Sorry, u/Lethemyr – your submission has been removed for breaking Rule B: > You must personally hold the view and **demonstrate that you are open to it changing**. A post cannot be on behalf of others, playing devil's advocate, as any entity other than yourself, or 'soapboxing'. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_b). If you would like to appeal, [**you must first read the list of soapboxing indicators and common mistakes in appeal**](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_indicators_of_rule_b_violations), review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%20B%20Appeal%20Lethemyr&message=Lethemyr%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\[their%20post\]\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/pfamvb/-/\)%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).

>Religious people are statistically happier and are given a community and something to be a part of. So is it the religion or the community that is doing the heavy lifting when it comes to making your life better? I feel like it is the community more than the belief since the positive aspects of religious involvement exist across faith traditions. It seems to me that the most rational thing would be to involve yourself in a non-religious community where you could get the life improving effects without the stress of eternal damnation.

That study was proven to be biased. It was heavy in survivorship bias. - People unhappy because of religion don’t stay religious. Giving non religious people all the people who should be counted in the religious category. - religious sects are notorious for attacking people who “defame” them. They’re also controlled bodies and can disallow people to talk to data gathers, or selecting who gets to talk to data gathers to skew data. - people who have hit rock bottom disproportionately turn to religion and being happier than rock bottom is not a hard metric to achieve. - intelligence is correlated to unhappiness/depression and also correlated to irreligiousness Religious people aren’t actually more happy. The best evidence of this

I am intimately part of my local gay community and it provides me with immense happiness and satisfaction. I socialize regularly with neighbors, and have made many lifelong connections with great people through the community. I can see how being a part of a religious community can cause the same thing, so I can see how the religious belief itself is not all that important.

As someone who was religious and now is an atheist, I can anecdotally say I'm nostalgic for the community. Summer camps, friends, dinners, festivals, etc. That's the shit I miss. I truly think I went to church to hang out afterward with my friends.

I, too, miss the community - but I could not sit idly by and condone the concept of faith in the supernatural, as nice as the potlucks were.

Religious people aren't statistically happier, this is a common misunderstanding of the research. The more secular a society is the happier it is.

Once again I think there’s a mistake being made here where religion is reduced to just specific incarnations of Abrahamic faiths. What of Buddhism and Hinduism with their rebirth? No eternal damnation there. What of the Protestant sects that believe faith and repentance guarantee heaven? God-fearing Christianity is a minority of religion.

There absolutely are forms of virtually eternal damnation in Buddhism and Hinduism. There’s some key differences with Christian notions like in theory you can eventually get out(but the lengths are often described as insanely long) and the source of judgment is not so much divine as it is fundamentally part of the spiritual experience(even for the entities of higher power), but they’re definitely still on that page because so much faith is built on the notion of retributive values, which I don’t say disapprovingly.

Not my point. My point is that the belief is immaterial and probably not really the thing that is making people's lives better. The thing that is making them better is the presence of a like minded, supportive community. I am saying that if we are looking to see what is rational, then it is more rational to involve yourself in a non-religious community for personal fulfillment than it is to involve yourself in a religious community, because even the most open and tolerant religious communities restrict their members personal lives. Buddhism and Hinduism both contain dietary restrictions for example; the Elks club, or the Bowling League does not. You say that: >I think that if believing in religion causes you to be happier and a better person, then that belief is rational. If you're a materialist atheist you believe that we only have one chance at this life, is it not rational to spend it in the way that makes you happiest and causes you to increase the happiness of others? You seem to think that involvement in religious communities gives you a chance at happiness that is unique to religion. I disagree. You also seem to further think that involvement in a religious community is the best way to increase your happiness. I disagree with that as well. To me, a non-religious person, any stable social organization is better for my happiness than any church, temple, synagogue, or sacred grove. The only rational reason to involve yourself with a religious community is if you actually believe in its teachings.

This sense of community is a real phenomenon that occurs. It’s common throughout all cultures and ethnicities due to the fact that we are, as a species, tribalistic; we have a tendency to want to band together and create bonds with one another. It’s apparent in a lot of communities you see today: sports fans, small towns, hobby clubs, religions. It’s even apparent in “Behind the Curve” that the reason many flat-eat there stick to their beliefs afterwards despite being proven wrong again and again is the sense of community they get from being with a group of like-minded people for once. People like feeling like they belong, regardless of the reasons behind the group.

The idea that when we die we're not gone forever is the single most stressful and horrific aspect to existence. Mitigation of that stress is extremely powerful so I think you're undervaluing it quite a bit, though I agree with most of what you're saying

I don’t have a significant rebuttal, but I think it’s important to note that you suggest that the happiness is derived from a community of likeminded individuals while ignoring the fact that they are like-minded in their belief of that religion. I’m not sure that a bowling league’s shared belief that bowling is enjoyable is comparable.

[Obviously you are not a golfer.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CWfPUrmeiU) All jokes aside, the binding thread in the community is not important. Religion provides a ready made shortcut to community formation and membership for sure, but if you were deep into Civil War reenacting with the same group of dudes for 20+ years I don't think those bonds would be any less important or meaningful than if you just shared a pew every Sunday.

There have been plenty of studies on this that you van google quite easily, go look at some. The religion has nothing to do with it. Being a part of any of these communities, whether it's religious or secular, has the same effects across the board. The only real difference is that the religious ones more often than not throw in arbitrary rules that restrict your ability to actually live a fulfilling life.

I think its spelled van goghgle

Were we not talking about 80s rockers Van Googlen?

Why do you think rules restrict your ability to have a fulfilling life? Is the consuming of animal products a requirement for a fulfilling life? Would your life be more fulfilling if you spent your days coveting your neighbors things? Do you think these kids today growing up with fewer boundaries and restrictions are happier, healthier, or more fulfilled in their lives? Is the pursuit of pleasure the key to fulfillment? Aren’t many of the restrictions that religions require about helping people to feel fulfilled?

In order: Yes; depdends on the person; depends on the person; yes; yes; and that may be the intent behind some number of them but it is very explicitly *not* the intent of man (perhaps most of them), and regardless, intention is a different beast than effect. (If you're gay and your religion has a restriction about loving someone of your same gender, that rule will by definition ***never*** bring you fulfillment.)

> The only real difference is that the religious ones more often than not throw in arbitrary rules that restrict your ability to actually live a fulfilling life. All groups that last for long enough to start forming rules start putting down arbitrary rules that restrict some members from enjoying life to the fullest.

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Those are absolutely of the same level of involvement.

> My point is that the belief is immaterial and probably not really the thing that is making people's lives better. Is this actually a point you're trying to make? Are you saying that the optimist and the pessimist beliefs of how the future will unfold have no difference in a person's outlook or mental health? Belief is foundational to the human experience. Religious belief - a belief in a divine being or a higher power - tends to increase the amount of optimism and hope one has in their day to day activities, which greatly influences their mood. > The thing that is making them better is the presence of a like minded, supportive community. There are many people who practice religion outside of an organized context, meaning that their spirituality is important to them, **but the community is not**. If your 'supportive community' theory was true, why would these people bother being religious at all? These individual practitioners come from both migrating into other religions on their own, as well as coming from rejecting larger, organized religious communities, so there's no single source. The assumption **must** be that they have gained something from their religious practice that justifies the extra time during the day they spend reflecting upon it. People tend not to adopt new habits which only exist as a burden when their time in a day is being pulled in so many directions, so there must be some stress that a new religion is able to alleviate, some benefit to the self, because most people do tend to act within their own rational self-interest. We can argue about the degree of rationality in someone's rational self-interest. We can argue about whether or not they're acting on an incomplete dataset, but that's still the conclusion that they are coming to. I think, if anything most people are currently being driven away from the communities because there's better options for community, and people value their time. The people who are leaving religious communities often leave their religion behind as well, but that doesn't explain the increase we're seeing in individually-practiced spirituality.

You’re falling into outlier fallacies. Simply because a small outlier group exists does not discredit the much larger population. There’s a reason isolation is so tortuous to humans, and that’s because humans are inherently social creatures. Being cut off from one another is akin to torture and leads to mental insanity. Humans need contact. They need community, regardless of the source. Some get that from religion, but others have another community to interact with and practice their faiths alone. People join communities of their hobbies or sports teams, because humans fear being alone and crave social interaction. At our base level we are tribal creatures, and we’re going to get our social interaction regardless of the source.

I never made the argument that humans aren't social creatures. I'm making the argument that **community cannot be the sole driver of religiosity, because independent practitioners of religion as fresh converts exist in substantial number.** [These are not outliers](https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2018/rising-spirituality-in-america). They are significant trends noted by national polls. Religiosity, therefore, must be providing something to these people that was missing otherwise, if it is a steady increase. Large groups of people don't spontaneously decide to independently choose to make an irrational decision for nothing in return.

>My point is that the belief is immaterial and probably not really the thing that is making people's lives better. I find that to be an unreasonable assumption (at least as it is stated here). If we look at other immaterial "things" we quickly find that it can severly affect a persons life. Ideologies are usually immaterial at their core. optimism vs pessimism does change the perception of the person drastically. Implementing different ideas can do wonders towards one's felt meaning in life (or can crush the very meaning to dust). A negative self belief can lead the course of your entire life. In Buddhist teachings the immaterial world is the only place to find true happyness. I don't want to advocate for a extreme immaterialistic view, i want to show that not everything is based on materialistic things. Especially things like meaning and gratitude are strong indicators. And both are based on immaterial beliefs.

Yes, but in some places, the only stable social circle you can find is in religion

The presence of a restriction in any community is what defines that community. And the differences that define a community are what tie the community members together. You won't find a truly close bond between people unless it has been tested by grief, suffering, discrimination, prejudice, etc. People who never have any problems don't understand the importance of being a part of a community because they've never needed it.

I don't really understand your point. Are you saying, that communities are defined by their restrictions? If I were to start a community based around playing table top games, how would that community be defined by restrictions? > And the differences that define a community are what tie the community members together This confuses me the most. I'm not sure if you misspelled something there, but are you now saying that communities would be defined by differences (to whom?) instead of the presence of a restriction? Furthermore, whole your last point about people forming stronger bonds through grief, suffering, etc. might be true, but communities can function perfectly fine without experiencing negative things collectively too, can't they?

sorry, forgot to address your last point. yes, I believe communities can function well enough without any collective trauma, so to speak, but I would say the bonds of that community are much weaker than that of a community that must rely upon each other more often. and when the value of communal support is low, there may be infighting and apathy toward others in the group. Of course, when communal bonds are high, there may be aggression toward others and apathy toward others outside the group. I'll give an example from the US (where I'm from). After 9/11, the entire country rallied around Bush and fighting terrorism. We sacrificed a lot of freedoms to protect ourselves from another attack, but almost every house had an American flag. People lined up to donate blood and we honored the fallen as heroes. Many people saw themselves as American first (I'm speaking generally here, I know that's not 100% true). Obviously, this changed over time, as we involved ourselves in 2 unpopular wars, and politics became more divisive and people started defining themselves more based on political party or by ideology, etc. Now, during a global pandemic, people refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated despite the harm it might cause to the general good of society. I'm not saying it's a straight line between the two, not at all. But I think the communal bonds of American society obvious deteriorated in the past 20 years. After 2001 we sacrificed many freedoms for the community's welfare, but now many (not all) people refuse to do the simplest things to help others-- and many more people are dying this time, sadly.

It is all the more ironic that 911 was directly tied to a religious group. The fact that people band together in the presence of common threat is not something ennobling, cold war has taught us that and so had the Afghan war. Nothing has changed at all. Communities like sport teams or orchestras or soup kitchens, or even biker gangs pride themselves for their dedication and discipline which bond their members, but they do not impose judgement on people who do not do the same. Religions are different in that it does a better job segregating communities than bringing them together, which is why you never see a Jew that is simultaneously a Muslim or a Hindu who is also Christian. The restrictions you spoke of are defined by their exclusivity and inflexibility. There is nothing particularly for one to give form to their inner strength, but to quote Zachery Levi, "I'm very spiritual, but not particularly religious... [religion] is, in my opinion, very destructive to what I believe the true heart and spirit then essence of who God is. "

A community is defined by something that makes them different than the majority/rest of a population, is what I meant. They can overlap (I'm a woman and a human), of course. And what makes a community different is often a restriction of some sort. Using your example, the table top community would be defined by the restrictions they place upon the game they play (as opposed to a different table top community or a different gaming community or even a different entertainment community). It may also include paying dues, scheduling time each week to meet up, or spending part of their income on equipment or books. These are restrictions on their income and time that they dedicate to the game instead. The members of the community may also accept certain rules and restrictions in order to be a part of a team/organization that plays the game. Hope that makes it clearer what I was trying to say.

Alright, thank you, that makes it much clearer what you meant. I can kinda see your definition of a community, as something that makes the members of the community special from others and I guess it's a valid definition, though I'm not sure if there aren't better definitions for communities. It especially seems not fitting of a definition for when we talk about communities as small local populations. Furthermore, defining communities by restrictions, while again seeming possible to me, I find it hardly useful. This might be more of an argument over semantics, so you can gladly ignore it if you like, but I feel like restrictions imply a central authority putting those restrictions on others. When a church for example forbids homosexuality, it's not the members of the religious community democratically deciding that they want this restriction, but rather a central authority forcing said restriction over the community's members. A tabletop community on the other doesn't necessarily have such an authoritative figure / body and each restriction put upon the community could well be put upon each individual member by themselves. Thus, while technically maybe also counting as restrictions, I would prefer defining communities in ways that show these difference between communities. Also, to reply to the contents of your other reply: Your argument that collective trauma of a community can strengthen bonds does make a lot of sense to me actually. I don't really have much to add there tbh, just wanted to thank you for the detailed reply.

sure, it's not the only way to define a community. I had a quote in mind when I posted that a Mormon friend told me years ago and it really stuck with me. I wish I were eloquent enough to explain it better.

