what they're talking about more than those infidell christians)

If a christian asks me 'do you have faith in your wife' I hate using the word 'faith' because it's a loaded word, but if pressed, I say yes. I trust my wife and I hope that my trust is well founded, and I hope that my wife has similar faith in me.' I trust my wife because I have strong reasons to trust her, and I hope the trust is justified because I can never know for certain but the risk is worth taking because of the hope our relationship brings.

If my wife had a history of cheating on me or behaviour that demonstrates that she no longer loves me, the I am nowhere near as justified in having faith in her because I have no grounds for trust, and hope is all there is left.

There's no point in debating anyone about their private hopes for what is real or otherwise. We should focus on the trust. Why do people of faith trust the people and the holy books that they do? The answer is always ultimately 'because I hope they are telling the truth'

Someone might have faith in god. They hope that god is real, and this allows them to trust that the bible is true

nozzferrahhtoo · 17-07-2014 10:59am

I think my working definition of "faith" has always been "The willingness to assume your premise true as part of the methodology of proving your premise true".

It is a definition that certainly fits most of the theists I have had discourse with, if not all, and other woo and nonsense groups like the 23ists depicted in a Jim Carey film which, sadly, actually seem to exist in reality.

Vivisectus · 17-07-2014 11:09am

? What is a 23ist?

nozzferrahhtoo · 17-07-2014 11:22am

Vivisectus wrote: »

? What is a 23ist?

There is some group of people who seem to think that everything and anything, all events and life and so forth, is somehow connected to the number 23. It is called "The 23 enigma".

There was a Jim Carey movie about it and William Burroughs was said to be a believer.

The thing is it works. As I said above, if "faith" is the willingness to assume your conclusion as part of proving your conclusion, you will find 23ism works. You will see 23 every where or, like Carey in the film, find some multiple of it, or of 32 which is just 23 backwards, or numbers where the digits add up to 23 like for example 9563.

If you WANT to find 23 you will find it. So 23ism is true.

Thing is, of course, it works for every number especially prime numbers and you could just as easily validate 17ism if you assume the conclusion before you evidence it.

Confirmation bias is a powerful thing.

I see faith in god as being similar. The bible for example admonishes us to "Sekk and you shall find" and this is exactly what I am saying. If you assume there is a god and then go looking for evidence and substantiation that fits that assumption..... you will find it.

My favorite example of this is when theists tell me "Look in the mirror and THERE is the evidence for god". A statement which makes perfect sense if you first assume the conclusion. They say it in all seriousness not realizing this fallacy in what they say.

smacl · 17-07-2014 11:23am

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I think my working definition of "faith" has always been "The willingness to assume your premise true as part of the methodology of proving your premise true".

This rather misses the fact that faith can often be well founded. For example, as I go hurtling down a hill on my bicycle, I have faith that correct application of my brakes at the appropriate moment will prevent by untimely demise. It has worked before, I service my bike meticulously, I have faith it will work again.

Akrasia's trust and hope seems to fit better here. Unsubstantiated religious faith seems more like hope and unfounded trust.

nozzferrahhtoo · 17-07-2014 11:28am

I do not see that as "faith" per se smacl. As you say trust and hope are probably better words. I do not see it as faith, trust or hope at all really. I see it as a probability judgement based on a very real data set (past experience and the operation of the same piece of equipment on the bikes of others, and my knowledge of the mechanics of how breaks work all come together to form a data set).

So this is the exact opposite of faith for me. Its a judgement based on a very real data set without any fallacious assumptions, such as assuming your conclusion as part of the process of evidencing your conclusion.

After all we would not call science a faith either and yet at the end of the day all science is is reaching conclusions based on the totality of the current data set available to us, without assuming data we do not have, or ignoring data we do.

So your trust in your brakes is a scientific position for me, not a faith based on.

smacl · 17-07-2014 11:38am

Faith has more than one meaning. Outside of religion, it means to have belief, confidence and trust in a person place or thing. Sometimes it is based around hard supporting information, other times it may be based around a value judgement, other times still it can be a leap into the unknown. These days, I try to avoid the latter more often than when I was younger.

traprunner · 17-07-2014 11:43am

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe. [Dr. Arroway in Carl Sagan's Contact (New York: Pocket Books, 1985]

nozzferrahhtoo · 17-07-2014 11:47am

smacl wrote: »

Faith has more than one meaning.

So do most words. Ngarric has made a career on this forum for example over obfuscating discourse by merely equivocating over the meaning of terms while simply saying nothing at all of any substance.

smacl wrote: »

Outside of religion

Perhaps. But in defining terms context is everything :P and last time I checked we were having a religion conversation, in a thread about religion, in a forum about religion.

If you switch or remove the context, then I can do nothing but concede the point, while wondering at its relevance

Why do so many people believe in a God?

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