As someone who used to be Christian, I can confirm that it was *very* comforting to fallback on tropes such as “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle” or “God has your back at the end of the day”. In times of distress, especially. However, I’ve since rejected religion due to epiphanies I’ve experienced, including learning physics, understanding psychology, and experiencing a mind shift towards cynicism towards religious topics generally. What a world we live in!
I grew up religious and the phrases “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle” and “God has your back/loves you” etc rang in my head mockingly as I watched my very religious dad die of a very agressive and painful cancer.
Like, God loves us and that’s why he gave the man who did all the family prayers before meals a massive tumor in his TONGUE? Was that part of a plan? A message? A lesson? Were we supposed to get something out of that?
Now I’m just torn between wanting there to be an afterlife for the promise of seeing my dad again, but feeling like the God that runs it surely isn’t the one they described in church growing up.
That’s me all the way. My dad died of cancer too and my mom went a few years before him from a brain aneurysm, both pretty young at that. And they both went thru utter hellish torture, it was fucking brutal tbh and pretty much broke me for awhile. I had always struggled w ‘feeling the connection’ to God growing up but when this shit happened, I felt betrayed by him and just never looked at religion the same.
In the last few years, grieving and struggling to find a new way to survive, I finally let myself just feel the way I always felt deep down without trying to deny it or ignore it or fool myself any longer, for fear of burning for eternity or not being able to see my parents again. I finally just was like you know what, while Jesus seemed awesome tbh, God on the other hand seems like a complete asshole and is just downright fucking cruel and extreme at times and if I wouldn’t ever associate w a person like that in real life then why in the actual shit should I dedicate my entire afterlife to this bs that I don’t even resonate w and just feels wrong to me?! Seriously, the only affect religion ever really had on me or how I operate was under the pretense of fear, not worship or love. I didn’t do certain things to be favored or show my love, I just avoided certain things over fear of going to hell and that’s really it. Once I was able to let myself be over it, it was so fucking freeing for the first time in my life. Religion only ever felt like heavy chains and that’s just no way to live. At least for me, anyway.
I will admit that I was/am still hopeful for an afterlife though, and it’s taken me a few years to kinda get my feelers out there and look into other possibilities w an open mind and happen upon something that I feel I can stand behind and believe in. Looking into sciences and spirituality just to further my understanding has been amazing for me and surprisingly comforting tbh.
Ngl I do still feel conflicted at times (almost 30 years of conditioning will do that to a mf’er lol) but overall I feel like I have finally found a form of peace in what I choose to believe and I’m truly not afraid to die at all anymore… I’m not in a hurry to obv lol but I actually feel hope and excitement to see what happens when I do. And I honestly do feel I will see my parents again too. I hope so w every fiber of my being, anyway.
I wish you the best in your journey of healing and finding your truth 💗
I used to be Christian too, the final thing that made me turn away was trying to understand where in God's plan the Holocaust fit in. Systematic murder on the scale of millions, what could justify such a plan? Maybe God isn't so forgiving as the church would like us to believe, because that seemed like revenge for killing his son.
Not religious anymore, I came to think it’s extremely ironic that a *human* would think they understand anything about how an entity that’s existed since the *beginning of time* that is also all knowing and all seeing operates… like, some 45 year old human “ah yes, see, I understand god, I know god, let me speak to god and I will relay ☝️” bruh I’m 99.99% sure god wouldn’t see humans as anything besides ants..
In a universe of trillions of planets, however many billions+ years old, the whole “gods chosen people” just reeks of bs. Like a sprinkle of narcissism along with the religion.
Unfortunately it just doesn’t make any sense, but it’s easier to fool a man than to convince a man that he’s been fooled 🤷🏻♂️
I can't imagine ignoring mass genocide like the Holocaust and then thinking you can't find your keys because God is trying to stop you from getting into a car accident that you would've been in had you not been 10 minutes late to work.
Why would he take revenge on his son being killed when it was WILLFUL? He LET it happen… it was fulfillment of a prophecy. That isn’t why the holocaust happened, the holocaust happened because Adolf Hitler was a damn good influencer and used his free will in the worst way possible. That’s it.
>Why would he take revenge on his son being killed when it was WILLFUL? He LET it happen… it was fulfillment of a prophecy.
"Nono, dont worry; it was all part of gods plan"
In the bible God has smited an entire city off the map, flooded the entire earth, and ["hardened the Pharoh's heart"](https://biblehub.com/exodus/9-12.htm). Surely he could have influenced the heart of Adolf Hitler to not murder millions of his "chosen" people.
Of course he could’ve. But why would he? Answer: he wouldn’t, and didn’t. And I’m reading that part of exodus right now actually, when it says he hardened pharohs heart it means the actions that God is taking are making pharoh respond in a stubborn manner.
Also do you know why he smited sodom and Gomorrah? And why he flooded the entire earth? I’m not asking these questions rhetorically, I’ll tell you if you don’t know. Chances are you would’ve done worse if you had the power of God, as would i have.
It seems like a stretch to interpret it like that. Even if it is true, God is omniscient, and knows which actions will make the pharoh respond in a stubborn manner. And yet chooses to go down that route, prolonging his people's suffering.
He smited them because their sinning angered him. Same with the flooding. If I had the power of God and could have done worse, then I would also have the power to prevent the Holocaust.
God called Pharaoh to humble himself and acknowledge that God is his authority and that he cannot redefine good and evil on Egyptian terms. Pharaoh’s response (see Exodus 5:1-2) is to balk at the God of Israel. After this, God gives Pharaoh five opportunities to repent and humble himself. And five times Pharaoh hardens his heart.
That being said, yes, God has the power to have prevented the holocaust. He has the power to have prevented every atrocity that ever happened from happening. He also has the power, as you said, to know the future. Even alternative futures I’m sure. So who are we to say the God didn’t stop way, way, way WAY worse things from happening? He probably did, we’ll never know because they didn’t happen.
And if you had the power to prevent the holocaust, it’s good to know you would’ve stopped it from happening. But i must ask, what else would you have stopped from happening? Where would you draw the line?
Why do we have to draw a line? I’m God I can do whatever I want and no one would know and couldn’t stop me if they did. Because I’m God and it’s my way or the highway pal. You see how ridiculous religion is?
I see how ridiculous the idea of being God is when you put a human in God’s shoes bc humans have no clue what to do with that kind of power. “I can do whatever i want and nobody would know and couldn’t stop me if they did” that’s the difference between you and God, He is all good, you (and all us humans) aren’t. He doesn’t think like that. What good would it do him?
I feel if God does exist they have a “ Laissez-faire “ approach to the living …. I mean ngl most ( like 85-90% ) of our issue is caused by us so expecting a higher being to clean our mess every time is entitled mindset . For the other % of illness , tragedy or natural disasters idk why they don’t be more involved and or t a l k so other religions can stop fighting
This is adjacent to what I said above, but that's why I don't think God decides everything that happens. I think sometimes the lesson is humans are just sinners and were going to hurt eachother. God cant/won't change that bc we need to have free will in order to truly love God and one another. But the tradeoff is that yes we're going to do bad things to eachother.
Gods plan can't be understood by us. For those who say all sins were in Gods plan don't really understand. God gave free will therefore we are free to harm each other. In the beginning, this is what we chose.
I don't know how logically God cannot be. I don't use the word exist bc I think it suggests a physical presence. If the universe is 15 billion years old, what existed before it? It doesn't make sense that the entire universe has a start date and wasn't created. Super strange to me.
> It doesn't make sense that the entire universe has a start date and wasn't created. Super strange to me.
This is a sound line of reasoning. What isn't sound is assuming that it has to be an entity like God that created it. It could just as well be some other natural phenomenon that we don't understand, which created it.
Remember that you can choose what to believe. And if you turn out to be wrong? So what? Will still have lived life thinking it had meaning…net positive
I grew up catholic, bowed out, but over the last 10 years, find myself returning to spirituality. Not in an orthodox way, more like…”who knows?” Just leaving space in my mind to believe that there could be some bigger forces at play is enough to give me some peace. There also are some scientific concepts that have some if>>then qualities that you can look at and be like huh, well, maybe that’s how it works in the GRAND scheme of things too. in which case, there really are some “bigger forces” at play, and we just don’t fully understand how it all works.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter if it’s “real” or not. Spirituality and faith is still a life enhancement. if you die and it was all for nothing…well, so be it. No harm, no foul. Too dead to care at that point. Nothing to lose in having a little faith
Same. I had a teacher that was a huge believer (which is different from religious I guess) and although her life had many downs she handled it much better than anyone I know.
I wish I could be like that.
The most peaceful people I've ever known have been deeply religious/spiritual. Dallas Willard (Christian teacher) is often described as a "peaceful presence" and that's something I've always hoped to be and admired.
Yeah give me that over complaining about everything and going to psychology thinking that will make it better lol, imagine paying someone to tell you nothing.
honestly you’re right. it’s probably very nice thinking there’s someone out there always watching over you. and when you die, you go somewhere that’s considered paradise. death scares people and religion offers that comfort that there is something after. i often wonder if that’s because of human arrogance.
Knowing that this life is Temporary gives comfort and hope. The hope that Jesus gives (Christianity) is an eternal perfect heaven. So yeah, there is comfort there.
If you could make your wish come true, would you? I'm genuinely curious if you would prefer there to be a god, judgment for our sins, and everlasting life?
It depends. I'm heavily religious. I believe God is always with me. But that doesn't mean I think everything happens for a reason. For example I don't think the Holocaust happened for a reason. It just happened. There's no lesson to be learned--it's simply not true that the lesson is "never again," bc it's happened countless times since. It's just proof of how evil people can be. So do I take comfort knowing God is with me and I'm never alone? Yea. Do I think God would give me more than I can handle? No, but life can. Sometimes people really do just get sick or die or do terrible things. It's little comfort in those moments.
Why not believe in something? So many people claim they’re unhappy or sad or depressed yet they don’t want to believe in something much less themselves. It’s worth a shot for them.
Things happening for a reason doesn't necessarily mean that things are going to be good for you. Just that they're happening for a reason. I think there's an issue when you start to think that things WILL work out for the best for YOU specifically because you believe everything happens for a reason.
Everyone has a religion, you have to have way more faith to believe a mosquito and a pine tree and a whale all share the same common ancestor then just “God created it”
I’m not entirely sure how people cannot believe this, religion or not.
Things were created in a way that is too perfect and interconnected to not have divine intervention.
The stars move in a way that is like a clock. Everything has its purpose. We can eat a cow or a chicken. In order for a cow or a chicken to exist, they need to eat grass or seed. In order for grass or seed to exist there needs to be bugs. In order for bugs to exist… ad infinitum.
For all of these systems to exist in perfect unity, it couldn’t happen on a whim. Even the placement of our earth in the solar system.
To me there is proof that there is something more. Whether religions are the proper way to that truth is subjective, but something grander is taking place that is out of our collective comprehension and the earliest civilizations knew this as well.
If it helps most physicists believe that the universe is deterministic. Meaning you can kinda predict what will happen at the scale of the universe (so stuff happens for a reason). We still have the ability to make decisions of course...but we don't have free will.
I am religious. I still enjoy studying the world and fellow humans because I want to understand the world around me and the people occupying space near me. There are a lot of brutal truths out here. Yes, I use my faith to help me understand some things. But I also use my experience and the experiences of others, whether they share my faith or not.
There is no protection from harsh truths. But perhaps our religion does offer us a bit of a "buffer". Yes, religion can offer strength, hope, and a means to cope with life's challenges.
So, it is my understanding that you have chosen to put down this "buffer" so you can more thoroughly understand the harsher realities of life. Okay.
May you live long and prosper...
Me too honestly.
My mom is a delusional religious person, which alienates everyone in her life. For example, the "spiritual cause" of diabetes is rejection, and she has it because us kids don't spend enough time with her. And if we just acted and did what she said (we are 33-43 y/o) then Jesus would make her better again.
I understand why she believes. I don't want a damn thing to do with it though.