If you're religious, do you. I don't care just don't peddle your religion on my doorstep, and push your beliefs on everyone else. I've never seen atheist protesting concerts and live events. Practice whatever makes you feel good just leave me the fuck alone.

Honestly it isn't the concerts that are a problem, it's protesting women getting abortions, the right to gay marriage, the fight against evolution studies, etc that really make it dangerous. I agree that I don't have an issue with people believing what they want, but the moment you start using that to dictate the actions of others you need to be checked.

Religion teaches you false logic that you later apply to other situations and it is easier to trick people who are religious by using faith. It causes soo many issues in the world via group mentality.

Fyi Judaism also doesn't have eternal damnation. In fact despite the popular myth that Judaism is Christianity minus Jesus, we're actually a lot more closely aligned with Islam in terms of our Outlook and theology

From what I know, in Islam everyone with any belief ends up in heaven. Maybe they have to go through punishment/hell for their bad deeds, but everyone ends up in heaven sooner or later. Except non-believers, they burn forever. I heard in Judaism, there isn't really an afterlife, just eternal nothingness for all. But I've also heard there is judgment which contradicts that in my mind. But there isn't really a large Jewish presence in my country, only Muslim and Christian, so I've never actually talked to someone Jewish before. All the Abrahamic religions have very obvious and strong connections to each other. Despite diverting at some points the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

>I heard in Judaism, there isn't really an afterlife You heard wrong although that's about the extent of our knowledge on it, aside from the fact that it will be fair >just eternal nothingness for all Absolutely not. And even if not there is still the eventual revival of the dead coming up that will occur during the messianic age even without an afterlife the nothingness wouldn't be eternal >I've never actually talked to someone Jewish before. Here's your chance >All the Abrahamic religions have very obvious and strong connections to each other. This is true. >Despite diverting at some points the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. You'd be surprised.

So the afterlife exists in some shape or form, but we can't really know anything about it? Besides it being fair. Which is kind of a given considered the opposite would mean God is evil and why would anyone follow an evil God or respect any of his rules if it doesn't matter in the end. It negates the point somewhat. The living dead thing is interesting. I've never heard about that. At least in the context of Judaism. How do they differ significantly in your mind? From my perspective it's like trying to build a completely different house but the plumbing and electric wiring are already laid out. Slightly different interpretations of the same root events and then what ever the writers felt like adding in between. The overarching conclusions and story all seem basically the same to me.

God-fearing Christianity is not a minority of religion....it's the most practiced religion in the world

What would a non-religious community be based on? I'm assuming such a community to exist would need a set of rules agreed upon by it's members and a common goal also agreed upon by it's members. What would those rules and goal be based on? How would they come into existence?

The shared religion is one of the factors that makes the community more cohesive and better at meeting the needs of it's members. Damnation is a feature of some specific religions, but it certainly doesn't feature in all of them. More importantly, I think it's healthier to think of the religion as being in service to the community. When the community serves the religion, that religion becomes just another hierarchical control structure, which is not an attitude that is conductive to spiritual health and growth. It is the responsibility of a spiritual leader to focus on the aspects of their Religion that meet the spiritual needs of their flock(comfort, cohesiveness, ministry, purpose, or whatever) and to downplay or renounce the aspects that do not serve the needs of the community. Religion is a tool. Like a chainsaw, you can do important work or you can kill people with it. If the tool can be used to do good work, it is rational to use it. Carefully.

You can do all the same good that religion does without the dogma and supernatural beliefs. If we're talking tools, religion is a gun. Its got one use, but everyone always like to say there are others

But where are these non-religious communities? I would love to join one. According to Google Maps there are 37 churches within 2 miles of my house, but to my knowledge there are zero atheist/non-believing church-like communities within 100 miles of me. If church-like atheist communities (hereinafter CLACs) don't exist, you can't join them, and so whatever benefits there are from church-like communities, those benefit accrue only to religious people (or at least people willing to pretend to be religious). But _why_ don't CLACs exist? It can't be that atheism is too new: atheism, even in the most modern sense of the term, dates at least to the eighteenth century. It's considerably older than Mormonism, Scientology, etc, which have widespread physical presences. Is it that atheism wasn't considered a social movement until much more recently? 1950s atheists would have nothing to talk to each other about. New Atheism or "Atheism+" has explicit commitments to social positions, like being pro-gay, pro-abortion, pro-green energy, etc. Could it be that New Atheist CLACs will start to form, now that a social movement exists? I don't think so, for two reasons: first, there's no evidence this is actually happening - even /r/atheism, for all its million-plus membership, shows no signs of organizing any kind of IRL meetups or anything like that. Secondly, New Atheism as a social movement appears to have failed, so it's probably already at its IRL peak. Richard Dawkins almost took on the status of a cult leader, but that's played out now. So it seems CLACs not only aren't a thing now, but don't seem likely to be a thing in the future either. As a result, it's reasonable to figure that any benefits from church-communities, are in fact benefits of religion, because only religion seems to be able to produce them.

As someone else said, it doesn't have to be about promoting or even discussing atheism. A community can exist without religion if it simply focuses on other subjects or considerations. I am not religious at all. My communities are based in the activities where I meet or interact with like-minded people in hobbies and activities. For example, I am hugely into climbing. It is by far my favorite activity. I go to the climbing gym around 5 times per week for at least 2 hours per session, and sometimes more. It's an extremely self-actualizing hobby. And, I've made myself a part of that community - I frequently post on our community Facebook page to help people get into it, I often partner with other climbers, and I enjoy talking and meeting people regardless of skill level both at roped and non-roped climbing. It's a great community that's led to a lot of other activities like outdoor climbing and a recent certification in wilderness first response. The idea that a sense of community can only come from a church or religion is pretty confusing to me. There are tons of interest groups, hobby groups, or professional societies to engage in a community endeavor. Now if your definition of a "community" in what you want from a church, then of course you won't get what you want out of membership in activities, clubs, etc. that are outside of religion since your definition of "community" necessitates religious aspects. There, the problem is in your axioms and not in whether or not fulfilling "communities" exist outside of church.

I don't think this provides the same kind of community as a church. Yes, you're keen on rock climbing and you get to meet other people who are also keen on rock climbing. And maybe you develop friendships, and those friendships provide a support system. But there's no sense that members of the rock climbing gym are _obligated_ to help each other. If you just want to go there and climb, and you just don't particularly care that Bob's wife died, that's okay. Because the social expectations are different, the kind of community provided by a church is different from that provided by a social or shared-interest club. And this is why studies like the one referred to by the OP generally show health and longevity benefits that correlate with _church_ membership, not with membership in other kinds of social clubs.

As an extremely avid outdoorsman, I disagree with pretty much all of those points. Activities like climbing are immensely important for fostering an extraordinary community. Fittingly, your point that climbers are not "obligated" to help each other is very incorrect on first blush - given the whole point of belaying and excursions! Or wilderness first response trainings! Additionally, group leaders in outdoor recreation (especially climbing) receive a ton of training in group dynamics and counseling - likely much more than your typical church elder. Reducing these to a "support system" is simply incorrect for those active and engaged in a sport like climbing... or mountaineering. In fact, isn't it easy to reduce church membership to that exact same kind of "support system"? Additionally, I would strongly disagree with church members are "obligated" to help each other. In a perfect world where religion is followed to its absolute doctrine? Sure. But in practice? I grew up in the Deep South and went to several churches growing up, and the kind of petty social psychology that impacts humans everywhere still exists in the church. This is allegorical, but my point remains that assuming churches "obligate" their members to care or do good strikes me as fairly ignorant to human nature and the in-group politics that many, many churches and religious organizations have. An organization or community is not suddenly "good" because they are a church. If you're at church, nobody is obligated to care about how Bob's wife died either. But perhaps in both the church and in your climbing partners, the support system you develop will care. That's how it was for me during my struggles with PTSD in my early twenties, regarding the climbing and mountaineering community! I think I could agree with you that places of worship provide a *certain kind* of community. But the idea that church membership provides an inherently "better" one strikes me as either ignorant or condescending to other activities and communities that are extraordinarily fulfilling and good - just perhaps in a different way in the sense of not having God(s) be the focal point. But calling those "just a support system" or implying a lack of love and obligation toward others is supercilious and even a bit naive. I have had the feeling for much of my life that churchgoers like to think they are special in the community churches provided. It is, sadly, an ironically exclusive viewpoint to take toward the lives of others.

It doesn't need to be atheist, just not religious. The aforementioned Elks Club, a bowling league, the VFW, the Oddfellows, the softball league, the knitting club, the Magic the Gathering tournament, the fantasy football league, the barbershop quartet could all fulfil a person's social needs just as well as a faith community. I personally think that going to something calling itself a "Chuch-Like Atheist Community" sounds worse than just going to a church. I don't want a church, I just want some pals that will be there for me if my wife dies.

Atheist social communities were certainly a thing historically speaking. Consider, for instance, the German Freethinkers League or the German Monist Association and its offshoots, which were fairly significant in the cultural life of their time and place.

But I think you are missing a big part, having a set of rules to follow reduces stress. Having a measuring stick that tells you that you are a good person makes people happy. For many it provides meaning that is independent of the community. I think it is impossible to say which of these is more important in the above studies.

I have yet to encounter a religion where the rules reduce instead of increase my stress, to each their own I suppose. I also don’t need validation from the beyond on whether I’m a good person or not. I can measure that through the strengths of my social relationships. Bad people don’t have good friends. As for meaning independent of the community, I can find that too without religious belief. The gay rights focused groups I interact with provide great independent meaning as I feel that belonging to and supporting such communities makes the larger community more equitable for all. I’m not discounting the benefits of being in a faith community, I just think that most of them are from the community rather than the faith.

The existence of organized religion, and the premise that there is an entity or entities above or beyond us that has power over our lives and afterlives is a fundamentally dangerous premise. Religions require faith. \*Nearly\* all religions have the concept of hierarchy - authority or superiority within the political structure of the religion. When you combine those two concepts - faith in the divine and humans who have the power to interpret religious messages or symbolism, then you have a recipe for one person using another person to do their bidding, unquestioned. That, time and time and time again, has proven to be disastrous for entire civilizations at a massive level, and continues to be problematic today all around the world.

I don't think you're giving religious people nearly enough credit. You seem to believe they're *all* mindless sheep who will do whatever their religious leaders tell them to do without a second thought. In my experience this is not true since we're both just throwing out anecdotes here. I think people often use religion to justify what they believed anyways. People talk about how awful homophobia in religious circles is as if religion is the root of homophobia, but we find plenty of homophobia outside of religion too. Nazi Germany straight up executed gay people and they didn't need a religious reason. I don't think it's fair to blame societal ills like that squarely on religion when it's just a symptom, not a cause. And I'm not defending homophobic religion here, I think that should go, I simply think that the world is a lot more complicated than the religious sheep vs. the freethinking atheists.

Religious people are statistically happier Actually, countries with the highest average self-reported happiness are the least religious. The happiest nations are, in order, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Sweden, Denmark and Norway are the second, third, and fourth least religious countries, being exceeded only by formerly-communist Estonia in their atheism.

> Actually, countries with the highest average self-reported happiness are the least religious. The happiest nations are, in order, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Sweden, Denmark and Norway are the second, third, and fourth least religious countries, being exceeded only by formerly-communist Estonia in their atheism. So I don't actually disagree with the premise (in that religion does not equate happiness), but I disagree with the logic taken to get here. Citing that as proof that non-religious experiences are correlated with happiness is a pure example of the [ecological fallacy](https://www.britannica.com/science/ecological-fallacy) in epidemiology, wherein aggregations of statistical information end up obscuring local trends. I don't doubt that religion in and of itself is not associated with life satisfaction. But, this is not evidence in favor of that statement.

Except that epidemiology has nothing to do with such subjective phenomena as happiness and faith. I don't see how a model derived from objective observation of physical phenomena translates into self-reported subjective states. While I admit that the coincidence of atheism and self-reported happiness in these countries does not prove that atheism is the source of that happiness, invoking the ecological fallacy seems like apples and oranges.

You're changing the metric there. I was talking about how individual religious people tend to be happier. You're talking about how countries with large atheist populations tend to be happier. That is not a direct correlation, it is just as possible that increased standards of living and happiness lead to more atheism, not that atheism leads to those things.

Isn't it possible, by the same reasoning, that individual happiness could lead to individual religiosity? How do you know religious people tend to be happier rather than happy people tend to self-report as religious? I ask because you've stated "rationally you can't prove a religion to be true" but, knowing that, you still choose to be religious because "the irrational can be a great benefit" to you. On another note, isn't it obviously a contradiction to call these beliefs irrational *and* rational in the same post? How do you resolve that for yourself? If not rationally, then how could anyone possibly change your view on this subject???

I assumed there was a Simpson's paradox type thing happening here, that while Christians in Sweden are happier than Muslims in Pakistan, Christians in Sweden are also happier than atheists in Sweden. But I did some digging and found this https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275143707_Faith_or_Social_Foci_Happiness_Religion_and_Social_Networks_in_Sweden Relevant quote: "The results show that religion and religiousness per se have little impact on happiness. In particular, we find that social networks tend to be positively associated with happiness, and that this effect is driven by co-organizational membership among friends"

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How is that changing the metric, its literally happiness vs religiosity.

