6 ms·

The reason religion exists.

16 points by oz 18y ago

oz 18y ago
As a deconvert from Christianity as of early February, I think this article makes some good points. If you'd like to read the testimonies of other deconverts, visit unreasonablefaith.com, de-conversion.com and debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com Many of them are former pastors, missionaries and apologists. Some of their testimonies were what helped me 'see the light'... Interestingly, while I was a Christian, I came to the conclusion that some genuine, sincere Christians were genuinely and sincerely delusional. Ultimately, Christianity is responsible for forcing me to think things through, since you have to check everything by 'the Word' (Bible) I wonder if 'G-d' is angry with me for posting this on 'Resurrection Morning.' Oh well. See you in hell...
- rms 18y ago
  Many Worlds quantum theory seems to be a correct interpretation of our universe. How do you know you aren't living in one of the improbable universes where Christianity is literally or partially true?
- nathanwdavis 18y ago
  "I came to the conclusion that some genuine, sincere Christians were genuinely and sincerely delusional. " Seems like this is something you could say about humans in general. My feeling is that if religion is a drug, then atheism is as well. They are both a belief that depends on faith.
  - frisco 18y ago
    No. People have to stop saying this. Atheism does not depend on faith. It is a falsifiable hypothesis that fails if anyone presents repeatable, concrete evidence that a higher power exists. After millenia of trying, the overwhelming evidence is in support of atheism. Before science, religion was seen as an explanation for lots of things -- as science has explained more and more, religion has been forced into increasingly smaller corners for explicative power. Atheism doesn't take anything on faith -- that's the point. Religion is not falsifiable, which makes it fundamentally different from atheism.
    - nathanwdavis 18y ago
      I guess I touched a nerve there. Much of science is still theory, and theories are a very valuable way to help explain things, but they are not 'overwhelming evidence'. Also, this thinking that religion has been forced into a corner is dependent upon the crowd you are a part of (crowd behavior). The opposite crowd might have you thinking the opposite. If an atheist believes without faith, then that means that they are completely sure of everything. Another term for this is close-mindedness.
      - ddemchuk 18y ago
        Atheists do not believe. They lack belief in the assertions of theists. It is the burden of the theists to provide ample evidence to support their assertion that we all live under the watchful eye of an omnipotent God.
        nathanwdavis 18y ago
        This argument just doesn't hold. The atheist believes that the assertions of theists are incorrect and have faith that they are correct in that belief. The mere fact that you have replied to my post says that you <i>do</li> feel the burden to explain your belief in atheism - which in turn reinforces that your belief is based on a faith.
        awad 18y ago
        faith: firm belief in something for which there is no proof Being atheist is not a matter of faith; it's a matter of logic and science. To have faith is to believe in something that does not make logical sense and has not and cannot be proved scientifically. There is NO faith involved with an atheist.
        ddemchuk 18y ago
        Your argument implies that all knowledge is simply a system of beliefs cemented in by faith in those beliefs which leaves us on an equal playing field in regards to the validity of each side of the argument. By doing so, you're undermining all that we know to be true by equating logical facts with faith based beliefs and that is truly selling human intelligence and reason short. I don't have a belief in atheism because there is nothing to believe in atheism. Like I said before, atheism is a lack of belief in the assertions of theists. This lack of belief is supported by a logical appraisal of the assertions of the theists, not the non-evidence based blind faith of theistic thinkers.
  - rsheridan6 18y ago
    >My feeling is that if religion is a drug, then atheism is as well. Atheism isn't a drug because it doesn't provide any comfort. Christianity: Your mother passed away last night, son. Someday you'll see her again in heaven. Atheism: Your mother passed away last night, son. Someday you'll join her in a hole in the ground.
    - frisco 18y ago
      Atheism allows you to take it further. Atheism says that since the world is governed by physical laws alone, anything not forbidden by the laws of physics is achievable. You don't have to concede that one day you'll join her in a hole in the ground: we become masters of our fate and, with enough creativity and engineering, throw off the pessimism imposed by religion.
      - rsheridan6 18y ago
        Not really. It may be possible in theory to cure all diseases, but whether we can do so in time for YOU is doubtful (the older you are, the more doubtful it is). If we can, you'll die of an accident sooner or later. If you upload your mind into a computer with backups, you can avoid accidents but it's questionable whether it's really "you" who would survive. And even if everything goes perfectly and you consider the upload to equal "you," you'll still die in the heat death of the universe.
  - philwelch 18y ago
    Atheism isn't a belief any more than fasting is a meal or a bare chest is a shirt. This argument rests on the misconception (bordering on a straw man) that atheism is the positive belief that there are no gods. That's not what atheism is. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any gods. There is a difference between "I do not believe that God exists" (atheism) and "I do believe that God does not exist" (so-called "positive atheism"). Some atheists are positive atheists, but for most of us it's at best a suspicion or a working hypothesis, not a matter of absolute, infallible, unquestioned belief. Even if we are to consider the belief that there are no gods, I would still question whether or not this belief depends on faith any more than the various beliefs that there are gods. If you study the history of philosophy you'll find a number of supposed "proofs" of the existence of God. There are also many arguments for the non-existence of God. It's a matter of argument and cautioned reasoning, not faith, whether or not to believe that God exists. Faith is an epistemic position that the atheist does not share. Most atheists tend to acquire beliefs based upon evidence. Just like everyone else, an atheist goes home at night expecting that his house is where he left it that morning. But, just like everyone else, an atheist would be surprised to find that his house had burned down. Yet, after some amount of emotional torment, the atheist would be forced to believe that his house was, in fact, no longer standing. Contrast this with religious belief. A positive atheist, upon coming across some unquestionable evidence of God's existence, would be surprised but would be forced to accept what the evidence has shown. Someone of religious faith would come across unquestionable evidence that God did not exist and refuse to