Causes of Religion?
Posted on: April 2, 2008 - 2:51pm
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Causes of Religion?
Which of the following would you think to be the more likely cause of someone being religious?
A. Childhood indoctrination
or
B. General lack of critical thinking skills.
Note I'm talking about true believers, not those who pretend to fit in or please others. I'd say in the vast majority of religious people both are involved.
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a.
It doesn't take superior critical thinking skills to see that there is no evidence of God.
A for sure. Like I say, I'm pretty sure no succesful, happy person just wakes up one morning and out of nowhere decide they need god.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
A. As is definitely the main reason
I remember some movie about the discussion of God where one of the characters wondered, "If we didn't tell our children about God, would they even ask about it?"
I found that to be a consciousness raising question, at least in the sense of our modern technologically advanced society where science has filled in most of the major gaps that GOD, Gods, or the supernatural used to fill in.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda
I really think this is a vast oversimplification. People seek out religion for thousands of different reasons. Believers (even Deists) often talk about a "god-shaped hole" in their lives. This feeling of isolation and purposelessness from time to time is common among most people you'll ever meet, but people rarely talk about it outside a church or a pshrink's office.
Religion offers these people purpose, concrete explanations, community and positive reinforcement. The fact that the answers are illogical, the purpose contrary to reality etc doesn't make any difference. As Hitchens is fond of saying, we will take a bad explanation over NO explanation almost every time.
Being a freethinker is hard work. It's also lonely at times. I'd love to think that I have a special magical friend out there just looking out for me. It's a comforting thought. Only my insistence on evidence prevents me from falling for it.
Religion offers false hope and false comfort. But for a great many people, they'd rather have a false hope than what they perceive as NO hope.
And let's not forget, almost EVERYONE likes feeling a little better than the next guy. Atheists are just as bad about this (in general) as most Fundies. The fundy likes to think that she is special because she's got Jesus and you don't, and you're going to Hell and she's not. The atheist often takes the position of "ha ha you're a fucking idiot and have no critical thinking skills, therefore I'm better than you."
There's a reason you find religion directly related to education levels, income and opportunity. Where religion is strongest, so also will be poverty and ignorance. If you perceive your situation as a veil of tears with no hope of improving it, promise of eternal paradise for doing as the priest tells you beats the shit out of "there is no God, you're on your own."
Sure there's plenty of weak-minded sheep out there. But there is also a lot of desperation. And a drowning man will grab the rope every time.
Being open-minded isn't the same thing as being vacant.
A combination of A and B accounts for a lot of it - as in "Childhood indoctrination into a general lack of critical thinking skills"
In fact I'd even leave the "skills" bit out.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Both and also many people cant handle the truth psychologically. For example, many people cant accept the deaths of others and that one day they will die. They cant deal with not knowing everything and it gives them a way to pretend to know everything (Kent Hovind is a good example of this). People don't like to be wrong, and lots of people will stick with an idea no matter what. Many people have years if not decades invested in there religion (and religious activity's) and cant accept that they have wasted a large amount of their lives.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Its like richard dawkins said, "there is just no good way to tell someone that they have wasted their entire life."
I vote A. And my evidence is in the following map:
http://www.revelationsofthebible.com/Map%20of%20Religions.jpg
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
I'm guessing that's from a christian site by all the biblical names.Must say, I like 'The Beast' over Europe. Oh those crazy theists...
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
Once there was a guy named Fred, he was hairy, stank a bit, and scratched the fleas in his pits for entertainment. In his little circle of friends, Fred was an intellectual.
One evening, while scratching his pits and ruminating on a bit of tough grass, Fred thought about something no one else in his tribe had ever thought before. He grasped the concept of 'the future'. His mind raced through all the possibilities and suddenly, he forgot his fleas and the blade of grass fell from his lips. He saw the future, and knew he wouldn't always be in it.
Fred, like all his hairy and smelly kin had a highly developed instinct for personal survival, one might even say it was an obsession for him. Now Fred was in a quandry, he very much wanted to survive, but he suddenly KNEW he was going to die.
Fred invented on the spot a very human trait, he rationalized the problem to his personal advantage. No, thought Fred, I won't REALLY die, they just won't be able to see me, I'll be like one of those voices we hear in the wind, or in the running water or the crackling fire.
Fred gave the whole matter a lot of thought, his uncle George had been eaten by a big cat not long ago when they were out hunting for wild pigs, so he reasoned that George was still around, just invisible. Fred looked nervously over his shoulder, he hadn't really liked George all that much and maybe George was still ticked off about it, being dead and all, and maybe Fred hadn't stopped to help, as his instinct for survival sort of took over. Maybe George wanted to hurt him.
Fred figured that maybe he could bribe George into not hurting him if he left some of George's favorite food out for him. So sure enough, Fred made a pile of berries and a small chunk of burnt pig and left it outside of his cave.
Fred's little experiment in metaphysics worked like a charm, the food disappeared overnight, and George never tried to hurt him. Fred wasted no time spreading his new idea to his cavemates and soon, everyone was appeasing the spirits of their dead friends and relatives. They took to burying the bodies, and leaving little treasured items with them. This seemed to work, as very few people ever got hurt by dead relations...
In time, old Fred gain a bit of noteriety, being the bright one in the group, he rose to a position of power and prestige amongst his people. When fred finally succumed to mortality, he was buried with honors and the people placed big rocks over his body so the critters wouldn't dig him up.
The people talked about Fred and his great deeds, and in time he became the stuff of legend. So much so that folks figured that since he was such a great leader when he was alive, he must be a great leader in the spirit world. People began going to Freds rock and tried to talk to him, and left him little bribes so that the great chief Fred would help them out. Some of the folks spent so much time at asking Fred for help, that they got really good at it, to the point that the other members of the clan who had to actually work, sort of bribed them to talk to Fred for them... And so it went.
So you want to know the cause of religion? Blame Fred.
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
I think A leads to B. If kids are told all their lives that it is better to have faith than to ask questions about the world, they will never develop the skills that might lead them away from faith.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
A Fa Show
I don't think it takes too much critical thinking to come to the conclusion about how ridiculous religion is.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
I'm going with A too, it's such a same...