The More You Know

[jesus_h_biscuit]

It's been interesting to me to have so many people from different walks of life confide in me that they have had questions about their religious upbringing and doubts about whether or not they followed because it is what they were raised to do or because they genuinely believed of their own accord after careful consideration. I try to be careful

Comments

[ferrell]

My personal theory is that a very significant number of religious people, possibly even the majority, don't actually believe what they claim to.

Having grown up in an evangelical church, I noticed all the other kids were very much like me in the beginning. As time went on, and we grew up, I started becoming more and more of an outcast at the church as they started acting as though they believed it. I'm reasonably sure that as high school ages approached, they were still just going through the motions because it was what they were supposed to do to fit in.

As adults, every last one of these people I grew up with who I've happened to run across has converted to full on believer, and those who have kids are repeating the cycle by indoctrinating their own children. I very much doubt most of them actually believe what they claim to, but they're so conditioned to doing so that they just keep on Jesusing it up.

There's also very little to gain in ceasing to believe what they do. Sure, you could renounce your faith and take up atheism, but all you get as an atheist is a moral and ethical system that actually makes sense and the knowledge that your theory is correct. Religious people. however, get an entire community. A network of friends, job references, a (heavily flawed) ethical and moral system you can just fall back on when thinking about it rationally might force you to think for yourself. There's a lot of pretty nasty repurcussions for someone to renounce their faith, and the path of least resistance is just to not question your beliefs, and if you do, do so privately while you publicly still pretend to believe.

If they turn their back on their religion, they lose that entire community that they have likely built their life around. Convincing people to give that up isn't going to come from a logical explanation demonstrating they're wrong for any statistically significant number of people. It's not even going to come from their own analyzation of their religion and seeing the flaws for most. I believe it has to come from each and every individual analyzing things and coming to the conclusion that the actions being justified by the dreadful moral and ethical code built into their religion is so harmful that it's worth the loss of their community to stop believing.

The problem is I think most people like not having to think about how their actions are truly affecting other people, and whether or not the morals they live by are truly good. Humans have a long history of taking the easy way out, and in today's society, religion is the easy way out.

[virginia_fell]

You have said a hell of a thing. Several, in fact. I don't really have anything to add except to thank you for posting this comment.

[jesus_h_biscuit]

It rarely occurs to me the kind of communal aspect there that would be placed at risk, but it does make perfect sense. I understand how that might be so big as to be a deal breaker within the minds of some, but then again I don't understand because I couldn't belong to something that serious just for the sake of comfort, which I think is what it must come down to.

Yes - that 'easy way out' thing. It invariably gets used way too often as a tool for legitimizing really bad things.

Thanks for this, Ferrell. We miss you by the way, let us know when you want to get together and do something - or just get together and do nothing. I still owe you dinner!!

[ferrell]

I'm free any day before Sunday!

[tilia_tomentosa]

It amazes me that whole communities can exist around a church like this. But then we don't have that type of church here... I'm wondering if Eastern Orthodox Christianity generally doesn't work like this, or it just no longer works like this in my country. Personal connections are very secular here... well, you must have some idea already.

[mellowtigger]

Both of you might be interested in this paper by my favorite philosopher, Daniel Dennett. It's 29 pages (too long for a quick read) without a summary, but it is a bit fascinating some of the details that they discuss.

"Preachers Who Are Not Believers"
http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP08122150.pdf