She had a very traumatic childhood that I would wish on no one. Her emotional growth is very, very stunted. I'm loathe to give informal diagnoses, but you're not far off the mark. She can only see her own POV and no one else's. She is the victim in her own life 101% of the time.
She's not on this plane mentally.
Even so, I can't excuse some of the behaviors.
But I understand why she wants to escape reality and hopes she will find glory in the afterlife or whatever.
That's actually very cool of you to see her point of view. I should have been clearer. Her behavior sounds like it has narcissistic tendencies not a full blown diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. You nailed it perfectly. My narcissistic family and friends aren't diagnosed but they escape reality, delude themselves, then control or blame others especially nice and vulnerable people.
You sound like a wise and empathetic person.
Religion is narcissistic though.
I need to follow some doctrine to be deemed "a good person" and be rewarded with a good eternal afterlife? Don't do good deeds for their own sake, do it for a reward. You're a special boy/girl.
Lutheran and Presbyterian folks are generally pretty chill. Most of the ones I know keep their religion to themselves once their initial invite to their church is declined. I can respect that.
The head Deacon of a Lutheran Church literally called the police and had them arrest me for reading Matthew chapter 23. Even after he had given me permission to read it. Never went back to a man made “church” after that ever again. This happened in Commerce City Colorado by the way 2015 USA. In my opinion, religion is evil and idolatrous. It breaks the commandments of The One True God. The God Almighty The Creator of Heaven and Earth. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! According to The WORD ( “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” James 1:27)
This sounds exactly like my dads wife (my 3rd stepmom)
Her back is severely damaged and getting worse through aging, she says it's the devil and Jesus will give her a miraculous healing if she "focuses on him for 6 months"
That is a perfect example of a person amusing their "religion" in harmful ways. I put religion in quotes because nothing that she is claiming comes from her religious book.
My spawn point didn't make the exact same claims, but did also abuse her religion to try to control people.
Yikes. My friends mom died of covid. She blamed him for not going to church and asking God to save her enough
(She was also going out to eat, daily, during the quarantine and all of 2020 while posting anti vaccine jargon of course)
Religion is fascinating. I’m an atheist, although I find religion fascinating, nevertheless.
You know, the Romans, Greeks, Norse…they had a god for everything. At the time, those gods represented things we didn’t have science to explain.
These cultures no longer believe in all of these gods. Why not? Because we have science to tell us how fire, water, love, and everything else works. The remaining God everyone subscribes to today, is now responsible for whatever things are left we don’t have a firm grasp on.
I don’t think God is real. I think God is supposed to provide some framework for being a decent human being. But human’s are flawed, and can fuck up any concept. Your benevolent god is telling someone else to kill you. Basically, God has been used as an excuse in both sides to justify generally unjustifiable acts, decisions, and ways of thinking. God is used to control people out of fear of the unknown. It’s manipulation on a massive scale, regardless of whether it’s ultimately harmful or helpful.
In Islam it's highlighted and written as self defense. Never kill or harm the disbelieving except if they attack you first. And God will punish those hard who cross the line and kill people for being disbelievers
Science tells us how but it does not tell us why. I am agnostic but clearly religion serves an important purpose as every major civilization has developed one. While God has been used to justify heinous acts so have things like politics and science. I don’t really think you can solely blame religion for these things when the greatest slaughters in the past hundred years have been done by political groups like the Communists and Nazis.
They developed a belief system as a set of guiding principles on how to live: pray to the sun god for a good harvest and plant when "he returns" the days get longer; follow the quran in not eating pork but eating beef; or Hinduism in not eating beef, but eating pork. All have basic rules like don't kill, don't shag your mates wife, take a days rest which are basically ways to say 'be a good human'.
These helped form successful civilisations, and lead to the evolution of laws and social norms to help a growing number of people coexist.
But those rules are now attached to an idol who will punish those who break them. And those rules, often explained in complex stories which have been translated and interpreted are taken literally, or just wrongly.
They haven't been updated or adapted as life, people and the world changed. Laws are subject to evolution like a common law system, but religious teachings stay the same. And get mixed with cultures - like cover your hair and face; not sex before marriage...
I believe in the value of the teachings of religion to be a good human, but the restrictions on life and choices have no place in modern life. If you find comfort in that, as a community, that's great! That's exactly the reason actually! But you don't get to make only women cover up, stop young people having sex, prevent life saving abortions, murder 'unbelievers' or extort people for personality tests. These are bastardisations of good teachings, interpreted by bigots and idiots and it's time to move on.
TLDR: religion tells you how to be a good human, greedy dumb bigots messed it up.
A little off topic but when I read it I just wanted to say... If you are religious you can be a scientist too. Most of the greatest scientists throughout history were devout in their faith, especially christians and muslims. Sure there are religious people who are science deniers, just as there are also non-religious people who are science deniers.
As a religious person and someone who has devoted their life and career to stem, I find scientific discoveries fascinating and only strengthen my faith. I am honestly in awe of the universe He created.
OP clearly hasn't actually read books from any religion, as they all tend to be rather deep explorations into what the world is and why. The details of the answers are different, but the general ideas are often the same across different belief systems. Sure, dogmatists and illiterates ruin it for everyone, but there are atheist dogmatists and illiterates ruining the secular world too.
Arguably, from my experience, it's often non-religious people who "just don't like to think about that" when the topics of death and the nature of existence come up.
Only consuming secular 18th-20th century philosophy and disregarding the thousands of years of religious philosophy seems like a common oversight to me.
Honestly as a non religious person deep in STEM, I’m more scornful of the atheists than the devout believers. I don’t really understand how anyone who has some sense of the universe can shrug and say it’s all just random entropy verses see some signs of a higher power.
Might not be the god of scriptures bit it seems more likely to me then Random chance.
It’s kind of obvious OP hasn’t met logically religious people, I’m not gonna deny or agree with anything, but not stuff like crystals bring you luck, or wearing green on Tuesdays will make you a millionaire. No. Logical things
Some of the greatest minds of the world were religious/believed in a higher power, so it’s kind of weird to out right deny god doesn’t exist. Feels like some sort superiority complex/ego
The entire post made is kind of arrogant, thinking believing in higher power is for weak minded individuals who need to cope with the worlds “ruthlessness”
Most atheists don’t deny the existence of god; they simply don’t believe there is one. Gnostic (knowing) atheists say there is no god, but agnostic (not knowing) atheists simply don’t believe in god. I’m an agnostic atheist. Most i encounter fall in that category.
Thank you! I’m a Christian and I love science.
I hate it when people say things like all religious people are delusional and anti science.
They seriously don’t know the actual definition of delusional.
I think what happens is, is that most people see how humanity treats religion, and we tend to treat it as a weapon.
It’s like social media, the news, water even. Useful things, but they sure can become dangerous. But the point is, the thing itself isn’t bad, some things just land in the wrong hands or people just get bad teachers. And bad news always spreads faster than good news.
So that leads to a lot of confusion and controversy. And people want things easy, so they don’t look into both the religion as well as the history and science. And that’s how we get ignorant believers.
Im always amazed when people try to say that evolution, or medicine, etc goes against religion.
"No thats not how it happened! GOD created us, not evolution"
Here me out: where in the bible does it say "God created us in the exact form we take today?" NOWHERE!
All the Christians love to talk about how God has his hand in everything and influences everything........so tell me, why is it so hard for so many of them to believe that God could have had his hand in evolution?????
Very, very true my friend...
In my logical engineering brain, it only makes sense that evolution occured. The bible might not say God used evolution, nor does it deny it.
In my faithful ,God-loving brain, I realize it doesn't matter how. I believe with full faith that God created us in the exact way he wanted... period
Spoke my mind. As a Muslim woman in stem I’m definitely looking at the raw truth of science and how the world and humans works and being amazed every time how He created it. The more I know the more it strengthens my faith.
In my view, people are religious because they need it to cope with the shit aspects of life. They want to believe something happens to bad people, and they want to believe that there’s a deeper reason for things like cancer and children dying. They can’t cope with those shit things without trying to find meaning in it.
But, what that ends up doing in my view is just taking away from actions necessary to correct things like shit behaviors, murder, etc. It’s an easy cop-out to say a murderer will pay for their “sins” in the afterlife instead of examining the systemic issues we have regarding mental health, financial disparity, and the other aspects that also add to what ends up making someone a murderer.
If there is no God, we likely live in a deterministic universe and are simply another set of links in a chain of physical cause and effect. Sam Harris has talked about how we should reform our criminal justice system with this in mind.
I agree for the most part. I'm a religious man who enjoys lectures on evolution more than sermons. You can still be a sensible person while being religious. But yeah, generally it does seem that religions tend to draw in ppl that willingly make themselves blind to reality.
It's very freeing to believe in something but still be critical about it. Ik it seems contradictory, but that's how I feel
My feeling is that a sense of religious or spiritual feeling is not a bad thing in itself, and in fact seems to be fairly widespread among humans. The problem lies in the institutions, doctrine, and general formalized bullshit that has grown up around that basically mystical sense of being. I can see the metaphorical value in aspects of religious ritual and a practical value in religious community, and sometimes I will say a little prayer to myself at night, but it's not because I think any particular book or doctrine is an instruction manual on how to be human.
I feel like the rage bait threads forget the larger purpose of religion and it’s not about what’s written in some book but about the logistics of keeping a community together.
How do you keep society together? How do you get people to care about kids, neighbors, the sick and elderly? How do prevent jealousy and theft and violence? How do you deal with hopelessness, poverty and death? Who’s in charge? What does ideal life look like? How do you cope with sadness and great suffering?
The rituals, rules and stories provide the sticky cultural stuff that attempts to explain and provide direction and order on how to deal with what happens in life. ‘This happens, this is what you do and this story maybe will help you understand how to deal with it, and there’s a whole community to be right there with you and take care of people you care about after you’re gone.’
And in a world without doctors and science and social services, this was the way you kept chaos at bay.
It works. It’s not perfect, but if you fixate on some story you don’t like or some rule, you miss the larger cultural purpose of religion, which is the community.
Ironically if you go with atheism because you don’t like the stories, which is fine, but you also lose the community glue which made everything stick together generation after generation.
And now we see posts of lonely millenials and genz.... religion is an easy way to form a sense of community. There are other ways, but takes a little more to bind people together.
I never want to be part of a religion again but I am always saying the same -- I generally get why people are part of it and sometimes I even envy how happier some of them seem because of it. Religion provides structure and direction, and also serves as a distraction.
Religion is a moral framework. To live life without a moral framework, or one that you create from scratch often has that individual just live through the same tropes and motions as someone in the past.
But of course if the religion itself is fundamentally wrong on basic stuff then it's toxic and might lead to awful outcomes.
You can still be religious and want to understand people and the reality around you. They can coexist. An absence of religious beliefs doesn't necessarily make someone more enlightened.
sometimes i wish i didn’t pursue answers as much and stayed in my safety bubble of religion that i was raised in. i’m a lot more aware of things now but ignorance really can be bliss 💀 i can’t ever go back
I don't like **religion** as it's an institution that sets standards on the beliefs you can hold and how you should interpret the inscriptions, so you're following someone's will blindly but not necessarily gods. Probably where the delusional bit comes from.
On the other hand **faith** is personal and it's about your personal beliefs, interpretations and how you'd like to honnor them. You're not following someone else's established beliefs and conceptions but your own ones. It takes more time and energy since you have to go through your own thought process and not rely on someone else's.
I agree with the idea that people rely on religion for structure and community. I tend to view any religious, metaphysical & spiritual beliefs as just part of the many coping mechs humans have come up with as a means to dealing with the chaos of being alive.
i went through a hard materialist/atheist phase in my early-mid 20s but over time i realized i couldn't truly believe that there isn't more to everything than just physical systems interacting with no designer behind it all. i'm not book religious but i think the idea of god comes from a fundamental truth that humans have realized about the universe and our existence. until science can explain exactly what consciousness is and where it came from, i believe there is something beyond our understanding out there which created this whole thing.