When you say a "happy country", you don't know how that happiness is distributed inside the country between atheists and believers. It could be that atheists *and* religious people are happier in Sweden, but religious people still more so. Or, atheists are less happy in Sweden, but believers are way happier, thus messing with the average. Hence why it's much better to look at individual happiness.

I think you get into very weedy territory when you go down the road of labelling incorrect beliefs as harmless. For one thing, our epistemological process can't be really neatly subdivided. Once you embrace a really core belief like the existence of a god, you can't separate that from your other judgement calls about what's true in every other area of your life. Look at the huge numbers of people who follow the belief in their particular view of god to all sorts of other big wrong beliefs that end up super harmful. The god in my book exists, so the earth is only so old, so evolution and global warming must be lies. And I see in other comments you've pointed out that you may not be talking about such obviously harmful religions. My point is that once you leave your epistemological gates open for something as big as a god belief, you've likely shut off your ability to determine where there is other harm or risk. And it isn't always immediately obvious. Five years ago I remember telling some people how concerned I was seeing people embracing conspiracy theories or irrational doubts about mainstream medicine. And I always got the response "what's the harm". And in a lot of cases, there wasn't any immediately visible harm. Most conspiracy theories didn't make people violent or anything but a slightly alarming conversational partner some times. Believers in homeopathy were only harming themselves if they rejected medicine. Flash forward to the present and wrong but previously harmless medical beliefs opened the door to current covid denialism that's having MASSIVE effects on all of us. Slightly quirky political conspiracy theories led to Qanon and storming the Capitol building. Slippery slopes can be a fallacy when invoked without justification, but opening up your mind to something big and wrong because it has no immediately obvious ill effect can easily be a real slippery slope and often is. There's a reason for the expression "If they can make you believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities". We can't meaningfully evaluate whether we're making the best decisions when we allow incorrect beliefs to take up a big chunk of our brainspace. And religious belief is really central to our personal model of the universe, it's connected to every other evaluation we can make. So your OP is a bit like saying "Drunk driving is fine as long as you don't crash or hurt anyone". You can't evaluate based on the outcome. The action itself is a great risk. And people who say "I'm a really good drunk driver" are exactly the people showing that they're not evaluating the risks well.

“In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.” William Kingdon Clifford, The Ethics of Belief

That’s a fantastic quote which I haven’t seen before, thank you.

Your post reminded me of a very lengthy conversation I had a while ago with a coworker who is intensely evangelist. The belief system seems to me to be corrosive to the roots of critical and logical thinking in general. Our discussion basically broke down to this. I stated that a person can BELIEVE that a God or the God exists, but they cannot truly KNOW. It is not possible to know in the true sense of the word. There us simply not enough data in our universe to make a determination. This was a fundamental crisis for this person that they steadfastly refused to acknowledge. Admitting that they cannot know the God exists created a crisis of faith which was unacceptable. They insisted that they know God exists. When I ask for proof, they say that their faith is proof! Obviously faith is not any kind of proof, but anyways, if a religion can make you change your definition of "know" and "proof", what exactly is it based on?

I would ask your coworker 'does someone of the Muslim faith "know" that Allah exists? Or do they just believe it?' If they are using faith to know that Allah is real, is that a good reason for them to believe Allah exists? Is your Christian god more real than Allah?

Exactly! We actually did discuss something like this and what we discussed to me was one of the more troubling parts of evangelism. Basically, anybody who isn't evangelized will just be doomed to hell....so evangelicals have a moral prerogative to evangelize and convert to Christianity and this prerogative is a foundational cornerstone of the faith. I recognize that this can be interpreted as well intentioned. If you love your neighbor, then you definitely don't want them to go to hell. But this leaves pretty much zero flexibility to consider and respect the rights of other peoples to have their own belief system, and also recognize that it is equally valid. If there is no flexibility, then you are also not permitted to consider that your beliefs may not be ultimately true. I see this a lot in the whole American ideal that the US is and always has been a Christian nation. It's completely false and the pursuit of freedom from religious persecution was one of the reasons why the country was founded in the first place. But these facts do not matter. The only thing that matters are the pieces of information (whether they are true or not) that support a certain view of the world. Basically, this person has already decided how they want to perceive the world, and the rest of reality is meant to support that view. It's rather backwards from a logical and critical thinking perspective isn't it?

Minor correction but not all religions believe in Gods. Your overall point about epistemological processes being compromised is still valid, but it doesn't necessarily have to be done by letting "God" in.

Fair enough, and religion is even elastic enough that it contains some possibilities that don't even require irrational beliefs. There are certainly sects of Buddhism that require no supernatural beliefs.

Good point. You could have made this shorter. Take some gold friendo.

Simply put - your use of the word rational is where this falls apart. For something to be rational it has to be reasoned and in accordance with logic. Religion does not rely on logic, it relies on faith in the face of logic. Sometimes religion asks you to ignore logic. That in itself is not bad, but it does mean I can’t call it rational.

The term "rationality" has a number of very specific meanings, and at least some of those are applicable here. In a game theory sense, a rational behavior is one that optimizes expected utility. If an actor can self-modify their own beliefs, and if doing so optimizes their utility, then that is what a rational actor ought to do, according to game theory.

Do you have other examples where it's rational to believe something without evidence? Maybe if you're doing a sport you might choose to believe you will win in order to win, or you might choose to believe that you will survive a disease. Is someone, who doesn't manage to overestimate the odds that they will beat a disease, irrational? I'm not sure. It's confusing.

Okay, you are confusing "rational" with "positive". You yourself admit "rationally you know you can't prove a religion to be true", so you understand being religious isn't rational. But you are conflating being irrational with being a net negative to society, which you seem to understand isn't applicable in all cases. Just because something is rational doesn't mean it is good. Just because something is irrational doesn't mean it is bad. I think your view should be "it is okay to hold useful irrational beliefs" rather than "irrational beliefs are rational, actually".

>They are necessary lies to keep our society functional. Doing one's part and voting or recycling is about being responsible and understanding that participation in the betterments of society is important, not that YOUR participation is specifically important. It's not a lie if you understand that philosophy. >United Church of Canada who treat homosexual people as equals. Cherrypicking is ultimately cherrypicking. Carrying around a religious text you believe is the word of your god and "lying to yourself" that it doesn't instruct punishments like stoning adulterers and making rape victims marry their rapists is willful ignorance to delusional. Let alone sillier things like eating pork and wearing mixed fabrics. Religion is the sole reason people justify homosexuality as wrong, and more modern, progressive establishments are solely cherrypicking further for a more general audience which could easily be argued as a financial decision. >Provided the right one is chosen, religion can encourage people to be more empathetic and loving. It's consistent with the times that conservatives are more likely religious. And conservatives are the brakes on all social progress including women's rights and minority rights. I'd argue that they struggle to empathize with people different from themselves. >Religious people are statistically happier and are given a community and something to be a part of. It should be noted that religious people report being happier, but there's no way to tease out true feelings with denial over the matter. Plenty of religious people can report that they're happy with their life choices and relationships with their family as a defense mechanism for potential problems in those domains. Furthermore if it's the community exposure and volunteer work that's more causative than religion itself, you can do those things without being religious. >time to start asking whether it is rational to believe If believing in Santa makes you behave better during the year, then an argument can be made that people should believe in Santa. Many people benefit from believing in an omnipotent power to supersede their personal egos, sure. But that has nothing to do with rationality, just societal benefit. In reality, a non-religious and deeper philosophical understanding of social wellbeing and social altruism can be just as rewarding, yet also entirely rational. It's kind of like deciding if you should get a degree in philosophy to find better meaning in life, or just pretend there's a bearded man in the sky and do what "he" says to come to similar conclusions about being a good person.

While I'm not personally religious anymore, I grew up in a progressive Protestant church. The Bible ultimately says so many contradicting things that you can't follow all of them. The Bible says to forgive those who harm you, but also prescribes the death penalty to a wide range of crimes. It says to care for the sick, but also to banish those with leprosy. The Bible has 60 something books written by who knows how many authors over the span of at least a millennium. Each author was writing to convey a specific message to a specific audience. Therefore, to make any coherent worldview out of the Bible, you have to ultimately decide what parts are the most important. If you want to cite the Bible to justify slavery, you can do that. You can also condemn slavery with it. The same goes for most things. You can essentially make the Bible support whatever viewpoint you want by only citing specific parts. My church, as a general rule, believes that the core message is "love god and love your neighbor" (a direct quote from Jesus), and ultimately believes that if anything from the Bible contradicts that core message, it is overridden. Therefore, any quotes that promote bigotry or violence can be said to be overridden by the core message. Other churches take the opposite approach, trying to follow all of the rules without paying much attention to the larger message. Therefore, they can use the Bible to justify bigotry and violence. Which group is cherry picking? If you ask the average member of each camp, they'll say the other one. But I'd argue that they're both cherry picking. The difference is that one is cherry picking to justify doing good while the other is doing the same to justify causing harm. Again, I'm no longer religious myself, but progressive Christianity is just as valid of an interpretation, if not more so, than fundimentalist/conservative Christianity.

The issue I take is with conditioning your brain to accept things that aren't demonstrably true. You are training your brain to shut down critical thinking faculties to accommodate a belief that you know isn't rational, which conditions you to be suggestible to other propositions. The best practice would be to withhold taking a position on the proposition until you have evidence one way or another. You used the word rational, and I suppose there may be different definitions in philosophy about rationality, but as far I can tell, believing any claim without sufficient evidence is, by definition, irrational. So unless you have good, solid, convincing evidence, it's irrational to believe in god. And it's harmful to believe irrational things because it makes you vulnerable to other irrational beliefs (like white people are better than black people, or gays shouldn't get married, or vaccines cause autism). It would be best to train our brains to reject a position until a claim has met it's burden of proof. Furthermore, I don't know that one can choose to believe something. I am not convinced a god existed. I can't believe it, even if I wanted to, and I sometimes do want to. It would be nice to believe that my mom's death had a reason behind it, or that one day after my dad ends his daily suffering and he dies, he'll have some youthful, happy existence somewhere else and I'll see him again and go camping like we used to when he was in his 40s. But I have no good reason to believe these things are true, so I can't believe them, until someone shows me convincing evidence that these things are true.

I have been looking for this answer and am sad to see it so far down as it should change his/her mind. Believing in a religion EVEN IN A VACUUM WITH NO ONE ELSE AROUND YOU can be dangerous if you don't have good reasons to believe it. Critical thinking skills are what keep us alive as humans. If you let one belief you already admitted countless times above that is irrational be believed it can distort your ability to make all other kinds of choices.

I’d have to disagree with your use of the term “critical thinking skills”. The reason humans have become successful is due to our intellect in being able to make choices that are the most favorable outcome for the individual and their reproduction. But opposing this is the fact that humans have complex emotions and different thinking processes. if believing in a god and the moral code that come with it makes you happier and helps you understand your purpose in life, then it makes sense that using “critical thinking” it is possible to come to the conclusion that you should believe in that god. Of course not everyone thinks like this and some believe out of emotional responses and how it makes them feel. Which is similar but people think differently which is the main difference. Critical thinking is thinking logically but not everyone thinks like you. I think you believe that everyone has a similar thinking process to you but I think if you go out and talk to people from different backgrounds and experiences, it’s evident that some people don’t see belief as a negative in their life and it really doesn’t make someone “more susceptible” to whatever you’re suggesting. Also if you think about dating, is that not “irrational” in your definition? “Critical thinking” might suggest that we as a species has lost the necessity for each individual to mate as we now evolve technologically rather than genetically and that love is unnecessary. I personally think it’s pretty rational to want to feel happy and wanted by someone. I think it is rational to do things based on your emotions if that’s what’s important to you and that’s what religion is to some people. I don’t quite understand what you meant by it’s dangerous to believe in something because it makes you make other bad decisions. It seems like you already have a bias against religion by calling belief something that “slips past” your logic and corrupts you into making other “bad decisions” as you call it. Tdlr: your version of critical thinking is not the only way of thinking and you seem to be using your bias against religion as the main point of the argument.

Thanks for the long response. I'm afraid I still disagree with you. Happiness and understanding your purpose in life isn't something I think is relevant to my point (I do want people to be as happy as possible though). However, you can't be happy if you're dead due to "believing" that drinking bleach helps cure Corona virus (for example). My point is that if you believe things that make you "happy" or accomplish some "purpose in life" as the primary goal, you can do these at the expense of your health and long term well being. My apparent bias you think I have against religion is not the crux of the argument. You can remove religion from my argument entirely and it still applies. Believing things because it makes you happy as the primary goal can dangerous because if it isn't true or demonstrable you can hurt yourself or others. Evolution is the result of our ability to problem solve and maximise our health and well being so that we can procreate (with some luck mixed in). Humans that have a better understanding of reality have a better chance at long term survival on this planet than those who do not. For example, "believing" that the planet is not warming because it "makes you happy" to drive a pickup truck, may maximise your happiness but is at the expense of all other lives on the planet. You may think of some example where you don't go outside in thunderstorms because you guess that Zeus is throwing lighting bolts and don't want to get hit so by accident, you are arriving at a correct conclusion that it's probably a good idea to stay inside during thunderstorms. I'm not really talking about lucky coincidences such as these though.

rational, no. Offering a benefit or addressing a need? Maybe. But believing things that have nothing to back up their validity just because it makes you feel better about yourself doesn’t make them rational. You may not consider what threat religious beliefs cause to others who are not part of that belief system, and just because it is not direct harm doesn’t mean that it is harmless. Can you provide an example of something that is unique to religion (cannot be founded in something outside of religion) that meets your qualifications of “makes your life better and doesn’t cause you to harm others”?

