Some people just have a need for religion.

[Tobin S.]

I don't know why, but I suppose I can speculate.

I was over in the religion forum reading, and the whole forum just strikes me as pointless. You'll probably never see me post there. It can be rather entertaining to read, though- all the intellectual wrangling that goes on.

I have no need for religion and probably would rarely think about it if it weren't for my relatives talking about what goes on in their church. Even that is more about church politics and personalities (gossip) and not the actual religion and faith. Nobody I know seriously discusses and debates religion, atheism, and agnosticism. Even religious people usually don't seem to think too deeply about religion for the most part. If they do, they don't talk about it.

Sometimes, even non-believers have a need for religion. Maybe there is some kind of hard-wired desire or drive for ritual and ceremony in 90% of the population. I watched a documentary on the Church of Satan where the adherents to the church basically have the same stance that I do saying that there is no evidence for deities as actual entities. They are symbolic of forces of nature and human nature, Satan being symbolic and an acknowledgement of humans' animal nature by their definition. But there they were with their Satanic Bible, church hierarchy, and religious rituals that make most Christian priests look like amateurs by comparison. They really live that philosophy unlike many believers.

I think religion will always be with us, and non-believers will always be in a small minority in most areas of the world. Most people do not know their true nature and never will- an irony where possibly a small part of our nature hides the larger truth about ourselves in most peoples' minds. Our species will go extinct before the majority of us, or maybe even more than 10% of us, stop believing in gods.

[libodem]

1. To question is the first step to apostasy

If one isn't exposed to a non believer, as a kid, I think some folks never question what they have been taught. I would hate to be born into a cult. What a lot of pressure to conform or be cast out. I can't believe how we are currently caught up in religious world and national politics.

[AlbertCat]

2. Fear

Most people don't want to die. So they will spend all kinds of energies making stories where you don't actually die, but do something else....go somewhere else, come back...anything but actually die. It also makes it easier to put yourself in harms way to defend such loyalties.

That, and fear of being ostracized by the group, being alone, keep these ancient superstitions going. Children really get pummeled with that.

And of course it does take huge amounts of energy and resources to keep these ancient Stone Age superstitions and guesses alive and somehow relevant thru the centuries. I think that's why people get so upset when confronted with a content atheist over whom religion has no authority. They've wasted so much time and energy on something their deep down self tells them is really bunk....gotta suppress that! Don't make it harder on them!

[Tobin S.]

11. I've thought that, too- the fear of death. It certainly plays a role.

Even though I don't think there is an afterlife, there is still a part of me that badly wants there to be one. The desire to continue living is our most strong and basic desire.

[defacto7]

3. I agree with you.

AlbertCat mentioned fear and I agree with that as well. I think fear of the unknown that has been filled by a substitute for reality and has been with them for a lifetime or from an epiphany experience is the reason for the resilience of religion. Having an answer to all the unknowns is a crutch that makes filling the sometimes less romantic and sometimes ugly realities hard to take... and fearful.... and world shattering.

It takes a person who is really devoted to knowledge and is acutely interested in finding reality who is also uninterested in being right or unscathed by change to give up religion if they have been born into it.

To be atheist from birth unburdened with myth as reality is the most natural state of being human. In the present age, that person will find their answers in the beauty of science and will be free from the fear and judgment that only religion seems to have perfected.

I think that as long as humans exist there will be religion... but I say that cynically because I am of those who see the end of humanity on the horizon dictated by the laws of thermodynamics. Humpty will not be whole again I'm afraid, and the time it takes to wake the world from it's philosophical nightmare is not reachable. So in that sense, religion will always be with us. Had this been a better evolution of the mind of mankind, we could have been so much more.

[Tobin S.]

12. I'm more optimistic than you, but I do think there is a great deal of uncertainty for the future.

You're speaking of global warming and climate change, right? I still think we might have time to turn things around, but there will probably be some long years of weeping an gnashing of teeth (to use a religious catch phrase). The main source of the new-found pain will be in industrialized nations when they have to drastically change the sources and levels of usage of energy. The changes are already occurring, and our politicians and large corporations are slowly getting us accustomed to the ideas of green technology, alternative energy sources, and conservation. But it's been a slow process so far, and I think there will come a time when we have to speed up the crossover to a society that relies much less, or almost not at all, on fossil fuels for energy. The changes will probably be drastic and very painful, but it will be what we have to do to avoid turning into another Venus.

That's my guess. I've been in college studying business for the last two years and that's what I'm basing it on. Many of the new business texts I've read are speaking at length on the environment and climate change and the need to move away from fossil fuels for energy, and, of course, how that will affect business. Seeing as how business programs at colleges aren't really known for churning out progressive environmentalists, I think it's a telling development.

[defacto7]

16. Yes, you are more optimistic than I am.

And that's great. I sincerely hope your optimistic view trumps my pessimism.

[Warpy]

4. Religion is generally handed to you

(or dinned into your head) when you're a little kid and most people understand it goes into a box that you access when the world has gone completely nuts and you're scared. Otherwise, thinking about it deeply is discouraged because you might start asking a lot of questions and nothing is more deadly to religion than questioning it.