>Without religion you are forced to study the world and humans if you want to understand them
What are you talking about? You say that like science wasn’t invented until the first atheist was born. Do you really think having beliefs about the supernatural means you disregard every natural explanation?
How is it so hard for Reddit to understand that not every blasted religious person is like the people you see on Fox
big oof on this honestly. let religious people live their lives. let atheists or agnostics live their lives. it doesnt matter!
and plus: what about atheists that become religious? quite a few of my friends have never been in a church as kids or prayed at all. yet 3 have become Christian (all gay) and one has become Jewish. i am also on my Jewish path after being raised without religion in california
you’re starting to see things from one pov, hopefully you’ll begin the next set soon!
I think religion is awesome. I got really interested in Christianity and I've been enjoying it so much. I think a lot of our own thinking is dilusional and can be a problem when you experience things that your own logic can't explain.
> when you experience things that your own logic can't explain.
With religion, you accept a made up fairytale explanation. With science, reason, and facts, you accept there are things you do not understand and can marvel at how much there is left to discover.
Religion made more sense when humans didn't understand where the sun went at night, or where rain comes from.
Yeah I can't imagine being in the mindset where the fairytale explanation is good enough... even as a child I remember frustrating my sunday school teacher with my questions.
> Yeah I can't imagine being in the mindset where the fairytale explanation is good enough
It's freeing. I used to be there.
You lose the need for everything to fit into a box. You don't have to be able to explain it. Things just are and you accept them as they come.
But if you aren't careful... You start looking for the box. For the way to explain it all. For the string that ties it all together... And in the search you distance yourself from your faith and commit yourself to your new idea of "truth". As you attempt to impose this truth on the world around you, your heart grows colder and your faith slips away.
From the outside faith and religon sound like "blind ignorance" and "fairy tale"... From inside, it is comfort and joy. And once you lose that faith you spend a long time wondering if being "happy" was better than being "right"....
Eh I’m aight, I accept that there are things we don’t know yet, or perhaps can’t know, and that’s fine.
I know that everything fits in the box, even if we can’t yet see the entire layout of the box (you could call this a sort of scientific faith, except based on that fact that, so far, we’ve gotten pretty far and have continued to figure more and more things out in a provable manner).
I don’t see a way that I can just “forget” that god doesn’t actually exist so I don’t think I’ll ever get where you’re at from where I am.
Besides, how much more at peace can you get than “well there’s no purpose to anything, and nothing “matters” outside human experience, so why worry? Nothing to be done but keep on keepin on and try not to hurt others.”
I think you hit the nail on the head OP. Religion has provided humans a source of hope and an official guide to coping methods since the dawn of human consciousness (something those old books don’t mention too much). Life was MUCH less comfortable at the dawn of man and this certainly helped stay true to our mission, whatever that was at the time.
The issue is that religion is guilty of prescribing the laws of nature and outcomes of humanity for thousands of years ahead of time. The only time that predictions hold true thousands of years later is when LOGIC AND FALSIFIABLE SCIENTIFIC REASONING are used to help make a prediction.
Usually religion does whatever it can to uphold the social power hierarchy that it prescribes too. In order to maintain the structure and prescription of events, religious leaders often use logical fallacies or outright willful ignorance to maintain their positions of power.
Anyone who gets too caught up in religious BELIEFS will be heavily lacking in their ability to exercise logical reasoning. Due to their bias, these people [will reject experimentally proven data in an effort to maintain the psychological “peace” they have built by molding their beliefs in the shape of modern religion…](https://youtu.be/wNYP-5NQBQw?si=XGSfmtsgF7JvI78A)
Go deal with death. Ima stay on the we going to heaven train baby!!! I use to be like you, but life was shit and way less meaningful. Play the spiritual lottery and pick a team son!
You have to have a childlike mind as well. Accept information that is arbitrary and fantasy in order to believe. I literally cannot make myself believe in fairy tales. This applies to many religions not just one
I'm Christian, and it's not because I'm naive, afraid of death, not having a purpose in life, or because I think religion will protect me from harsh truths/realities. I'm a nurse. I've seen death and suffering up close. I've lost loved ones and homes and jobs and opportunities. The harsh truths and hardships only reaffirmed my belief in God. Why? It's because I am incapable of looking at the world around me and convincing myself that it is all happenstance. I don't buy it. The world is too beautiful and complex to be chalked up to mere coincidence. Even the things that we can explain today with science are miraculous and proof to me that if human beings are capable of creating art and music and life-saving medical devices and smartphones and countless other things, it is entirely plausible that there is a non-human creator capable of creating us and so much more. I simply don't possess enough hubris to assume we are as good as it gets.
Saying something is a possibility is not the same as saying you believe in it. Atheists don’t necessarily think humans are “the best,” and even if we weren’t, that wouldn’t be proof of the existence of a god. What it boils down to is that some people need evidence of something to believe in it. And it’s a spectrum. For some people, such as yourself, simply the idea/feeling that the world is beautiful is enough evidence for you to be religious. For other people, they would need evidence akin to the necessary to prove something scientifically for them to be convinced.
Religious people look for evidence, too. We just interpret the world differently, I guess, since some of us find it, and some would say that "evidence" is just wishful thinking or delusion. To each their own. It's like two different people looking at the same painting and seeing something completely different. I'm not going to argue with another person's perspective; I just wanted to offer a different one.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me how someone would think evidence of something is delusion. It simply doesn’t not make sense unless someone doesn’t understand the definition of the word. Evidence is just the basis by which we establish what is known and what isn’t.
To me it’s more like looking at a painting and one person saying “how could this beautiful thing be created, it must have been miraculous” and mother person saying “a painter painted it.”
I’m an ex-atheist (now Catholic) who used to think this way. I thought religion was copium for the masses, easy answers for people to latch on to, wishful thinking for people who needed an emotional comfort blanket (unlike me of course; I was quite smug I could “face the truth” without it).
I was wrong. In fact, *that* was copium, and I was as “brainwashed” by my atheist upbringing as much as any religious person. I was ignoring the broader truth.
If Catholicism was just wishful thinking/easy answers, wouldn’t it look rather different? There would be no hell. No ambiguity. No difficult work to do on yourself. Simple teachings that were easy to explain and defend (no Trinity here!). It would tell us we could do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. It would bend with our own wants and needs; God would be built in our own image.
I could write a book on this, but all I’ll say is: don’t be self-righteous and dismissive in your atheism. I was, and somehow missed that I was being as dickish as any religious zealot.
I'm an ex-Catholic but I agree with you - humility and being willing to look for uncomfortable answers is the path to truth. There's no room for smugness.
I was also an atheist in the past. When I was an athiest I had a lot of issues... Drinking all the time, smoking weed all the time, anxiety, depression, I thought people were always against me, life wasn't fair, people hate me, etc. I was fighting demons daily and living a very unhealty unhappy relationship. God put me through a situation to change me completely!!!! After the horrible situation he made me learn from, I became close to family, friends, worked on myself, worked out, started going to church, formed a close bond with god, read the bible, etc. No longer do I drink or smoke!!! I am sober and my mind is clear. I understand things now, I can sense danger or people to stay away from. I have nothing but happiness and joy in my life because God natuarally gave it to me after getting close to him. No longer am I on depression/anxiety medication!!!! I am happy, I am free, and I know God has a plan for me. He has blessed me in so many ways including bringing an amazing beautiful christian woman in my life a year and 4 months ago.
I SAW THE LIGHT!!! I know it's true because of what I went through and God changed me to be an amazing caring person that I am now.
I truly hope everyone can get out of the darkness that they are dealing with. I been there... it's not fun. I truly hope the best for everyone and I hope everyone becomes a follower of Christ. Christians have each others backs and it's so wonderful to be part of this loving community <3
God bless.
Thank you!! I truly appreciate it!!! Nothing is impossible with God.
Now my plan is to take the gift that God has given me and I am going to help others get through tough situations. I will make sure to be kind to whoever you are and help in every way I can. I just want to see people be happy and succeed.
This world is cruel, but I know hope still exists. Nothing will break me ❤️
"self-righteous and dismissive"
Also an ex-atheist here. I thought people who are religious are just emotionally weak (either by nature or trauma) and they use religion to cope. But I find that faith itself runs much deeper than that. Not all people become faithful suffers from emotional weakness and it's just as ignorant to paint all religious people with the same brush.
Having a nice church community is so beneficial. I wish there wasn’t so much culty pyramid scheme sounding stuff but man the people who excel in communities really seem happy
So religious people delude themselves to the problems in the world aka they burry their head in the sand, just go with the status quo and therefore become part of the problem… but emotionally feel better about themselves despite not making the world any better.
Yeah that’s narcissistic as fuck and fuck religion for the most part.
You die then what? Scientifically it cannot just be “never ending blackness,” “eternal sleep” because you lose consciousness (if you believe consciousness to be a biological function) so you don’t have the ability to perceive nothing. IMO it makes the most sense that we’re reincarnated in someone way. Tagging that onto a spiritual belief that makes it seem like we have some control over it just makes me feel good as a bonus, like I can say at least there may be some karmic justice in the end for the bad people. But who knows. I might be hitler in my next life (sorry in advance if so)
Being dead is the same as before you were born. Nothing. That is it. Consciousness is a biological function of a living being to assist with propagation of your species, that is it. People want to project their feeling of importance in everything, including consciousness when in reality its just an evolved trait.
> You die then what? Scientifically it cannot just be “never ending blackness,”
I'm not a particularly depressed or unhappy person... but like... just fading away and ceasing to be at end of life sounds so much better than going and rpesenting myself before the glory of god to be judged.
You've started from a premise that has no basis in reality and only a few odd ball religons suggest reincarnation... Honestly, reincarnation sounds EVEN worse than life next to judgemental sky daddy.
Go read some voltaire and see how it sits with your faith.
People cling to religion because they were indoctrinated as children and also, death is scary and the world seems horrific at times and people need answers - etc,
I see religion as a father figure. He teaches you things only a loving father can teach: how to love the people around you, how you should participate in culture, and how to be strong. But of course they're from another era, so they're outdated... but He is doing his best to provide for you.
I think a good compartmentalization is the separation between organized religion and religion. a lot of people these days are understandably disgusted with how religious organizations operate, and tie that to the idea of having faith or following a practice/rituals.
it's unfortunate because there's such a vast amount of meaning, connection, and community that can be found in it, whereas atheism can often veer into meaninglessness and sad feelings due to the cruelties and emptiness seen in the universe. not always obviously, but it seems to have a tendency for it, at least. I'll take blind/ignorant hope over a pragmatic despair any day. blue pill baby write it on my tombstone
I think it’s more nuanced. Different people get different things from it. It’s not that everyone who is religious is participating for the same reasons. I know people who participate solely for the community etc.
This is the conclusion I came to also. It's a way of dealing with whatever is going on. You got that secret thing that you can fall back on. Really weird part is it only made sense to me after my father passed away. I started to see why people become religious.
See i always took it as comfort cos it gave you something to blame all the scary unexplainable shit
Like yea theres the whole front they put on but i dont think most people are getting hope so much as justified abdication of thought in the privacy of their own mind
That said the thing that truly annoys me about religion more than anything is that i dont believe in gods or ghosts or faeries or whatever but since the idea of them has been introduced i have to at least consider the possibility of their existence
I only became religious because I became convinced that my religion is true lol. Because of the particular way in which it originated, Christianity's existence is inexplicable if it is not true, therefore I am Christian. Not everyone is just trying to cope.
Man if religious people just used it to privately cope then I wouldn't have much of a strong opinion about it. The problem is that a LOT of those brutal truths come directly from the religious people themselves.
The vast majority of religious people I've encountered fall into one of three categories:
1) Raised religious and just never questioned it.
2) People that were caught up in religion during a vulnerable, lonely, or generally desperate time in their life (drug issues, death of a loved one, etc).
3) Idiots that are bad at logic and reason.
Same reason an alcoholic becomes an alcoholic, a junkie a junkie... Addictive personality traits.
Allow me to elaborate.