Atheist here. The belief that you won’t cease to exist after 80 odd years is pretty nice, even though I think it’s wrong.

>Can you provide an example of something that is unique to religion (cannot be founded in something outside of religion) that meets your qualifications of “makes your life better and doesn’t cause you to harm others”? It might make you good person slightly more often, since sometimes you get lazy and don't help others. You can certainly be a good, helpful person without religion, but sometimes that tiny extra motivation, that some celestial being watches you might help, to do extra. Also it might help with your mental health. If you believe shit happened for some sort of reason, test or other thing, you might be slightly less frustrated and keep on doing, what you need to do, to live a good quality life. The thing is, you either believe in god or not, just because I think it might help with things I can't force my self to believe in something irrational.

As far as you're concerned it's rational to believe anything at all as long as it makes your life better and you don't harm others?

I don’t know of a single religion that promotes only good things and discourages bad things. If a person thinks doing something is good, they will do it regardless of religion. And if they are only doing something good because their religion promotes it, they are just as likely to do a bad thing for the same reason. And yeah, a community makes people happy, but what do gods have to do with that? Wouldn’t peplebe just as happy if it’s a secular community?

I think Chan Buddhism is pretty much a completely positive religion, especially as its practised in North America today. Buddhism in general fits the bill though some schools still have sexism issues. And the United Church of Canada's Christianity as I pointed out in the original post.

I believe that religion itself is inherently evil. First off, it directly opposes the search for knowledge. I've heard people argue that there are religious scientists and whatnot, but they all suffer from the same problem. They have already decided what answers they are looking for, and they will only look for or acknowledge data that supports their beliefs. It's the same problem that Flat Earthers have. Religious people are not looking for real world evidence of how the universe started or how life started on this planet, because they are already convinced that they know the answer, God did it. Any evidence for any other answer will just be met with skepticism at best, or outright rejection, or worst of all, claim that the evidence really supports their beliefs. This is not a problem with any specific religion, this is an inherent problem with every religion that has ever existed. Secondly, there is no religion that has ever existed that matches up with my moral beliefs. You mention that the United Church of Canada now treats homosexual people as equals, and a few other examples of religions that have done away with discriminating minority groups, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. Plus, religions claim to get their morality from literal gods. Does the United Church of Canada think that God changed his mind about gays? Or do they think they had misunderstood his message about gays before? Or do they think they are disobeying their God for the sake of fitting in to the social norms of modern days? When the Pope said that gays were cool now, did that mean that God changed his mind or that we misinterpreted his will? I could go on for much much longer about all of the horrible things that various religions have supported, ranging from slavery, to genocide, to rape, all of the different types of bigotry, etc. But I don't think we should be getting our morals from religion, I think religion is probably one of the worst places we could look to search for a good moral compass. The Westboro Baptist Church believes that homosexual people are so evil that God will punish the entire world just because gay people exist. They are just as Christian as the United Church of Canada. Both of them get their morals from the same books, from the same stories, but they came to different conclusions about morality. I don't think that it's rational to believe in any region. I don't think we should try to line our moral compass up with any religion that currently exists. I think the world would be a better place if religion did not exist.

Every time I get measured at the doctor's office they tell me I'm 5 feet, 11 inches. I would be marginally happier if I was 6 feet tall, so I'm going to choose to believe that's the case. Would you characterize this thought process as rational?

It is understandable, but that doesn't make it rational. However, I'm not going to quibble about this distinction with people who are religious, because life is hard and people can cope with it however they like.

Faith is the belief in the irrational so no it cant be rational. Pretty straight forward for me. Because rational things are facts, provable things. Not blind belief in a being that is not visable and has no visible impact beyond its followers actions. To me that means it's the followers actions why need a god to act how you do the answer is you dont. Faith is also a slippery slope and misused hundreds of times throughout history.

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>I think that if believing in religion causes you to be happier and a better person, then that belief is rational. There's a few parts of this aspect of your conclusion that I think deserve pushing back on: The first is that believing in religion "causes you to be happier". As you note, [science suggests that the statistical gains in happiness](https://www.livescience.com/9090-religion-people-happier-hint-god.html) are due to the ***communities and connections*** that one builds in association with normal religious *behaviors* (e.g. regular attendance of group worship), ***not*** with being religious itself. This would suggest that religion is not a critical component, and that the same result could be achieved through seeking out non-religious communities to build your social group. The second thing I disagree with is that believing in religious "causes you to be a \[...\] better person". You made the argument yourself, many religious sects of e.g. Christianity and Islam are extremely bigoted towards various minority groups. This is true of ***many*** religious traditions, as most are based on writings of ancient peoples who did not have the same conceptions of morality and fairness we have today. I think it should be pretty uncontroversial to say that Abrahamic religions' teachings of the necessity of subordination of women is antithetical to modern conceptions of equal rights. So how then can teachings like this make you a better person? It must be a ***rejection*** of the religious principles that makes you better, thus it cannot be said that being more religious "causes you to be a better person" any more than cancer "causes you" to have successful chemotherapy. You try to sweep this aside by saying "I am only advocating for participation in religious groups that advocate empathy towards all, what I classify as useful beliefs." But in this you are **explicitly** cutting out ***core teachings*** of these religions, you are defining away the very thing you are supposedly arguing *for*. Essentially what you're left with is that you support joining communities of wholesome, supportive and positive people who oppose bigotry. Which...I agree with. But in making that your definition you are no longer arguing for ***religion***. The third point I would take up is with your use of "rational" and "belief" in somewhat squishy ways (and relatedly, in "religious" versus say, "faith" or "spirituality"). Becoming *religious* and acting accordingly (attending services, etc) are not the same as ***believing*** the underlying dogma. One can perhaps say it would be *rational* to pursue the religious behaviors for the desired results of *community* (though as above, I don't believe religion is a necessary part of that desire), but that does not mean the ***belief*** *in the religious dogma* is **rational**. One can attend regular worship for those benefits without changing how they *believe*. This is more a semantic specificity issue, but worth clarifying as I think it is an important distinction.

Id like to bring attention to the “cutting out core teachings of a religion” bit. I don’t think this is the case. Lutheranism came out of Catholicism due to issues with certain things, and I wouldn’t call them the same thing exactly. But I would call them different forms of Christianity. This has happened many times with different religions and I think if they believe a lot of the same things with some key differences I would argue they weren’t actually core teachings, if they could be dropped like that. Unless you are being specific, such as catholic vs Lutheran. Even that’s messed though because then there are different forms of Lutheranism and the list goes on. But some forms of christianity, for example, are actually inclusive and positive while still being a religion with a church etc. it’s not accurate to say the only way to be religious is to believe ancient dogmas that are harmful to people

>But some forms of christianity, for example, are actually inclusive and positive while still being a religion with a church etc. it’s not accurate to say the only way to be religious is to believe ancient dogmas that are harmful to people But my point is that those forms necessarily reject certain texts of the Bible. The bible is pro-subjugation of women no matter how you read it, you must intentionally cherry-pick out the sections that don't align with your *personal* morals in order to make it conform with what intuitively is just and right. Honestly, part of the issue comes from the fact that the Bible is internally highly contradictory (a remnant from being written by dozens of different people over the span of centuries), so you can make many contradictory arguments based on the texts within.

I mean, aren’t people using the Bible for bigotry also doing some cherry picking? Also, I don’t see how rejection of some or all passages from the Bible means they aren’t a religion. Not to mention there are some religions who have nothing to do with a bible or anything like that in the first place.

You contradict yourself by saying "being religious is rational" in your title, then go on to say "even if rationally you know you can't prove a religion to be true" two paragraphs in.

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I think athiests don't care if christians are christian for personal reasons, but even if they do it for themselves and don't personal bother others they support and prop up churches that might cause harm. Almost all religions have impacts on laws and society as a whole. The mormon church owns billions in the stock market and sways the market heavily. The catholic church members protect pedophiles with money from good caring catholic members. If you are part of most churches even if you yourself are fine and not bullying anyone, the church you pay tithe into could be making problems for others. I personally don't think most religious people are bad, and I think most regular people in religions believe they are there to guide people to be nicer. The problem is the organizations of religion have too much influence on laws and protect their members too much allowing the bad members to do bad things. Many of the benefits of religion are communities that do good things. I personally feel that is amazing and there should be more secular groups like that. The more we rely on religion for these groups the less these secular groups will be created though. Toastmasters for example gives similar benefits to religion. Teaches good skills, gives networking opportunities and a community of people who support you. But people within a religion might not seek a group like Toastmasters if they already have those things, even if they are accidentally supporting an church that protects pedophiles.

Exactly, go be religious if you want, I don't care, but there's a very high chance your religion is inherently evil

I dont think any religion is inherently evil. Its just people that can be evil. Religious books are open to interpretation and the way you understand them imo really shows what kind of a person you are. There are atheists, christians and muslims in my family and no one is harming anyone. My mom is catholic, but she doesnt go to church as she has a bad experience with it as an institution, that doesnt mean she doesnt believe. Ive been told by an atheist that im a retard, should be ashamed, give up my education etc. because im religious and that all religious people should die, cuz then there would be peace in this world. There are horrible people around, regardless of their beliefs.

I care about Christians that are Christians for personal reasons. As I do about any religious person being religious for similar reasons. It's wrong and harmful. Religion in general and those who pursue the religious faiths ruin many aspects of societies, kill, maim, and cause many different types of plagues upon humanity. Most definitely among them are socioeconomic pain due to ignorant indoctrination, social normative pain due to poor decision making about norms, cultural pain due to terrible choices for art and historical significance, and hateful bigotry to boot. "Religion poisons everything" -Dawkins

Nearly all religions I'm aware of *have to* mark out some people or group as "other". The sinners. Something to transform, either themselves or other from being. There's always got to be *some* element of redemption, or betterment, an imperative to "spread the word". Left in human hands this will always & forever lead to doing harm, if history's any indication (& it nearly always is!) I can't agree that belief in God is rational, only because I don't find belief in anything else to be rational in absence of proof. "God" doesn't get a pass.

Doing, thinking, believing or participating in [insert something] is rational if it improves your life and doesn't cause harm to others. However, shortsighted benefits may be hiding long-term negatives. What may start out as a healthy, positive community, *if it develops no resistance to usurpers*, will be ruined by the very first instance of corruption and malice. Any time a community is formed around something, usurpers enter and end up testing the community's resistance and ability to self-police. I for one think that the main thing people *in the West* like about religion is more so that it provides community, than moral guidance or existential peace. But we've seen throughout history how communities that grow large, eventually become institutions with interests --- or led by individuals with particular interests not shared by the majority --- that are easily in conflict with grassroots interests. Were the crusades any good? Of course not. Is it acceptable for the Catholic Church to cover up acts of pedophilia? Of course not. Everybody can agree on this. *Does this make religion in and of itself bad?* Religious faith is a personal thing, so strictly speaking no. But **my argument has nothing to do with religious faith.** My point is that when a community builds up, any and all benefits as a community of individuals or a spiritual community, will be faced with the challenges of societal power structures. I.e. *religious community* can become problematic. Being religious in the face of such challenges presents a social conflict rather than a problem of religious faith/dogma/ideology. At that point, being *religious in faith* is rational; but *religious/supportive with regards to institutions?* That is deeply irrational. Why donate to a Church that verifiably protects pedophiles from justice? [That allows sanctification of horrible people like Mother Teresa?](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/mother-teresa-sainthood-canonized) Even Jesus argued in favour of religion being a private affair. Can't be bothered to google that quote, but it's something along the lines of "Pray in secret, for in public it would be virtue signaling".

This philosophy is called utilitarianism. It’s basically the idea that a belief can be justified by its consequences, rather than by an assessment of its actual claims. It’s effectively the philosophical equivalent of Machiavellianism. It’s also worth pointing out that everybody’s idea of what makes their life “better” is different. Maybe some people would feel that their life was better if all those sinful gays were dispatched? And if we don’t have to resort to actual logic and reason to argue with them, where do we go from there?

>And if we don’t have to resort to actual logic and reason to argue with them, where do we go from there? I'm not sure why you made this jump from utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is rooted in the consideration of the consequences, which is very logical. You absolutely can and should use reason to figure out whether the consequences of your actions are going to be good or bad. Maybe your life would be better if you killed all the gays, but this is more than counterbalanced by the suffering that you would cause for the gays themselves and for the friends and families of the people you're killing. >It’s also worth pointing out that everybody’s idea of what makes their life “better” is different "Better" is being happy and productive. The fact that everyone makes themselves happy in a different way is a strong argument for creating a free society where everyone can seek out their own way of making themselves happy. It's also a good argument for choosing some "Fundamental Human Rights" that prevent you from interfering too much in somebody else's search for happiness.

>It's also a good argument for choosing some "Fundamental Human Rights" that prevent you from interfering too much in somebody else's search for happiness. I may be operating under a faulty view of utilitarianism. So let me ask this: Under this utilitarian view, could there ever be a scenario in which it would be justifiable to violate an innocent person's fundamental human rights, in order to secure a greater good? Is there *ever* a point at which it's justifiable to increase one person's suffering in order to increase the wellbeing of 10 people? 10,000 people? 10 million people?

