Question:
Why do people actually believe in god?
2013-08-08 13:48:14 UTC
Not that I have a problem with it, I just don't think that I will ever understand how an educated human being could believe in a 3000 year old tome written by aincent tribes. Isn't that a bit ridiculous? I mean, this one girl I know got totally freaked out when I told her I didn't believe in god. She insisted I go to her church group to learn, but, it just doesn't make sense.

Christians have used the bible to insist slavery is ok and that homosexuality is wrong, but eat shellfish when the bible clearly states to not do so.

They use "It's God's plan" to get around accepting that sh!t happens. Like how does that make any sense at all??? No all powerful being that supports peace and happiness would give you a disease like cancer.

And what drives me over the edge is when people believe in the bible literally. Do people really believe god made people live to be like 800 years old when average life spans of that time didn't even reach 50? It just confuses me how an educated human could believe in a god. They say the world was created by a god, but how did that god come to exist?

How does an afterlife even exist? I feel like religion provides people with a way to feel as if they are safe even after they die, instead of accepting that death is normal and happens to everybody.

With the amount of crap in my life and today's society, I just don't believe that there could be some sort of creator, and scientific evidence supports that.

Can somebody, Christian or not, explain this to me? Because all I see is a false sense of security. Also, do any of you agree with me?
Eleven answers:
Demi
2013-08-08 14:07:25 UTC
Some people believe in a god for the same reason others do not. It's simply what you believe. Also, you shouldn't discard all religious anything based on one relatively new faith. There are many, much older faiths out there, some that are actually atheistic. Religion, or at least some practices usually associated with religious practice, when not used as an especially heinous form of social control or a bludgeon against those that are generally disliked by the adherents, can actually be not just harmless, but beneficial.



There is a relatively new branch of science called "neurotheology" that tries to explain religious experience in neuroscientific terms. It's been found that praying nuns, chanting Sikhs and meditating monks experience fairly significant changes in the frontal lobes of their brains when engaged in these practices. When a simple mantra-based meditation was given to older individuals that were experiencing memory problems and they were retested (forgot to mention, they used brain scans on all before and after their religious/spiritual immersion), even at rest the parts of their brain responsible for things like memory and concentration had improved. Even after just 8 weeks and 12 minutes per day, they had an improvement of about 10-15% in their frontal lobe function (the part responsible for memory and concentration and the part stimulated when in prayer, meditation or doing things like chanting).



While neurotheology is not out to "prove" or "disprove" any deity or religion, I do think it's beginning to lay the framework for a better understanding of WHY some people are so very religiously devoted. Apparently, those who do engage in frequent prayer or meditation or chanting derive a measurable benefit from it. It's good for you, in other words, no matter which deity or deity-free path you may take.



So you don't like Christianity and all the trappings and shenanigans that come with the way some practice it and you don't believe in god - don't practice it. It's your choice. However, just because you don't believe and don't understand those who do, do not think it flawed if someone does truly believe and do not malign them /just/ for the belief (reserve that for when they behave badly BECAUSE of their belief - then it's appropriate to call them on it). They're exactly the same as you, just coming from the opposite direction when it comes to whether or not it's a deity making their frontal lobe happy or it is merely the act of chanting, praying or meditating that makes their frontal lobe happy.
ANDRE L
2013-08-08 13:50:44 UTC
The following two conditions explain this:



-The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.[1]

Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others" (p. 1127).[2]-



-Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.[Note 1][1] People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. For example, in reading about gun control, people usually prefer sources that affirm their existing attitudes. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).-



There's also that fear of death thing. They're terrified by death, and will make up all sorts of factless nonsense so that they can convince themselves that death isn't a reality.
?
2013-08-09 00:20:40 UTC
The only way primitive religion exists today is through the child abuse of forcing it into very, very young children but thanks to better education and growing intellects so many teens are able to discover the truth, throw off the indoctrination and step into the real world!



Acceptance of a supernatural claim tends to promote cooperative social relationships. This communication demonstrates a willingness to accept, without skepticism, the influence of the speaker in a way similar to a child's acceptance of the influence of a parent. By encouraging this kind of behavior where the most intense social relationships occur it facilitates the lack of skepticism and deters more open minded thinking.



They are christian, Muslim or the other religions depending where they were born simply because they were indoctrinated by their parents as very young children. They will go on to indoctrinate their own children and those will go on to indoctrinate their grandchildren!



Atheists have the intellect to see through the conditioning and escape into the real world!



Agnostics have the intellect to see through the conditioning but lack the courage to throw of the conditioning entirely.



