Why do some people have religious beliefs?

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i do not see how i projected myself onto others. i said that i am not smart enough to reason the existence of god and prove it. i think i am correct in saying that no one else has ever proven the existence of god either

Let the doubters shoulder the burden of proof for a change.

how lazy are you? you are not only lazy, but you are also self annulling if you do not want to consider the matter yourself. do you think so little of yourself that you will not consider the matter because you think you are too stupid to do so? i am well aware that there are smarter people than me who are also considering the situation, but they can not stop me from considering it myself.

i am not embarrassed if i am trumped by someone who tells me my ideas are stupid. at least i considered the matter and you advise me to just hibernate and wait for answers? i do not respect your attitude i must say.

i am not sure i understand what you said in that senttence, but i am not implying that a mysterious "god" made everything happen. i have not finished thinking about the matter and i may one day work it out.

"i don't know" is an answer by someone who is tired of speculating, and maybe has a lazy brain. who knows?. i will not stop thinking about it despite your recommendations to do so. i am not as mentally lazy as you it seems.

i do not see how i projected myself onto others. i said that i am not smart enough to reason the existence of god and prove it. i think i am correct in saying that no one else has ever proven the existence of god either

I've reached the conclusion there are two main causes why some people have religious beliefs:

Anyone got any other causes to add?

1. Peer pressure in their particular society. People who have religious beliefs tend to adopt them from whatever religion is indigenous in their locality. This seems to be particularly true in parts of the US and Islamic countries. So there is clearly little or no investigation on the part of the believers into which (if any) is the true religion that they should be believing anyway. Historically people born as Catholics and Protestants used to kill each other over which brand of Christianity was the "true one"; but nowadays the killing tends to be between those born as Christians or MIuslims and within brands of Islam, with Sunni Muslims and Sheeya Muslims killing each other over which is the "true religion". The true religion being the one they were born into of course.

2. Having a psychological need for thinking there is a meaningful purpose to their lives other than the purely mechanical evolutionary drive to survive and biologically reproduce. A typical part of the religious belief bundle includes the concept that when their loved one's die they have not ceased to exist but have gone to some sort of heaven where they will eventually see them again. The religious bundle also tends to offer rewards or comforts in an afterlife that are sometimes absent in the persons real life and these promised rewards can mitigate against current suffering in the person's life, giving them hope and a reason to live in what might be terrible conditions.

In short, religious faith seems to be nothing more than wilful self deception, which can be a conscious or subconscious act. This is made easier if the person is immersed in a society that already has lots of believers of whatever the predominant local religion is. This makes it seem less irrational. Once religious beliefs have been established the person creates a (typically patriarchal) invisible friend called 'God' and builds up a psychological relationship with said imaginary figure, believing the all-powerful God friend is looking out for their happiness and interests now, and in the future after they die. Anything positive that happens in their life they attribute to their invisible friend, negative things either weaken their belief or are handled in "God works in mysterious ways... Thy will be done..." types of thinking.

Having an invisible 'God' friend does seem to confer a certain amount of happiness and psychological stability to a number of believers; so from that perspective it isn't necessarily a "bad thing" for the believer. Another benefit conferred by religious belief is belonging to a social group (church/ mosque / temple) where they can offer each other mutual support and friendship. Religious beliefs have definitely improved the lives of some people by giving them a sense of comfort, belonging, purpose and direction that they lacked before.

I think the average religious believer is interested in leading a happy and "meaningful" life and having these beliefs is more important to them than knowing the physical reality of the universe. They don't care (or ignore) facts about evolution, cosmology and science in general. Science and facts are really an unwanted thorn in their side that they'd rather didn't exist.

Thus the ongoing verbal war between atheists and believers will continue ad infinitum. Atheists are more concerned with facts, truth and discovering the nature of reality and believers are more concerned with having a psychological sense of purpose and direction in their life.

That's my take on religious beliefs anyway.

Your position is unfalsifiable by its very nature. It's not even wrong.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. I'll give debating the possibility of God's existence now - because I don't actually care one way or the other.

Let the doubters shoulder the burden of proof for a change.

I'm epic -headed enough and have done my fair bit of neural tinkering. I still don't believe in God. I used to. Funnily enough, after using psychedelics, I'm less inclined to.

Reality itself is only vacuous on the surface. I find the idea of 'God did it' rather shallow, tbh. Traditional religions don't do justice to the true epic nature of reality.

Your position is unfalsifiable by its very nature. It's not even wrong.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. I'll give debating the possibility of God's existence now - because I don't actually care one way or the other.

What sense does it make for someone who already believes God exists to argue FOR God as though God didn't exist? Classical "proofs" are inherently flawed even if they are consistently true.

But so are classical "disproofs."

Take away the underlying assumption of a believer that God might not be true, and what you end up with is a non- or anti-theist making the claim that God doesn't exist without evidence that God doesn't exist. So even based on materialist patterns of reasoning, "God doesn't exist" is an indefensible position and collapses into absurdity.

Atheist: There is no God.
Theist: Prove it.
Atheist: I don't have to .
Theist: Why not?
Atheist: The existence of God is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Theist: I believe in God. To me, the claim that God does not exist is itself an extraordinary claim. So where is your evidence?

It's absurd, for example, to hold anyone to a higher standard of proof or evidence than your own. Most, if not all, disproofs will follow a similar pattern of failure. Hence why it can be really frustrating to make either argument.

If someone wants to believe a pink unicorn lives inside my kitchen cupboard they are free to do so. I have no means of proving one doesn't, other than saying I've never seen any evidence that said creature lives in there. Until it gives some evidence of its existence or actions I see no reason to believe it is there; nor do I feel a need to accredit it with the workings of the universe or to worship it.

As is yours.

What atheists tend to do is deny the existence of certain conceptions of 'God', or simply provide no definition, then say that undefined 'God' is not there.

Also, disproving the reality of a certain conception of God doesn't disprove the reality of God, if there is a 'God', because we could be totally off the mark as to how we're conceiving of him/her/it.

1. Um, no. Atheists tend to say that they don't believe in gods because they haven't seen any evidence for their existence. Atheism is not the belief in the nonexistence of any kind of higher power, it is the absence of god belief.

2. A god that is not clearly defined can't be disproven, and (almost) no atheist will tell you otherwise. When it comes to god as in "some higher power that nobody knows the exact attributes of", I'm an agnostic atheist. I don't believe in this higher power without proof, but you won't ever hear me say that it can't exist.

3. Only when believers tell me that they are best friends with this higher power and know for a fact that it has an opinion on gay marriage and abortion and stem cell research, my agnosticism turns into positive disbelief.

Why do so many theists consider atheism to be a personal insult to them?