believe it. They would in fact rearrange their entire belief system simply to preserve their non-rational, privileged belief that God exists and will save them from eternal damnation in exchange for their faith. Keep in mind, that is the ideal case. People of faith can be better empiricists than the demands of faith allow them to be, just as empiricists can be more dogmatic than the demands of empiricism allow them to be. But while most atheists consciously choose empiricism (and reject belief in God because there is no good evidence for it), people of faith consciously choose faith. This is the real difference. It's not about God, it's about how people choose to form their beliefs. (OK--let's be more clear here. An atheist can still have faith in something else. For instance, most Buddhists are atheist because of their faith in the possibility of mystical enlightenment and so forth. The real difference isn't between religious people and atheists, but between religious people and secularists. Just as atheists can be religious, secularists can believe in God. Such secularists are known as "deists" and many of them did remarkable things, such as writing the Declaration of Independence.)
- Silentio 18y ago
  I don't know if this is an appropriate comment, but I am interested from which flavor of Christianity you've "deconverted."
  - oz 18y ago
    Mainstream evangelical Christianity. Traditional doctrines such as Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Incarnation, the death burial and bodily resurrection of Jesus, the substitutionary atonement, Biblical inerrancy, infallibility, the five solas of the Reformation, the Trinity, the fall, the rapture etc. For us to argue the existence of god, we need to define 2 things: What does it mean to exist, and what does it mean to be god? As previous commentators have noted, 'god of the gaps' explanations have historically been disappointing for theists. If we were arguing 500 years ago, you'd say: "But we don't what causes lightning! It must be god!" (or the gods, depending on who you asked) Now we know it's electrostatics. "But we don't know why people get sick! It must be demons!" And then Redi and Pasteur kicked God out of that hole. "But we don't know the origin of the universe!" Well, not yet. But I know this: The same evidence that shows that the universe had a beginning ALSO shows that the universe is billions of years old, not ~6000 as the Bible teaches. So you can't have it both ways. And CS Lewis' argument from morality (Universal Lawgiver) is suspect as well: Before the fall, Adam and Eve had no conscience (knowledge of good and evil). Yet, they were "very good."
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      Interesting that you threw the whole thing out. Why not just throw out sola scriptura? There are lots of really smart Christian scientists who don't believe all the stuff other Christians do. I guess what interests me is the entire fuzziness of the debate. "Christian" means to follow Christ. That's it. There are Christians that believe all sorts of things, from Zen Christianity to Agnostic Christianity to Charismatic Christianity. Heck, for all I know you can be an atheist and a Christian. After all, many of the first Christians were put to death for being atheists. Yet we lump all those hundreds of millions of variations all into some cartoon conglomerate and then poke sticks at it. Talk about straw man arguments. Why the oversimplification?
- oz 18y ago
  "Interestingly, while I was a Christian, I came to the conclusion that some genuine, sincere Christians were genuinely and sincerely delusional." I think I should clarify this. By delusional, I don't mean in a mentally ill sort of way; rather they dogmatically believed things that simply had no Scriptural support. Any attempt to show them otherwise would be met with an accusation of 'trusting in your own intellect', rather than 'being led by the Spirit.'
jacoblyles 18y ago
I don't disagree with the author, but I do think he underestimates the beneficial effects of the drug to its users in that he fails to mention the often large social benefits that one can obtain by belonging to a church, especially in a world where contact with one's local community seems like it is becoming less common. The IRL social network that religion provides, in addition to its palliative effects, comprise the major sources of utility from religious belief. And I think it does a good job of explaining the uphill battle that evangelical atheists have. In order to convert someone, you have to convince them that being correct on a technical metaphysical issue is worth the real costs that they will bear for abandoning their religion. It's not the most appealing sales proposition. Religion has been around for as long as humans have. I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. And despite the fact that I think it's wrong, I have serious doubts that the world would be a better place without it. This is also the crux of the disagreement that I have with the self-proclaimed rationalists (see the blog Less Wrong for examples). Rationalists believe that what is true is also always beneficial, but I am not convinced that this is necessarily so. I find it easy to imagine a world where believing some false propositions was beneficial, and I suspect we may even live in such a world.
10ren 18y ago
There's a wonderful theory that sees Buddhism, Christianity and Islam as responses to changes in society brought about by new technology (IIRC)
- bayareaguy 18y ago
  I'd love to know more about it if you could provide a reference. I'm especially curious about how applicable it is to other religions.
  - 10ren 18y ago
    Thanks, I've been trying to recall the source, but all I remember is he didn't support his hypothesis very well. I'll post if I find it.
rkts 18y ago
My theory: Everyone has two brains, a "people" brain and a "stuff" brain. Most people use them roughly equally, but some use one more than the other. When we were kids, my sister and I used to argue because she thought that her stuffed animals had feelings, and that birds had conversations about specific things. She was always attributing human emotions to things that didn't have them. Even now, she does it with her cat: if the cat trips and falls and walks away with its head down, my sister will say, "Aww, she's embarrassed!" -- even though cats don't understand embarrassment and the cat is probably just tired. Unsurprisingly, my sister is religious and I'm not. Religion is what happens when people misapply their people brain to thinking about stuff. They get a vague sense that the world is alive, and then explain it in whatever concrete terms their culture provides (God, in our case). Nerdiness is what happens when people misapply their stuff brain to thinking about people. Nerds misinterpret other people because they fail to attribute emotions to them. However, unlike religious people, nerds usually realize at some point that they have a problem and can try to change. Except in extreme cases, religious people suffer no consequences for being wrong, so they have no reason to change. Since women tend to be more interested in people and men more interested in stuff, this also explains why women are more often religious, and men are more often nerds.
known 18y ago
God != Religion

