Me: Not religious

I'd like to say I'm an atheist, but so many people have hijacked that moniker that atheism itself has become a religion, and I'm not religious in any way. Even so, I frequently ask myself why people believe in God. I've never found a good answer, but here are the most prevalent ideas and my explanation of them based on a lot of time talking to people on this very subject. So - why do you believe in God?

Why Believe in God?


  1. You can't explain the existence or origin of something, so you believe God must have done it.
    This is one of the most common explanations. But once upon a time, we didn't know the cause of a lot of things. Today, the last few remaining questions seem to be "how did the universe come to be" and "what is the origin of life?". This is the "God of the Gaps" mentality, which in its short form is thus:
    "We don't know how this can be, yet it is, so God must have done it"
    Which inevitably leads to:
    "....which proves God exists".
    That's like saying that because your grass was greener this year at the same time that petrol prices were high, the demand for oil is the reason you have a green lawn. Most religious people can't see this though. So much like ancient people believed that Zeus or Thor created lightning (and were wrong) it's quite likely that those last two questions also have a natural explanation, yet you still make the same mistakes that our ancestors did: coming up with supernatural explanations instead of simply admitting that we don't yet know. The worst of these explanations is for things which are very simply explainable through rational reasoning, science and common sense. For example the fossil record. We can prove its age beyond doubt, yet religious people would have us believe that fossils were placed there by God to test us. Oh please.

  2. The universe seems too complex, too ordered, too beautiful, to have appeared naturally.
    This is a variation of (1). Things seem much too interconnected to have appeared randomly, and we have everything we need in this world to survive; it almost seems like the universe was made for us. A universe with billions of stars, and we're on this infinitesimal planet in a remote backwater of one spiral arm? Why aren't we everywhere?

  3. You've been educated that way.
    We shouldn't accept "knowledge" on authority. Mormons are particularly bad at this, accepting revelation over scripture (ie. someone in authority made something up, and that supercedes something written down). Parents and teachers can lie (Santa Claus, the tooth fairy) or simply be wrong (the Earth being in the center of the universe). It's always a bad idea to lose the ablity to question. Besides, as Richard Dawkins says, most people have the religion of their parents, which makes one's religion a matter of chance - if you'd been born in Saudi Arabia, you'd be a muslim; in India, you'd be a hindu, and so on. If you accept your parents' religion, it was effectively randomly selected, so why be so sure it's the "real" one?

  4. You feel that your faith in something greater than yourself gives your life purpose and meaning.
    This is a very common one. Life seems so random, so ephemeral, and so pointless.... surely, there's got to be something more to it, right? This is no more than wishful thinking and again is similar to (1) - you want it to be true, therefore it must be true. Besides, life - wordly life, in our reality - is much more fascinating and meaningful than religous people believe.

  5. You've "felt" the presence / touch of God.
    Another common one. Feelings or sensations, as we know, are subjective. Quite often, we feel what we expect to feel, or what we want to feel - it's either a placebo effect, or wishful thinking (again). Besides, if the only thing God does is to make you feel "warm inside" from time to time (if you believe in him for just this reason, that's what you're implying), then does such a God deserve worship? You've reduced Him to a spiritual foot warmer.

  6. It's comforting to believe that someone is taking care of you.
    It is indeed, but if the reason for such comfort doesn't exist, it can actually be dangerous. It's like convincing yourself that you have superhuman powers, or that your (perfectly common) shirt is bullet-proof. If you behave according to those beliefs, you'll probably injure yourself, or even die. Look at the similarities between that and people high on LSD who believe they can fly and end up jumping off bridges with the expected result. But if you don't behave according to those beliefs, then you don't really believe, right? Anyway, this is - once again - wishful thinking. Believing (whether it's true or not) feels good, so you believe.

  7. You're afraid of death, and want to believe that it's not the end, that you simply go to a better place.
    Wishful thinking, once again. Beginning to see a pattern now? What atheists call wishful thinking is what religious people call faith.
    In reality, things don't become true just because we want them to be true. Alternatively, it may not be about you: sometimes, the death of a loved one causes you to need to believe that the essential part of them isn't really dead, it's just gone to a better place, where there is no more suffering, and where you'll meet them someday.

