this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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Because belief is intrinsic to humanity even if we don't believe in religion.
I believe in a lot of human concepts, including kindness, altruism, democracy and humanism. They are all still effectively made up human ideas.
I also believe when I sit down that the chair below me really exists but I cannot truly trust my own senses 100% either. So effectively I "believe" what my sensory organs and brain interpretation tell me, but the reality is the brain and its interpretations can be wrong.
Look at the USA, the founders of the nation are often treated with a reverence akin to that of religious figures.
People have all kinds of delusions. People worship all kinds of weird things. Religion is just one of many.
Finally, someone like Ayn Rand shows that a human can have pretty reprehensible and hypocritical beliefs even if they are an atheist. She promoted bullshit "great men" theories of humanity and argued that selfishness could be used for good.
She also died penniless and on government benefits while spending her whole life preaching against things like government benefits.
People are deeply irrational even without religion.
As an atheist who is not anti-religion, I wholeheartedly agree. The religious do not have a monopoly on irrationality, or weaponizing ideology.
I see many atheists on forums proposing the idea that if we could only just get rid of religion, the world would be a harmonious and rational place. As if human beings wouldn't still be perfectly able to come up with new and interesting ways to rationalize conflict and division amongst themselves.
I like to say "Humans aren't rational creatures, humans are rationalizing creatures."
We can rationalize nearly anything and justify it, in our own minds.
Thank you for being honest.
Humans are emotional creatures. We can’t change that. Even when we’re being rational we’re still basing every decision we make on emotions. “I’ve researched this and I feel this is the right decision.”
I like this explanation most
We believe in those things because they're practices we can observe and measure. The real question is why do theists not have the same standard of evidence for theistic claims.
Your trust (or "faith") in the chair existing and supporting your weight is because of your experience with chairs in the past. I don't think many people would say they have "absolute certainty" the chair exists and would hold them.
If you had a history of hallucinating you might have a higher standard of evidence, but it's still there to be tested. The problem with religion is it seems like you need a standard of "none at all" to accept theistic claims.
"They do it too" doesn't really get us to an answer, just another "why" question. She believes her claims with little to no evidence, theists believe their claims with little to no evidence, but like...why?