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)
It also exists to control people, and it still works.
Organised religion is always about power and money.
Both talking about capitalism here, right ?
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?
Thank you for your insightful perspective.
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”-Voltaire
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. ;)
being part of a religion means being part of a community, a group.
The local crafting circle doesn’t endanger children and carpet bomb the neighbours, though.
Don’t be silly, neither does the local church.
The funny thing is that that kind of talk of the previous poster is just a bad type of generalization, a lazy shortcut. The existence of bad elements within a large group is a given. There are pedophile priests, just as there are pedophile uncles or teachers. The only difference here is in how accountable they are for their actions, as the Roman Catholic Church is well known for protecting its abusive priests, which isn’t too different from Epstein’s friends having money shields.
As for carpet bombing and general violence, one could say it’s “politics as usual”. When words fail (whether on purpose or not is irrelevant here), violence emerges, because one side wants to impose its will. Religion is just another lazy (and often effective) shortcut to rally people behind a cause, not unlike patriotism
Grooming from a young, impressionable age
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.
There’s basically a 100% chance that OP believes something equally as unprovable as religion.
This happens to everyone.
Yeah, they said that in their comment. Did you not read all 5 sentences?
Edit: Sorry, I misunderstood your post.
I wasn’t disagreeing with them
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.
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
Indoctrination! 😁
The only inheritance for many, the poorest Americans especially.
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.
To believe that god creates atrocities and that they’re not just random is actually malicious and stupid.
If god kills millions of people without warrant, why fucking worship the dumb cunt?
Mysterious ways, test of faith, etc.
Netanyahu moves in mysterious ways
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Blind faith is just a socially acceptable mental illness.
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).