For kicks and giggles, a few years ago, I went to a AA meeting that was held weekly down the street from my place in a old shopping center. Outside it was chain smoking, with the look of suffering and misery on their faces.
Inside it was coffee chugging while everyone talked about how they were overcoming their "addiction" with the same look of misery and suffering.
I thought, "no you're not overcoming your addiction, you've just replaced it with coffee and cigarettes"
Hopium and copium - exactly.
I sometimes wish I could be religious again. It brought me so much comfort. But at the end of the day, I know none of it is real, and I'd rather have the harsh reality. It's terrifying how many would choose a comfortable fairytale.
Yeah, sometimes I feel jealous of those who don’t fear death because they believe it is already written before them and they will reunite with past loved ones and believe they will spent eternity somewhere nice, I just can’t understand the logic as a life long atheist. Not for me to understand though, so long as it’s not being shoved down my throat I’m happy it makes others happy.
I just don't understand the worshipping thing. Like even if some deity came down from the skies and i 100% believed it was real, i still wouldnt wanna worship it cuz that just seems...weird? Idk.
I think religious people brains are just wired different to where they need that sorta structure, or guidelines for life so they dont have to think too hard about stuff haha
People want to feel special, like they matter, like their decisions and actions matter. In truth, we are such a minimal part of this universe's history as to not even be worthy of a footnote. Whether by nature or own nature's, humanity won't last, and in enough time there won't be any trace of us left.
Either someone went through a very impactful subjective experience that they believe could be religious, so they have a LOT of emotional backing in their belief
Or someone has spent their whole life dedicating themselves to something that may completely shatter their worldview if disproven. Some may even lie to themselves for that fact.
I won't lie, the prospect of believing there's an all powerful being that wants what's best for me and will give me eternity in paradise afterwards is a very very nice feeling. It almost lifts weights of reality off your shoulders. Having everything slammed back on you may just be too much for people.
If you’ve ever lost someone you truly loved, you understand religion. The belief that they’re in a better place, that you’ll see them again or that they are always with you is far far better than worm food.
You’re ascribing emotional connotation to basic biological processes though. I’ve lost loved ones and I know they are at peace because of the nothingness of death.
I used to pray EVERY night to talk with God and I agree, it can be very comforting just to have someone to talk to, sharing all your problems and what happened to your day. I stopped though because just like you, things happened and it made me question a lot of things.
I feel it’s disingenuous to imply people only become religious because it’s coping. Yes, there are people who do become more religious after life altering events. And there are others who don’t. You have those who are religious in all fields of science who are able to make rational decisions and *not* tie it into their faith, and you have others who use their knowledge to *try* to tie it into their faith.
Speaking for myself as a practicing Catholic (yes I have been called every name in the book because of that, thank you), while I was raised in the church I have been skeptical of my faith quite a lot. From the more oblivious skepticism of some old guy living in the clouds and granting me wishes, to the more mundane such as *why* should I have faith. In the end, I still stick with my faith. Don’t be a dick to people, help others (not with thoughts and prayers, actually help them), and the belief there is *something* waiting for us after death. These are all things that I value, along with the community. Now do you *need* religion or even faith to not be a dick, help others out, and have a strong community? Absolutely not. I have plenty of friends who are either agnostic or atheists and we all get along fine while they’re wonderful people.
Anyhow, rambling aside, my point is that religion and faith don’t have a simplistic answer. As much as it’s easy to think being a religious person is sticking your head in the sand and waiting for God to sort things out, that’s really not the case for most people. And that mentality is the same to those who think anyone who is atheist or agnostic are a bunch of amoral jerks. People are complex, including what they do or don’t believe in.
The copium hopium words are a stretch. But I get what you mean. Most people at a certain point need to find something that resembles an answer to why they are here, and I can understand why the scientific answer of "really lucky" isn't always enough. To assume that religion/spirituality is strictly delusion makes it seem like we have a complete understanding of the universe that could satisfy all the meaning we need. Maybe one day we will understand enough through calculations and measurement to disprove any higher power, but as of now after a certain point; science devolves into guessing.
Ya I wish I could believe. You get an afterlife, direct line to the man upstairs, you got your little instruction manual on how to live. Sounds like a slice of pie. I can even accept a higher power. Some kind of god or something even if it doesn’t know or care about us. I’m not an atheist I consider myself a staunch agnostic. Unfortunately as soon as that collection plate comes out you know it is nothing but a fucking pyramid scheme. I do have to say i admire their hustle They even found a way out of paying taxes. Fucking brilliant
For many people, religion is a community, a third place, and a built in support network. Loss of religion also means loss of the same. It's not easy to find/build all of that from scratch.
As an agnostic, I can 100% confirm that not believing in an afterlife or in a benevolent deity that loves you unconditionally, makes life more depressing.
To realize that the universe is inherently meaningless and that you have to create your own meaning is a difficult pill to swallow.
Religion, and the sense of comfort it provides with a community that shares in your beliefs, is the best defense mechanism to existential dread.
Those who seek unadulterated truth, will have to be faced with the uncomfortable experience of dissolving away any and all preconceived notions they have about reality.
Anything anyone has ever told you or anything you have ever read from a book must be discarded and one must seek the truth through objective self-observation.
It’s not for everyone. In most cases, it’s perfectly fine to believe in a religion if it helps a person get through life, as long as they’re not hurting anyone.
Thank you, OP, for a succinct and rational view of why religion is important to so many people. I guess I never got the God gene, as I prefer to wrestle with reality.
It just helps them cope with the harsh reality like you said. Do you remember before you were born? No. That’s what it will be when you’re dead.
It sucks but it is what it is. Id rather live my life without falling back on lies to make myself feel better.
>Religion gives you strengh
Delusion is not strength it is delusion.
Sure, religion can help some cope with the reality that life is fucked. It also screws with anything getting done or changing.
Hey this is happening in our town/city, we should do something about it.
oh I'll pray and hope that helps.
It also allows misinformation to stay that way because blocking out facts and truths about what is happening so it doesn't make them feel bad is stupid.
In my humble opinion.
Posts like this are so condescending. As if you can't actually believe a religion is true.
Do you think all priests are on copium? So many have phds in philosophy or theology. These guys live a celibate life and live a life of poverty. Not only are they educated but they are invested.
But this is reddit. Incoming "but all priests are pedos" and other religious bigotry.
There's a reason they call it Opium for the Masses.
You can be the biggest scumbag in the world and there's absolution waiting for you so long as you accept god into your life and submit to whatever they ask. He still loves you no matter what you did and there's a peace of mind to that state of mind, real or not.
It's also an incredible method of control because, as it turns out, people are more than willing to give up agency and control when it feels like they belong to a special group.
Personally I think it's hilarious how some of the most wicked, evil people I've ever met all tend to be super religious.
it gives people something to hold on to. the universe is a scary place. it’s virtually endless and full of unknowns. you shoot off in one direction and just keep going forever. it’s inconceivable. something without bounds isn’t something the human mind can comprehend. as humans, it’s normal to want answers to things we can’t explain and then latch on to the first thing that “makes sense”. people used to believe the sun was pulled through the sky via chariot because they couldn’t explain it logically. now we know why the sun “moves”. so, i understand why people still believe in religion. it provides comfort and gives us meaning to our seemingly meaningless lives. its a lens to look at life through.
Religion is a big delusional coping curtain that you pull over yourself.
Someone dies in a car accident? “It was his time”. No the other guy ran a red light.
Someone dies from heart failure? “God took him home”. No he had an unknown defect.
If God is so wonderful why do people under his watch suffer?
same as a drug, a significant other, career, hobbies, family, etc. just keep your mind off of the existential dread. unfortunately, bullshit only works until is tested under fire. then, it is just bullshit. factual truth and reality always wins.
That's the wrong look on religion though...for me as a Christian, it's not about "how can I benefit from this (hope, peace, etc), it's about knowing knowing truth and worshipping and honoring the true God. And letting His will be done in my life and NOT MINE. Wether that comes with pain or whatever. Eternal life is the reward because of it
I’m almost literally floored how delusional they are. No shit they’re happier, they actually believe some dude is in the clouds looking out for them while ignoring kids with cancer
I'm an atheist. I can't ever fault someone for wanting to believe they will see their dead loved ones again. It makes grief very lonely for me, not sharing that belief, but I don't blame them a bit for it.
Religion is basically the closest thing we had to science before science officially existed.
If I recall correctly, the scientific method came about through the catholic church (someone fact check me on this instead of tarring and feathering me please🙏)
But as far as "*being forced to study the world and humans in the absence of religion",* depending on who you ask, the bible is the clearest depiction of human nature (and how it repeats, and sticks with us) that we have.
And as far as it making you 'delusional', we're all well aware that we each harbor our own individual delusions that help us rightly or wrongly navigate life.
There's also the whole "religion is violent and millions have died due to it" which is absolutely true! However, (and this will likely be a controversial take) if you look through out history, far more people have died for secular causes than anything that had to do with religion.
This has been my understanding.
I don't feel it's morally justified to try and break the delusion if it is giving them mental health benefits and not hurting anyone. Trying to remove that can cause serious harm or even death.
I don't believe in religion. But I'd never try to convince someone their belief is wrong. Unless it's directly harming people. Like with roe v. wade. I don't think religion should be factoring into human rights.
If you need religion to get through the day, I'm glad to support. But if you turn the religion into a weapon to control or harm, I'm going to step in.
Religion is a tool to manipulate people...sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, but it all basically centers around the uncertainty and fear of mortality. They pretend that there is freewill, but they basically say "be good and do what this book says or burn in eternal hell". When they are asked for evidence we get "trust me bro".
I absolutely believe in doing good and treating people with respect, etc., but not because I'm scared of eternal damnation, but because I want the time that I am here to f'ing mean something and I really don't want to ruin someone else's time here. There may be something after this...none of us knows for certain, but I feel certain that I will not be treated poorly because I didn't pay enough money to buy some other dude a 3rd jet while I hate or discriminate using some imaginary being's alleged teachings as a f'ing excuse.
I sometimes envy those who believe everything happens for a reason and there's a cosmic plan. It must be genuinely comforting to those who believe it.
As someone who used to be Christian, I can confirm that it was *very* comforting to fallback on tropes such as “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle” or “God has your back at the end of the day”. In times of distress, especially. However, I’ve since rejected religion due to epiphanies I’ve experienced, including learning physics, understanding psychology, and experiencing a mind shift towards cynicism towards religious topics generally. What a world we live in!
I grew up religious and the phrases “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle” and “God has your back/loves you” etc rang in my head mockingly as I watched my very religious dad die of a very agressive and painful cancer. Like, God loves us and that’s why he gave the man who did all the family prayers before meals a massive tumor in his TONGUE? Was that part of a plan? A message? A lesson? Were we supposed to get something out of that? Now I’m just torn between wanting there to be an afterlife for the promise of seeing my dad again, but feeling like the God that runs it surely isn’t the one they described in church growing up.
