Why do some people have religious beliefs?

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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 Muslims 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.

Last edited by TallyMan on 04 Feb 2012, 2:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Or it's how they were taught the nature of reality to be from a young age, and they genuinely believe them to be true. They probably genuinely think those with differing beliefs are the willful self deceivers, including atheists.
There is plenty of pseudoscience out there to support pretty much any perception, and with unconscious selective reasoning the mind tends to stick where it is invested.

That seems to be the case in fundamentalist Islamic / Christian countries. An enquiring mind is not something they encourage. Some Islamic countries forbid knowledge about evolution for example. Texas isn't far behind in that respect!

Pseudo-science is the modern-day scourge. People with little or no scientific knowledge spouting all manner of rubbish, often with a religious or political agenda. It used to be restricted to books by various dubious authors like Von Daniken, daily newspaper horoscopes or booklets from the Jehovah's Witnesses, but now it is all over the internet and the average person who hasn't studied sciences doesn't have the background knowledge to know what to accept and what to reject. This situation is likely to get worse not better due to the ever increasing amount of scientific knowledge, much of which is highly technical, and the increasing ability to disseminate information / propaganda.

I more or less agree with your analysis, but I would like to add a few things. There is a third reason why people have religious beliefs: Fear. Unlike other tales that we teach to young children who are still inclined to believe everything adults say, religious memes -- at least those of the Abrahamic variety -- come with a horrible threat. This threat often makes it near impossible for believers to critically examine their religious childhood beliefs at adult age.

If the believer doubts his religion, he gives in to the devil and risks eternal torture, the most horrible thing imaginable. Consequently, any information that threatens the religious meme and might cast doubt on its validity is blasphemy that cannot be tolerated and has to be silenced by any means possible. That's why believers burn embassies over newspaper cartoons, and why atheists are the most hated minority in the USA. It is also the reason that different religious memes are at war with one another. Religion is the most divisive issue of our time.

For someobody who is at odds with his beliefs, religion is the exact opposite of comforting and psychologically stabilizing. I found the idea that god watches me all the time and that Satan might send me inappropriate thoughts and tempt me to sin extremely frightening, not to mention the apocalyptic aspect of my childhood religion. Every time I heard the noise of a jet fighter overhead as a child, I thought "oh no, this is the end of the world. They'll be dropping bombs now, everyone is going to die and I will go to hell". I was convinced that I wouldn't go to heaven because the bible says that only a small number of true believers will make the cut, and I didn't feel worthy to be one of them.

After I deconverted, it took me a while to go from agnosticism to atheism. For years I was plagued by nightmares and nagging thoughts like "what if it's true after all". I was tempted to just get it over with and kill myself, only to know for certain if there was something after death. I thought if there was an afterlife, I would go to hell anyway for rejecting the holy spirit. This wasn't willful self deception, it was a severe psychological trauma akin to PTSD. It should be illegal to inflict this kind of trauma onto children, imho.

But even if Abrahamic religion does "work" for a person, it is not just a harmless comforting crutch. It comes with a rat's tail of harmful dogma that causes people to discriminate against minorities, oppose scientific research that could save countless lives, make irrational and consequential political decisions, and in some cases, oppress women and commit unspeakable crimes against humanity (such as stoning rape victims to death). These religions also cause people to not give a damn about the environment and the future of their children. According to their holy books, this planet is doomed anyway. They actually believe that the end of the world is a good thing. Many Christians look forward to a devastating war in the Middle East because it might lure Jesus out of his retirement.

I've tried really hard to adopt a "live and let live" stance, but it's hard to ignore the above-mentioned problems. Besides, it is impossible for non-religigious people not to be affected by religion in one way or another, especially for those who happen to be gay, lesbian or transgender. Or women who find themselves unwantedly pregnant, or people who suffer from conditions that could benefit from stem cell research, or people who are sent to war because "god told me to invade Iraq". There is no such thing as separation of state and religion as of yet, and we have to continue to fight for this goal. This fight is inevitably a fight against harmful religious ideas and against all religious proselytizing and opinionating that happens outside of churches.

Indoctrination and the installation of fear can be very powerful de-motivators to seek truth and keep people confined to a limited range of knowledge. I've mentioned this before on here: When I was a science student at university (many years ago) the handful of Muslim science students excluded themselves from the classes that explained the mechanisms of evolution - it struck me at time how bizarre their behaviour was, but looking back perhaps they feared being damned to some sort of hell if they attended those classes! Personally I've never had a belief in hell, despite some strong attempts at indoctrinating Christianity into me when I was a child.

At a tangent it is fascinating to see how these religious memes continue to survive and propagate themselves across the generations. They are almost like living organisms (or pandemic viruses) with self defence mechanisms - in the case of religions, knowledge is dangerous, so the memes defend themselves against facts and knowledge that can harm the meme. The strongest and most predatory religions survive - evolution at work!

That is very true It is fascinating indeed, especially if you view memetic reproduction in relation to biological reproduction. Christians tend to have more offspring than atheists and agnostics, and fundamentalists usually have more children than moderate believers. Think of the Evangelical Quiverfull movement, for example. I can see how such a "be fruitful and multiply" belief, coupled with taboos against birth control and non-procreative sex, would have been a reproductive advantage in the past when many children died before reaching adulthood. But in these times of overpopulation it just adds another problem to the list.

I was manipulated, plain and simple.

What causes people to be athiests?

Lack of evidence.

However, people seem to be divided in their opinions as to what exactly would constitute evidence.

The complete and total absence of anything pointing to the existence of any god aside from a few story books from the Middle East written thousands of years ago.

You are assuming that all religions come form the middle-east.
The big bang theory make less sense than a God.
You can't get something out of nothing and it is illogical to believe that.

You don't see any theist on this forum attacking atheists. Religion teaches morals,compassion and love.
Atheism just teaches scientific fact.

Which one makes the world more bearable?

I will go on and believe in my illogical and invisible god.

Funnily enough, guess where the original Big Bang Theory came from? The church.

Go on and keep believing in your little fallacy, but don't be disappointed when you die and realise there is nothing but nothing on the other end.

religion?

It only exists in relation to something else.

We have evidence for the Big Bang, though. As for what triggered it, well, it's beyond our senses. Could be God. Could be some impersonal entity. Or could be nothing. It just happened. They're all seemingly illogical claims at the end of the day. So let's stick to what we can actually know. And we know the Big Bang happened regardless of how it got triggered.



If you believe it's illogical, then so is the eternal existence of God. Why should any entity that has existed eternally in the past be logical but something just happening for no reason is not?



How would you know? Have you read every single post here by theists?



You need religion to teach you all this?



Not really. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in God. What it teaches is up to the individual.



A world where neither religion nor God is ever used as an excuse to wage war and commit violence.

I don't believe in an afterlife. Not all theists are so certain in the idea of life after death.
To suggest that all theist believe in an afterlife is very prejudice.

I don't believe that all atheist have no morals and I would ask the same tolerance from you.

Whether or not there is a "Creator of the Universe" God is not very interesting. It's a red herring issue.

The really important issues are:
(1.) Does God want us to do certain things?
(2.) Has he told us what things he wants us to do? If so, how?
(3.) Is there a good reason for us to do the things that he wants us to do?
(4.) Can God interfere with the physical world? Has he done so in the past?

The evidence for these four issues is logically separate from arguments for the existence of God. I want to hear people's best evidence on these four issues.

In other words, I don't care whether God exists. But assuming he does, what makes you think that Jesus was his messenger?