My uncle told my brother and I that “People need God” at my grandfather’s funeral. I was about 6 or 7 years old.
I’m not just talking about God though. One of my best friends stated that she believed in Karma. As I tried to explain to her why karma doesn’t exist, she stopped me by saying; “Believing in Karma’s all I have.”
I know the question; “Do some people NEED faith?” can be picked apart, for example; What do I mean by “need”. And “faith” is very broad.
To be honest, I just wanted to ask this question to start a conversation. As an Atheist, it’s important for me to understand where I should draw the line as far as being true to myself, but also excepting others for their beliefs no matter how silly I think they are.
I think some people do. Look at the deists who believe in a god who does not interfere with the universe in any way. I’ve observed that having faith that this is all more or less planned, and not random, is very important for them.
Other people need structure, which religion supplies, and if you need that structure you need faith, because the unstructured world the evidence points to can be very threatening.
ETA: And as in your example dealing with death is a prime time for faith, since many people are comforted by the thought that the dead one is not really dead.
If they feel they need it, you have just about zero chance of convincing them they don’t. I don’t know if anybody needs faith in an objective sense, but a lot of people rely on it psychologically.
Well, the idea of a god has certainly helped people through difficult times. My Grandfather finally kicked booze through AA, and I was talking to a coworker recently who only got through her baby’s premature birth and subsequent illness by going back to god - prior to that, she was leaning toward atheism. I get the attraction in the idea that religion provides - you are not alone, I will help you through this, I will give you strength, etc. it’s similar to the relief someone might feel if they had a scary deadline at work, and someone shows up to help, even if its just oversight and listening to someone vent, or even why the human race pairs up romantically - you have a nonjudgmental partner who will love you no matter what, and who helps you and supports you.
The part I am uncomfortable with is that, being an atheist, I know that that relief is not a function of a higher power, but one of personal strength and/or your support network. I don’t like the idea of people short changing themselves, and giving credit for their own or other’s hard work to something that doesn’t exist. It seems like everyone would be better off if they recognize that that strength comes from within.
I think that people need faith, but that said faith should be limited and developed through time. Absolute blind faith is a dangerous thing when it fails, because there is no buffer-all is taken away.
People find comfort in various ideas, practices, habits and beliefs. It can be a healthy amount of reliance, or not. It can be benign or destructive. To one extent or another, everybody has something they lean on for some re-assurance and validation. So yeah, the “need” seems universal. The “what and how much”, varies.
Some people think they need it, but I really think the vast majority can get through life just fine, and don’t want to give themselves enough credit.
My cousin was an alcoholic and real bad ass in his day before someone stabbed him, spilled his guts out on a dance floor. That was some 25 years or so ago. He got religious from that day on, and it truly turned his life around. Never touched alcohol since. He credits his faith and God for saving his life, and for him giving up the booze. Despite him and my other relatives being real religious, and me being an atheist, we get along just great. That’s the way it should be.
Religion, if practiced in moderation isn’t such a bad thing. Too bad many had to go and ruin it by getting it all organized.
I am atheist, but I do recognize that faith is a very powerful placebo (unfortunately one that I can’t use). Since placebos do work in the sense that the mind can have a very powerful effect on the body, clearly faith can be a powerful influence on the recovery of some people even though the object of that faith is imaginary.
Many people don’t believe that they have strength within them. They feel that only a power larger than themselves can possibly deal with the difficult situation they are facing. For many people, telling them to rely on their inner strength is equivalent to telling them to rely on money in a bank account they don’t have, or to eat food that isn’t in the refrigerator. It’s easy to say, “You should just recognize the strength within,” but many people, both atheist and faithful, can’t do that. Faith is one way of finding the strength within, by reaching out. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like that way of describing religion.
Here is what the Creator had His Son tell you.
Luke 24: 25 Then He said to them: O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!
I would have to agree that for any one to read this book that has stood the test of time for all of mankind’s history would have to be a fool not to believe it.
You just might be educated pass your own intelligence by our schools of lower learning most people are.
It’s O.K. you can die as a fool and learn the hard way that you really were a fool.
You have forever to be ashamed of being deceived by your own evil heart.
So have a great day, it could be your last one.
I don’t buy that anyone needs faith; that’s a propaganda line pushed by believers. Usually coupled with rhetoric about how atheists are evil and miserable.
That I don’t believe in any gods.
And let me guess, all the other “holy” texts that contradict it and have lasted as long or longer, it’s perfectly reasonable to disbelieve them. If age is what matters why aren’t you, say, a Hindu? Hinduism is much older than Christianity. But neither is anywhere near as old as mankind; both religions have existed for only a tiny fraction of the history of humanity.
Christianity is in the position it is today because it has historically been very good at motivating people into mass murder and tyranny in its name, not because it’s truthful. Just like Islam, another religion with a fondness for conversion by the sword.
A lot better things than what your posts are saying about you.
They had Gideon Bibles in the caves? Who knew?
Really, how can you say something as obviously untrue as the Bible being around for all of mankind’s history? That isn’t even Biblical, unless you think history started with Moses.
I think this is the most telling sentence of the thread. I think a lot of people (most?) are kind of disturbed by a world that’s run totally by statistical probabilities.
By that, I mean that some tiny percentage of people with some type of cancer will spontaneously go into remission, while the rest die horrible deaths. Or that one survivor of a plane crash, or building collapse, or whatever.
Or some people are randomly killed by stupid stuff like random falling tree branches.
Or some people happen to meet the right person in the checkout line at the grocery store because they just randomly decided to stop in and buy a mango that day. That person ends up being their soulmate (wildly successful business partner, skin-wearing murderous psycho, disease vector, etc…)
The idea that these kinds of things just happen without a plan or without any kind of plan or reasoning or anything bothers a lot of people; on one hand, saying that God helped them survive, because they know that the odds are against it and probably would feel guilty otherwise. But if God did it, they’re off the hook.
The others have to have a belief that there was some malevolent force at work, and that it wasn’t just dumb happenstance that the branch landed on Paw-Paw’s head as he was working on the farm, or that someone’s murdered aunt wasn’t just unlucky enough to get murdered by some nut. Otherwise the world seems a lot more dark and scary than it otherwise did before.
And finally, I think there’s a large dose of the concept that even when you can’t do a damn thing about something, if you pray, it feels like you are, even if there’s no proof one way or the other that it does anything (even if you believe in God).
A quick look at almost any thread on religion in which I have participated would reveal that I am very far from being an atheist. OTOH, what I’ve seen of your posts so far indicates that I am also very far from sharing your religious beliefs.