Perhaps the thread title doesn’t accurately convey what I want to ask. Here’s a longer, hopefully more understandable version:
Why is it that, when people get into religious discussion (be it a calm and logical statement of beliefs or a fiery mud-slinging flame war), anything that makes assumptions about the existence/non-existence and nature of God is vigorously defended or rejected? Why do people feel the need to defend their position about the existence of God more strongly than they do about nearly any other controversial subject?
My personal example, to clarify: my SO are I were recently discussing this. We both are aware that our beliefs about “higher entities” could possibly be wrong and that we have no definitive proof on the subject; however, I lean towards spiritual agnosticism, while he is most solidly a weak atheist. For this conversation, I had invented a theory about the nature/structure of God that I thought was interesting, and shared it with him. Thus began a belief system debate of sorts; it ended with me being so frustrated that I began to cling to notions of a godlike existence for mostly emotional reasons, something I’m not proud of myself for doing. In made me question myself though. It made me wonder why I felt such a need to defend the notion of a higher power once my beliefs were contested, even though I was perfectly aware that I have no definitive proof on the subject.
I’m not looking for purely doctrinal or purely rational answers here. I would like a primarily psychological or sociological basis for this reaction. Why do people feel such a need to defend themselves and stick to their beliefs about God’s existence, even when they believe/know they have no “proof” about the subject?
On the religious side, IMHO it’s because religion is a disease, an infectious mental disorder that subverts people into being vehicles for itself. The believers obsessively defend their belief in God because serving as a host for that belief is what they exist for; they are an extension of the religion that has infected them.
As for the non-believer side, you get that way after a lifetime of having religion pushed at you everywhere you go.
For what it may be worth, I’m a pretty argumentative person and I’ve never felt any strong desire to engage anyone about the existence or non-existence of GOD.
I think there’s a lot of truth to this. The fact is that if you look at the evidence objectively, it points pretty strongly to the non-existence of GOD. So any intelligent person who believes in GOD needs to develope defensive mechanisms to avoid thinking about this evidence.
It’s just cognitive dissonance at work.
In my experience, when you present people with evidence that they are subconsciously trying to avoid, a signifcant percentage tend to get agitated, annoyed, and defensive. (A lot of people just change the subject though.)
I think you’d find the same sort of passion connected with any topic related to deep conviction. For instance, if you had a serious discussion about democracy as an effective form of goverment, and if there were people arguing against, I suspect you’d find similar passion. Or in a discussion about whether children should be reared by their parents or by a state institution, for instance.
It’s very much like people talking bad shit about my mother, except that I love God more than I loved my mother. People naturally defend persons they care very much about.
As far as the accusation that I’m a diseased and subverted person with an infectuous mental disorder, the assertion is not so much insulting as it is just plain stupid. It seems that there are atheists who lack the intellectually capacity to know what exactly constitutes evidence, let alone proof. Especially given that evidence of God is clear and ubiquitous.
There’s a thread in Cafe Society right now where people are getting defensive over which edition of Dungeons and Dragons is the best. People get defensive when ever they perceive an attack against something in which they’ve heavily invested themselves. Obviously, people tend to invest more heavily in religion than a lot of other subjects, so this tendency is both more common and more pronounced there than with other topics.
I would say that the issue would seem to be that both belief and non-belief tend to be very personal matters that reflect the core of self-identity for many people.
Belief or non-belief in the divine is basic to the fundamental world view of many people. Challenging the views of such persons is liable to strike at the core of their understanding of the world and they arte liable to put up all sorts of defenses to avoid considering that they may be in error. (For example, they might refuse to believe that another person has no belief–thus we see some believers actually denying that the atheists really have no belief, even to the faces of actual atheists, or we see a few nonbelievers inventing odd claims that challenge the beliefs of religious persons, inventing non-existent illnesses with no evidence beyond their own personal beliefs.)
Many people have no such attachment to their world views or they are able to recognize how other people might have world views that do not accord with their own, but the people who are most concerned that their world view be correct will speak up loudly to insist that only theirs should be considered valid or sane. They need the validation that the agreement of others provides or they need to dismiss views in opposition to their own.
After only a couple of posts, you’ve managed to call me (and other believers) diseased, mentally ill, infectuous, subversive, obsessive, and now delusional. I’m just curious what you people expect in response to that sort of thing. Gratitude?
I would suspect that you have answered the OP’s question, and now the thread is complete.
I agree to a point, but . . . . think about what topics tend to generate the most intense, angry debate. In my opinion, it’s topics where the objective evidence goes against a popular viewpoint. People don’t get mad at you because you are wrong . . . they get mad at you because you are right.
Beliefs held in the emotions get emotional responses when questioned. Logic and science don,t get the same kind of reaction. People believe because they have a need to and want to. It makes them feel good. It keeps then on the same wave length as their families. They develop relationships with like minded people. To be told that you believe they is wrong threatens their life styles.
I went to Catholic school for four years (grades 1-4) and was taught–explicitly–that defending the faith (with my life if necessary) was a serious obligation, and that failure to do so was a sin. I was pretty impressionable at that age. And most of my Baptist pals consider my upbringing “not all that religious,” so my guess is that they got it even worse.
Even stone atheists have irrational beliefs on a similar level. Tear a page out of a book that you own and watch them squirm with discomfort. We all strongly believe in stuff we can’t prove–entire fields of math are built around square roots of negative numbers, after all–and religionists don’t corner the market in absurdity.
No, just applying the same standard to religion that I and most everyone else applies to non-religious beliefs. Claim that you get orders and warm fuzzy feelings from an invisible alien and people will call you nuts; say you get them from an invisible God and you are enlightened.
I expect that I will be hated by the religious regardless of how I address them. So I don’t bother sucking up to them and pretending to respect their delusions.
Some believers have a deep love for God and worry about offending him. They may feel God gave us everything to be thankful for (including the gift of life) and they’re hurt (or crushed) for God when others don’t recognize or acknowledge or even believe in God.
Maybe not . . but who is more likely to react unfavorably to that sort of comment? A person whose mother is June Cleaver; or a person whose mother is Britney Spears?
When you say “defending my faith”, are you referring to being an apologist? As in explaining why we believe what we believe when it is questioned?
I feel this way, if people choose not to believe in God for whatever reason… or if they’re angry with the church because possibly they got yelled at in the confessional as a kid, well, I can’t change their minds… People have their own free will. I have no problem explaining specific Catholic doctrine and why we believe what we do, although I’m not explaining to “convert” people, but just to clarify their misconceptions or inquiries…
C K Dexter Haven has it right; it is a response to any deeply-held belief, not just religious belief. For example, recent studies showed (roughly) that self-described political partisans switch from processing with the reasoning part of their brain to the emotional part of their brain when confronted with contradictory statements by their political allies.
PS–Der Trihs, on behalf of the atheists on this board: STFU. We don’t want you on our side.
PPS: Liberal–Never mind. I won’t hijack this thread. But “clear and ubiquitous”?