Why do people believe in gods/God?

posted: 2317 days ago, on Sunday, 2005 Oct 02 at 11:59
tags: atheism, psychology.

"Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals."

E O Wilson

I'm fond of pointing out, when asked if I believe in God, that I'm not superstitious. This invariably leads to a discussion concentrating on definitions and clear meanings.

Sometimes, just asking someone "What do you mean by God?", is a first step for them. Another good step would be to take the Personal Beliefs Scale, which helps to clear up murky thinking.

Without sound evaluation – yes, a cognitive deficit model – I believe people are seduced to religion along a number of vectors. For a moment, consider each of these beliefs:

  1. There is no such thing, really, as death.
  2. My life has a meaning, and there is purpose to the universe.
  3. Not only am I a good person, but I'm actually also better than you.
  4. If shit happens, it's not really my fault.
  5. It is possible to get something for nothing.

The more of these statements you buy into – and I'm sure there are others – the better the odds are that you also think that there's some supernatural entity or entities out there willing to suspend the laws of nature on behalf of "a single petitioner confessedly unworthy" (Ambrose Bierce's definition of prayer).

 comments

2010 March 09 at 14:44 by Martin Foster

The closest I have to a religion would be atheism. BUT and that's a big BUT - I regard myself as spiritual. I used to be Christian with complete belief in the resurrection etc and then had what is commonly termed an Out of Body experience. This completely negated the resurrection belief. I continue to have these and am "virtually" certain that all sentient's have them - they just don't have the ability to recall these experiences until they can connect very different states. Memory seems to be state specific. Spiritual experiences cannot be proven or measured using physical means.

2010 March 09 at 22:02 by Auke

Martin,

I too regard myself as spiritual but don't have out-of-body experiences - I've got the wrong personality mix for that. That, and I don't do drugs, m'kay?

I am very curious, though, why you should think that spiritual experiences cannot be measured? Do you think they are magical? Supernatural? Or as a result of normal brain processes?

Regards,
Auke

P.S. You may want to take a look at this event report:

The Search for a Post-Church Spirituality

2010 March 12 at 01:15 by Paul

Hi Martin,

As far as I know, OOB experiences can be induced, e.g. in g-force induced loss of consciousness. Also, operations on specific areas of the brain can increase or decrease various feelings that are considered 'spiritual'.

So, spiritual feeling are not completely independent of the physical brain. My own view is there's nothing more to them than the physical.

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