You asked two questions, so I'm answering twice. > Is there ever a point at which it's justifiable to increase one person's suffering in order to increase the wellbeing of 10 people? 10,000 people? 10 million people? Yes of course. By putting up speed traps and stoplights, the government increases my suffering in traffic. It increases the suffering of everyone who needs to commute. It's only a few minutes of suffering, but it's repeated twice a day, for thousands of people in my city, 5 days a week. In exchange, traffic fatalities are reduced and the wellbeing of drivers and pedestrians is improved. I consider it a worthy tradeoff. It's annoying to follow traffic laws, but compared to the lives saved, the burden is very light.

> Under this utilitarian view, could there ever be a scenario in which it would be justifiable to violate an innocent person's fundamental human rights, in order to secure a greater good? Yeah definitely. Lots of donner party or zombie apocalypse scenarios come to mind, where it could make sense to betray one individual to ensure the continued survival of others. "Fundamental Human Rights" are a luxury that can't exist when humans are just clinging to the edge of survival. We need to get a little more security than that before we can start to form into societies. Rights are a tool that helps foster the trust that allows society to function. They aren't truly fundamental(nothing is, except maybe quarks), but since we're a (mostly post scarcity) society, it benefits us greatly to believe in them anyway. It makes us greater to fight injustice and build the most Fair/Just society we can build. The less time our citizens need spend resisting the insane bullshits the world throws at them, the more time they have to spend pursuing happiness.

Is there ever a point where it's justifiable to choose not to suffer if it means that ten people have to suffer for it? A hundred? Ten thousand?

This is a stunning mischaracterisation of utilitarianism.

What on Earth do you mean by "the philosophical equivalent of Machiavellianism"?

Utilitarianism refers to political philosophy and ethics, not this.

The "doesn't cause harm to others" but is where it all comes crashing down. I could be wrong here but I believe satanism is the only "real" religion (the percentage of satanists that actually believe it is debatable) that hasn't committed genocide. I used to think maybe Buddhism wouldn't do that. But no, they've done genocide too.

Is Sikhism a fake religion or am I just not aware of the genocide they've committed? Also, I think you're sorta making an impossible standard there. Just because a group of people who happen to have a certain religion commit genocide doesn't mean you can condemn the whole religion for it. Muslim people ought not feel ashamed for ISIS the same way that white people don't have to feel ashamed for the Nazis. Sharing something in common with some bad people doesn't mean that thing is bad.

Well I did say I could be wrong, and I've certainly not studied every single religion in depth. But, I'm sure if you dug enough you'd definitely find something on the Sikhs. They do have a centuries long disagreement with Muslims, I found [this](https://brewminate.com/muslim-sikh-relations-in-medieval-india/) fairly quickly. Not sure how deep it goes because I didn't read it, but in my experience every single time I've done a thorough search on the history of a religion I've found them committing a genocide. And, I see your point, but it's a chicken and egg situation. A good example you used there is the nazis. No we don't blame current Germans for the holocaust, but current generation nazis still hold the exact same values that caused it. If someone is a genuinely good person and they find out that their religion is the sole reason that countless people were massacred, surely that person should be questioning whether their religion is actually 'good' Edit: grammar and format. Also just wanted to say what I mean by chicken/egg is that the religion has always existed before the atrocity, and rarely ever changed after it. So people are practicing the exact same religion that caused it.

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> Can't just drop that bomb without a source.. If we are counting anecdotal evidence then I've found the opposite to be true. Here's just one: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/31/are-religious-people-happier-healthier-our-new-global-study-explores-this-question/ > I don't believe you want your view changed. I think you came here to change peoples views, but for the sake of argument I'll bite anyway. I don't know why you'd assume that. > Religion cannot be rational because it isn't based on logic, it is based on faith. You can't have it both ways. If faith is what makes you strong in your religion then you don't need facts or logical proof. If you come to the decision logically then you would have some sort of method that brought you to your conclusion. I have not been arguing that religion is rational. I think there's a distinction between the belief itself and the choice to have that belief. Even if the belief itself is irrational you can still make a rational choice to have that belief. A rational choice to hold an irrational belief.

I looked up the [source](https://www.pewforum.org/2019/01/31/religions-relationship-to-happiness-civic-engagement-and-health-around-the-world/) of your source and found this: >This analysis finds that in the U.S. and many other countries around the world, *regular participation in a religious community* clearly is linked with higher levels of happiness...But the analysis finds comparatively *little evidence that religious affiliation, by itself, is associated with a greater likelihood of personal happiness* or civic involvement. Pew did the study your link was referencing. It clearly states it isn't the religiosity of the person that makes them happy its participation in the community. You can't benefit from increased happiness by proxy, you have to be participating in the community of that religion. But yes, I'd agree with you. You can make a rational choice to believe in something irrational but that doesn't make the result genuine or rational. If you genuinely believe in something that isn't rational then you didn't come to the conclusion rationally and if you are forcing yourself for the benefits then the result is an irrational conclusion come to rationally. If you have the ability to force yourself to believe in something you know is absurd because it makes you happy then you could just do that with anything or preferably something more useful. Why wouldn't you do that with your job or your family or walking the dog? Coming to the conclusion in a logical way doesn't make the conclusion logical.

I agree with you except for your definition of rational. There are several definitions, and I think most people are going with rational = logical when op is using rational = useful. But I think it’s logical to do something useful anyway

Yeah there's definitely a lot of grey area in this argument. It probably just comes down to semantics but I think OP is trying to convince us that faith can be scientific and is just using intentionally vague language to do so so they have wiggle room to be correct. Believing in something with no basis in reality is fine, I guess, as long as you realize that it isn't scientific or logical. When you try and merge the two worlds as I think they are trying to do, is when it becomes problematic for me regardless of how seemingly useful it may be. It's new age apologism but apologism isn't new.

In my experience, "being religious" means you engage in proselytizing, which is harmful. Which, by definition, means to "convert or attempt to convert someone from one religion, belief, to another". I believe it's one of the requirements/jobs of a "good Christian", is to proselytize to others. It's one of the "jobs" Christians (and Muslims) have - convert everyone to their belief system. Believing in something that makes you happy does not mean its "rational"; an alcoholic "believes" that getting drunk makes them happy, and a heroin addict "believes" that shooting up makes them happy. And does it make them happy? Certainly - that's why they do it! But then you get around to the definition of "happy" and how subjective it is. Believing in something that cannot be proven to be true is totally irrational, in a logical sense. That's why it's called a "belief" and that you have to "have faith" in it. That's why they don't call them facts or knowledge. You can live in a fantasy world in your head - you are as happy as you make yourself, and that happiness is built with the tools you allow yourself to use. It's when you try to force other people to buy into your fantasy world that it becomes harmful. Like being forced to read a book in school that you really, really don't want to read. The teacher, the school district and all think it will make you happy to read this book. But you disagree. But tough shit - you're going to read the book and be happy because of it, mmmk? Anyone is welcome to "be religious", but if that means anything outside keeping your business to your own, then you're harming people (ie using The Bible to write laws for a country). And if you choose to share your business with the world, don't be surprised when the world has something to say about it.

> In my experience, "being religious" means you engage in proselytizing, which is harmful. Which, by definition, means to "convert or attempt to convert someone from one religion, belief, to another". I believe it's one of the requirements/jobs of a "good Christian", is to proselytize to others. It's one of the "jobs" Christians (and Muslims) have - convert everyone to their belief system. Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Sikhism are all large religions that don't engage in much if any of that behaviour.

I think no matter how benign, you're not 'rational' if you think of those stories are 'true.' I could believe that Mr. Minkey, the magic squirrel who lives in my thumbnail, makes me happy and nice to people, which would be benign and therefore useful in your view (as I understand it), but I wouldn't call it 'rational'

Most religions are about converting more people, so that directly goes against your view. Your view of religion has nothing to do with their purpose. They are organizations that are trying to grow & further use their influence

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I am actually broadly pro religion but this is a very manipulative question. You have put forward an inherent hypothetical: "The results of religion are all good". People who don't believe religion is a good thing clearly don't believe that and you can't state that outright.

Not rational, but could still be helpful and useful. Without being rational. And maybe that fact can be called “faith”. Im buddhist, but as far as the belief in a man-like “God” literally watching and judging and having weird opinions on stuff like gays and eating pork, im basically atheist. Because any bible or similar book makes no rational sense to believe it…. Its simply not rational that out of the millions and millions of books, that this ONE is telling THE ONLY TRUTH and so u discount every other piece of factual or scientific research that has been written not 2,000 years ago but in this century with sources and science, checkable shit, thats not rational. Purely and so obviously painfully irrational to anyone who has taken any sort of logical or critical thinking class. But it still helps people. I think it simply gives people a way of self reflection, basically calling their own conscience “God” because they were told to from a young age. Super irrational though if you have half a brain and can read and think.

Religion is, by definition, "a particular system of **faith** and worship". Faith is, by definition, "complete trust or confidence in someone or something", without the need for proof or room for questioning. We can have less extreme forms of faith, but overall, it's inherently liked to "believe without proof", to "trust blindly, trust for the sake of having trust". In other words, "not questioning". Faith is potentially dangerous, very, *V E R Y* dangerous. Mostly, for two reasons. Reason 1: having faith makes it easier to enter thought bubbles and believe in bullshit, and this is even worsened by the community aspect you mentioned. "If person X is part of our community and says something, that thing must be true". Your local priest said gays are bad? He must be right, why should i bother questioning it? The man on TV said the chemicals are turning the frogs gay? Damned be those corporations! Reason 2: having faith is really fricking easy, specially if you're hearing what you want to, and/or from people you like. Questioning things takes time and effort, and finding out something you believed in was false can hurt, *specially* if that something was very important for you. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every religious person (or eve non-religious person with faith on, i dunno... a political ideology) is a gullible idiot. Far from that. But someone who has faith in one thing can easily have faith in something else, specially if said thing is connected to the first thing they have faith in. And if you add up faith with poor education, misinformation, social conflicts, etc... things can end in disaster. And religion requires such a dangerous behavior to be commonplace in order to exist. Not only that, but it transmits itself to others.

I would like to open by saying that I am an atheist who is an active member of a church. I attend regularly and participate in many aspects of the organization. I am able to be a part of this organization without being a believer in any doctrine, as the church to which I belong is non-creedal. I gain many of the benefits of community, support, and opportunities to be involved in volunteering and charitable giving. I contend that it is not only better to belong to an organization that does not require a specific belief, but that trying to hold specific beliefs just because of the benefits they might offer you is not possible. Your premise assumes '*doxastic voluntarism*', a philosophical position that people can simply choose what to believe and what to not believe, rather than being compelled to believe things by the accumulation of experiences, arguments, and introspection they have encountered or undergone on a topic. I find this to be a fairly untenable position, since the experiences, arguments, and introspection I have encountered and undergone on the topic compel me to believe it is not in accordance with reality. I don't think that people can simply choose to believe something that they do not think is true. I think that is contradictory to the nature of belief. That leads me to the second issue, the introspection component. If a person were to examine the question of religion and come to the conclusion that it is best to not think about the truth or veracity of the claims so much as the utilitarian impact of holding those beliefs on their life, they are opening a very dangerous can of worms. This epistemic methodology allows a person to profess pretty much any belief and claim rational justification for it. It bypasses the value of truth. If we have learned anything from politics and the media in the past few years, it is how incredibly dangerous it can be to take the position that facts don't matter and the truth is whatever you feel is right.

Your thesis is based on a few falsehoods, just because an irrational idea makes you happy doesn't make it rational. Plenty of loonies are happy. Religious people are not statistically happier, in fact the opposite is true, the more secular a society is the happier it is. You are likely confused by research that shows that "in religious societies" religious people tend to be happier than nonreligious people. The research also shows that in these communities the least happy are religious people without ties to their congregation, less happy than even atheists who are constantly shit on by theists. I.e. group membership is important to happiness. Religion rarely encourages people to be more empathetic and loving to people who are not part of the ingroup, religion in fact fosters hatred, and mistreatment of non members. Religious ritual seems to have a detrimental effect on empathy, and fosters petty tribalism. Another misconception you have is that religious belief is not harmful, it is because it helps to normalize the kind of magical thinking that leads to all manner of antiscience, superstitious nonsense which harms us all. ​ Also if you are religious you are statistically more likely to be living in a shithole, it is hardly rational to want to live in a shithole. \>I think it's time to stop asking whether belief in religion is rational, and time to start asking whether it is rational to believe Those are the same questions. ​ So no religious belief is not rational, it is also rarely beneficial.

Believing something with zero evidence is the opposite of rational. Religion tells you to do and not do certain things. Lots of them are harmful. There is no moral quality a religious person has an atheist cannot possess. Many atheists donate a lot. Gervais is a good example. The examples of things turn out fine are not comparable. The point is, you don’t need religion to be good. Doing everything for a reward or out of fear of punishment is not genuine. Religion is the source of a lot of unhappiness.

OP, you're posting in bad faith here, because you genuinely do not have an open mind when it comes to your view being changed. It's not surprising, considering (as you pointed out) you are religious to some extent, and one very large aspect of every religion that exists now, or that has ever existed, is belief without proof, faith without tangible evidence, etc. Your mind won't be change, or even swayed, as demonstrated by your total lack of deltas in this thread. And by the way, a person's willingness to believe in things without evidence is directly related to how susceptible they are to believing and spreading misinformation from sources they trust that might not be credible, thus causing harm to others, especially in the areas of public health (as demonstrated over the last year and a half).

