Why do you think religion exists?

I think you’re right. At one point we needed to be able to explain everything but couldn’t and so it began. And that’s it.

Some people actually believe that’s the truth with no ulterior motive whatsoever.

Religion was early science. How does the sun rise each day? Apollo drives his chariot. Why did the storm come and flood my land? Inanna was mad at me. That sort of thing – it was the best they could come up with at the time because that’s all they had.

We know now about stars and orbits and thunderclouds, but there’s still that mystery of what put it all there. As we learn more and more, the role “God” plays gets pushed back further until now people think He started the Big Bang. OTOH, I think we’ll learn the reason for that, too, someday.

Then, there’s tradition. “My parents and grandparents believed, and I learned to believe when I was a kid, and I’ll teach my kids, too.” And the feeling people get that God talks to them, tells them to do this or that. The feeling that there’s a discernable purpose to this life, beyond being an accident of oxygen and hydrogen and carbon, must be pretty powerful, too. Also guilty consciences, personal responsibility (or the lack thereof), the need to feel not so alone, the validation for ones’ beliefs that come with other people signing on to them too, and the ability to tell others what to do and feel holy about it also help, I bet.

But mostly, I think it evolved beyond early “science” because, true or not, it keeps a society together, sometimes in the face of great adversity. It’s a social thing, a set of rituals that explain the world. A shared identity. A reason to party. The “us” part of “us vs them.” I think that’s it.

Edit: I forgot about this! Religious inclination is probably hardwired into some folks’ brains.

So people can justify death, birth and everything that happens in life. It helps people keep their fear at bay if someone tells them how to behave and they will be rewarded.

Well, I promised my self I would not discuss religion on this site, as when you do discuss religion it normally spirals and escalates until that is all that is talked about. But I feel I can give a good and informative answer to this, so here goes…

I will start off with personal opinion, I personally think that for the most part it’s genetic. You are either born with a full religious inclination, a partial one, or none at all. This predisposition then comes in to contact with learned behaviors and thus leading to different beliefs or lack thereof. A person with a partial religious inclination that never comes in contact with religion would probably turn out to be an agnostic, while the same level of inclination in someone who does come in to contact with religion could lead to deism or moderate theology. Someone with a heavy predisposition will probably seek out this kind of information, leading to full blown fundamentalist theology or possibly a cult mentality.

On top of this, I think we have many other contributing factors to take in to consideration. For example the human need to know and have absolute certainty. For the most part humans have a very hard time admitting that they do not know something, or that they are wrong, or that they have been caught out in a lie or deception.

The fear of death could be another contributing factor, as well as the sun and tribal superstitions. For other people it is the desire to acquire knowledge, and while some would argue that theism is not actually a form of knowledge rather an act of faith, they perceive their scripture studies as beneficial to their knowledge.

For some people it may be that they where born in to a religious family and simply have never had a reason to question their faith, rather like the atheist who has never come in contact with religion and thus never actually questioned their disbelief.

To some people it is simply self evident that there is a god, how could evolution lead to something as complex as a human spine, how could gravity just happen to make spherical planets and orbits and everything else that we see. They see reality as if there is an objective self evident design that could only come from and intelligent source, while others say that it is self evident that there is no god because there is obviously no design of any kind, that same spine that was proof of a design for one person is seen as a vulnerable thin piece of bone and nerve endings that could brake and leave you crippled for life. How could anything that unreliable have any kind of design.

Some people will say that god is a logical paradox, that there simply can not be a god that is both omnipotent and omniscient, others will say that nothing can come from nothing and the only way for all of this is if there where a god. Some say that a building is proof of a builder, and that a painting is proof that there was a painter, while others will say that a wild flower is not proof of a gardener.

For some people it is a moral issue, killing must be wrong because it is wrong in the eyes of god, if there where no god there would be no ultimate authority on what is good and bad. Other people would respond that even if there is a god, morality would still be that gods subjective opinion, and that might does not make right.

If you look in to some religions, you will see that ancient cultures used to believe in god because they could see that god every single day with their own two eyes. They used to look at the sun and believe that it is a god, their lack of understanding leading them to conclude that there must be a god because they could see it.

Some people claim to have scientific proof that their religion is the true one. Some fundamentalist Christians will claim that the bible has information in it that humans could not have possessed 2000 years ago. Such as that the earth is hung on nothing. While another more moderate christian will claim that is simply referring to the rotation of the stars at night that gives the effect of there being a central point. While Muslims will claim that their religion must be true for the same reasons, that it has information that could not have been possessed so long ago, such as that meteorites have iron in them. Some will point to passages in the Qur’an that say that god tore the heavens asunder and claim that it is talking about the big bang.

As for what studies show, religion is mostly thought to be a learned behavior. Something that is inherited and passed down from one generation to the next. The evidence to support this claim is normally given in the form of an observation, that most countries and nationalities tend to have their own different beliefs.

I think the main thing to remember here is this… religious people are just as baffled by atheists as atheists are baffled by religious people. Both sides are self evidently wrong to the other side to such a degree that atheists claim religious people secretly know its all nonsense while religious people claim atheists secretly believe in a god. The level of misunderstanding is so high, and the consequences to this kind of debate so great, that we should all remember this and try to do our best to get along until some solid evidence of some kind is given one way or another.