It's why when we question it they don't receive the attention kindly. We're starting to hit something very basic to their safety and security.

I agree that some form of religion will always be with it, but it will have to modify itself away from those warlike, Bronze Age, desert god religions. Either that or they'll go extinct and take us with them.

[Iggo]

5. Yeah, I've noticed.

I still think it's learned behavior, though.

[mr blur]

6. Not much of the "intellectual" goes on over there.

A lot of evasion, apologetics, mutual admiration and wallowing in privilege.

[Tobin S.]

13. Point taken.

[trotsky]

7. I'm going to disagree but in a qualified way.

I don't think most people "need" religion. Basically what Warpy said - they're indoctrinated in it and really don't know how to function without it. Having grown up a believer, I know how hard it was to leave it behind. It was a gradual process, but what led me along the path was reading. This was back in the early days of the Internet, before WWW (!), but there was still a ton online that I downloaded and read. That's why I post - I know there are individuals in the Religion group that have no interest in discussion (despite what they claim), but there's a large group that lurks and reads. Mere exposure to the atheistic viewpoint is something most believers don't get. I know I didn't.

[Tobin S.]

14. I grew up going to church, too.

It was pretty scary to me when I was little. It was one of those charismatic Baptist churches: Lots of crying, anointing, yelling from the pulpit, fainting, and speaking in tongues. When I got to be a teenager, it just all started looking dumb and fake to me. I can't really point to an event or a person that instigated the change in me. This is sort of what leads me to believe that non-believers and believers might have slightly different brains.

There was something in you that initially made you start searching for alternative view on religion, correct? Maybe it was just some observation at one point and you started to question things.

[progressoid]

8. I know people that need the institution.

They don't really believe, but they need the social structure and camaraderie of the church.

On the flip side I also know someone that longs for "the answer" but can't stand the politics and bickering of the church goers so avoids going.

[theHandpuppet]

10. Something I posted 10 years ago

Which I think might be somewhat apropos to your argument. Although I wrote this specifically to address the role the church plays in Appalachian politics, I think some basic points could apply just about anywhere.
Unfortunately, the church they've come to rely on when institutions and governments abandon them is the very thing that now holds them back.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/theHandpuppet/23
Yet from another perspective...
Posted by theHandpuppet in General Discussion: Presidential
Fri Oct 22nd 2004, 04:01 AM

To many folks in the rural mountain communities in WV, the impact of the church on their everyday lives is infinitely greater than that of the federal government. The church is their living community, where members depend on one another to see them through times of sickness and need. When disaster strikes, as it does all too often in the mountains, it is to the neighbor and the congregation these people turn, as one can't wait for the federal government to find you (and how much media coverage did the disastrous flooding this year in WV and eastern KY receive -- good thing it didn't happen in NY, eh, where people were touted by the media as "heroic" for enduring the horrible trial of losing power for a day!).

No, I don't think it's a matter of "not thinking" about how either party's agenda will effect them; the fact is, these are folks who have been largely abandoned by both parties, by their own federal govt. What has stood by them through thick and thin is their church, living and tangible. It is the source of their nourishment, the center of their social life, their one unshakable faith, yet it never asks more of them than they can give. These folks aren't voting Republican or Democratic, for those are mere labels for an abstract, but they are voting for their church. It's by adopting the image, rather than the substance, of the church that the Republicans have made such headway into previously Dem strongholds. "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." -- the book of Matthew

To truly understand what has happened (politically speaking) in places like WV there first has to be an understanding of the role the church has had and still plays in community life and some acknowledgment that these are the folks who will be "left behind" no matter which party takes office. Progressives and social activists can best establish some common ground in places like rural WV by working with rather than competing with the church as a *community* dynamic. I'm not talking about the slick, religious leeches like the Falwells and Robertsons, but the minister who delivers sermons on Sunday and digs coal on a Monday.

As a young Loretta Lynn once said, "I may be ignorant but I ain't stupid." Ask these folks to either abandon their political party or their church and I can tell you right now which one they'll choose. It matters not a whit whether I would personally agree with that decision, but I do understand where they're coming from.

[Arugula Latte]

9. We're seeing religious believers drop into the minority in several European countries ...

so it will be very interesting to see it all play out. I don't necessarily think non-believers really "need" religion, but society tells you constantly that you do.

[Curmudgeoness]

15. I think that as more people confess/admit

that they do not believe in god(s) or religion, there will be more people who have the courage to also "come out of the closet". And as more people come out as atheists, more believers will actually think about their beliefs. Thinking about it in depth is dangerous...for the religions.

I base my opinion on how beliefs have changed over time. We no longer believe that the volcano gods can be pacified by throwing virgins in. We don't believe in Mount Olympus and all the gods sitting around playing chess with humans. Or so many other things that have gone by the wayside.

I have hope that the pull of religion will get weaker....but it won't happen without a fight from those who refuse to give up.