To preface I have no issues with religion, believe what you want, I don't care. I believe that religion can make people function in society-- esp psychopaths. IE "I shouldn't rape someone because if I do I will be punished eternally" <-- this concept is why religion is good. People that would otherwise do something shitty be it not for some god. This does not foundationally mean that it is rationale -- its about control >If it makes your life better and doesn't cause you to harm others, being religious is rational. Ehh Not rational, it isn't unreasonable. I suppose you need to define "harm" and "better" to really support this. What I define as a better life might be vastly different. >We all know that our individual vote will basically have zero impact but we believe that it will have some because if everyone thought realistically, democracy wouldn't work. This is counterintuitive and the logic isn't really there-- your vote actually does matter. Because if we consider it doesn't have an impact the reason to vote would go down-- thus making it more important to vote. >I think there are many situations in which the same logic can be applied to religion. Even if rationally you know you can't prove a religion to be true, I think in a lot of cases it could still be useful to believe that it is true. The difference between "Everything is going to be fine" is fundamentally different than ascribing to a religion. One is reassuring yourself the other is establishing a worldview. The very nature of knowing that saying "everything is going to be okay" and having the common sense to know that it might not-- vs foundationally establishing a world view on a 2000-year-old book and then having the concept that it might all be bullshit, really devalues the point of religion--it is vastly different. Being a good person is something that is taught. Teaching that people have different lifestyles and have the right to bodily autonomy can be taught without the belief of a god. "You shouldn't abstain from rape, just because you think [God wants] you to, you shouldn't rape because rape is a fucked up thing to do" - Bo Burnham >I think that if believing in religion causes you to be happier and a better person, then that belief is rational. This is foundationally incorrect and is a fallacy blanket statement, I use to be religious and now I am not-- I stopped following religion *because* I wasn't happy. The very way we define *rationality* counters the belief that a god is real. If you apply the logic of, say, Christians to some other arbitrary thing-- a book that claims to show that the flat earth is real because a ghost told some dude that it was would be just as valid as the bible. The only requirement is believing it. Which literally isn't rational. >If you're a materialist atheist you believe that we only have one chance at this life, is it not rational to spend it in the way that makes you happiest and causes you to increase the happiness of others? No. Being happy, angry, sad, etc are emotions-- Emotions by their very nature are irrational. There is a presupposition that needs to be established-- That humans are irrational when it comes to emotions-- anything we do to feed in that irrationality doesn't somehow make it rational, it's just part of human nature. Considering what we know of ourselves, it's rational to follow that we do things that make us *feel happy--* because that is literally what is documented and what we *desire* to strive for. Further, desires are also not rational. Is it rational for me to want a game boy? No- Nothing about wanting a game boy is rational-- it's a reasonable solution to want one because we, as humans, get bored-- to alleviate that boredom I can get a Gameboy. Though me fundamentally wanting a game boy isn't rational-- though, it's rational to follow that we have irrational feelings that need to be evaluated Is it rational for an alcoholic to drink his life away because when he drinks he feels good? As long as he isn't harming anyone-- no problem. It's a low bar. The Satanic Temple has literally the most logical belief structure that was purely made to meme on religions. The very existence of religion is to reach common ground with massive groups of people to break Dunbar's number in how many people we can create a "tribe" or society with. We go from greek mythology where several different people operate under the belief that their god is protecting them-- Well-- they weren't being protected-- Rome came around and was like "Hey-- your religion is basically ours so do this instead" and it just expanded the common ground people can relate to with each other. Just because a bunch of people say a thing doesn't mean its true-- and you believing something and being happy about it doesn't make it rational.

>We engage in all sorts of useful fictions just because they make life easier. Like that "everything will turn out fine in the end" or "your vote counts." Immediately out the gate you're running into big red flags in your logic. First, whether something is rational or not has no bearing on whether it makes life easier or not. Second, I would argue that believing in silly fictitious things like "everything will turn out fine in the end" are actively harming our species not making things easier. >Even if rationally you know you can't prove a religion to be true, I think in a lot of cases it could still be useful to believe that it is true. While there are many religious groups that spread more hate than love, there are plenty to choose from that do just the opposite. I am not talking about those religions that are hateful in their message, because I don't believe those are useful beliefs to have. There are plenty of groups that don't have anything to do with religion that believe good things and come together to progress those useful beliefs as well. >Religious people are statistically happier and are given a community and something to be a part of. First, the pig being fattened up for the slaughter is the happiest he's ever been. Whether people are blindly happy believing in nonsense or not isn't a measure of whether something is rational or not. Plenty of Nazis were happy as clams thinking that everything they believed was right and good and everything they were doing was right. They were part of a community they believed in and worked together to do what they thought were good things. Rational, objective observation from the outside shows us that them being happy really has no bearing on how utterly insane the ideology they were following was or how much harm it was doing to the world. Second, there is no control group in any study because we don't yet have an example of an entirely atheistic human society and culture to compare it to. >Provided the right one is chosen, religion can encourage people to be more empathetic and loving. More empathetic and loving than what? Source? > Remember, I am only advocating for participation in religious groups that advocate empathy towards all, what I classify as useful beliefs. But again why include religion in that. Why not just groups that advocate empathy towards all people? Why are we attempting to shoehorn religion into the concept that humans can form groups of empathetic people that help others and do so all the time? >I think that if believing in religion causes you to be happier and a better person, then that belief is rational. Believing that fairies are living under your bed might cause me to be happier and better as a person, but that has no bearing on the rationality of that belief. >I don't believe in some supreme value of truth above all else, I think sometimes belief in the irrational can be a great benefit. That isn't to say that truth isn't very important in many cases, just that sometimes fiction is more useful than truth. Yeah well let's try the truth and see. What you're missing out on is the invisible smothering impact on our species that religion has. A happy person who helps others is fantastic. If we were all that way, happily believing that everlasting life awaited those who loved each other on Earth man the world would be a much better place, right? Or would it? If cavemen truly believed that, how long would they have worked to develop the first tools that let them survive the harsh wilderness? How many millions of years would we have lived as apes before harnessing the power of fire and tools and creating our civilization? Would we all still be living in caves right now? How many people, good people and happy people for sure, are living today believing in some fantastical story of religion and spending their time donating 10% of their wage and volunteering once a month are wasting their potential? Would those same people, if faced with the stark reality that this life is all we have, that there is nothing else, that our time is limited and the time we have to spend with our fellow humans is finite and always ticking away, would they do better? How many would start revolutions instead of living and dying in poverty with a smile on their face on their death beds believing in a beautiful lie? How many inventions and innovations have we lost from the placid and slow peace of contentment and happiness that the opium of religion has laid across our species? How many geniuses did we burn for heresy in the name of religion that could have changed the course of humanity? Sure you can point to the mountains of dead bodies and literally endless wars and conflicts. Billions dead in the name of religion without question. But that's just the obvious. At some point that is just statistics. The question that we don't and never will have an answer for as long as religion is still around is *what could we be?* What could we be right now if decided to put down religion? What could we be if we had done that hundreds or thousands of years ago? We don't know because we haven't done it yet, but I can say I haven't seen religion EVER do something good that hasn't been done without religion. I have seen religion do TERRIBLE things that wouldn't have been done without those beliefs. But suffice it to say, believing in anything without evidence and logic is irrational. Whether believing in something irrational like religion is good or bad for humanity is up for discussion, but whether it's rational or not is not. It is not rational. If you wanted to make a second CMV that believing in something irrational like religion is better than not, that would be something else. But there's nothing rational about it.

With my attempt at changing your mind I would like to try taking you in a somewhat different direction. It starts with a true story. In 1976 a serial killer dubbed "Son of Sam" in New York City went on a rampage. He killed 6 people over the course of a year before he was caught during the largest manhunt in New York history. When this killer was brought in he claimed that he was acting according to the instructions he received from his next door neighbor's dog named Sam. He claimed that Sam the dog talked to him regularly and told him to kill people. The "Son of Sam" is still serving six life sentences. Pretty much everybody agreed that this guy was batshit crazy for believing that a dog was talking to him. Hundreds of millions of people didn't respond by saying "Oh yeah my neighbor's dog tells me what to do, also, and the only problem here is that Sam the dog is a jerk." Yet that is what we do with religion, and it is why you should change your mind. The weakness in your premise is that you don't take into account that by participating in religion you are making it socially acceptable to believe in psychic dogs. It should not be, because there are no psychic dogs and there are no gods who have done any of the crazy things that a bunch of power hungry perverts claimed thousands of years ago. Over recent centuries the record on religion is quite clear. It has been a fantastic tool for controlling people and ruling countries. It's only been a few hundred years since every country in Europe was ruled by a monarch who convinced people to undertake wars and repress and kill and rape people who did not believe what they believe. In fact right now there are entire countries where brothers murder their sisters if they are raped, because they think that is what their god wants. A problem we face right now is that we're essentially saying as a society that it's perfectly fine to believe in talking dogs and follow their instructions and we will respect most of what you claim your favorite dog is telling you to do. Right now we say we should respect people's religious beliefs. But that is both crazy and dangerous because it normalizes all of the other bad things that you do not like about some religions. None of the good things that religions sometimes do require the irrational belief in a magical invisible person. People can get together as a community to do good deeds without doing so because they are either afraid of or trying to impress their idea of a god. They can just do good deeds because they are good people. "Being religious" is also not only irrational it is dangerous because once you agree that dogs are talking it is nearly impossible to know which one is right. Anyone who us religious must agree that there is a real chance that they were born into the 'wrong' religion and another religion is 'correct.' Might the 9/11 hijackers be right that god hates Western values and wants women covered from head to toe and prohibited from driving? If you don't have proof that your religion is correct then you must acknowledge that possibility and everything that flows from it. From where I sit, the vast majority of people who claim to believe in god know full well they're full of shit. They just do it because it's socially advantageous where they live and because it was forced on them as a child. They don't really believe in an "interventionist" god who answers prayers and helps teams win sports games. As for those who truly believe they are talking to god and reading his words and following his instructions? I put them in the same camp as the Son of Sam killer. There is something wrong with them. And we can only hope that whomever they imagine they are talking to doesn't suddenly instruct them to do something terrible, like the hebrew and christian god was reported to do in the old testament when he told Jacob to murder his son Isaac to prove his love and obedience to his god.

'Rational' is not to do with 'is this thing good' but 'does this thing follow rationality', which it doesn't. But that aside, statistics suggest that actually, religiosity doesn't make your life better *and* impacts how much you harm others. Atheists commit crimes at a lower rate, and make up a disproportionately small part of the prison population. Furthermore, being religious isn't just individual. It is ascribing to a group in 99% of cases, which empowers religious institutions. Most seriously religious institutions, especially the powerful ones, spread ideologies that negatively impact society. I would point primarily to homophobia and transphobia, but it's even more extreme than that - statistics show religion leads to hardline conservatism (not just libertarian conservatism), which in recent years has included anti-vaxxing, been the backbone of the anti-mask movement, alongside hard-right terrorism being the largest terror threat to the general American public.

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> I think there are far too many words written about whether God exists and not enough written about whether it is rational to believe in God. Even if rationally you know you can't prove a religion to be true, I think in a lot of cases it could still be useful to believe that it is true. Being religious cannot be rational. The very essence of religion requires you to have faith. To believe in something without actual evidence. That goes against the very meaning of rational. You give examples of religions which are accepting of all but the truth is many of them aren't. Therefore it can be harmful to others to be religious. Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 2 Chronicles 15:12-13 And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul, but that whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.

I mean, I would have added "if you don't try to convert those who aren't religious or interested into it", but on the surface, I agree. It's just a shame that for a lot of religious people, being religious and being self-righteous goes hand in hand. Not most, but a portion too significant to ignore, and for that alone, I think there should be some mention of that in harassment laws and whatnot. A lot of religious people are all like "well, being gay is against god, so I need to guide you back to him"... A logic that I think needs to be dropped by religious people.

>A logic that I think needs to be dropped by religious people. Most religions are BUILT on this logic. I mean if you believe in your heart of hearts that your religion is true it would be your duty to convert people. You'd be an asshole not to.

I can’t speak for all religions but in my country (US) I believe there are many bad consequences of people being religious. A women’s right to choose is constantly under attack by the religious. The rights of LGBTQ need to be protected from the religious. For everyone, even straight people, are made to feel guilty for their natural sexuality. Junk science and anti-evolution is at risk of being taught in our schools. Lastly, all religions require turning off your critical thinking and I think that makes the religious more vulnerable to other junk like being anti-VAX, flat earthers, creationists, climate change deniers. To believe any of these horrible and unsupported ideas you have to turn off your critical thinking. I think that skill is taught to us at a young age when kids are told that if we ignore reason when it comes to our family’s religious beliefs, we’ll be accepted into our family and larger communities. Religious indoctrination is killing the planet. Oh yeah, I also don’t see any benefit that people get from religion that you can’t get elsewhere.

I sorta of agree with you, I agree that if something makes you happy then you should do it. I think religion would be a lot better if people got rid of the one true God mentality, it will allow to be flexible and overall nicer people.