Religion comes from the same place that science comes from. It’s a consequence of an evolutionary adaptation—the one that drives us to seek the knowledge. We evolved to have an incredible desire to be able to understand and explain things. It almost hurts us if we can’t understand something. We need a mechanism that keeps us pushing to understand, yet doesn’t leave us disabled when we don’t understand.

God does that. God is an explanation that isn’t an explanation. It makes us (or some of us) feel like we understand something even though it’s not an explanation we can make much use of. Yet it serves to explain when nothing else will.

For God to work as a palliative, He has to be something credible. He gains credibility from the number of people who believe. They can’t all be wrong, can they? He also gains credibility by having a character—a human character. If He were alien, it would be hard to identify with Him.

Religion exists for many other reasons, as well. Religion doesn’t have to have a god. Religion is a way of creating an identity for a community. It is how we create a shared sense of who we are. Religion is not so different from government, either. In fact, up until only a few centuries ago, there was no difference between religion and government.

Everything we think of as being done by government in a nation where church has been separated from state was the jurisdiction of the religion before the separation. Religion ran the schools and the charities. It sanctioned the growing of the crops and the building of the roads and the ventures of the military.

Even today, religion does much the same. They create a sense of community. They provide the only rituals that most people will ever know. They run schools. They sponsor art and music and dance. They sponsor scientific investigations. They sponsor studies into origins and meanings. They provide human technology that helps folks feel a sense of meaning. They sponsor hospitals and health improvement. They give folks access to spiritual life.

All of these things are important, and if it weren’t for the emphasis on the answer that isn’t an answer, I’d probably be a part of one. However, I get my community and spiritual needs met in other ways.

@poisonedantidote
Wow, That was possibly the best response i’ve seen on this website. I posted this question expecting to not get a satisfying answer as to why people believe in God, and now I feel like an idiot. You actually changed my views on the whole matter, thanks.

Wish there was more lurve to give.

@jackm glad i could help. i knew those late nights of debate would come in handy for something eventually :P

Two major reasons – to explain the unexplainable and to control people. Religion has succeeded at both even though it can seem quite absurd to me looking at religion and religious people from afar.

For those that seek religion later in life – loneliness/fellowship and forgiveness (reminds me of the prison statement someone else made in a religion-related question I asked a while back).

the above answers are excellent
I agree with everyone

Religion exist to explain things. It is just a bunch of BS.

I think it is a human response to a passion for causal explanations, a lust to exert control over the forces that affect us, and a capacity for awe and wonder.

I think the reasons why it arose are different from the reasons why it has persisted.

Religion exists because people see God in different ways. They do, however, see something that they believe in.

I question whether 99% of the believers would have anything resembling religion at all if it hadn’t been deliberately taught to them.

I would ask the believer: If “God” wouldn’t speak to you unless you’d been raised in some particular set of beliefs and practices, how do you separate reality from indoctrination? Do you think you’d have come to it all on your own, this “truth”? Would “God” find you out there away from any group or set of teachings and whisper to you the very same things that your spiritual tutors told you when you were enchurched? I don’t think so.

But I do think very many people would have evolved some sort of personal rituals resembling prayer and worship and would sense, even if not express, a notion of something greater than human in the world. I think it is in us to do those things and also to give a name of wonder to our imaginings and begin to ascribe a separate existence to them. Little kids do this right under our noses. The mistake comes when we forget that this notion has no reality apart from us.

And then the real misery follows when we begin to endorse the idea of a priesthood, of a person or group who knows more about this creation than others and possesses greater ability to influence it and greater authority to speak and act in its name. Having a little knowledge of healing herbs and weather patterns is all it takes to build a foundation for this profound error. I think some of the greatest and deepest human sorrows have flowed from this one misguided notion.

And I think learning to tolerate uncertainty would be a cure for a lot of things.

This pretty much covers it.

I think it is a narrow-minded interpretation.
Us being limited in our understanding of what a higher authority really is/means.

@Jeruba: here’s my theory about the “reality” of spiritual experiences.

If thinking has a reality apart from us (and it too, has a questionable existence if we can only rely on personal testimony as “proof” of it’s existence), then spirituality has as much reality as thinking does. I think that feelings and knowledge that are usually attributed to a “spiritual” source are real feelings and real “knowledge.” However the problem is that this knowledge is created in a way that is very opaque to us.

If we experience spirituality in the same way we experience thinking, it would not seem so magical. But the thinking that results in spirituality happens in a different place in our brains. This place has no language, and can’t manipulate symbols. It can only deal with complete (unitary) experience. It can’t break experience up into parts or sequences.

Thus, when the results of the “thinking” of this part of the brain appear, they appear like magic, as if from nowhere. They also are a different kind of thought experience, because the results appear holistically, bringing along that feeling of “oneness.” The thoughts appear whole and complete, without any sense of putting them together, and thus they are interpreted as spiritual experience, or even as a revelation from some external source.