  8. You feel that finite life in this world is meaningless unless there's something afterwards.
    In other words, if, no matter what you do, you die and turn to dust, what difference does it make whatever you do in your life? So you have to believe that there's something more. However, not only is this wishful thinking (again), but it's a limiting view of life. If you believe that the purpose of life is something "exterior", then this view makes sense; however, if you instead believe that the purpose of life is life itself - that is, that life needs no external justification, and is worth it on its own - not to mention that it can be utterly enjoyable without religion, and that you actually can make a difference while you're here, then you can easily see what's wrong with this view of existence.

  9. You want to believe that there's some kind of absolute, perfect justice in the universe, even if only after death.
    I'd like that, too. We see monsters living in luxury their entire lives, and never paying for their crimes. We see terrible things happen unfairly to good people - sometimes randomly. We see bankers making off with our hard earned money, we see politicians lying day after day. I wish they would all get what they deserve. It would be so.... comforting to believe so. Unfortunately, again, wishing doesn't make it so. The best thing we can do is try to make things better here, not resign ourselves and hope for some kind of "justice" later.

  10. You've had some unusual experience that made you believe.
    God of the gaps again. Not necessarily a miracle (that's the next one), but an "amazing coincidence". Say, you prayed for something that was quite improbable, and it happened. This is referred to as "counting the hits and ignoring the misses".

  11. You've witnessed an apparent miracle. Now, this should be it, right? I mean, if you witness an actual miracle, it means, at least, that the supernatural exists - not necessarily God (or Gods), but at the very least there's something out there, right? So, what are those miracles? Broadly speaking, they tend to fall into one of the following descriptions:

    • A disease goes into remission, or actually vanishes, even though doctors were pessimistic;

    • Someone "speaks in tongues", or acting as if they were possessed;

    • Something, by random chance, looks like a religious entity (such as Jesus or the Virgin Mary in tree bark, or in a slice of pizza);

    • Statues or pictures of religious entities, usually in a church, appear to "cry" or "bleed";
    And that's it. All but the first are so absurd that they don't deserve consideration (if all that God does is appear on slices of pizza, then that's not a god I'd want to worship anyway....). Remember (1)? Doctors are human and humans can make mistakes. There's still much about the human body and diseases that we don't know. Look at stem cells. Still, if it was actually God doing it, and since God has no limits, then why doesn't he heal amputees? Are those "beyond" God? I can only assume he must hate them for some reason.
    In addition, religious people misuse the word 'miracle' so badly that it is insulting in most cases. "My kitten was saved from the burning building. It's a miracle!". No - it was a trained fireman doing his job, but by dismissing it as a miracle, you have effectively dismissed the fireman and his contribution to your wellbeing. "When the building fell down, it was a miracle nobody was hurt!" Nope. Random chance and entropy. Again, wishing and believing that some external force was at play does not make it so.

  12. You're desperate for a miracle.
    Similar to (11), but in this case the "miracle" hasn't happened yet. But you're desperate, and ready to try anything, including becoming religious - or, possibly, changing religions.

  13. You see your death getting closer and closer.
    You don't really want your existence to end. If something - anything - promises that it won't, that there is an afterlife, you'll grab on to it no ridiculous how it sounds.

  14. The example of another believer or believers inspired you.
    I'd say that this is actually more common in less religious societies like Europe, than in more fundamentalist ones like the US or Muslim countries. I've seen it happen myself. Some of the best people I knew at University were devout believers (though not fundamentalists), and they radiated happiness and love wherever they went. It's quite natural for others to be inspired by them. But I'd would not say that they were good people because of religion. I'd say they were just good people.

  15. Other believers were there for you when you needed it.
    Similar to (14), and again, I know cases like that. Say, you were going through a bad phase, your close family rejected you for some reason, you didn't have any real friends, and the only people who really cared and tried to help were members of a church. It's understandable that you may start to believe, too. Still, I maintain that you don't need God or religion to be a good, caring human being.

