# Why do religions still exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 10, 2016, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474 "2016-05-10T10:45:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/61 "2016-05-12T06:26:48Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > A world where consequences are never serious would be a cradle world. And as for our learning speed that’s our problem, not His. He made it possible for us to learn: if we don’t wanna, He’s not going to force us. Consequence are more serious in a godless world where if you die it is all over. If you think you’ve been saved and there is a god, dying is just a temporary inconvenience. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/62 "2016-05-12T06:29:38Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Catechism is for closers? 😃 Exactly! I want them good pagan prospects. Enough of them and they’ll make me a saint. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/63 "2016-05-12T06:32:00Z")
> [@txst16](#): > > Abraham and Job are Old Testament references and are considered (in most religions following biblical doctrine, that is) non canonical and void of significance. Most religions follow the teachings of Christ written in the New Testament and emphasize God’s lack of interest in and his ignoring man all together. This (by biblical standards) is to; hopefully, enlighten man. That we should realize our only salvation lies in the shepherding of Christ. The hardest thing people find doing is this. To live Christ-like is not easy at all and many who choose to are burdened with “plagues”. Yeah, Job is just a story. But if you told Jesus that Abraham was just a story, he would have punched you out. So would Mohammad. Of course the whole thing is just a myth, but that’s another matter. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/64 "2016-05-12T12:47:23Z")
“Job is non-canonical”? That is preposterous. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/65 "2016-05-12T12:52:21Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Whether a strict majority would say that their religious beliefs and practices are exactly the same as that of their parents, I don’t know. Maybe they would, maybe not. But to just say “it’s hereditary” clearly fails as a total explanation of the existence of religion, just like the post that says “A greedy for-profit priesthood”, or the one that says religious people have “low intelligence” and then links to a Wikipedia article showing that there’s no consistent relationship between religiosity and intelligence. This isn’t the pit, so I have to be polite, but you’re making it difficult. Either you’re not reading my posts, or you’re imagining words and ideas that aren’t there. My assertion is that parent-to-child inculcation is the _primary_ vector for person-to-person transmission of religion, and that this explains the strong correlation between a person’s religion and that of their parents. I do not claim that parent-to-child inculcation is the _only_ vector. Out here in the open, so you can read it clearly: **when I say “primary”, I do not mean “only.”** Am I making myself clear, or do you need time to consult a dictionary? I do not offer a _total_ explanation for the existence of religion, and I never have. The OP asked why religion still exists. I offered _one_ reason, not _the only_ reason. And if you’re honestly not sure what the majority of humanity would say about their religion vs. that of their parents, then you need to suggest an alternate explanation for why certain religions have predominated in certain areas for more than one generation. Does it really seem plausible to you that most of the Catholics in Italy might be converts and/or immigrants? Do you think there’s even a fleeting chance that the majority of the Muslims in Saudi Arabia (or the Hindus in India) would say their parents practice a different religion? [Inherited Religiosity: What It Means For How Most ‘Believers’ Believe](http://www.countercurrents.org/sikand030412.htm) > [@CounterCurrents](#): > > Throughout the world, the overwhelming majority of people who believe in, or otherwise feel emotionally linked to, a particular religion are those who have been born into it. [AN INTERACTIVE MODEL OF RELIGIOSITY INHERITANCE: THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY CONTEXT](http://www.psychology.hku.hk/ftbcstudies/church/images/docs/Myers_1996.pdf) > [@Scott M. Myers](#): > > One’s religiosity is determined largely by the religiosity of one’s parents. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/66 "2016-05-12T18:00:50Z")
> [@Shamozzle](#): > > So many polite answers. > > The reason, of course, is that humans are generally stupid and/or uneducated. That’s it. Your post is your cite? “Religion” is a system of ideas, behaviors, rituals and communities that are multivariate, complex, and nearly universal. It’s as old as our species and seems to arise from the way our brains work. It offers an adaptive benefit (_not_ necessarily a moral good). Religion exists because we are still a species of tool-using apes. To blithely dismiss it as “humans are stupid” is condescending and misguided. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/67 "2016-05-12T21:30:17Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > “Job is non-canonical”? That is preposterous. It doesn’t fit with anything else in the Bible. It’s stylistically distinct, and the content has no relevance. There’s no discussion of the role of the Jews as God’s favored people; there’s no foretelling of the messiah. It’s a side-story, just thrown in because it’s got God’s name in it. If other books of the Apocrypha can be excluded, why couldn’t Job? There are several other books that are far more relevant…and were excluded. (Daniel, too, needs to be re-assessed, now that we know it’s essentially “historical fiction.”) ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/68 "2016-05-12T23:36:05Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Because they haven’t drank enough Mountain Dew to achieve the proper level of euphoria. Praise Dawkins. Such a perfect username/post combo! 😃 –G! ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/69 "2016-05-13T00:26:41Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > It doesn’t fit with anything else in the Bible. It’s stylistically distinct, and the content has no relevance. There’s no discussion of the role of the Jews as God’s favored people; there’s no foretelling of the messiah. It’s a side-story, just thrown in because it’s got God’s name in it. > > If other books of the Apocrypha can be excluded, why couldn’t Job? There are several other books that are far more relevant…and were excluded. > > (Daniel, too, needs to be re-assessed, now that we know it’s essentially “historical fiction.”) Well, maybe, but both Job and Daniel have been accepted into both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Whether or not they _should_ be there is irrelevant; they’re canonical by definition. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/70 "2016-05-13T00:42:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > It doesn’t fit with anything else in the Bible. It’s stylistically distinct, and the content has no relevance. There’s no discussion of the role of the Jews as God’s favored people; there’s no foretelling of the messiah. It’s a side-story, just thrown in because it’s got God’s name in it. > > If other books of the Apocrypha can be excluded, why couldn’t Job? There are several other books that are far more relevant…and were excluded. > > (Daniel, too, needs to be re-assessed, now that we know it’s essentially “historical fiction.”) In the Catholic church, the Apocrypha AREN’T excluded. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/71 "2016-05-13T03:18:43Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Well, maybe, but both Job and Daniel have been accepted into both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Whether or not they _should_ be there is irrelevant; they’re canonical by definition. > [@astorian](#): > > In the Catholic church, the Apocrypha AREN’T excluded. Well, there you go: if you accept dogmatically-based reasoning, then… (Bats are birds.) ---
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/72 "2016-05-13T05:35:01Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Your post is your cite? > > “Religion” is a system of ideas, behaviors, rituals and communities that are multivariate, complex, and nearly universal. It’s as old as our species and seems to arise from the way our brains work. It offers an adaptive benefit (_not_ necessarily a moral good). Religion exists because we are still a species of tool-using apes. > > To blithely dismiss it as “humans are stupid” is condescending and misguided. Hardly. Nice try, though. Much of the world’s people do not have access to decent education and I do not hold it against them. I get that I can’t expect a peasant farmer or a jungle dweller in a poor country to have heard of quantum tunneling. Or the scientific method. Or for it to even occur to him. I don’t think I’m better, or smarter. It probably wouldn’t occur to me, either. I’m just luckier. However, the rest of us are walking around with a university professor in our pocket and even the slightest hunger for pure, factual truth delivers a mass of knowledge that couldn’t be digested in 10 lifetimes. And yet, a significant portion of the masses refuse this path and insist on clinging to an authority based on fear, emotion, tradition, and intellectual sloth to define the universe and their place in it. They refuse a path delivering factual truths corroborated the world over, for centuries, by an intensely curious bunch in direct competition with one another to destroy what we know, to replace it with something better, using the only legitimate tools in the pursuit of factual knowledge: logic and reason. It is not condescending or misguided to find people in deep contempt for completely ignoring an ocean of factual reality at their fingertips. If we are to continue to advance as a species we must define such behavior as stupid and unacceptable. We must decide that it’s just not good enough. You speak of religion being a system of ideas, behaviors, rituals and communities that are multivariate, complex, and nearly universal. Yea. Great. Ideas and thus behaviors and rituals that are stupid, so who cares if they are multivariate, complex, and nearly universal. You speak of religion as being as old as our species and seeming to arise from the way our brains work. Sure. Working incorrectly. And as for being apes, that is true only if we chose to remain so. You talk about community and I’ll concede that one. Community is good. And it makes a mean cathedral, that’s for sure. St. Pete’s is truly fantastic. I know a guy who has explicitly and literally said to me that he completely dismisses any science if it conflicts with the bible. He actually said that, I s\*\*t you not. What am I supposed to do with that? That isn’t stupid? And I can’t imagine he’ll change his tune when someone he loves is being kept alive solely by a machine worth more than his house and built by a mentality he dismisses outright, a mentality that threw the bible out the window 300 years ago. Because he’s that stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/73 "2016-05-13T06:35:13Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, there you go: if you accept dogmatically-based reasoning, then… (Bats are birds.) It’s canonical the way the parables are - definitely accepted as part of the Bible, but not something that actually happened, even for one who thinks the rest of the Bible did. Does anyone know what fundamentalists think? I’d guess a story where Satan is God’s buddy would be easier to handle if it were fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/74 "2016-05-14T01:08:19Z")