16 points by oz 18y ago

oz 18y ago

As a deconvert from Christianity as of early February, I think this article makes some good points. If you'd like to read the testimonies of other deconverts, visit unreasonablefaith.com, de-conversion.com and debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com Many of them are former pastors, missionaries and apologists. Some of their testimonies were what helped me 'see the light'... Interestingly, while I was a Christian, I came to the conclusion that some genuine, sincere Christians were genuinely and sincerely delusional. Ultimately, Christianity is responsible for forcing me to think things through, since you have to check everything by 'the Word' (Bible) I wonder if 'G-d' is angry with me for posting this on 'Resurrection Morning.' Oh well. See you in hell...

rms 18y ago
Many Worlds quantum theory seems to be a correct interpretation of our universe. How do you know you aren't living in one of the improbable universes where Christianity is literally or partially true?
nathanwdavis 18y ago
"I came to the conclusion that some genuine, sincere Christians were genuinely and sincerely delusional. " Seems like this is something you could say about humans in general. My feeling is that if religion is a drug, then atheism is as well. They are both a belief that depends on faith.
- frisco 18y ago
  No. People have to stop saying this. Atheism does not depend on faith. It is a falsifiable hypothesis that fails if anyone presents repeatable, concrete evidence that a higher power exists. After millenia of trying, the overwhelming evidence is in support of atheism. Before science, religion was seen as an explanation for lots of things -- as science has explained more and more, religion has been forced into increasingly smaller corners for explicative power. Atheism doesn't take anything on faith -- that's the point. Religion is not falsifiable, which makes it fundamentally different from atheism.
  - nathanwdavis 18y ago
    I guess I touched a nerve there. Much of science is still theory, and theories are a very valuable way to help explain things, but they are not 'overwhelming evidence'. Also, this thinking that religion has been forced into a corner is dependent upon the crowd you are a part of (crowd behavior). The opposite crowd might have you thinking the opposite. If an atheist believes without faith, then that means that they are completely sure of everything. Another term for this is close-mindedness.
    - ddemchuk 18y ago
      Atheists do not believe. They lack belief in the assertions of theists. It is the burden of the theists to provide ample evidence to support their assertion that we all live under the watchful eye of an omnipotent God.
      - nathanwdavis 18y ago
        This argument just doesn't hold. The atheist believes that the assertions of theists are incorrect and have faith that they are correct in that belief. The mere fact that you have replied to my post says that you <i>do</li> feel the burden to explain your belief in atheism - which in turn reinforces that your belief is based on a faith.
        awad 18y ago
        faith: firm belief in something for which there is no proof Being atheist is not a matter of faith; it's a matter of logic and science. To have faith is to believe in something that does not make logical sense and has not and cannot be proved scientifically. There is NO faith involved with an atheist.
        ddemchuk 18y ago
        Your argument implies that all knowledge is simply a system of beliefs cemented in by faith in those beliefs which leaves us on an equal playing field in regards to the validity of each side of the argument. By doing so, you're undermining all that we know to be true by equating logical facts with faith based beliefs and that is truly selling human intelligence and reason short. I don't have a belief in atheism because there is nothing to believe in atheism. Like I said before, atheism is a lack of belief in the assertions of theists. This lack of belief is supported by a logical appraisal of the assertions of the theists, not the non-evidence based blind faith of theistic thinkers.
- rsheridan6 18y ago
  >My feeling is that if religion is a drug, then atheism is as well. Atheism isn't a drug because it doesn't provide any comfort. Christianity: Your mother passed away last night, son. Someday you'll see her again in heaven. Atheism: Your mother passed away last night, son. Someday you'll join her in a hole in the ground.
  - frisco 18y ago
    Atheism allows you to take it further. Atheism says that since the world is governed by physical laws alone, anything not forbidden by the laws of physics is achievable. You don't have to concede that one day you'll join her in a hole in the ground: we become masters of our fate and, with enough creativity and engineering, throw off the pessimism imposed by religion.
    - rsheridan6 18y ago
      Not really. It may be possible in theory to cure all diseases, but whether we can do so in time for YOU is doubtful (the older you are, the more doubtful it is). If we can, you'll die of an accident sooner or later. If you upload your mind into a computer with backups, you can avoid accidents but it's questionable whether it's really "you" who would survive. And even if everything goes perfectly and you consider the upload to equal "you," you'll still die in the heat death of the universe.
- philwelch 18y ago