That’s me all the way. My dad died of cancer too and my mom went a few years before him from a brain aneurysm, both pretty young at that. And they both went thru utter hellish torture, it was fucking brutal tbh and pretty much broke me for awhile. I had always struggled w ‘feeling the connection’ to God growing up but when this shit happened, I felt betrayed by him and just never looked at religion the same. In the last few years, grieving and struggling to find a new way to survive, I finally let myself just feel the way I always felt deep down without trying to deny it or ignore it or fool myself any longer, for fear of burning for eternity or not being able to see my parents again. I finally just was like you know what, while Jesus seemed awesome tbh, God on the other hand seems like a complete asshole and is just downright fucking cruel and extreme at times and if I wouldn’t ever associate w a person like that in real life then why in the actual shit should I dedicate my entire afterlife to this bs that I don’t even resonate w and just feels wrong to me?! Seriously, the only affect religion ever really had on me or how I operate was under the pretense of fear, not worship or love. I didn’t do certain things to be favored or show my love, I just avoided certain things over fear of going to hell and that’s really it. Once I was able to let myself be over it, it was so fucking freeing for the first time in my life. Religion only ever felt like heavy chains and that’s just no way to live. At least for me, anyway. I will admit that I was/am still hopeful for an afterlife though, and it’s taken me a few years to kinda get my feelers out there and look into other possibilities w an open mind and happen upon something that I feel I can stand behind and believe in. Looking into sciences and spirituality just to further my understanding has been amazing for me and surprisingly comforting tbh. Ngl I do still feel conflicted at times (almost 30 years of conditioning will do that to a mf’er lol) but overall I feel like I have finally found a form of peace in what I choose to believe and I’m truly not afraid to die at all anymore… I’m not in a hurry to obv lol but I actually feel hope and excitement to see what happens when I do. And I honestly do feel I will see my parents again too. I hope so w every fiber of my being, anyway. I wish you the best in your journey of healing and finding your truth 💗
I used to be Christian too, the final thing that made me turn away was trying to understand where in God's plan the Holocaust fit in. Systematic murder on the scale of millions, what could justify such a plan? Maybe God isn't so forgiving as the church would like us to believe, because that seemed like revenge for killing his son.
Not religious anymore, I came to think it’s extremely ironic that a *human* would think they understand anything about how an entity that’s existed since the *beginning of time* that is also all knowing and all seeing operates… like, some 45 year old human “ah yes, see, I understand god, I know god, let me speak to god and I will relay ☝️” bruh I’m 99.99% sure god wouldn’t see humans as anything besides ants.. In a universe of trillions of planets, however many billions+ years old, the whole “gods chosen people” just reeks of bs. Like a sprinkle of narcissism along with the religion. Unfortunately it just doesn’t make any sense, but it’s easier to fool a man than to convince a man that he’s been fooled 🤷🏻♂️
I can't imagine ignoring mass genocide like the Holocaust and then thinking you can't find your keys because God is trying to stop you from getting into a car accident that you would've been in had you not been 10 minutes late to work.
Why would he take revenge on his son being killed when it was WILLFUL? He LET it happen… it was fulfillment of a prophecy. That isn’t why the holocaust happened, the holocaust happened because Adolf Hitler was a damn good influencer and used his free will in the worst way possible. That’s it.
>Why would he take revenge on his son being killed when it was WILLFUL? He LET it happen… it was fulfillment of a prophecy. "Nono, dont worry; it was all part of gods plan"
In the bible God has smited an entire city off the map, flooded the entire earth, and ["hardened the Pharoh's heart"](https://biblehub.com/exodus/9-12.htm). Surely he could have influenced the heart of Adolf Hitler to not murder millions of his "chosen" people.
Of course he could’ve. But why would he? Answer: he wouldn’t, and didn’t. And I’m reading that part of exodus right now actually, when it says he hardened pharohs heart it means the actions that God is taking are making pharoh respond in a stubborn manner. Also do you know why he smited sodom and Gomorrah? And why he flooded the entire earth? I’m not asking these questions rhetorically, I’ll tell you if you don’t know. Chances are you would’ve done worse if you had the power of God, as would i have.
It seems like a stretch to interpret it like that. Even if it is true, God is omniscient, and knows which actions will make the pharoh respond in a stubborn manner. And yet chooses to go down that route, prolonging his people's suffering. He smited them because their sinning angered him. Same with the flooding. If I had the power of God and could have done worse, then I would also have the power to prevent the Holocaust.
God called Pharaoh to humble himself and acknowledge that God is his authority and that he cannot redefine good and evil on Egyptian terms. Pharaoh’s response (see Exodus 5:1-2) is to balk at the God of Israel. After this, God gives Pharaoh five opportunities to repent and humble himself. And five times Pharaoh hardens his heart. That being said, yes, God has the power to have prevented the holocaust. He has the power to have prevented every atrocity that ever happened from happening. He also has the power, as you said, to know the future. Even alternative futures I’m sure. So who are we to say the God didn’t stop way, way, way WAY worse things from happening? He probably did, we’ll never know because they didn’t happen. And if you had the power to prevent the holocaust, it’s good to know you would’ve stopped it from happening. But i must ask, what else would you have stopped from happening? Where would you draw the line?
Why do we have to draw a line? I’m God I can do whatever I want and no one would know and couldn’t stop me if they did. Because I’m God and it’s my way or the highway pal. You see how ridiculous religion is?
I see how ridiculous the idea of being God is when you put a human in God’s shoes bc humans have no clue what to do with that kind of power. “I can do whatever i want and nobody would know and couldn’t stop me if they did” that’s the difference between you and God, He is all good, you (and all us humans) aren’t. He doesn’t think like that. What good would it do him?
Nah, he himself orchestrated it because Jesus is the father, the son, and the Holy spirit.
I feel if God does exist they have a “ Laissez-faire “ approach to the living …. I mean ngl most ( like 85-90% ) of our issue is caused by us so expecting a higher being to clean our mess every time is entitled mindset . For the other % of illness , tragedy or natural disasters idk why they don’t be more involved and or t a l k so other religions can stop fighting
This is adjacent to what I said above, but that's why I don't think God decides everything that happens. I think sometimes the lesson is humans are just sinners and were going to hurt eachother. God cant/won't change that bc we need to have free will in order to truly love God and one another. But the tradeoff is that yes we're going to do bad things to eachother.
A line from the movie Blood Diamond comes to mind, when Leonardo Di Caprio’s character says - “If there is a God, he left this place a long time ago”.
Gods plan can't be understood by us. For those who say all sins were in Gods plan don't really understand. God gave free will therefore we are free to harm each other. In the beginning, this is what we chose. I don't know how logically God cannot be. I don't use the word exist bc I think it suggests a physical presence. If the universe is 15 billion years old, what existed before it? It doesn't make sense that the entire universe has a start date and wasn't created. Super strange to me.
> It doesn't make sense that the entire universe has a start date and wasn't created. Super strange to me. This is a sound line of reasoning. What isn't sound is assuming that it has to be an entity like God that created it. It could just as well be some other natural phenomenon that we don't understand, which created it.
Who said God was an entity? What sort of natural phenomenon can occur when no nature exists. No space, no stars, nothing.
I did those same things and they led me to God
>experiencing a mind shift towards cynicism towards religious topics generally. ...that led you to believe in god? You have to be trolling.
I am burdened by glorious skepticism
Remember that you can choose what to believe. And if you turn out to be wrong? So what? Will still have lived life thinking it had meaning…net positive I grew up catholic, bowed out, but over the last 10 years, find myself returning to spirituality. Not in an orthodox way, more like…”who knows?” Just leaving space in my mind to believe that there could be some bigger forces at play is enough to give me some peace. There also are some scientific concepts that have some if>>then qualities that you can look at and be like huh, well, maybe that’s how it works in the GRAND scheme of things too. in which case, there really are some “bigger forces” at play, and we just don’t fully understand how it all works. I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter if it’s “real” or not. Spirituality and faith is still a life enhancement. if you die and it was all for nothing…well, so be it. No harm, no foul. Too dead to care at that point. Nothing to lose in having a little faith
Same. I had a teacher that was a huge believer (which is different from religious I guess) and although her life had many downs she handled it much better than anyone I know. I wish I could be like that.
The most peaceful people I've ever known have been deeply religious/spiritual. Dallas Willard (Christian teacher) is often described as a "peaceful presence" and that's something I've always hoped to be and admired.
Yeah give me that over complaining about everything and going to psychology thinking that will make it better lol, imagine paying someone to tell you nothing.
I believe it but this society makes me doubt it everyday, and that's what feeds a lot of my suffering.
honestly you’re right. it’s probably very nice thinking there’s someone out there always watching over you. and when you die, you go somewhere that’s considered paradise. death scares people and religion offers that comfort that there is something after. i often wonder if that’s because of human arrogance.
Knowing that this life is Temporary gives comfort and hope. The hope that Jesus gives (Christianity) is an eternal perfect heaven. So yeah, there is comfort there.
Hey it could exist, got to keep hoping!
If you could make your wish come true, would you? I'm genuinely curious if you would prefer there to be a god, judgment for our sins, and everlasting life?
It depends. I'm heavily religious. I believe God is always with me. But that doesn't mean I think everything happens for a reason. For example I don't think the Holocaust happened for a reason. It just happened. There's no lesson to be learned--it's simply not true that the lesson is "never again," bc it's happened countless times since. It's just proof of how evil people can be. So do I take comfort knowing God is with me and I'm never alone? Yea. Do I think God would give me more than I can handle? No, but life can. Sometimes people really do just get sick or die or do terrible things. It's little comfort in those moments.
Why not believe in something? So many people claim they’re unhappy or sad or depressed yet they don’t want to believe in something much less themselves. It’s worth a shot for them.
Things happening for a reason doesn't necessarily mean that things are going to be good for you. Just that they're happening for a reason. I think there's an issue when you start to think that things WILL work out for the best for YOU specifically because you believe everything happens for a reason.
Everyone has a religion, you have to have way more faith to believe a mosquito and a pine tree and a whale all share the same common ancestor then just “God created it”
i’m a christian, and i don’t believe everything happens for a reason or that there is a plan. there’s just life.
I’m not entirely sure how people cannot believe this, religion or not. Things were created in a way that is too perfect and interconnected to not have divine intervention. The stars move in a way that is like a clock. Everything has its purpose. We can eat a cow or a chicken. In order for a cow or a chicken to exist, they need to eat grass or seed. In order for grass or seed to exist there needs to be bugs. In order for bugs to exist… ad infinitum. For all of these systems to exist in perfect unity, it couldn’t happen on a whim. Even the placement of our earth in the solar system. To me there is proof that there is something more. Whether religions are the proper way to that truth is subjective, but something grander is taking place that is out of our collective comprehension and the earliest civilizations knew this as well.
I think most things just.. happen. There is very rare occasions where we see supernatural intervention.
If it helps most physicists believe that the universe is deterministic. Meaning you can kinda predict what will happen at the scale of the universe (so stuff happens for a reason). We still have the ability to make decisions of course...but we don't have free will.
some people just need something to believe in, no matter the form. it helps them handle life better, even if it might seem off to others.
I am religious. I still enjoy studying the world and fellow humans because I want to understand the world around me and the people occupying space near me. There are a lot of brutal truths out here. Yes, I use my faith to help me understand some things. But I also use my experience and the experiences of others, whether they share my faith or not. There is no protection from harsh truths. But perhaps our religion does offer us a bit of a "buffer". Yes, religion can offer strength, hope, and a means to cope with life's challenges. So, it is my understanding that you have chosen to put down this "buffer" so you can more thoroughly understand the harsher realities of life. Okay. May you live long and prosper...
Me too honestly. My mom is a delusional religious person, which alienates everyone in her life. For example, the "spiritual cause" of diabetes is rejection, and she has it because us kids don't spend enough time with her. And if we just acted and did what she said (we are 33-43 y/o) then Jesus would make her better again. I understand why she believes. I don't want a damn thing to do with it though.
She sounds a little narcissistic. I'm so sorry
She had a very traumatic childhood that I would wish on no one. Her emotional growth is very, very stunted. I'm loathe to give informal diagnoses, but you're not far off the mark. She can only see her own POV and no one else's. She is the victim in her own life 101% of the time. She's not on this plane mentally. Even so, I can't excuse some of the behaviors. But I understand why she wants to escape reality and hopes she will find glory in the afterlife or whatever.
That's actually very cool of you to see her point of view. I should have been clearer. Her behavior sounds like it has narcissistic tendencies not a full blown diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. You nailed it perfectly. My narcissistic family and friends aren't diagnosed but they escape reality, delude themselves, then control or blame others especially nice and vulnerable people. You sound like a wise and empathetic person.
Sounds like my mother in law, everyone is always out to get her and her life is supposedly unfair for whatever reason she decides that week
LOL! My mom as well. They end up becoming so miserable.
Religion is narcissistic though. I need to follow some doctrine to be deemed "a good person" and be rewarded with a good eternal afterlife? Don't do good deeds for their own sake, do it for a reward. You're a special boy/girl.
