Asklemmy

One popular answer is that sometimes people just experience things that they find scientific answers to not be able to answer adequately. We as a species are still far from knowing everything.

Cause a lot of people care more about feeling comfortable than feeling statistically probable.

So what you're saying is that here in 2024 we've got it all figured out?

*Note that: 2024, everything figured out.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” -Shakespeare

There's physics. And there's metaphysics. One does not come to Faith the same way one produces a hypothesis.

I honestly think it’s a coping mechanism that is hard wired into us.

Most if not all ancient civilizations independently had some sort of belief in a higher power.

It’s a way to deal with the death of a loved one and your own mortality.

Fear of the unknowable

I think there's something that always seems to get left out of these conversations and that's that "when I practice my religion, I feel something that I don't feel otherwise" is frequently a true statement for the religious.

I've often heard self-described atheists say that, often when conversing/debating with religious folks about why they believe, the conversation comes to a point where the religious person will say "I've just had a personal experience" and the atheist, unable to relate to that, really has no way to advance the conversation beyond that.

Were I opposite some fundamentalist Christian or something in such a situation, my response would be "yeah, me too! That's totally normal."

I think the beligerantly nonreligious either can't relate to religious experiences or don't want to admit to having had them for fear of embarassment or maybe rhetorical concessions. And the religious typically haven't had such experiences outside the context of their religious practices, or if they have they still attribute it to their religious beliefs, and so take it as proof of their beliefs.

And these religious experiences are very real and very normal. Probably some people are more prone to such experiences than others. But despite how the religious tend to interpret them they have little to no relationship to one's beliefs. One can have experiences of anatta ("no-self" in Theravada Buddhism) or satori (sudden, typically-temporary, enlightenment in Japanese Zen Buddhism) or recollection (a term from Christian mysticism) or kavana (Jewish mysticism) or whatever without accepting any particular belief system. There are secularized mindfulness and meditation practices that can increase one's chances and frequency of experiencing these states.

But, unfortunately, the history of these experiences has been one of large religious organizations claiming and mostly exercising a monopoly on such experiences.

These experiences feel very deep and profound and can be a very positive (or negative!) thing, even affecting the overall course of one's life. And they can be kindof addictive in a good way.

All that to say that I think any conversation about why people believe in religions today is incomplete without taking into account that for many people, their religion is their means of connection with some extremely profound and beautiful experiences. Though people only accept beliefs along with those experiences because they don't know these experiences aren't actually exclusive to any one religion or any set of beliefs. And those experiences are 100% real and tangible to them. (Whether they correspond to anything real in consensus reality is a whole other conversation, but the experiences themselves are a normal human phenomenon like orgasm or schadenfreude.)

Just some followup thoughts:

• Like I alluded to earlier, meditation can be dangerous. Do your research first and know the risks.
• There are a ton of good books on these topics. "Stealing Fire" by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal is a good place to start if you're interested in the science of it or The Science of Enlightenment if you want to get a little deeper into the practice.
• If you want to know my personal beliefs, my beliefs are that beliefs don't matter. Personal experience does. "But do you believe god exists?" Honestly it'd take me a good hour or more to give a proper answer to that question. Let's go with "neither yes nor no" for the short version.
• Every culture has these experiences. Humans likely have had them since humans have existed.

I like how all these answers involving science fail to realize that the scientific method was used exclusively by many scholars and students who had no historical evidence of giving up their religion.

Empirical evidence is as old as humans, and afaik the modern scientific method has been in use since the Islamic golden age if not older.

The key here is that many of these people did not consider religion an empirical issue but a philosophical and ethical one. Particularly with the monotheistic religions, this would make sense because you can easily argue that it would be impractical to test for the existence of God.

I think a better question would be why do people believe in their respective religion if it contains a glaring contradiction(s).

you can be spiritual and religious without believing in structured religion like the church.

i'm wiccan and spiritual and it means a great deal to me.

Alternative ways of explaining the world have been around for like a century and a half, and religious conversion is slow.

Why we did religion in the first place instead of just "I dunno where stuff came from or why" is a much more interesting question IMO.

Objective reality doesn't matter to you if you close your eyes, cover your ears and insist on living in a fantasy world.

Let's put it this way, if I went around basing my entire understanding of reality on Greek gods, people would rightly think I was fucking nuts.

Do it with the bible though...

I think that for most people it's nothing more than a social club. I have always been skeptical ever since hearing absurd stories about arks and being eaten by whales, but every once in a while (especially after sobering up) I went into various churches to see if I might have been missing out on something. Invariably I just found a social club of people just looking for excuses to feel better about themselves. Anything good that happens is a direct blessing from a doting god; anything bad is always the devil....personal responsibility is never part of the answer. Many are just uneducated and dont know how to think; they accept whatever Grandpa says as truth without any consideration, and this extends to pastors. I am atheist; my wife is a devout believer...but more and more she sees something horrible happen and can't deny it when I point out that religion did that. She still has her higher power but is starting to see the brainrot and brainwashing in her friends and family and can't understand why they do what they do while calling themselves 'christians'. It's not faith; it's just social self-service.

I'd say it's partly to find some comfort with life's many uncertainties, and one of several ways to achieve a sense of purpose when struggling for some.

Religion dissolves uncertainty. Why does….? Because the sky man said so. How does….? Because the sky man made it that way. What should I do with my life and how should I live it? Here’s a book written by the sky man and it has all the answers. No more thinking… I suppose it’s probably of great comfort to many.

Dear (my) god, you folks are irrational. If someone acts a certain way, judge them for it! But judging anyone with faith just because you don't believe in that!? I can't prove God exists any more than you can prove they don't. If a religious person acts kind, fair, and rational, you shouldn't have anything against them, should you? But this post isn't about American right-wingers, or extremist Islamic Muslims, is it? It's about anyone who has any faith at all, just because you don't believe the same thing. Caring Christians literally building homes for people internationally, Sikhs feeding anyone, no matter their beliefs...

I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but that's literally small-minded.

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.

Because they keep having experiences they can’t or have no interest in explaining.

The existence of one or more gods can't be conclusively proven or disproven. So it makes sense to me that some people believe in it and others don't.

I listened to a great podcast on the subject last week which was super helpful, https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/what-does-it-feel-like-to-believe.

For me, I just do. It's just who I am and what I feel. I don't really talk about it outside of my church friends, but I just believe. I don't think the Bible is terribly accurate and regard it much as I do Arabian Nights, a book of fantastic stories based loosely on events. I also think it has much to offer in teaching you how to treat others and live your life as a good person, and that's what I take away from it. I find Jesus honestly a touch creepy, but I never stop believing in a higher power of sorts.

Also I honestly have made the best friends I've ever made in my church life. Horrible homophobic Christians aside, there's some really excellent people who genuinely love you and do good things to meet there.