In some religions walking away from the church means being excluded from family, social, and business contacts. So cutting ties with everyone you know basically.
So better start believing in some magic men.
You can just like, say you do. I think a lot of people who check “Christian” in the US have little to no involvement in it beyond saying “thank God” occasionally.
I remember reading a story in my Spanish lit class about a guy who wasn’t attending church, and his mother was freaking out, so the family priest went to talk to him. And the priest was like, “I totally get it. After all the evil I’ve seen I don’t really believe either. But I continue in this because it is my life, and I can provide comfort to people. Consider attending because you love your mother and it will help her.”
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I think it’s comfort. That can be if different things for different people and it can be many things at once.
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Spiritual comfort that your god loves you.
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Emotional comfort that you can do no wrong.
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Community comfort that you and the people like you are the chosen people.
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Life/death comfort for what happens after death.
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Intellectual comfort to know all the answers.
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Vindictive comfort to hate the people you want to.
It can just keep going.
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Why isn’t it possible for a creator to exist?
Research shows that we have the innate (ie. without being externally influenced) belief that there is a higher power. So we are socialized/influenced into NOT believing in God.
Atheism and secularism are big now but this only started to be so in the recent hundred years.
Personally I find my religion logically making sense more than what atheistic ideologies bring forth and their misuse of science illiteracy.
The scripture is preserved and I had the chance to learn the original language which allows to assess it firsthand.
Ignorance and indoctrination. Especially back then people that don’t understand science needed an excuse of why certain things worked that way in the world. Is easier to say that everything happens thanks to a big guy above us.
Because (Christian) “Faith” is a unique, arguably delusional, cyclical belief system based on feelings. It’s similar to the anti-vaccine mentality of “that’s just your opinion” when it’s not. The biggest difference being that there is no proving or disproving the existence of God.
And Faith is built on this self-referential system of “you gotta have Faith in God because God is real and God is good and strong Faith will help you continue believing in God when you are otherwise challenged, and weak Faith is a sign that you are straying from God and you should strengthen your Faith by believing in God harder because God is real and God is good…”
I used to be more religious and also thought “believe in whatever you want to believe in as long as you don’t be a dick about it,” but that’s really been changing a lot lately.
Christianity has fallen so far and so many self-diagnosed Christians are just the worst type of people that I just couldn’t relate to them anymore and felt the need to distance myself.
There have probably been (speculation because I don’t feel like looking up details right now) more deaths in the name of Christianity and the Christian God than any other religion and that continues to this day.
I contribute modern day deaths from pregnancy complications deprived of needed health care, general lack of other health care for low income families, LGBTQIA2A+ suicides or other deaths, and more to “traditional Christian values”.
Christian Nationalists can go fuck themselves and rot in their own hell they hate so much.
I believe in religion. It definitely exists. Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism etc. They all exist. Guaranteed.
How can you not believe in them?
Man believes in stories. Such as religion, or money, or companies.
Ref. Yuval Noah Harari.
Because they did in 2023
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.
It’s also a great path to getting people to do what you want. I was already an atheist when my father and I had a philosophical discussion regarding religion when I was an adolescent. He brought up this point early in the discussion. I only need to look around at all the bullshit laws getting passed that religious zealots vote for against their own interest to confirm that this is true.
The Southern Baptist Church just had their annual conference and decided that their position on Invitro Fertilization is against the procedure. How does that help anyone? It doesn’t.
Religion is an old form of it is what is, hope, direction, tradition, and community.
Can’t explain a thing or understand it God’s will or only God knows. Can’t do anything to help a person because they are in surgery pray or talk to God to wish for good outcomes.
Don’t feel loved or know what to do or wanted. God loves you, will show you the way, and wants you.
Most traditions and communities in the west were founded on a religion so you have hundreds of people to connect with at a church and maybe millions world wide that will help. Those raised on books of wisdom or what is right and wrong still tend to keep the values even after they move away from the religion but realize they can have values without divine beings
Lastly control. Just like businesses it is easier to control people under a religion so if you can get people indebted, traditionalized, and ostracized otherwise. You can control people easily. Lots of people don’t know what to do and why trust another human being but if a human being says wisely God said this it is easier to accept and gain a direction
It is very difficult to accept mortality if you don’t believe in an afterlife. Religion brings comfort, and comfort improves mental health (at the cost of some delusion).
Not really. Altruism is ultimately self-serving whether an afterlife exists or not. People generally don’t want to spend their life being wronged by others or have their life taken altogether, so we have a pretty good incentive to not do those things.
I’m not sure how that relates to what I said. Morality ≠ mortality.
Ooooh I 100% read “morality” lol, my bad
All good. Yeah I think morality is not really something religion helps with.
I mean… In my life I’ve gone from a (naive child that took my parents words for fact) theist, to agnostic atheist, all the way to whatever the fuck I am now. It’s all a matter of perspective.
You go deep enough into metaphysics you can trip yourself the fuck out.
If anyone wants to humor me, check out this seemingly innocuous video about a comic book villain. Let’s debate some metaphysics!
Humans are tribalistic, like leaders who are assertive and charismatic, like simple answers, are easily swayed by emotions, fall victim to logical fallacies, and a plethora of other things that all work just fine if you’re operating on a tribal level as we did for most of human history, or rather prehistory. Now that we are in a different phase of technological growth, which has brought with it massive social change, getting rid of all of that superstitious nonsense is very difficult because of aforementioned characteristics. What were beneficial as it tribal species, and arguably even after that, is now a liability. Or at least more of a hindrance to progress.
Because it’s been the way it always has been, because people also hate change, are lazy, and tended to prefer both avoiding cognitive dissidents and minimizing effort to achieve desired results, getting rid of religion is a nightmare hassle. Even when the evidence is right there in front of them, people don’t care. At least not enough of them. They’d rather listen to their authority figure, or do what all their friends are doing. Which if you’re doing what all your friends are doing it just turns into a circle jerk. But since they’re in that circle jerk, they tend to just stay in it, and because the people in it are their friends or family, they defend it because it’s their tribe. We’re kind of hardwired that way.
TLDR, people are dumb monkeys.