Prayer and meditation serve to quiet the talking mind enough that one can let these whole thoughts be transferred from the non-symbol-manipulating mind to the talking mind. There are other ways of achieving this state, too, such as music and dance and other artistic endeavors.

Most religions provide a context and an interpretation of this kind of thinking. They also are skilled at creating spaces where folks can access their “spirituality.” I call this “spiritual technology.” The problem for me is that religions generally have one theory of where spirituality comes from, and I have this theory.

May I trot out Old Faithful? (Those of you who know me may tune out, you will be bored.)

We are terrified by existential angst. think we evolved to believe in something supernatural because depression and terror in the face of the truth are maladaptive.

Evidence: one small piece of evidence is that religious epiphany can be triggered by temporal lobe electrostimulus.

@Jeruba That’s quite a common misconception about believers. There are believers of all backgrounds, all races, all… everything. They are diverse. They aren’t all linked by temporal lobe electrostimulus or some genetic predisposition… They aren’t all subject to whims or super gullible. They come from all walks of life. Generalizing anything else is simply not accurate.

@NaturalMineralWater – People from different walks of life, even from far-flung corners of the globe, have essentially 99.9% of the same DNA. (Chimps have something like 98% of the same DNA as people.) There are some differences in people from different regions (like skin color, commonality of blood type and the like), but there’s no reason to think that we’re different in our basic structural makeup.

@laureth Umm… no idea why you’re bringing that up. My only point was that people from all over the world from different walks of life believe in something.. have a “religion”. Jeruba seemed to imply that there was some reason for that.. such as upbringing. My simple point is that there are believers from all over regardless of upbringing. I have no idea what your point is about DNA.

What’s the misconception, @NaturalMineralWater? The questions I said I would like to ask? I don’t see a generalization about believers in anything I said. Mind telling me what you’re referring to?

I am finding it hard to believe that you think I don’t know believers are diverse. No one in his right mind thinks religionists are all in agreement with one another.

I do not believe that God was invented. However, when it comes to ‘religion’, I concur that most are hatched by the minds of men.

If you read the Bible, you will see that Jesus’ main adversaries were religious leaders.
I don’t call myself, “religious”, but I am a Christian.

If Christianity is an invention to control the masses, to feel connected, to explain things, etc…Who sat down and said, “I think we need a religion, I will write a book”? The Bible was written over the course of 1500 years; with over 40 writers who were diverse in their station, occupation, and location in life, and yet, the Bible is consistent. Has anyone proven the Bible to be false?

There are many reasons. For one, religions do have a generally positive influence on human well-being and longevity. A deeper reason is the wish to attain knowledge also from sources other than science. People are interested in the ultimate question: Why?

Religions are not the only source of knowledge and wisdom. There are a great many other philosophies to complement our scientific knowledge.

I just can’t get over the presumptuous and haughty nature of some religious folks and religion in general. “This is the way it is. Everyone else can and will go to hell.”

Guess what, most religions copy each other – same parables, same fables.

I know I’m coming off a little harsh and jaded but of all the research I’m doing, I’m not finding much positive.

@Jeruba Forgive me if this statement: “I question whether 99% of the believers would have anything resembling religion at all if it hadn’t been deliberately taught to them.” made me wonder.

@NaturalMineralWater my point is this: I think they can all be connected by “genetic predisposition,” namely, my God Module link up there.

To explain what isn’t known and to control the masses.

the religions of the world exist because of the human tendency to share seemingly-beneficial information.

poisonedantidote I like the way you put it.

Actually theirs no way I can answer that totally 100% but I see a slow transition happening so eventually we (the human race) will all be atheist eventually but first people have to be more educated and have a better understaning of the world.

I will have to say everyone else pretty much said what I would have said.

More education and a better understanding of the world can lead to believing in God and it can lead to not believing in God. I see a slow transition happening so eventually we (the human race) will neither fall prey to atheist fundamentalists with all their arrogance and counterproductive polemics and religious fundamentalists with all their arrogance and counterproductive polemics. No one can claim an absolute monopoly of truth. People will apply critical thinking and be in a position make their own educated choices.

Who said, “A little learning inclineth a man toward atheism; a great learning inclineth a man toward his Creator.”?

@pdworkin – Are you referring to Sir Francis Bacon? Actually, I would change the quote to

“A little learning inclineth a man toward monopolies of truth; a great learning inclineth a man toward coexisting philosophical schools of thought.”

It’s my observation that many young people who start out as hot-blooded explicit atheists claiming that the non-existence of God is a fact, later turn into more educated and open-minded atheists believing that God doesn’t exist.

I’m getting into trade jargon here, so hang on to your hats.

Religion exists because people are unaware of the truth. Betcha never saw that coming! :P

Some people either don’t know or don’t believe that they really can have relationship with God. Salvation is a very, very simple matter: “Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and you will be saved.” Once saved, one can begin building a relationship with God that is similar in nature to that of Adam and Eve, pre-Fall. Some – Catholics come to mind – think that it’s too simple, and thus are inclined to make addenda.

Well, that’s only true sometimes. Other times it involves getting circumcised, or sacrificing a certain color rooster. There are hundreds and thousands of truths on this subject.