  Atheism isn't a belief any more than fasting is a meal or a bare chest is a shirt. This argument rests on the misconception (bordering on a straw man) that atheism is the positive belief that there are no gods. That's not what atheism is. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any gods. There is a difference between "I do not believe that God exists" (atheism) and "I do believe that God does not exist" (so-called "positive atheism"). Some atheists are positive atheists, but for most of us it's at best a suspicion or a working hypothesis, not a matter of absolute, infallible, unquestioned belief. Even if we are to consider the belief that there are no gods, I would still question whether or not this belief depends on faith any more than the various beliefs that there are gods. If you study the history of philosophy you'll find a number of supposed "proofs" of the existence of God. There are also many arguments for the non-existence of God. It's a matter of argument and cautioned reasoning, not faith, whether or not to believe that God exists. Faith is an epistemic position that the atheist does not share. Most atheists tend to acquire beliefs based upon evidence. Just like everyone else, an atheist goes home at night expecting that his house is where he left it that morning. But, just like everyone else, an atheist would be surprised to find that his house had burned down. Yet, after some amount of emotional torment, the atheist would be forced to believe that his house was, in fact, no longer standing. Contrast this with religious belief. A positive atheist, upon coming across some unquestionable evidence of God's existence, would be surprised but would be forced to accept what the evidence has shown. Someone of religious faith would come across unquestionable evidence that God did not exist and refuse to believe it. They would in fact rearrange their entire belief system simply to preserve their non-rational, privileged belief that God exists and will save them from eternal damnation in exchange for their faith. Keep in mind, that is the ideal case. People of faith can be better empiricists than the demands of faith allow them to be, just as empiricists can be more dogmatic than the demands of empiricism allow them to be. But while most atheists consciously choose empiricism (and reject belief in God because there is no good evidence for it), people of faith consciously choose faith. This is the real difference. It's not about God, it's about how people choose to form their beliefs. (OK--let's be more clear here. An atheist can still have faith in something else. For instance, most Buddhists are atheist because of their faith in the possibility of mystical enlightenment and so forth. The real difference isn't between religious people and atheists, but between religious people and secularists. Just as atheists can be religious, secularists can believe in God. Such secularists are known as "deists" and many of them did remarkable things, such as writing the Declaration of Independence.)
Silentio 18y ago
I don't know if this is an appropriate comment, but I am interested from which flavor of Christianity you've "deconverted."
- oz 18y ago
  Mainstream evangelical Christianity. Traditional doctrines such as Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Incarnation, the death burial and bodily resurrection of Jesus, the substitutionary atonement, Biblical inerrancy, infallibility, the five solas of the Reformation, the Trinity, the fall, the rapture etc. For us to argue the existence of god, we need to define 2 things: What does it mean to exist, and what does it mean to be god? As previous commentators have noted, 'god of the gaps' explanations have historically been disappointing for theists. If we were arguing 500 years ago, you'd say: "But we don't what causes lightning! It must be god!" (or the gods, depending on who you asked) Now we know it's electrostatics. "But we don't know why people get sick! It must be demons!" And then Redi and Pasteur kicked God out of that hole. "But we don't know the origin of the universe!" Well, not yet. But I know this: The same evidence that shows that the universe had a beginning ALSO shows that the universe is billions of years old, not ~6000 as the Bible teaches. So you can't have it both ways. And CS Lewis' argument from morality (Universal Lawgiver) is suspect as well: Before the fall, Adam and Eve had no conscience (knowledge of good and evil). Yet, they were "very good."
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    Interesting that you threw the whole thing out. Why not just throw out sola scriptura? There are lots of really smart Christian scientists who don't believe all the stuff other Christians do. I guess what interests me is the entire fuzziness of the debate. "Christian" means to follow Christ. That's it. There are Christians that believe all sorts of things, from Zen Christianity to Agnostic Christianity to Charismatic Christianity. Heck, for all I know you can be an atheist and a Christian. After all, many of the first Christians were put to death for being atheists. Yet we lump all those hundreds of millions of variations all into some cartoon conglomerate and then poke sticks at it. Talk about straw man arguments. Why the oversimplification?
oz 18y ago
"Interestingly, while I was a Christian, I came to the conclusion that some genuine, sincere Christians were genuinely and sincerely delusional." I think I should clarify this. By delusional, I don't mean in a mentally ill sort of way; rather they dogmatically believed things that simply had no Scriptural support. Any attempt to show them otherwise would be met with an accusation of 'trusting in your own intellect', rather than 'being led by the Spirit.'