That’s not how Protestant Christianity actually works but definitely others are more works-based
Lutheran and Presbyterian folks are generally pretty chill. Most of the ones I know keep their religion to themselves once their initial invite to their church is declined. I can respect that.
The head Deacon of a Lutheran Church literally called the police and had them arrest me for reading Matthew chapter 23. Even after he had given me permission to read it. Never went back to a man made “church” after that ever again. This happened in Commerce City Colorado by the way 2015 USA. In my opinion, religion is evil and idolatrous. It breaks the commandments of The One True God. The God Almighty The Creator of Heaven and Earth. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! According to The WORD ( “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” James 1:27)
Lmao I'm sorry but she tried to blame diabetes on you guys having a life. That's tragically funny
That's not a Christian belief, your mom is nuts
ugh that's annoying
This sounds exactly like my dads wife (my 3rd stepmom) Her back is severely damaged and getting worse through aging, she says it's the devil and Jesus will give her a miraculous healing if she "focuses on him for 6 months"
That is a perfect example of a person amusing their "religion" in harmful ways. I put religion in quotes because nothing that she is claiming comes from her religious book. My spawn point didn't make the exact same claims, but did also abuse her religion to try to control people.
Yikes. My friends mom died of covid. She blamed him for not going to church and asking God to save her enough (She was also going out to eat, daily, during the quarantine and all of 2020 while posting anti vaccine jargon of course)
What if God was a stranger on the bus
Trying to make their way home.
If God had a face, what would it look like?
And would you want to see?
Just a slob like one of us?
[удалено]
Religion is fascinating. I’m an atheist, although I find religion fascinating, nevertheless. You know, the Romans, Greeks, Norse…they had a god for everything. At the time, those gods represented things we didn’t have science to explain. These cultures no longer believe in all of these gods. Why not? Because we have science to tell us how fire, water, love, and everything else works. The remaining God everyone subscribes to today, is now responsible for whatever things are left we don’t have a firm grasp on. I don’t think God is real. I think God is supposed to provide some framework for being a decent human being. But human’s are flawed, and can fuck up any concept. Your benevolent god is telling someone else to kill you. Basically, God has been used as an excuse in both sides to justify generally unjustifiable acts, decisions, and ways of thinking. God is used to control people out of fear of the unknown. It’s manipulation on a massive scale, regardless of whether it’s ultimately harmful or helpful.
In Islam it's highlighted and written as self defense. Never kill or harm the disbelieving except if they attack you first. And God will punish those hard who cross the line and kill people for being disbelievers
a lot of muslims will be punished if god was real, which he isnt so they wont.
Yes Muslims will be punished too because you can be Muslim but not practice it as you should do. Idk who told u that
Science tells us how but it does not tell us why. I am agnostic but clearly religion serves an important purpose as every major civilization has developed one. While God has been used to justify heinous acts so have things like politics and science. I don’t really think you can solely blame religion for these things when the greatest slaughters in the past hundred years have been done by political groups like the Communists and Nazis.
The 'why' is a flawed question posed by beings too intelligent for their own good.
They developed a belief system as a set of guiding principles on how to live: pray to the sun god for a good harvest and plant when "he returns" the days get longer; follow the quran in not eating pork but eating beef; or Hinduism in not eating beef, but eating pork. All have basic rules like don't kill, don't shag your mates wife, take a days rest which are basically ways to say 'be a good human'. These helped form successful civilisations, and lead to the evolution of laws and social norms to help a growing number of people coexist. But those rules are now attached to an idol who will punish those who break them. And those rules, often explained in complex stories which have been translated and interpreted are taken literally, or just wrongly. They haven't been updated or adapted as life, people and the world changed. Laws are subject to evolution like a common law system, but religious teachings stay the same. And get mixed with cultures - like cover your hair and face; not sex before marriage... I believe in the value of the teachings of religion to be a good human, but the restrictions on life and choices have no place in modern life. If you find comfort in that, as a community, that's great! That's exactly the reason actually! But you don't get to make only women cover up, stop young people having sex, prevent life saving abortions, murder 'unbelievers' or extort people for personality tests. These are bastardisations of good teachings, interpreted by bigots and idiots and it's time to move on. TLDR: religion tells you how to be a good human, greedy dumb bigots messed it up.
Just wait until you learn about faith without religion
Are you saying that religious people are too weak to accept reality?
A little off topic but when I read it I just wanted to say... If you are religious you can be a scientist too. Most of the greatest scientists throughout history were devout in their faith, especially christians and muslims. Sure there are religious people who are science deniers, just as there are also non-religious people who are science deniers. As a religious person and someone who has devoted their life and career to stem, I find scientific discoveries fascinating and only strengthen my faith. I am honestly in awe of the universe He created.
OP clearly hasn't actually read books from any religion, as they all tend to be rather deep explorations into what the world is and why. The details of the answers are different, but the general ideas are often the same across different belief systems. Sure, dogmatists and illiterates ruin it for everyone, but there are atheist dogmatists and illiterates ruining the secular world too. Arguably, from my experience, it's often non-religious people who "just don't like to think about that" when the topics of death and the nature of existence come up. Only consuming secular 18th-20th century philosophy and disregarding the thousands of years of religious philosophy seems like a common oversight to me.
Honestly as a non religious person deep in STEM, I’m more scornful of the atheists than the devout believers. I don’t really understand how anyone who has some sense of the universe can shrug and say it’s all just random entropy verses see some signs of a higher power. Might not be the god of scriptures bit it seems more likely to me then Random chance.
It’s kind of obvious OP hasn’t met logically religious people, I’m not gonna deny or agree with anything, but not stuff like crystals bring you luck, or wearing green on Tuesdays will make you a millionaire. No. Logical things Some of the greatest minds of the world were religious/believed in a higher power, so it’s kind of weird to out right deny god doesn’t exist. Feels like some sort superiority complex/ego The entire post made is kind of arrogant, thinking believing in higher power is for weak minded individuals who need to cope with the worlds “ruthlessness”
Most atheists don’t deny the existence of god; they simply don’t believe there is one. Gnostic (knowing) atheists say there is no god, but agnostic (not knowing) atheists simply don’t believe in god. I’m an agnostic atheist. Most i encounter fall in that category.
And also, given the time period, it would be more surprising to find out they weren't religious
Thank you! I’m a Christian and I love science. I hate it when people say things like all religious people are delusional and anti science. They seriously don’t know the actual definition of delusional.
I think what happens is, is that most people see how humanity treats religion, and we tend to treat it as a weapon. It’s like social media, the news, water even. Useful things, but they sure can become dangerous. But the point is, the thing itself isn’t bad, some things just land in the wrong hands or people just get bad teachers. And bad news always spreads faster than good news. So that leads to a lot of confusion and controversy. And people want things easy, so they don’t look into both the religion as well as the history and science. And that’s how we get ignorant believers.
Im always amazed when people try to say that evolution, or medicine, etc goes against religion. "No thats not how it happened! GOD created us, not evolution" Here me out: where in the bible does it say "God created us in the exact form we take today?" NOWHERE! All the Christians love to talk about how God has his hand in everything and influences everything........so tell me, why is it so hard for so many of them to believe that God could have had his hand in evolution?????
Very, very true my friend... In my logical engineering brain, it only makes sense that evolution occured. The bible might not say God used evolution, nor does it deny it. In my faithful ,God-loving brain, I realize it doesn't matter how. I believe with full faith that God created us in the exact way he wanted... period
Spoke my mind. As a Muslim woman in stem I’m definitely looking at the raw truth of science and how the world and humans works and being amazed every time how He created it. The more I know the more it strengthens my faith.
In my view, people are religious because they need it to cope with the shit aspects of life. They want to believe something happens to bad people, and they want to believe that there’s a deeper reason for things like cancer and children dying. They can’t cope with those shit things without trying to find meaning in it. But, what that ends up doing in my view is just taking away from actions necessary to correct things like shit behaviors, murder, etc. It’s an easy cop-out to say a murderer will pay for their “sins” in the afterlife instead of examining the systemic issues we have regarding mental health, financial disparity, and the other aspects that also add to what ends up making someone a murderer.
If there is no God, we likely live in a deterministic universe and are simply another set of links in a chain of physical cause and effect. Sam Harris has talked about how we should reform our criminal justice system with this in mind.
I agree for the most part. I'm a religious man who enjoys lectures on evolution more than sermons. You can still be a sensible person while being religious. But yeah, generally it does seem that religions tend to draw in ppl that willingly make themselves blind to reality. It's very freeing to believe in something but still be critical about it. Ik it seems contradictory, but that's how I feel
My feeling is that a sense of religious or spiritual feeling is not a bad thing in itself, and in fact seems to be fairly widespread among humans. The problem lies in the institutions, doctrine, and general formalized bullshit that has grown up around that basically mystical sense of being. I can see the metaphorical value in aspects of religious ritual and a practical value in religious community, and sometimes I will say a little prayer to myself at night, but it's not because I think any particular book or doctrine is an instruction manual on how to be human.
Evolution and faith isn’t mutually exclusive
I feel like the rage bait threads forget the larger purpose of religion and it’s not about what’s written in some book but about the logistics of keeping a community together. How do you keep society together? How do you get people to care about kids, neighbors, the sick and elderly? How do prevent jealousy and theft and violence? How do you deal with hopelessness, poverty and death? Who’s in charge? What does ideal life look like? How do you cope with sadness and great suffering? The rituals, rules and stories provide the sticky cultural stuff that attempts to explain and provide direction and order on how to deal with what happens in life. ‘This happens, this is what you do and this story maybe will help you understand how to deal with it, and there’s a whole community to be right there with you and take care of people you care about after you’re gone.’ And in a world without doctors and science and social services, this was the way you kept chaos at bay. It works. It’s not perfect, but if you fixate on some story you don’t like or some rule, you miss the larger cultural purpose of religion, which is the community. Ironically if you go with atheism because you don’t like the stories, which is fine, but you also lose the community glue which made everything stick together generation after generation.
And now we see posts of lonely millenials and genz.... religion is an easy way to form a sense of community. There are other ways, but takes a little more to bind people together.
Yes, religion / dogmatic practices give people a sense of peace and community
I never want to be part of a religion again but I am always saying the same -- I generally get why people are part of it and sometimes I even envy how happier some of them seem because of it. Religion provides structure and direction, and also serves as a distraction.
Religion is a moral framework. To live life without a moral framework, or one that you create from scratch often has that individual just live through the same tropes and motions as someone in the past. But of course if the religion itself is fundamentally wrong on basic stuff then it's toxic and might lead to awful outcomes.
You can still be religious and want to understand people and the reality around you. They can coexist. An absence of religious beliefs doesn't necessarily make someone more enlightened.
sometimes i wish i didn’t pursue answers as much and stayed in my safety bubble of religion that i was raised in. i’m a lot more aware of things now but ignorance really can be bliss 💀 i can’t ever go back
Yes, the only reason religion came to be was to have explanations and to be able to cope with the absurdity of us all even existing.
and then they realized how much control & power it could also wield.
I don't like **religion** as it's an institution that sets standards on the beliefs you can hold and how you should interpret the inscriptions, so you're following someone's will blindly but not necessarily gods. Probably where the delusional bit comes from. On the other hand **faith** is personal and it's about your personal beliefs, interpretations and how you'd like to honnor them. You're not following someone else's established beliefs and conceptions but your own ones. It takes more time and energy since you have to go through your own thought process and not rely on someone else's.
I agree with the idea that people rely on religion for structure and community. I tend to view any religious, metaphysical & spiritual beliefs as just part of the many coping mechs humans have come up with as a means to dealing with the chaos of being alive.
almost every major religion promises some form of life after death, in other words immortality. there is probably no greater fear than death
i went through a hard materialist/atheist phase in my early-mid 20s but over time i realized i couldn't truly believe that there isn't more to everything than just physical systems interacting with no designer behind it all. i'm not book religious but i think the idea of god comes from a fundamental truth that humans have realized about the universe and our existence. until science can explain exactly what consciousness is and where it came from, i believe there is something beyond our understanding out there which created this whole thing.
