Because religion provides comfort, community and a meaning to people’s existence that goes beyond “we were born of chance on an insignificant rock somewhere in the universe”.
(I’m not religious BTW)
It also exists to control people, and it still works.
Organised religion is always about power and money.
Both talking about capitalism here, right ?
Existence is meaningless and we just wobble around here for a little while and then we die. There’s nothing to it. Everything that happens is just a logical consequence; beauty is nothing but a tiny chemical reaction in your brain. Once you rot it’s all worthless.
Science is great at giving explanations, but not so good at providing meaning. For a lot of people, meaning is probably more helpful in order to facilitate a happy life.
Nietzsche writes at length about this stuff, most famously in the anecdote about the madman coming down from the mountain to inform the villagers that God is dead and that we have killed him. Everybody knows the three words “God is dead”, but I think it’s worth reading at length:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Nietzsche, whose father was a priest, recognizes that “God has become unbelievable”, but he does not celebrate it as the progress of science. Rather, we lost something that was fundamentally important to humans, and which science cannot easily replace.
Here one could start talking about the Free Masons, who attempted learning from religious rituals without the added layer of religion. Or one could dig deeper into the works of Nietzsche, and the contrast between Apollonian and Dionysian. It’s all fascinating stuff.
In short though, spirituality used to offer people a sense of meaning that is not so easily replaced by science alone. How do we bury our dead now that we know our rituals are pointless?
Very well written, and insightful. Thanks for sharing this perspective in the discussion as I personally found it very valuable. You articulated my own perspective on this much better than I could have, and gave some great philosophical background to boot. 10/10 👍
Thank you for your insightful perspective.
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”-Voltaire
Religion works on emotions, which are easy. Knowledge works on thinking, which is hard.
Indoctrination! 😁
The only inheritance for many, the poorest Americans especially.
Belief is social. If you’re surrounded by people that all believe a thing, you’re more likely to also believe. If challenged on something that threatens group membership, your brain reacts like it’s a physical threat. Group membership is that important. Facts matter far less.
This happens to everyone.
There’s basically a 100% chance that OP believes something equally as unprovable as religion.
This happens to everyone.
Yeah, they said that in their comment. Did you not read all 5 sentences?
Have you heard of the fireplace delusion? Burning wood is horrible for our health and the environment, but most of us have fond memories of sitting by a fire. Religion is the same. Holiday traditions with family, organized events marking important life events, it’s hard to break away.
Great perspective
Existence is pain. Religion is one of many ways to relieve it.
Then why religious people are so stressed about causing other people pain?
They aren’t in my experience. They are stressed about increasing cognitive dissonance.
Because humans are animals, ruled by emotion and superstition.
It’s a source of comfort. People want to be in control. If they can’t be in control, they at least want to feel like someone or something is in control. That there is some organizing force or principle to the universe. Religion, astrology, conspiracism etc all flow from that impulse.
People are stupid, scared and ignorant. Tradition and the thought that all this chaos has some kind of meaning behind it bring them comfort.
I actually got more religious before I accepted I was trans. When faced with a harsh reality people can become more religious.
Luckily it looks like the internet and access to information is killing religion in the new generations before it takes root.
You hit the nail on the head. A lot of people are just scared by the chaos and meaninglessness of life and death. It is terrifying to know that everyone you know and love is going to die and be forgotten, eventually, including yourself. Everything that has meaning to you has an expiration date, and a lot of people have trouble accepting that. So they hold on to illogical fairy tales of eternal life in paradise to deal with the existential dread.
Not really to answer your questions. But a book came out a year ago and it covers the philosophy of simulation theory.
That is it explains the theory that our reality may be a simulation inside of a computer, and then re-establishes all major philosophical ideas from this premise. Ironically enough, a lot of philosophical ideas it arrives at are very similar to those proposed by religious philosophers.
The book is called Reality +. Good read if you like philosophy and think simulation theory is interesting.
I have to say that I really dislike simulation theory but I appreciate that people out there are pondering this stuff.
If you are a fan of simulation theory, the most compelling evidence I’ve found was something I stumbled across after considering the hypothesis that if we are in a simulation and clearly can talk about it without the world ending, that maybe there’s something in our lore that breaks the 4th wall like we see in games explaining more about the nature of the simulation.
It took only weeks to find something I’ve been researching over the past few years since that exceeded my expectations wildly.
For example, it was lost for over 1,500 years. The only complete copy was rediscovered in Dec 1945.
At that same time this happened, the world’s first Turing complete computer (capable of simulating another computer) was first put to use at Los Alamos on figuring out the starting reaction for a fusion bomb, also in Dec 1945.
Fusion bombs, where two atoms are made into one, are much more powerful than fission bombs. Recently a fusion test in North Korea made news for literally moving mountains.
Here’s one of the lines from the text (saying 106):
When you make the two into one, you will become children of Adam, and when you say, ‘Mountain, move from here!’ it will move.
I recommend saying it out loud and noting the potential pun around Adam/atom. The people following this text also legit were talking about atomism and indivisible points making up all things (they seem influenced by Lucretius’s specific phrasing for discussing atomism from 50 BCE).
This barely scratches the surface of what I found with this text and tradition.
This is such a complicated question because it gets into the origins of religion and belief systems in general, but also power and class struggles, economics, social psychology and propaganda, and more.
Lots of people haven’t been properly educated Lots of people have been indoctrinated Lots of people have a reason to exploit the beliefs of others Lots of people value comfort and community above scientific accuracy or consistency
Can you refine your question a bit?
Do millions just want to ignore science?
I have to imagine you’re not an American, because yeah, millions of Americans legitimately want to ignore science completely. They’re pretty loud about it too.
I’m an American. The religious people here are terrifying.
What’s “wrong” in your question is the assumption that a) the only reason religions exist is the lack of knowledge and b) that the knowledge we have answers all the questions that people seek answers to when they turn to religion. I think if you question these assumptions then you’ll easily start to find the answers. Otherwise see all the other comments.
I mean, in this day and age why isn’t [insert what I know to be true] accepted by [everyone who I perceive to be wrong]. Hegel leads to another Russian smart man who argues a bunch of it might be due to this idea of perezhivanie; how we make sense of what is happening (particularly dramatic events) through our cognition, our emotions and filtered through our needs.
How we make sense of stuff leads to how we behave/believe. This is impacted by our social environment, how we are brought up, our experiences, and our reasoning of those experiences.
It’s why it is argued that information alone will never change someone’s mind about something, it needs to be attached to an emotion and an experience to unpack.
For me, religion at its essence is about the fear of death.
Many people cannot process the idea that one day, they will just…end.
Religion is there to give a comforting notion that there existence will continue.
A comfortable delusion to soothe the existential dread and remove some measure of accountability for one’s actions.