  16. You like the sense of community that comes from belonging to a church.
    In this particular case, curiously, you don't even need God; it's the group itself, and its activities, that makes you feel like a part of something. Were you in the scouts? A bowling club? A group of people who enjoy common activities? Doesn't sound very religious does it?

  17. Being told what to do and what to think comforts you.
    This is sad, but very, very true. A lot of people don't want the burden and the responsibility of having to think and decide for themselves, and anyone or anything who relieves them of that burden and responsability will have their hearts and minds. This doesn't happen only with religion, of course. Many people join groups - religious or otherwise - just so they can be told what to do and think. The Mormon church is particularly bad in this respect. Tell a Mormon that, to the outside world, it looks like their leaders tell them something and they blindly follow along with it, and they'll deny it. However if you dig deeper, this is pretty much the argument you'll get:
    The leader says something, so the believer decides to pray to see if God will confirm the leader's wishes. They will get confirmation in the form of wellbeing (rather than the voice of God) and thus will go along with the leader's wishes. Ask them when their leaders ever suggested something that they disagreed with, and the answer will be 'never'. So - to the external observer, the church orders, and the mormons obey without question. Interstingly, the FBI recruit a lot of Mormons because of their desire to follow orders....

  18. While reading the Bible, something made you believe.
    I almost didn't include this one, as I'm convinced that reading the Bible, critically and dispassionately, and in its entirety, will unconvert at least ten people for each one it converts. A colleague of mine dropped his mormon religion because, as he put it, "I re-read the book of Mormon and decided it was total bollocks". Almost everyone who reads the Bible already believes; I've never heard of someone believing just because they read the Bible. Even most Christians are forced to ignore most of it, whilst most other religions cherry-pick the passages that seem right to them.



Religion is full of holes

As an atheist, it's almost required of me to understand religion in order to try to understand what people see in it. Problem is, most religion is so full of holes that it doesn't stand up to even the loosest scrutiny. So here's a few topics for discussion if you're into the whole Zombie Jesus thing:

  1. Homosexuality
    In the 39 books of the old Testament, the subject of homosexuality only comes up twice, and when read in context (as oppose to being snipped out), they actually refer to inhospitality (Genesis) and direction to not practice pagan rituals (Leviticus). Neither the new testament nor Jesus ever mention homosexuality. Jesus does mention Sodom and Gomorrah, using them as examples of inhospitality to strangers (again) but does not mention "sodomy." In fact only six or seven of the Bible's one million verses refer to same-sex behavior in any way -- and none of these verses refer to homosexual orientation as it's understood today. The assumption that the Bible condemns homosexuality is passed down from generation to generation with very little personal study or research.

  2. The cornerstone of Christianity - Jesus' Birth
    The date of Jesus birth was established in 349AD when Pope Julius arbitrarily moved it to match a pagan holiday. The best guess from analysing the clues in the New Testament is that He was actually born in the last week of June or the first week of July in 2BC. How can you believe in a religion whose cornerstone event is itself a provable work of fiction?

  3. The Ten commandments
    • Of the Ten Commandments, only two were actually laws - don't steal and don't kill. Murder is against the law in every country in the world, as is theft - do you think we wouldn't have come to that conclusion without religion?
    • The Ten Commandments don't include things like torture or child abuse - things that are pretty bad and probably ought to have been included. Is there anything else from the Bronze age that we still believe in so fervently? The world is flat? The stars are celestial beings?

  4. The number of things that are in Christianity but that are not in the bible
    The following concepts were made up by mere mortals:
    • The concept of "Original sin" (or "Ancestral Sin") is not found nor mentioned in the Bible.
    • The immaculate conception is not taught in the bible. It's never mentioned. In fact in scripture, the term "Virgin Mary" is never used.
    • The virgin birth is only in two of the gospels (Matthew and Luke). It's missing from the rest, which is a pretty big omission. In the two where it's mentioned, it's talked around rather than mentioned directly. ie. they give suggestions as to how Jesus might have fulfilled Isiah's prophecy. But nowhere is it stated as fact.
    • Popes and papacy are not mentioned in the Bible but were invented by the Roman Catholic Church.