jacoblyles 18y ago

I don't disagree with the author, but I do think he underestimates the beneficial effects of the drug to its users in that he fails to mention the often large social benefits that one can obtain by belonging to a church, especially in a world where contact with one's local community seems like it is becoming less common. The IRL social network that religion provides, in addition to its palliative effects, comprise the major sources of utility from religious belief. And I think it does a good job of explaining the uphill battle that evangelical atheists have. In order to convert someone, you have to convince them that being correct on a technical metaphysical issue is worth the real costs that they will bear for abandoning their religion. It's not the most appealing sales proposition. Religion has been around for as long as humans have. I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. And despite the fact that I think it's wrong, I have serious doubts that the world would be a better place without it. This is also the crux of the disagreement that I have with the self-proclaimed rationalists (see the blog Less Wrong for examples). Rationalists believe that what is true is also always beneficial, but I am not convinced that this is necessarily so. I find it easy to imagine a world where believing some false propositions was beneficial, and I suspect we may even live in such a world.

10ren 18y ago

There's a wonderful theory that sees Buddhism, Christianity and Islam as responses to changes in society brought about by new technology (IIRC)

bayareaguy 18y ago
I'd love to know more about it if you could provide a reference. I'm especially curious about how applicable it is to other religions.
- 10ren 18y ago
  Thanks, I've been trying to recall the source, but all I remember is he didn't support his hypothesis very well. I'll post if I find it.

rkts 18y ago

My theory: Everyone has two brains, a "people" brain and a "stuff" brain. Most people use them roughly equally, but some use one more than the other. When we were kids, my sister and I used to argue because she thought that her stuffed animals had feelings, and that birds had conversations about specific things. She was always attributing human emotions to things that didn't have them. Even now, she does it with her cat: if the cat trips and falls and walks away with its head down, my sister will say, "Aww, she's embarrassed!" -- even though cats don't understand embarrassment and the cat is probably just tired. Unsurprisingly, my sister is religious and I'm not. Religion is what happens when people misapply their people brain to thinking about stuff. They get a vague sense that the world is alive, and then explain it in whatever concrete terms their culture provides (God, in our case). Nerdiness is what happens when people misapply their stuff brain to thinking about people. Nerds misinterpret other people because they fail to attribute emotions to them. However, unlike religious people, nerds usually realize at some point that they have a problem and can try to change. Except in extreme cases, religious people suffer no consequences for being wrong, so they have no reason to change. Since women tend to be more interested in people and men more interested in stuff, this also explains why women are more often religious, and men are more often nerds.

known 18y ago

God != Religion