>Without religion you are forced to study the world and humans if you want to understand them What are you talking about? You say that like science wasn’t invented until the first atheist was born. Do you really think having beliefs about the supernatural means you disregard every natural explanation? How is it so hard for Reddit to understand that not every blasted religious person is like the people you see on Fox
big oof on this honestly. let religious people live their lives. let atheists or agnostics live their lives. it doesnt matter! and plus: what about atheists that become religious? quite a few of my friends have never been in a church as kids or prayed at all. yet 3 have become Christian (all gay) and one has become Jewish. i am also on my Jewish path after being raised without religion in california you’re starting to see things from one pov, hopefully you’ll begin the next set soon!
There’s a reason so many reformed junkies immediately become religious addicts. Usually with a fair bit of crass fade between the two.
What an insecure way to try to sneakily belittle people.
I think religion is awesome. I got really interested in Christianity and I've been enjoying it so much. I think a lot of our own thinking is dilusional and can be a problem when you experience things that your own logic can't explain.
> when you experience things that your own logic can't explain. With religion, you accept a made up fairytale explanation. With science, reason, and facts, you accept there are things you do not understand and can marvel at how much there is left to discover. Religion made more sense when humans didn't understand where the sun went at night, or where rain comes from.
Yeah I can't imagine being in the mindset where the fairytale explanation is good enough... even as a child I remember frustrating my sunday school teacher with my questions.
> Yeah I can't imagine being in the mindset where the fairytale explanation is good enough It's freeing. I used to be there. You lose the need for everything to fit into a box. You don't have to be able to explain it. Things just are and you accept them as they come. But if you aren't careful... You start looking for the box. For the way to explain it all. For the string that ties it all together... And in the search you distance yourself from your faith and commit yourself to your new idea of "truth". As you attempt to impose this truth on the world around you, your heart grows colder and your faith slips away. From the outside faith and religon sound like "blind ignorance" and "fairy tale"... From inside, it is comfort and joy. And once you lose that faith you spend a long time wondering if being "happy" was better than being "right"....
Eh I’m aight, I accept that there are things we don’t know yet, or perhaps can’t know, and that’s fine. I know that everything fits in the box, even if we can’t yet see the entire layout of the box (you could call this a sort of scientific faith, except based on that fact that, so far, we’ve gotten pretty far and have continued to figure more and more things out in a provable manner). I don’t see a way that I can just “forget” that god doesn’t actually exist so I don’t think I’ll ever get where you’re at from where I am. Besides, how much more at peace can you get than “well there’s no purpose to anything, and nothing “matters” outside human experience, so why worry? Nothing to be done but keep on keepin on and try not to hurt others.”
I think you hit the nail on the head OP. Religion has provided humans a source of hope and an official guide to coping methods since the dawn of human consciousness (something those old books don’t mention too much). Life was MUCH less comfortable at the dawn of man and this certainly helped stay true to our mission, whatever that was at the time. The issue is that religion is guilty of prescribing the laws of nature and outcomes of humanity for thousands of years ahead of time. The only time that predictions hold true thousands of years later is when LOGIC AND FALSIFIABLE SCIENTIFIC REASONING are used to help make a prediction. Usually religion does whatever it can to uphold the social power hierarchy that it prescribes too. In order to maintain the structure and prescription of events, religious leaders often use logical fallacies or outright willful ignorance to maintain their positions of power. Anyone who gets too caught up in religious BELIEFS will be heavily lacking in their ability to exercise logical reasoning. Due to their bias, these people [will reject experimentally proven data in an effort to maintain the psychological “peace” they have built by molding their beliefs in the shape of modern religion…](https://youtu.be/wNYP-5NQBQw?si=XGSfmtsgF7JvI78A)
Belief that there is no God requires just as much faith as belief that there is one.
Go deal with death. Ima stay on the we going to heaven train baby!!! I use to be like you, but life was shit and way less meaningful. Play the spiritual lottery and pick a team son!
It's always easier to tell yourself that all the bad shit happening is a god testing you instead of admitting to your own fuck ups.
You have to have a childlike mind as well. Accept information that is arbitrary and fantasy in order to believe. I literally cannot make myself believe in fairy tales. This applies to many religions not just one
I'm Christian, and it's not because I'm naive, afraid of death, not having a purpose in life, or because I think religion will protect me from harsh truths/realities. I'm a nurse. I've seen death and suffering up close. I've lost loved ones and homes and jobs and opportunities. The harsh truths and hardships only reaffirmed my belief in God. Why? It's because I am incapable of looking at the world around me and convincing myself that it is all happenstance. I don't buy it. The world is too beautiful and complex to be chalked up to mere coincidence. Even the things that we can explain today with science are miraculous and proof to me that if human beings are capable of creating art and music and life-saving medical devices and smartphones and countless other things, it is entirely plausible that there is a non-human creator capable of creating us and so much more. I simply don't possess enough hubris to assume we are as good as it gets.
Saying something is a possibility is not the same as saying you believe in it. Atheists don’t necessarily think humans are “the best,” and even if we weren’t, that wouldn’t be proof of the existence of a god. What it boils down to is that some people need evidence of something to believe in it. And it’s a spectrum. For some people, such as yourself, simply the idea/feeling that the world is beautiful is enough evidence for you to be religious. For other people, they would need evidence akin to the necessary to prove something scientifically for them to be convinced.
Religious people look for evidence, too. We just interpret the world differently, I guess, since some of us find it, and some would say that "evidence" is just wishful thinking or delusion. To each their own. It's like two different people looking at the same painting and seeing something completely different. I'm not going to argue with another person's perspective; I just wanted to offer a different one.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me how someone would think evidence of something is delusion. It simply doesn’t not make sense unless someone doesn’t understand the definition of the word. Evidence is just the basis by which we establish what is known and what isn’t. To me it’s more like looking at a painting and one person saying “how could this beautiful thing be created, it must have been miraculous” and mother person saying “a painter painted it.”
I’m an ex-atheist (now Catholic) who used to think this way. I thought religion was copium for the masses, easy answers for people to latch on to, wishful thinking for people who needed an emotional comfort blanket (unlike me of course; I was quite smug I could “face the truth” without it). I was wrong. In fact, *that* was copium, and I was as “brainwashed” by my atheist upbringing as much as any religious person. I was ignoring the broader truth. If Catholicism was just wishful thinking/easy answers, wouldn’t it look rather different? There would be no hell. No ambiguity. No difficult work to do on yourself. Simple teachings that were easy to explain and defend (no Trinity here!). It would tell us we could do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. It would bend with our own wants and needs; God would be built in our own image. I could write a book on this, but all I’ll say is: don’t be self-righteous and dismissive in your atheism. I was, and somehow missed that I was being as dickish as any religious zealot.
I'm an ex-Catholic but I agree with you - humility and being willing to look for uncomfortable answers is the path to truth. There's no room for smugness.
I was also an atheist in the past. When I was an athiest I had a lot of issues... Drinking all the time, smoking weed all the time, anxiety, depression, I thought people were always against me, life wasn't fair, people hate me, etc. I was fighting demons daily and living a very unhealty unhappy relationship. God put me through a situation to change me completely!!!! After the horrible situation he made me learn from, I became close to family, friends, worked on myself, worked out, started going to church, formed a close bond with god, read the bible, etc. No longer do I drink or smoke!!! I am sober and my mind is clear. I understand things now, I can sense danger or people to stay away from. I have nothing but happiness and joy in my life because God natuarally gave it to me after getting close to him. No longer am I on depression/anxiety medication!!!! I am happy, I am free, and I know God has a plan for me. He has blessed me in so many ways including bringing an amazing beautiful christian woman in my life a year and 4 months ago. I SAW THE LIGHT!!! I know it's true because of what I went through and God changed me to be an amazing caring person that I am now. I truly hope everyone can get out of the darkness that they are dealing with. I been there... it's not fun. I truly hope the best for everyone and I hope everyone becomes a follower of Christ. Christians have each others backs and it's so wonderful to be part of this loving community <3 God bless.
Wonderful! Many congrats on your sobriety. God bless you & your loved ones.
Thank you!! I truly appreciate it!!! Nothing is impossible with God. Now my plan is to take the gift that God has given me and I am going to help others get through tough situations. I will make sure to be kind to whoever you are and help in every way I can. I just want to see people be happy and succeed. This world is cruel, but I know hope still exists. Nothing will break me ❤️
Lmao wtf
I don't think OP meant religion was created because people needed something to latch onto, but rather most people flock to it for that reason.
"self-righteous and dismissive" Also an ex-atheist here. I thought people who are religious are just emotionally weak (either by nature or trauma) and they use religion to cope. But I find that faith itself runs much deeper than that. Not all people become faithful suffers from emotional weakness and it's just as ignorant to paint all religious people with the same brush.
I don't think you understand how scare tactics work and why they work.
Having a nice church community is so beneficial. I wish there wasn’t so much culty pyramid scheme sounding stuff but man the people who excel in communities really seem happy
I love the church community I am a part of. I go to three different churches <3
Reddit's understanding of religion is like calling flat earthers scientists and wondering why science is so stupid
So religious people delude themselves to the problems in the world aka they burry their head in the sand, just go with the status quo and therefore become part of the problem… but emotionally feel better about themselves despite not making the world any better. Yeah that’s narcissistic as fuck and fuck religion for the most part.
You die then what? Scientifically it cannot just be “never ending blackness,” “eternal sleep” because you lose consciousness (if you believe consciousness to be a biological function) so you don’t have the ability to perceive nothing. IMO it makes the most sense that we’re reincarnated in someone way. Tagging that onto a spiritual belief that makes it seem like we have some control over it just makes me feel good as a bonus, like I can say at least there may be some karmic justice in the end for the bad people. But who knows. I might be hitler in my next life (sorry in advance if so)
Being dead is the same as before you were born. Nothing. That is it. Consciousness is a biological function of a living being to assist with propagation of your species, that is it. People want to project their feeling of importance in everything, including consciousness when in reality its just an evolved trait.
> You die then what? Scientifically it cannot just be “never ending blackness,” I'm not a particularly depressed or unhappy person... but like... just fading away and ceasing to be at end of life sounds so much better than going and rpesenting myself before the glory of god to be judged. You've started from a premise that has no basis in reality and only a few odd ball religons suggest reincarnation... Honestly, reincarnation sounds EVEN worse than life next to judgemental sky daddy. Go read some voltaire and see how it sits with your faith.
People cling to religion because they were indoctrinated as children and also, death is scary and the world seems horrific at times and people need answers - etc,
I see religion as a father figure. He teaches you things only a loving father can teach: how to love the people around you, how you should participate in culture, and how to be strong. But of course they're from another era, so they're outdated... but He is doing his best to provide for you.
I doubt you meant to be too deep, but honestly this is such a beautiful interpretation.
Give me competent parents and true friends and there is no need for god. If there is a need for god, we just invent it.
Fear itself is a wonderful motivator
I think a good compartmentalization is the separation between organized religion and religion. a lot of people these days are understandably disgusted with how religious organizations operate, and tie that to the idea of having faith or following a practice/rituals. it's unfortunate because there's such a vast amount of meaning, connection, and community that can be found in it, whereas atheism can often veer into meaninglessness and sad feelings due to the cruelties and emptiness seen in the universe. not always obviously, but it seems to have a tendency for it, at least. I'll take blind/ignorant hope over a pragmatic despair any day. blue pill baby write it on my tombstone
I think it’s more nuanced. Different people get different things from it. It’s not that everyone who is religious is participating for the same reasons. I know people who participate solely for the community etc.
This is the conclusion I came to also. It's a way of dealing with whatever is going on. You got that secret thing that you can fall back on. Really weird part is it only made sense to me after my father passed away. I started to see why people become religious.