**Voyager** : Thank you! That’s actually new to me. I’d never heard anyone compare Job to the parables. I like it; it makes decent sense. I’ve never heard a fundamentalist speak on the subject of Job as literal truth. A quick Google search turned up [at least one literalist site](http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=4573) which insists that the story of Job is “historically true.” This site compares doubting Job with believing in Evolution. So…as far as the simplistic literalists go, we have at least one. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/75 "2016-05-17T12:28:02Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > **Voyager** : Thank you! That’s actually new to me. I’d never heard anyone compare Job to the parables. I like it; it makes decent sense. > > I’ve never heard a fundamentalist speak on the subject of Job as literal truth. > > A quick Google search turned up [at least one literalist site](http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=4573) which insists that the story of Job is “historically true.” This site compares doubting Job with believing in Evolution. So…as far as the simplistic literalists go, we have at least one. You NEVER heard of Job being treated like an allegory or parable? Wow- you obviously haven’t been going to many churches. Pssst… Jonah wasn’t supposed to be a true story either! The author himself would have TOLD you it was just a story designed to make a point. It makes no difference that Job was not supposed to be a true story. The story reflects Jewish beliefs on suffering. The author of the story does NOT sugar coat things. He NEVER says that suffering is okay because we’ll all be happy in Heaven eventually. Nor does he ever attempt to explain what God’s reasons are for allowing human suffering. For the author, it would be arrogant and presumptuous to speak for God. For the author of Job, and for most devout Jews of his time, it was enough to know that God exists and that he has his reasons for everything. God needn’t promise us an eternal reward for doing his will, not even give us an explanation of his reasons. Ergo… while you can dismiss Judaism if you wish, you CAN’T argue that it’s a comforting myth which promises we’ll have life after death. It didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/76 "2016-05-17T12:31:58Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, there you go: if you accept dogmatically-based reasoning, then… (Bats are birds.) Dogma has nothing to do with it. Whether the Apocryphal books are inspired Scripture or not is a judgment call and always has been. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/77 "2016-05-17T13:20:22Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > “Job is non-canonical”? That is preposterous. I think **txst16** thinks that Job is deuterocanonical, which would take it out in many Protestant churches. [It’s not](http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/5-myths-about-7-books.html). ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/78 "2016-05-17T14:07:19Z")
> [@Shamozzle](#): > > {…} And as for being apes, that is true only if we chose to remain so. {…} We’re really kinda stuck with the “being apes” thing [because of taxonomy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A-dMqEbSk8&spfreload=10) . . . we are apes :eek:! (And a whole bunch of other things too! Blame Linnaeus.) But, I’m all for us figuring out how to stop being vertebrates 'cause my back hurts. CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/79 "2016-05-17T14:09:28Z")
You wanna be [Mojo](http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Mojo_(Mojoverse)) when you grow up? Would save a bundle on furniture I guess… ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474/80 "2016-05-17T21:13:44Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > You NEVER heard of Job being treated like an allegory or parable? Wow- you obviously haven’t been going to many churches. > > Pssst… Jonah wasn’t supposed to be a true story either! The author himself would have TOLD you it was just a story designed to make a point. . . . I used to listen to Harold Camping on the radio, so I got his view of Christianity. It wasn’t completely orthodox. (He was an annihilationist, for instance: once we’re judged by God, the guilty are simply destroyed, not put in a furnace forever.) He declared vigorously that Johah was a literally true story. Oh, well! > [@astorian](#): > > Dogma has nothing to do with it. Whether the Apocryphal books are inspired Scripture or not is a judgment call and always has been. But that decision has been made by conventions and synods and diets and the like, just the same way that dogmatic determinations (the declaration of certain views as heresy) have been made. It’s some group’s choice whether a work is scriptural or apocryphal. It’s an item in someone’s agenda of dogma. It’s a judgement call too; I don’t think we’re actually contradicting each other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religions-still-exist/754474.md?page=5)