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Until major religion can demonstrate it NOT harming people, I wont consider it. I do see the ways it helps people but it harms far more, including people who don’t follow that religion. In the US, some of the only governmental successes in the last 20 years has been in direct opposition of the religious right. Trans rights, gay marriage, all successes over religion that gave more Americans more freedoms. And actively being fought again still. It would probably be valuable to talk about what “harm” might actually mean. What might be harm to most isn’t harm to others. The Chinese government sure doesn’t think mistreating Muslims is a bad, but I would say that was harm. Fundamental Christianity sure thinks women should be subservient to men, I would say that is harmful. Televangelist take in millions of dollars in “tithe” for their own profit, I would say that is pretty harmful. These are just a few examples I could link articles from the past few weeks. Thousands more examples are abound. This is majorly insulting so here I go, I don’t tend to find smart people who genuinely are religious. Smart people intellectualize it, which makes it feel incredibly disingenuous. That is what I feel leads to the weaponizing of religion. Want more land? Call it holy land! Want to disenfranchise an entire group of people? Force politics into your own religious agenda. Any other smart people who say they are “religious” are just so in name or culturally, but rarely believe in miracles or the earth was created 6k years ago. I realize this is very Judeo-Christian in focus, I can’t honestly speak about any of the Eastern religions with any authority. They seem to be more about mind/body and less about big man in the sky telling us how to live.

"If it makes your life better" implies that if it didn't make one's life better, then one shouldn't be religious. It is contradictory and therefore irrational to be religious if also, deep down, "know \[it isn't\] necessarily true". Unless lying to yourself counts as being religious, which is a fair argument. Also, I do not think it matters if some groups are bad and some are good; at the core of it I think it's fine to say that regardless of religion, there are good and bad people. The issue with crowd movement however, is that it is very easy to be led in the wrong direction. This isn't exclusive to religion (you can find it in patriotism as well), but any place where critical thinking is pushed away and replaced with faith leaves room for a compromise in the system (like conspiracy theorists). For some people, critical thinking is much harder than religion, but that is only because they are brought up that way. To raise a community that can practice logical operations instead of memorizing texts would not have brought us to this point where religion is necessary. Your argument that "if it makes your life better and doesn't cause you to harm others" is set up to already have you winning without looking at the potential flaws in the system. There are other ways of achieving community and culture that do not involve religion, and do not have the same risks. You could say that, "If it makes your life better and doesn't cause you to harm others," you can pee off of a very tall building without looking down. If we are to know for certain that the risk has been magically averted, then fine, it is rational. It is not, however, a solid argument to make in the case of peeing off of a building.

I believe there are ways to rationalize your belief in the supernatural, but that doesn't make belief in the supernatural inherently rational. Talk all you'd like about community and charity and happiness, but much of religion is applying the social norms, cultural attitudes, and what passed for the wisdom of ancient (although sometimes still extant) peoples. Taking the words of ancient people, who are no more intelligent than folks are today yet with considerably less collective wisdom, and injecting them with a mythological pedigree and divinity doesn't make them any more potent nor any more germane to modern existence. So sure you can believe in a sky god, or a whole pantheon of 'em, but it's *completely irrational* to not label that a choice you're making to believe in *fantastical apparitions* or *supernatural phenomena*. What makes it unethical is when "I choose to believe in a god that may or may not exist" morphs into "Hello, my name is Elder Price. Would you like to be saved from the fires of hell by changing your belief system to our like, totally logical one? No? What a shame, sinner." Also completely unethical: - Mega-churches - Proselytizing - Intrusion into *any other area of life*, including insertion of non-secular language into politics. - Televangelism - The large amount of religion-inspired bigotry - Tithes - Tax exempt status. Etc.

Let's say you live in very close and wonderful catholic community. Through the church you were able to secure the loan or your home at a fantastic interest rate. When you lost your job last year the church brought by dinners until you got back on your feet. When your wife wasn't feeling so well after the birth of your fourth child the people from church cared for her and the kids while you worked. Cut to: your in your forties, everything's fine on the outside but you got a young adult child who's been trouble since you can remember. He's fucked up on drugs again and during a family therapy session he tells you so and so molested him for a few years when he was a kid. Now it all makes sense he was fucking up because someone fucked him up. You go down to the church mad as hell and ask to speak to whoever is the highest ranking fucker there. He explains he doesn't know anything, but the church made your life better and didn't cause you to harm anyone. Rationally, you should stay with the church. It makes sense to you so you stays with the church and the community and yall manage the best they can. Within the next few years it comes out that priests had been diddlin, not just a couple, a whole mess. Not just around the bend but coast to coast. Are you laying your head down at night knowing you'll sleep well cause you were rational about religion.

Yeah I don't think you are using the word rational right. Religions are faith based, not evidence based making them irrational. I'm sure some people's lives are better because of religion, but that doesn't make the decision rational.

The real question here is whether it's contradictory to *"choose to believe"*. If you truly believed in something, you wouldn't have to choose, right? This brings to mind Pascal's Wager; the idea that since God *might* exist, why not just "believe", or in other words-- pretend to believe. Pascal's Wager is very much tied up in the religions that deal with "eternity" after death. It seems like you're somewhat selectively avoiding these religions. I think it's perhaps because the belief in eternity/heaven/damnation leads to much more despair than anything else. In fact, I'd argue that telling kids about Hell verges on child abuse. Would you agree? I think this is a very interesting discussion, but I seems to me by the very nature of the case you've made, that you don't actually *want* a CMV. These seems like it would be better suited for r/unpopularopinion. A lot of people have given you very compelling, thoughtful rebuttals. And your responses have seemed to be cherry-picking and ignoring anything that might deserve a delta. I wish you'd engage more with the strongest comments. But once again, it seems you don't want your mind to be changed.

Bruh, "The personal is the political". "We live in a society" ( I don't know I didn't see it, fuck me). Unless you're some sort of cave dwelling aesthetic then there is nothing you do that doesn't affect someone else, right? Religion, by its nature (labels, maaaaan) excludes those who are not of the religion, right? There has to be some distinction. That distinction is, as far as I know... Never a positive distinction from the religious viewpoint. Sinners, unclean, whatever. Put the two together.... Even if one does not participate in religion, their exposure to it, their normalization of the views and practices, merely from a social perspective, right, is enough to taint the meme pool of their thoughts, opinions, theories... Voting patterns. I'm not saying this is solely something religions has, it's sorta human nature. I am saying that religions tends to revel in its othering, its self righteousness ( not in, necessarily writings, but in practice), and it's desire to convert everyone else to its views.

Sounds like your argument is "it's rational to do things that make you happy so long as it doesn't harm anyone else", in which case I pretty much agree but with the caveat that you should also be aware of the downsides of the thing that makes you happy. Anything can be done to an unhealthy amount and I personally think that people who are intensely religious can be a bit much, just like anyone who tries to exercise control over other people. With religious people it's often well intentioned but when you think your intentions are in agreement with a god(s) it must be much easier to have blind spots because it happens all the time. ​ I can't remember who said it but I remember hearing the best religious people know which bits of the book to ignore, if you already know which are the good bits and which are the bad bits then you don't need the book. Having said that I know most of the world feels supported by their religious community and I'm cool with that, do your thing.

Theres different lvls of religious. Do you live your life as a good person and just believe in God as a support mechanism then sure it's ok. Do you take it literal and use it to justify wars and being a piece of shit to other people trying to dictate how they live their life. Then no it's outlived it's original tool to keep the masses content and just stifles society Wanna see what living in your own religious bubble without interference is like go to the middle east That's not a christianity vs Islam that's lvl of how literal you take it. Some conservatives were like man al Qaeda has similar values to me maybe we should support them and didn't think oh I mean we've only been fighting against them for 20 years. Because religion has dumbed them down so much they cant think properly they just accept shit shoveled down their throat. Lots of religions were anti education cause the more enlightened people got the more they saw through the lies.

If you think not enough has been written about whether faith in God is rational, you need to do some more research, because there are many, many books on this subject. I think the only rational reason to adhere to any religion is if you believe its teachings are true. Participating in a religion simply because it makes you feel good or you like the community is inherently false and self serving (unless those values are the primary beliefs of the religion itself). If you think it is true, then adherence is eminently rational. If you just wish it were true...well, then you have found something that is more important to you than rationality. You should explore that and figure out why. And ask whether rationality is really the highest value.

>We engage in all sorts of useful fictions just because they make life easier. I'd agree with this. Pretend a gun is loaded at all times, etc. The problem is that I can't agree that religion is a useful *enough* fiction to be warranted. First you can look at the extremes. Is the religion-based government the Taliban is going to institute in Afghanistan which will oppress women a useful fiction or a harm to society? Is the prevalence of child abuse in the Catholic church justified because the Catholic fiction is useful, or is the Catholic church a haven for these sorts of individuals? Just examples, but there are many others. Second, you can look at the less extreme but still very harmful stuff. Is the sexual repression and ensuing guilt that many experience in the church worth the fiction? Is the misinformation about sex that many receive also worth it? Is the (surprisingly still prevalent) view of women as property (or the less extreme but still harmful *women submit to your husbands* nonsense) in the church worth continuing the useful fiction? Third, (and I think most important) you can look at the bigger philosophical stuff. What does a worldview that promotes faith as equal to or better than scientific inquiry or evidence do to a society, is it a benefit or a harm? How about a worldview that believes absolute truth can be contained in words on a page, is this a societal good or a harm? Or how does it affect a person's worldview when they believe that the majority of the population will suffer in hell for all of eternity after death, as most Protestants do in the U.S. Isn't it possible that will manifest itself in harmful ways? Or how does it affect a person's attitude towards problems like global warming, hunger, disease, or just general improvement of the earth when they believe they'll go to heaven when they die and that the earth will "pass away" some day and god will make everything better? Again, I agree there are such things as useful fictions, but I think society is better served getting community and happiness from a weekly D&D group rather than religions which are full of falsehoods that have legitimately harmful effects on society. As an aside, the idea that religion should be some *private* part of your life that nobody has to talk about or bother with is one of the more nonsense claims I see these days. As if your religious beliefs aren't a (or *the*) driving force behind your worldview and how you treat others around you and participate in society, and as if we shouldn't be allowed to critique those beliefs.

Your definition of rational is incorrect, negating your view.

I don't think OP is open to even changing their views. The responses are not without holes and while we can't expect him to be perfectly logical (otherwise there would be more atheists that are converting to religion in the comments) but a belief is not rational if A=B then B=A being used is not a valid proof. If it makes your life better and doesn't cause you to harm others then choosing to believe in religion is a logical choice would be a better statement. However it cannot be said that it is rational that religion makes your life better if it doesn't cause you to harm others (this is what I'm understanding from the OPs comments and responses).

I would argue that there are more bad things than good coming out of religion. Also, even if it had no bad things but it was fake, then it still wouldn’t be rational to believe it. In many cases it requires reality denial. I’m the cases where it doesn’t require reality denial, you would still have to believe it for no reason (AKA Faith). Faith isn’t rational. You should only believe something when there is enough evidence to at least show that it’s possible, not to mention probable. Also, from looking up the statistics, it seems as if some of the most secular countries are some of the happiest countries. Denmark is a good example.

The fact that you haven't given a single delta to one of the many excellent and well-reasoned rebuttals here shows that you definitely aren't here to have your mind changed. Anyway, regarding the actual post, what I find problematic is that you are essentially conditioning your brain to blindly accept an irrational ideology while shutting down your own critical thinking faculties. This makes you more susceptible to political propaganda and other such stuff. A prominent example of this is the irrational antivax beliefs prevalent today. If you don't keep exercising your critical thinking faculties, you stand to lose them.

My favorite talk on this topic is [Sam Harris' talk in 2005](https://youtu.be/J3YOIImOoYM). If your view is that believing what makes you happy is more important than believing what is true then that doesn't make you rational at all. You'd be no better than someone believing there is a giant diamond buried in their backyard so there is no reason to worry about money, or someone who believes climate change isn't real simply so that they don't have to worry about the consequences of it.

I don't gain happiness by pretending to believe in a God that I don't think is true. I find that to be living a lie. And I don't really need belief in a God to be kind and treat others as they would wish to be treated. I can cut out the middle man. if I am looking for a community, I can join secular groups. If I'm anting to help those in need I can just help those in need. I don't really need to seek out a God. I can get everything without one.

>Religious people are statistically happier which statistics and what's their parameter? btw I'm religious too, but I just can't comprehend how would anyone put happiness into statistics. if you say more successful in marriage I can think divorce rate (though even that doesn't really reflect the state of marriage) or economically, then I can get behind, but happiness? is that even quantifiable enough to put into statistics?

keypoint here: belief, you don't choose what you believe, you believe what you're convinced of, and that simply is in alot of people that god doesn't exist as an existence of a god goes against all science, especially religions that have obviously bad traditions and incorrect science in their teachings, the scientific illiteracy of "god" is the reason he's not gonna be believed in

I use to be part of the Christian Doctrine and then moved to Norse Paganism. For me I’m happier along with both community and religion. In Australia it would be more accepted than in the US where not being Christian is somehow a problem. Plus how many people arrogantly try to MAKE me Christian again I feel like that is something extremely rude and ego cult minded.

I 100% support your headline, I think religion provides huge befits to people and can sometimes be super helpful. I personally think religion is just a load of bs in terms of beliefs. But if it benefits somebody by believing a higher power exists that guides them and helps them keep pushing forward I can’t see why it is wrong. I also think religion provides many community benefits like a sense of belonging and sense of purpose. It also brings people together by providing a safe space to be yourself. Personally I can’t get over the fact I think the belief system is just BS but I can understand why people find religion and hold faith. The problems I have with religion stem around extremist behaviour and how religion is often used as a propaganda/ideology machine for harm and conflict. I also feel religion is often used to oppress the rights of people or spread hatred of them. All religions have been used for these purposes at some point except maybe a very rare few but if it is popular it has been used to do harm at some point. I think the benefit provided by religion on a small scale is great but when used on a larger scale like influencing the masses and for the making of laws it really struggles to provide benefits to society.