Sadly Christians, muslims and others are still held firmly prisoner by the self perpetuating brainwashing!
Othol48
2013-08-08 13:58:40 UTC
Psa_19:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Psa_97:6 The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory.
2013-08-08 14:27:55 UTC
Listening to all religious spiel on TV they all thrive on sinning, why do they have such fetishes for sinning. I do not know any atheist who's ambition in life is to talk about sinning all the time and would get pleasure out of talking of sinning !
?
2013-08-08 14:51:53 UTC
because when we do believe by faith in the completed work of Jesus at the cross, his death took away the sins of the whole world never to see them again and that he was buried to prove death and on the third day Jesus was raised to life everlasting when we believe this truth by faith we are made alive together with Christ alive spiritually = salvation, heaven bound.
?
2013-08-08 13:49:15 UTC
They've been taught from an early age that they'll burn for eternity if the don't believe in God. It's almost a foolproof plan really...
?
2013-08-08 14:22:11 UTC
It would do you well to actually study the Bible for yourself rather than rely on the testimony of others who know as little as you. Some people call this the blind leading the blind. As to the questions you've raised ...



Biblical slavery was a way of paying off debts. Back then no one declared bankruptcy and actually took responsibility for the mistakes they made. Some slaves were treated so well by their creditors they stayed on even after the debt was paid in full. But at the end of seven years slaves had to set free even if the debt wasn't paid off. Do you see anything unfair here?



Homosexuality is a sin. What people seem to not realize is that any sin can be forgiven just for the asking. Read Matthew 7:7-8 and 1 John 1:9. No one will go to Hell for being a homosexual. That place is reserved for people who consciously want God out of their lives forever. They'll get exactly what the want. Do you see anything unfair here?



Shellfish were forbidden for health reasons. One of the reasons the average Israelite lived to be 70-80 years old (Psalm 90:10) while folks in Egypt barely made it passed 40. While all foods have now been declared "clean", researchers have only recently agreed that shellfish are not the healthiest food you can eat. But God knew this thousands of years ago.



When God separated the waters above from the waters below (Genesis 1:6-8) He was using vaporized water to create a canopy around the planet at the outer edge of our atmosphere to ward off harmful cosmic rays. The rains came when the canopy collapsed. The genealogies in Genesis show average lifespans got progressively shorter after the flood. Abraham lived only 175 years, but Noah who died at age 900 lived to see Abraham’s 50th birthday. Noah’s son Shem out lived Abraham even though he was born 10 generations earlier.



There is no afterlife as such, only a continuation of the present life. We are spirit beings living in physical bodies. The body may die, but the spirit is eternal. So the real question is where you, as a spirit being, will spend eternity. You have a choice between Heaven and Hell. Choose wisely. And no, death is not normal. Man was created to live forever, even in the body. It's sin that brought death into the world.



You don't need scientific evidence to support God. Common sense and a little research will do just fine. In Romans 1 Paul claims that all anyone has to do to see evidence of a Creator is look at the creation. Its perfection, its consistent order render the evolution option totally wanting. And according to Paul this should be sufficient evidence, because God says those who deny it are without excuse. But in my opinion the quickest way to prove God’s existence is to begin studying Bible prophecy.



There are over 135 historically verified, fulfilled prophecies in the first 35 verses of Daniel chapter 11 alone. God called King Cyrus of Persia by name in Isaiah 44:24-45:6 as His agent for freeing the Israelites from Babylon 150 years before the event. Daniel 9:25 prophesied Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on what would be the first Palm Sunday, 483 years to the day after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem was given by King Artaxerxes Longimanus of Persia. The decree was given in 445BC. The prophecy was given in 535BC, 90 years earlier. Alexander the Great refused to invade jerusalem after the Temple High Priest showed him in the book of Isaiah the very dream he recently had that was written hundreds of years before. You just can't make this stuff up.



Or just take a handful of Old Testament prophecies concerning the first coming of Jesus (there are over 300 of them and all were a matter of public record at least 150 years before His birth), and apply any legitimate standard you want: forensic logic, statistical analysis, rules of evidence, you name it.



Even a person of modest intellect will quickly be persuaded. God exists, He is Who He says He is, and He has done all that He claims to have done. No blind faith is required, no rush of emotion, no hocus-pocus; just cold hard logic. In fact it takes a whole lot more blind faith and a stubborn willingness to believe in spite of the facts, to accept evolution as your explanation for the beginning of life.



Prophecy is the way God validates His word. No other so-called holy writings offer this proof. Only God has consistently told His people what He was going to do and then did it to prove Himself to them.



Once you see that His track record for fulfilling prophecy is without error or blemish, you’ll know beyond all shadow of doubt that you can trust Him too. Trust Him to save you from the penalty due you for your sins; trust Him to return like He promised to take you to be with Him forever, and trust Him to guide you through the remainder of your uncertain and undefined life on earth in the meantime.
geebarjay
2013-08-08 13:52:23 UTC
''Religion is a fantasy brought about to assuage the common mans' fear of death''



Says it all, hey?
Ricardo
2013-08-08 15:38:35 UTC
It is convenient and it fits comfortably into their paradigm.
Voice in the Wilderness
2013-08-08 14:00:05 UTC
It's completely absurd not to.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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