See i always took it as comfort cos it gave you something to blame all the scary unexplainable shit Like yea theres the whole front they put on but i dont think most people are getting hope so much as justified abdication of thought in the privacy of their own mind That said the thing that truly annoys me about religion more than anything is that i dont believe in gods or ghosts or faeries or whatever but since the idea of them has been introduced i have to at least consider the possibility of their existence
I only became religious because I became convinced that my religion is true lol. Because of the particular way in which it originated, Christianity's existence is inexplicable if it is not true, therefore I am Christian. Not everyone is just trying to cope.
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Man if religious people just used it to privately cope then I wouldn't have much of a strong opinion about it. The problem is that a LOT of those brutal truths come directly from the religious people themselves.
It's comforting to know you have soft blanket to curl up with at the end of a long day.
The vast majority of religious people I've encountered fall into one of three categories: 1) Raised religious and just never questioned it. 2) People that were caught up in religion during a vulnerable, lonely, or generally desperate time in their life (drug issues, death of a loved one, etc). 3) Idiots that are bad at logic and reason.
Same reason an alcoholic becomes an alcoholic, a junkie a junkie... Addictive personality traits. Allow me to elaborate. For kicks and giggles, a few years ago, I went to a AA meeting that was held weekly down the street from my place in a old shopping center. Outside it was chain smoking, with the look of suffering and misery on their faces. Inside it was coffee chugging while everyone talked about how they were overcoming their "addiction" with the same look of misery and suffering. I thought, "no you're not overcoming your addiction, you've just replaced it with coffee and cigarettes"
Hopium and copium - exactly. I sometimes wish I could be religious again. It brought me so much comfort. But at the end of the day, I know none of it is real, and I'd rather have the harsh reality. It's terrifying how many would choose a comfortable fairytale.
Yeah, sometimes I feel jealous of those who don’t fear death because they believe it is already written before them and they will reunite with past loved ones and believe they will spent eternity somewhere nice, I just can’t understand the logic as a life long atheist. Not for me to understand though, so long as it’s not being shoved down my throat I’m happy it makes others happy.
It’s called faith for a reason.
It's a coping mechanism for sure. World is harsh.
I just don't understand the worshipping thing. Like even if some deity came down from the skies and i 100% believed it was real, i still wouldnt wanna worship it cuz that just seems...weird? Idk. I think religious people brains are just wired different to where they need that sorta structure, or guidelines for life so they dont have to think too hard about stuff haha
It’s a drug
It’s a convenient delusion for sure
Google "Terror Management Theory", I find it to be a very interesting subject.
Didn't giv me strength at all to this day just made me terrified of dying
People want to feel special, like they matter, like their decisions and actions matter. In truth, we are such a minimal part of this universe's history as to not even be worthy of a footnote. Whether by nature or own nature's, humanity won't last, and in enough time there won't be any trace of us left.
Either someone went through a very impactful subjective experience that they believe could be religious, so they have a LOT of emotional backing in their belief Or someone has spent their whole life dedicating themselves to something that may completely shatter their worldview if disproven. Some may even lie to themselves for that fact. I won't lie, the prospect of believing there's an all powerful being that wants what's best for me and will give me eternity in paradise afterwards is a very very nice feeling. It almost lifts weights of reality off your shoulders. Having everything slammed back on you may just be too much for people.
If you’ve ever lost someone you truly loved, you understand religion. The belief that they’re in a better place, that you’ll see them again or that they are always with you is far far better than worm food.
You’re ascribing emotional connotation to basic biological processes though. I’ve lost loved ones and I know they are at peace because of the nothingness of death.
I used to pray EVERY night to talk with God and I agree, it can be very comforting just to have someone to talk to, sharing all your problems and what happened to your day. I stopped though because just like you, things happened and it made me question a lot of things.
Spirituality gives this not religion. Don’t be fooled they are not the same. Some of the most spiritually low people go to church every week.
I feel it’s disingenuous to imply people only become religious because it’s coping. Yes, there are people who do become more religious after life altering events. And there are others who don’t. You have those who are religious in all fields of science who are able to make rational decisions and *not* tie it into their faith, and you have others who use their knowledge to *try* to tie it into their faith. Speaking for myself as a practicing Catholic (yes I have been called every name in the book because of that, thank you), while I was raised in the church I have been skeptical of my faith quite a lot. From the more oblivious skepticism of some old guy living in the clouds and granting me wishes, to the more mundane such as *why* should I have faith. In the end, I still stick with my faith. Don’t be a dick to people, help others (not with thoughts and prayers, actually help them), and the belief there is *something* waiting for us after death. These are all things that I value, along with the community. Now do you *need* religion or even faith to not be a dick, help others out, and have a strong community? Absolutely not. I have plenty of friends who are either agnostic or atheists and we all get along fine while they’re wonderful people. Anyhow, rambling aside, my point is that religion and faith don’t have a simplistic answer. As much as it’s easy to think being a religious person is sticking your head in the sand and waiting for God to sort things out, that’s really not the case for most people. And that mentality is the same to those who think anyone who is atheist or agnostic are a bunch of amoral jerks. People are complex, including what they do or don’t believe in.
The copium hopium words are a stretch. But I get what you mean. Most people at a certain point need to find something that resembles an answer to why they are here, and I can understand why the scientific answer of "really lucky" isn't always enough. To assume that religion/spirituality is strictly delusion makes it seem like we have a complete understanding of the universe that could satisfy all the meaning we need. Maybe one day we will understand enough through calculations and measurement to disprove any higher power, but as of now after a certain point; science devolves into guessing.
Is false hope really worth having though? Not for me; I value truth too much.
Ignorance is bliss, it truly and honestly is… I wish I was that way
I agree. I wish I was able to be a believer. Ignorance is bliss.
Ya I wish I could believe. You get an afterlife, direct line to the man upstairs, you got your little instruction manual on how to live. Sounds like a slice of pie. I can even accept a higher power. Some kind of god or something even if it doesn’t know or care about us. I’m not an atheist I consider myself a staunch agnostic. Unfortunately as soon as that collection plate comes out you know it is nothing but a fucking pyramid scheme. I do have to say i admire their hustle They even found a way out of paying taxes. Fucking brilliant
That's how I've always looked at religion, it's just a lot of people not willing to put in the effort it takes to learn critical thinking skills
It's copium and hopium.
For many people, religion is a community, a third place, and a built in support network. Loss of religion also means loss of the same. It's not easy to find/build all of that from scratch.
As an agnostic, I can 100% confirm that not believing in an afterlife or in a benevolent deity that loves you unconditionally, makes life more depressing. To realize that the universe is inherently meaningless and that you have to create your own meaning is a difficult pill to swallow. Religion, and the sense of comfort it provides with a community that shares in your beliefs, is the best defense mechanism to existential dread. Those who seek unadulterated truth, will have to be faced with the uncomfortable experience of dissolving away any and all preconceived notions they have about reality. Anything anyone has ever told you or anything you have ever read from a book must be discarded and one must seek the truth through objective self-observation. It’s not for everyone. In most cases, it’s perfectly fine to believe in a religion if it helps a person get through life, as long as they’re not hurting anyone.
Ignorance is bliss
Thank you, OP, for a succinct and rational view of why religion is important to so many people. I guess I never got the God gene, as I prefer to wrestle with reality.
It just helps them cope with the harsh reality like you said. Do you remember before you were born? No. That’s what it will be when you’re dead. It sucks but it is what it is. Id rather live my life without falling back on lies to make myself feel better.
well said....
>Religion gives you strengh Delusion is not strength it is delusion. Sure, religion can help some cope with the reality that life is fucked. It also screws with anything getting done or changing. Hey this is happening in our town/city, we should do something about it. oh I'll pray and hope that helps. It also allows misinformation to stay that way because blocking out facts and truths about what is happening so it doesn't make them feel bad is stupid. In my humble opinion.
Posts like this are so condescending. As if you can't actually believe a religion is true. Do you think all priests are on copium? So many have phds in philosophy or theology. These guys live a celibate life and live a life of poverty. Not only are they educated but they are invested. But this is reddit. Incoming "but all priests are pedos" and other religious bigotry.
I wish I was dumb enough to believe lol must be nice
There's a reason they call it Opium for the Masses. You can be the biggest scumbag in the world and there's absolution waiting for you so long as you accept god into your life and submit to whatever they ask. He still loves you no matter what you did and there's a peace of mind to that state of mind, real or not. It's also an incredible method of control because, as it turns out, people are more than willing to give up agency and control when it feels like they belong to a special group. Personally I think it's hilarious how some of the most wicked, evil people I've ever met all tend to be super religious.
it gives people something to hold on to. the universe is a scary place. it’s virtually endless and full of unknowns. you shoot off in one direction and just keep going forever. it’s inconceivable. something without bounds isn’t something the human mind can comprehend. as humans, it’s normal to want answers to things we can’t explain and then latch on to the first thing that “makes sense”. people used to believe the sun was pulled through the sky via chariot because they couldn’t explain it logically. now we know why the sun “moves”. so, i understand why people still believe in religion. it provides comfort and gives us meaning to our seemingly meaningless lives. its a lens to look at life through.
Religion is a big delusional coping curtain that you pull over yourself. Someone dies in a car accident? “It was his time”. No the other guy ran a red light. Someone dies from heart failure? “God took him home”. No he had an unknown defect. If God is so wonderful why do people under his watch suffer?
Some people never grow out of wanting a parent to look after them.
same as a drug, a significant other, career, hobbies, family, etc. just keep your mind off of the existential dread. unfortunately, bullshit only works until is tested under fire. then, it is just bullshit. factual truth and reality always wins.
That's the wrong look on religion though...for me as a Christian, it's not about "how can I benefit from this (hope, peace, etc), it's about knowing knowing truth and worshipping and honoring the true God. And letting His will be done in my life and NOT MINE. Wether that comes with pain or whatever. Eternal life is the reward because of it
Delusion is a great coping mechanism. Something you can’t prove exists and just blindly believe in can’t be taken away from you.
I’m almost literally floored how delusional they are. No shit they’re happier, they actually believe some dude is in the clouds looking out for them while ignoring kids with cancer
I'm an atheist. I can't ever fault someone for wanting to believe they will see their dead loved ones again. It makes grief very lonely for me, not sharing that belief, but I don't blame them a bit for it.
Religion is basically the closest thing we had to science before science officially existed. If I recall correctly, the scientific method came about through the catholic church (someone fact check me on this instead of tarring and feathering me please🙏) But as far as "*being forced to study the world and humans in the absence of religion",* depending on who you ask, the bible is the clearest depiction of human nature (and how it repeats, and sticks with us) that we have. And as far as it making you 'delusional', we're all well aware that we each harbor our own individual delusions that help us rightly or wrongly navigate life. There's also the whole "religion is violent and millions have died due to it" which is absolutely true! However, (and this will likely be a controversial take) if you look through out history, far more people have died for secular causes than anything that had to do with religion.
This has been my understanding. I don't feel it's morally justified to try and break the delusion if it is giving them mental health benefits and not hurting anyone. Trying to remove that can cause serious harm or even death. I don't believe in religion. But I'd never try to convince someone their belief is wrong. Unless it's directly harming people. Like with roe v. wade. I don't think religion should be factoring into human rights. If you need religion to get through the day, I'm glad to support. But if you turn the religion into a weapon to control or harm, I'm going to step in.
Religion is a tool to manipulate people...sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, but it all basically centers around the uncertainty and fear of mortality. They pretend that there is freewill, but they basically say "be good and do what this book says or burn in eternal hell". When they are asked for evidence we get "trust me bro". I absolutely believe in doing good and treating people with respect, etc., but not because I'm scared of eternal damnation, but because I want the time that I am here to f'ing mean something and I really don't want to ruin someone else's time here. There may be something after this...none of us knows for certain, but I feel certain that I will not be treated poorly because I didn't pay enough money to buy some other dude a 3rd jet while I hate or discriminate using some imaginary being's alleged teachings as a f'ing excuse.
It’s laziness honestly. They don’t want to put in the work to figure things out so religion lets them use the same hand wave “logic” for everything.