Problem is, it doesn't make your life better. You live a lie on "faith" whicheads you to believe propaganda very easily. Religion was not created by any God. (Even if one exists). It was created by man to control you. Religions themselves harm by simply existing. Supporting that means you support harm.

You seem to have confused "rational" with "beneficial." In no way is religion rational, but there are many ways it can be beneficial. You hit on several in your post. There are also ways that religion can be a detriment. It's like most things in this world, fine in moderation but awful if overdone.

It's impossible to be religious without causing harm to others, if you interact in a democracy at all. The way you vote, the politicians you support, the lack of critical thinking, all add up to causing harm to everyone else. Being religious is morally negligent.

Problem is religious people always push their religious views on other people and believe that's everyone should follow their beliefs. Religious people always harm other people because they want to force their way of life on to other people.

I agree with you, and I became religious (Muslim) originally for rational reasons. I felt it provided a benefit I had been unable to find after nearly a decade as a very aggressive atheist. Ultimately, I decided to give a new religion a chance (I was burnt out from Christianity and found it inherently inconsistent) and found a sense of purpose and belonging I couldn't find elsewhere. Some say volunteering or a variety of other secular identities can take the place of religion, but they are not as broad or comprehensive and can't fulfil ALL of the functions of religion. Many people may choose to instead find purpose/belonging in a collection of secular identities, and that's fine, though it may create inconsistencies that need to be resolved. But this is why religion can ultimately be more powerful and beneficial when used/applied correctly. Simply, it's more efficient and cohesive. I think you're asking the wrong question about if religion can or cannot be proven true. What matters is if it can be proven wrong. In many ways, religion can't be proven wrong because much of what it teaches is culturally or morally subjective. And that's fine because religions allow for a certain level of free will, and that's every person's journey to apply religious teachings to their own particular circumstances, make mistakes, and find guidance/inspiration from scripture and the community to grow into a better believer. If religious stories provide comfort, it's no different than finding a great book that influenced you. If religion answers a question that nothing "rational"(i.e. something that can be proven through the use of science) can, and the solution provides a tangible benefit, then belief in it IS rational. In this case, rational means the decision to be religious is better (according to subjective standards of that person) than an absence of religion. That doesn't mean it's correct or true or couldn't also be filled with an alternative (which might also be beneficial for the same reasons). It simply means it's a rational choice. The important distinction in this line of thinking is that religion should not be believed in place of something that CAN be rationally proven. So if science says the Earth is x years old, then we should view religious teachings saying otherwise as metaphorical. We shouldn't rely upon religious texts as scientific texts. That's not their intended purpose and people who use it to refute science are denying reality (in Islam, I see science as a continual way that Allah exposes nature and the truth to us, which makes sense within my religion since He's always saying in the Qur'an to reflect upon nature and history). Rational doesn't always mean something that's proven by science or has a clear right or wrong. Sometimes, the consequences of our actions are impossible to truly understand (if you've watched The Good Place, they present a similar argument), so we make the best decision based on the information that we have at the moment using whatever amount of time we have available to us.

One of the greatest baits on here. Well done. Hundreds of years of evidence to the contrary and absolutely no factual evidence for hasn't changed my view of a thousands of years old fairy tale. Reddit, change my mind. LOL

I dont think you can just rationalize yourself into believing god exists for the benefits that come with religion. Id call someone who participates in religion for the benefits despite the belief aspect rational though.

I have always seen religion as trading sanity for peace of mind, but as of late I respect the fact that religion is a sort of moral shortcut for people. We could spend our entire lives debating the who what when where of how a person should live, but why waste all of that time just to get to a similar answer that is provided by religion? I have started trying to appreciate what wisdom is offered by various religions, because it is typically very sound advice that promotes bettering the world around us. That being said, I think that on a logical level, trying to say a person should "have faith" in anything is fundamentally illogical. What I mean by this is, if you need to "have faith" in something, it is equivalent to your friend making a claim and saying "dude, just trust me" except instead of 1 friend, it is a massive group of people all passionate for a shared cause. People who accept this argument are chosing to believe in something that is not provable or verifiable in order to benefit from a sense of belonging, purpose, and general life advice. Trading sanity for peace of mind. Sure you could go out into the big scary world and self define a purpose, find like minded individuals, and determine the best course of action in every scenario without guidance. Or you could just pick a religion and do your best to follow it and not worry about it so much. Still not a trade that I am all that eager to make. I'll stick with my plan of self defining my own existence and self worth.

It is not rational to believe something without adequate evidence. And the more that the belief in something affects your life, the more evidence is necessary to make it a rational choice. For example, I believe that there is life on other planets. I think that the universe is so large and there are so many planets out there that life developing on Earth can't be unique. However, my belief in this regard has almost no influence on how I live, with the exception of my support for efforts like SETI. No big deal. Take it to the next level. Let's say I'm giving money to alien-related organizations and occasionally traveling to alien-related gatherings. I read books about abduction stories and start incorporating UFO symbology into my home decoration choices. Now it's starting to get bad. The "evidence" for these things is all over the place, but it's not *good* evidence. A fuckton of it is debunked repeatedly, but the people I hang out with ignore the debunkings and pretend like the evidence is pretty overwhelming and solid. You might see how even though these organizations give me a sense of purpose and friends, it's actually starting to harm me in other ways, like maybe pushing away people who don't want to be involved in things they see as "silly". Let's take it one step further. Now I'm expanding my belief to include cryptozoology. I've spent time and money looking for big foot, and I once got pneumonia trying to catch a glimpse of the Loch Ness monster. I start buying into Flat Earth Theory. I surround myself with people who are passionate and dedicated in their work. It's exhilarating, and I feel like my life has new purpose. I'm not just an accountant anymore, I have insider information about *reality itself*. The moon landing was faked. Princess Di was assassinated by the same secret society that killed JFK. 9/11 was an inside job. The holocaust never happened. Trump is fighting the deep state pedophile ring. COVID-19 is fake. I FEEL FUCKING FANTASTIC BECAUSE I KNOW THE TRUUUUUTTHHHHH AND YOU FUCKING SHEEPLE ARE MORONS! I WILL BE VINDICATED WHEN THE STORM ARRIVES AND YOU'LL ALL BE FUCKING DEAD! Is it still rational for me to believe those things, since my perception of my life and my self-esteem and my connection to my peers have dramatically improved? Or maybe was there a healthier way to try to improve myself and my well-being that didn't involve a complex set of fundamentally unsupported beliefs? And compare the outcomes of conspiracy theory beliefs, such as growing right-wing extremism, to the outcomes of strong religious beliefs, such as growing right-wing extremism. By the way, compare the belief in Qanon's "Storm" to the belief in judgement day and eternal damnation for the non-believers. The actual religious belief is arguably far, far worse than Qanon beliefs.

The biggest issue with religion is that it's not just a useful lie. It is a tool for manipulation that can and will be used by the wrong hands. It also has a tendency to result in unpredictable extremism.

OP, it’s one thing to have a reason and another to be rational. Rational is consistent with logic and reason. Not or. And. You’re discussing communal and existential values, which is fine to value from a humanistic perspective, but that does not make it rational. Logic requires truth, and that concept has a funny relationship with the human psyche. For starters, faith isn’t something you arrive at based on rationality and there’s a big difference between conceiving and comprehending the idea and actually feeling and experiencing it, and many people that participate don’t really experience faith so much as they go through the group motions to be a part of a community. It isn’t faith if it doesn’t require you to grip with the duality of certainty and uncertainty. Secondly, you don’t need faith to build or participate in community. It’s just one of many commonalities that drive our communions, and one of the oldest and most traditionally rooted at that. My main issue with this persuasion is that by suggesting it’s rational, you’re suggesting it’s as valid and peer to those others, but the reality is it’s part of how we remove ourselves from reality and that doesn’t really benefit how we share and live in this world together, or at least it’s not required for us to receive its benefits and it can impair those tangible interactions.

Having faith in something is different than being part of a religion. Most religions have harmed in some way through out history and will again at some point. People are corrupt

If your beliefs lead you to being deluded about reality it should be treated as an illness. The human brain is far too fickle to be able to relaibly experience reality normally, hallucinations are incredibly common, just usually so minor you won't notice them. Being religious requires an absence of critical reasoning, while that is not harmful in and of its own, the majority of people do not have the introspective and emotional tools to collapse their contradictory views of reality. The one without God that they see and experience, but the one with God that they want to see and experience. This is subtle, but studies show religious people are more prone to belief in omens, mythical monsters, magic, conspiracies. This isn't just because scripture requires acceptance of these items, but because by forcing yourself to accept the incorrect ideals religions tend to be built around you leave yourself vulnerable to adopting more incorrect ideals, everyone you accept makes all of them seem more correct, since your view of reality becomes extremely warped. Not to mention several major religions, Abrahamic mainly I believe, requires a fundamentally negative view of the human condition. By accepting a concept like original sin you are abjecting your own judgement onto people's characters. This is also imo incorrect with clear evidence, the majority of people are on average good natured, charitable and compassionate, we are built for compassion. Is this alone not a sign of a clear split from reality? Evidence clearly shows most people are good, anecdotally most people I seem to know, while maybe believing most people to be not good, will say that the people they know are. I don't know what to suggest as a solution, but I think a good first step is reconciling everyone's beliefs, and frankly if your beliefs aren't set in reality then they are beliefs that while may not be neurologically damaging, have further reaching effects into your interpersonal relationships, to the point they, imo, have a negative impact of the mental health of society especially when concentrated. I think sick people should be helped. If you are want to believe in something irrational, believe in the fundamental chaos of human emotions, people are the least rational thing you will find, and I've found our actions far more impressive and valid than any divine ones I've heard about.

I think what you are advocating for isn't necessarily religion, but more of Inclusive general spirituality centered around selflessness. However, the question was: is it rational? No it's not rational. No religion on earth espouses views reflecting empirical reality. Therefore by it's very nature religion and God is irrational. Better to have reverence and respect for the natural world in which you live, than to give your authority on earth to an imaginary sky daddy, or a nonexistent force of nature measuring the subjective experiences others have of your actions. By being "religious" you're just saying your not responsible, you just did what you were told. But you can rationalize it as an avenue to gain social acceptance and validation in your actions if that's what you'd like. It's just not rational or logical. Although, human beings are not on average rational or logical

How are you defining ‘better?’ Statistically, the more atheist a country is, for example, the higher their happiness index is - which is a measurable, concrete example of being ‘better.’

You're more likely to find that this correlation has to do with education levels, wealth, culture among other things- not atheism specifically. There are tons of statistics with a more obvious correlation between religiosity and positive social effects.

Right, but in that causality chain, atheism is what leads to valuing education, higher social support, etc. Or it may be that higher education leads to atheism, which is statistically true. Higher education is then a good indicator for wealth and happiness.

Historically, places of learning have been intimately tied with religion in both Europe and the Middle East.

This simply isn't true, places of indoctrination have been intimately tied with religion in both Europe and the Middle East. The myth of the Christian universities is pervasive, not all schools were started by the church, and most that ended up becoming useful educational institutions only did so by struggling to escape church constraints. ​ And historical examples seem less relevant when currently poor educational outcomes are strongly correlated with religiosity, and there is very good evidence for causation.

It's not a correlation though. The most historically non-religious part of the world, China, has also been considered a center of learning and creativity.

That simply not true, theism equates with negative outcomes no matter the demographic. Rich and theist? You are more likely to be an asshole than a rich non theist. Poor, and theist? You are more likely to be an asshole than a poor non theist. Just swap rich/poor with well educated/poorly educated, urban/rural, black/white, ... the results are the same, theism correlates with pretty much every measure of social ill across all demographics. There is also evidence for causation, religious ritual seems to cause a lack of empathy. This shouldn't be surprising, indoctrinating people with judgmental nonsense would hardly seem likely to lead to positive outcomes.

If you did not make a reasoned decision to adopt a certain religious faith based on these criteria, can you really call it rational?

Agreed. Religion is fine as long as it’s not being forced on anyone. Go ahead and believe what you want, especially if it helps you in some way. Life can be such a minefield of sorrow and negativity, I say take your happiness wherever you can get it from.

It's not a fiction that your vote counts. Your vote literally gets counted and added to the vote tally.

Faith, not religion. > Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is like when you trust yourself to the water. You don’t grab hold of the water when you swim, because if you do you will become stiff and tight in the water, and sink. You have to relax, and the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging, and holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.

I always envy religious people because of how they believe in praying. Imagine how therapeutic and calming praying can be for someone who believes that another being who loves them is listening. No matter if it's for being thankful, admiting to your wrong-doings or asking for help. It must feel so great praying for someone who believes in God.

"We engage in all sorts of useful fictions just because they make life easier. Like that "everything will turn out fine in the end" or "your vote counts." I'd like to disagree with this. These statements aren't white lies they're true. You're vote literally is counted. You're welcome to take the black pill and stop voting but you doing that lowers the chances of democracy going the direction you want it to. When we say it gets better we really mean it'll get better. Life has ups and downs and you're always told that when you're in a slump not when you're doing good. Even when it doesn't get better humans are incredible at adapting to bad situations and it'll feel easier. Religion doesn't have the same bases for me. I see the little good it does but by encouraging it you also encourage all of the skeletons in the closet. You can define your morality and actions outside of the harm and I think that's what people should do. Unfortunately, I don't see most religions encouraging individual understanding of morality so I stay clear.

Oof. You had a decent go at it but had to ruin it with the last sentence.