  5. The afterlife
    If you absolutely know for sure you will go to a better place, why not commit suicide? The Bible records seven suicides. It talks about God's plan being for life, not death, but doesn't specifically speak out against it. Neither does Jesus.

  6. Plain logic
    As a reasonable, modern human adult, you don't believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny but you believe in a talking snake, and that a man could live inside a whale (sorry, a big fish) for three days?

  7. Religion is not science
    Religion is not science for one very important reason: To be classified as "science" a process MUST follow the scientific method. Said method REQUIRES that a hypothesis be formulated and then *tested*. The results of the test are observed, analyzed, and used to refine the hyposthesis. After multiple revisions, when the hypothesis is well understood, and has had the testing results replicated by peers, a theory is accepted. The existence of a god is, to date, UNTESTABLE and therefore UNPROVABLE. (This goes for proving existence or non-existence equally.) But because there is no "existence of god" test, religion is not subject to the scientific method and is categorically not science. Besides that, the Scriptures (which present themselves as science) were written between 2000BC and 200AD. But science started around 1600AD with Galileo - the first person to reject philosophy and actually test theories through experiment as outlined above. There's a huge gap between the two.

  8. Excess
    Does the Vatican city, a huge palace, look like anything Jesus would have promoted?

  9. The story of Christ
    The story of Christ is not original - it's a copy. In 1280BC the Egyptian God Horus was born to a virgin, on December 25th, suffered temptation in the desert and was resurrected on the third day. 1000 years before Christ, Krishna was a carpenter born of a virgin in India, baptised in a river. 600 years before Christ, the Persian God Mithra was actually born on December 25th, performed miracles, was resurrected on the third day and was known as the Lamb, the Way, the Truth, the Light, the Saviour and the Messiah.

  10. Mormonism in particular (because I live in Utah)
    • Joseph Smith transcribed, translated and dictated the tablets using seer stones (which later became a single seer stone) by reading them in the bottom of his hat. That just sounds silly on it's own, but the transcribing and translation of texts that only he was allowed to look at, to a reasonable person, sounds like he just made this stuff up.
    • In Mormonism, dark skin is a curse from God. Does this make the Book of Mormon is racist? With statements referring to the mark of blackness placed on the Lamanites so the Nephites "might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction". It's essentially saying that black people are wrong and that they will lead to nothing but destruction. If Christ is about not judging people, that whole section of the Book Of Mormon is counter to the leadings of Christ. You're judging black people.
      So the Lamanites are labelled as wicked, but they actually became more righteous than the Nephites as time passed (Helaman chapter 6), implying they became light-skinned? Can I take from this that if you're sufficiently righteous, your skin colour changes?
    • Joseph Smith said Jesus told him all those who's creed were not like him were an "abomination". Also not a very Christian message.
    • Mormons originally believed that God was a flesh-and-bone man who lives on a planet or star called Kolob, but Kolob is rarely discussed in modern Mormon religious contexts except for occasional mention in Mormon apologetics. So it's used as a cornerstone to defend Mormonism against its critics (ie. me), but isn't actually used inside Mormonism itself any more?
    • Mormons baptise the dead. I know this, but I didn't know they'd baptised some really nasty individuals: Hitler, Stalin, Ho Chi-Minh, Genghis Khan. They've also baptised Buddha, and oddly "Mrs Buddha". How can you speak out against evil but then support a religion that posthumously baptised Hitler?
    • Mormons believe the Garden of Eden was in Independence, Missouri, but Genesis puts it in relation to four rivers (Tigris, Euphrates, Gihon and Pishon). Why did the Book of Mormon move it?
    • Why is the LDS so afraid of gay people, especially given question 1 at the top?

  11. Hearing voices
    If you define mental illness as anyone who hears a voice talking to them in their head, then isn't anyone who has heard the voice of God, crazy?

  12. Being all-powerful
    • If Jesus is all powerful, why does he not just destroy Satan now? Why wait?
    • If God is all powerful, and he had a message, he could just talk to everyone. Why does he always pick a prophet and ask us to take THEIR message on faith?

  13. Religion is dangerous
    Religion is dangerous because it allow human beings who don't have all the answers to believe that they do. This is the cause of most wars.