# Why do religious people try to prove God exists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 5, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895 "2018-04-05T21:23:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/141 "2018-04-07T19:06:58Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Anecdotal, of course, but I’ve never actually seen an atheist try to ‘convert’ a theist to atheism. They don’t even bring it up. > . Have you read this thread? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/142 "2018-04-07T19:09:55Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > So, we should also read your sig as “I am not a real Constitutional scholar” too? > ('Cause the SCotUS in no way decides what is or is not a ‘religion’. Legally, in fact, for the purposes of questions of, most often, the First Amendment Atheists are given the same rights as any other religious believer.) > > CMC fnord! So, the Judges on the 9th Circuit Court were wrong, and you are saying you know more about Constitutional law than they do? Good luck with that. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2018, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/143 "2018-04-07T19:17:22Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I’d agree your first line is a fair point. After that… I can’t disagree, since otherwise people would never convert between faiths or between branches of their faith without first losing it entirely, yet they do. And there’s also something to be said for the idea that having found something that explains the universe to you removes some of that need to examine other > viewpoints, although that’s partially true for atheism as well. But I’m wary of saying that being instructed that their faith is true leads to an active disbelief - it just seems like part of the faith, in that case, to me. It’s something that would automatically go if the faith was lost, where a spiritual experience or something of that ilk wouldn’t. How many fundamentalists Christians who reject Islam do so from an analysis of its history and writings, and how many because their pastor tells them that it doesn’t accept Jesus? Western religions don’t accept that other religious viewpoints are equally valid - though some pretend to for ecumenical reasons - and to reduce the possibility of holy wars. A lot of Western religions explain the universe the same way - they differ in the details of what we should do and what salvation is, if anything. > [@](#): > > I think that’s unfair. That they’re changing religions at all is a sign of analysis. And changing to a similar faith doesn’t necessarily strike me as a sign of lazy or simple analysis; to the contrary, it seems like it could be more consistent with the position they’ve already staked out. Seems reasonable, sadly. In my experience changing religions was a result of dissatisfaction with the current religion, not from analysis at all. They were looking for answers from religion X, and when the answers didn’t satisfy they changed to Religion Y and then Religion Z. Nice people but they wouldn’t last a minute in GD. They switched when they saw an ad or something that looked appealing. They were not fanatical about any of the religions they joined, so I have to give them that. I’m sure some people switch after detailed study - but not them. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/144 "2018-04-07T19:23:22Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > It just boggles my mind that people can be unaware of such basic, fundamental flaws in the argument they’re presenting, and that they’d try to offer a ‘proof’ while doing no critical thinking of their own. I think a point (4) is that they’ve been taught that all of the unbelievers just haven’t been exposed to The Word and that all you really need to do is tell them a little bit about Jesus and they’ll see the error of their ways. That is, the ‘provers’ don’t really think of the argument as a logical argument, but more as a vehicle to to throw the concept out there, since they ‘know’ that’s all they really need to do. You see this idea in a lot of evangelical material, like the infamous Jack Chick tracts, where they seem to seriously think that a long-haul trucker who grew up in a regular American town would have never even heard the name Jesus before. I ran into this this very day. Two women came to my door asking about happiness. Then they talked about the Bible, and I told them that I had read the entire thing and found it nonsense. They responded by offering to read to me from Scriptures, which showed that they didn’t quite get it. Or couldn’t go off their script. I guess reading to me from something I had already read and rejected was supposed to convince me. I did not try to convert them. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2018, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/145 "2018-04-07T19:26:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Have you read this thread? Get back into the closet, atheists! Just stating our belief is religion by your definition and thus hypocritical. Thus science if religion, since people on both sides of scientific controversies state their beliefs and try to convince others, as are literary controversies, as are Star Trek versus Star Wars debates, or even emacs vs. vi debates. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/146 "2018-04-07T19:35:48Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Have you read this thread? I have, and I have seen no prostlezing whatsoever. Now, if you consider any disagreement with the theological interpretation as proselytizing, then you see it everywhere, and not just in this thread. Any time, in fact, that anyone points out how anything operates, and doesn’t invoke “and then god did it”, is proselytizing, by that definition. The argument that we can explain the universe without invoking god is not a religion, no matter how much the religious want to make it so. By definition, religions have no predictive power, science does. To be religious is to believe things that have no evidence, and have no ability to affect your life. So be secular is to acknowledge reality, and use real things to have an affect on life. I think that Lawrence Krauss said it best, (paraphrased) “Science doesn’t prove there is no god, science cannot prove their is no god. But what science can do is explain the universe without ever having a need for a god.” ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/147 "2018-04-07T19:38:29Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I ran into this this very day. Two women came to my door asking about happiness. Then they talked about the Bible, and I told them that I had read the entire thing and found it nonsense. > They responded by offering to read to me from Scriptures, which showed that they didn’t quite get it. Or couldn’t go off their script. > I guess reading to me from something I had already read and rejected was supposed to convince me. > I did not try to convert them. I always tell the door to door people that I have my own beliefs with which I am very happy. When they ask what they are, I tell them that they are beliefs that tell me to tell them to have a great day! OTOH, I had a roommate some years back that would tell them that we are satanists, and always thought that that was the funniest thing ever. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/148 "2018-04-07T19:55:49Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > By definition, religions Good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/149 "2018-04-07T20:03:59Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > How many fundamentalists Christians who reject Islam do so from an analysis of its history and writings, and how many because their pastor tells them that it doesn’t accept Jesus? Western religions don’t accept that other religious viewpoints are equally valid - though some pretend to for ecumenical reasons - and to reduce the possibility of holy wars. A lot of Western religions explain the universe the same way - they differ in the details of what we should do and what salvation is, if anything. Why are we narrowing this down to fundamentalist Christians? I don’t know what percentage of Christians, fundamentalist or otherwise, reject Islam on the instruction of their pastors. I don’t think it’s necessary, though; Christianity, or at least the versions I’ve heard of, is a “one god, and Jesus is ~God” kind of deal. You don’t _need_ a pastor preaching to reject a specific alternative religion in that kind of case. This is the point I’m making, though; if this Christian who’s never looked into another religion does lose their faith, they might still well see what facets of that spirituality they do still believe in as being met by some alternative. > [@](#): > > In my experience changing religions was a result of dissatisfaction with the current religion, not from analysis at all. They were looking for answers from religion X, and when the answers didn’t satisfy they changed to Religion Y and then Religion Z. Nice people but they wouldn’t last a minute in GD. They switched when they saw an ad or something that looked appealing. They were not fanatical about any of the religions they joined, so I have to give them that. > I’m sure some people switch after detailed study - but not them. Dissatisfaction from their current religion, in the form of not finding answers that satisfied, IS analysis. If there was never analysis they’d never know something was wrong. There’s a goal, an examination of results, and a conclusion to change. It doesn’t matter if what prompted a change was an ad or something that looked appealing, that’s still analysis. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/150 "2018-04-07T20:12:30Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Good luck with that. Then use religious teachings to predict something. Anything. Anything at all. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/152 "2018-04-07T22:55:09Z")
The difference between [proselytizing] and [debating/arguing] seems to me mostly a question of who took the initiative. I think if anyone accused me of proselytizing for atheism, my available defence against that accusation would be very weak, except for one crucial point: nobody ever accuses anyone of proselytizing for claiming obvious truths like “Water molecules are two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom”, and the idea that I’m proselytizing for - “The one making the positive claim bears the burden of proof” - is I think an equally unexceptionable claim. (In fact, I think religious people consider it a perfectly correct idea too. They just think there’s an exception to it; I don’t.) ---
**Author:** ![WillReadmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@WillReadmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillReadmore)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/153 "2018-04-07T23:02:34Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > A single idea in an infinite lack is a far bigger difference than that between many ideas and a few. It’s got corresponding power. Ironically, the diminishing language you’ve used there only adds meaning to what you’ve said. Even humans as opposed to who? > > You’re correct, there’s been many interpretations, and beyond that there’s infinite possibilities. Usefully, though, as soon as you say one thing, you can often use that to say other things too. Even something like suggesting a god or gods or so on that play absolutely no role in the creation of the universe or time after it, we can say that such beings cannot or have not done so. You’re just having a problem with what infinity means. What number you divide by infinity doesn’t actually matter. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2018, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/154 "2018-04-07T23:34:43Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I always tell the door to door people that I have my own beliefs with which I am very happy. I told the Baptists who came to my door I was Jewish, hoping they’d respect that. Some hope. They told me that I was not saved because I didn’t accept Jesus, and I went into my well rehearsed 2,000 years of oppression rant. They were scared shitless and never came back. > [@](#): > > OTOH, I had a roommate some years back that would tell them that we are satanists, and always thought that that was the funniest thing ever. I told one set of JWs that this was a devout atheist household, which unnerved them. I asked the second set about evolution, and got her to a point where she couldn’t defend her beliefs. And I was quite polite about it. ---
**Author:** ![WillReadmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@WillReadmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillReadmore)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/155 "2018-04-07T23:50:05Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Why are we narrowing this down to fundamentalist Christians? > > I don’t know what percentage of Christians, fundamentalist or otherwise, reject Islam on the instruction of their pastors. I don’t think it’s necessary, though; Christianity, or at least the versions I’ve heard of, is a “one god, and Jesus is ~God” kind of deal. You don’t _need_ a pastor preaching to reject a specific alternative religion in that kind of case. > > This is the point I’m making, though; if this Christian who’s never looked into another religion does lose their faith, they might still well see what facets of that spirituality they do still believe in as being met by some alternative. Dissatisfaction from their current religion, in the form of not finding answers that satisfied, IS analysis. If there was never analysis they’d never know something was wrong. There’s a goal, an examination of results, and a conclusion to change. It doesn’t matter if what prompted a change was an ad or something that looked appealing, that’s still analysis. Sure. So, Islam and Judaism don’t believe Jesus is god. Thus what a Christian is taught is to reject in the strongest, most irreconcilable terms possible these versions of the Abrahamic faith (faiths far more closely aligned that the vast majority of world religions). Whether direction came from a pastor is irrelevant, isn’t it? Whatever the source, the teaching is definitely successful today, as we see Christian fundamentalists ready to take direct physical action against those who even appear to be adherents of Islam. We see evangelicals explicitly demanding support for Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. I don’t believe these Christians came to that conclusion on their own. The analysis of which you speak is the most subjective analysis that is humanly possible, isn’t it? It’s about what makes ME happy. It’s about analysis without the necessity of continued testing by the hard questions of experts. You even propose that this “analysis” could be toppled by an ad or “something that looked appealing”. Isn’t that proof of the total inadequacy of that method of analysis? Shouldn’t that kind of “analysis” be rejected as a wholesale disaster if the objective is to move toward truth of any kind? ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/156 "2018-04-08T00:05:06Z")
The difference between [proselytizing] and [debating/arguing] seems to me mostly a question of who took the initiative. I think if anyone accused me of proselytizing for atheism, my available defence against that accusation would be very weak, except for one crucial point: nobody ever accuses anyone of proselytizing for claiming obvious truths like “Water molecules are two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom”, and the idea that I’m proselytizing for - “The one making the positive claim bears the burden of proof” - is I think an equally unexceptionable claim. (In fact, I think religious people consider my claim a perfectly correct idea too. They just think there’s an exception to it; I don’t.) ---
**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:** [April 8, 2018, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/157 "2018-04-08T00:41:12Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > The difference between [proselytizing] and [debating/arguing] seems to me mostly a question of who took the initiative. I think if anyone accused me of proselytizing for atheism, my available defence against that accusation would be very weak, except for one crucial point: nobody ever accuses anyone of proselytizing for claiming obvious truths like “Water molecules are two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom”, and the idea that I’m proselytizing for - “The one making the positive claim bears the burden of proof” - is I think an equally unexceptionable claim. (In fact, I think religious people consider it a perfectly correct idea too. They just think there’s an exception to it; I don’t.) And back to the beginning. The reason religious people say they are an exception is that they claim God is not covered by proof or science, but by faith. So if they truly claim this, why then do they try to find evidence to in fact “prove” that Jesus was resurrected etc.? Remember the famous cartoon with a long equation and “then a miracle occurs” in the middle of it. For them we can substitute “and then faith kicks in.” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/158 "2018-04-08T00:51:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > How many fundamentalists Christians who reject Islam do so from an analysis of its history and writings, and how many because their pastor tells them that it doesn’t accept Jesus? Actually, Islam accepts Jesus as a prophet, just not as Savior. ---
**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:** [April 8, 2018, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/159 "2018-04-08T00:52:15Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Why are we narrowing this down to fundamentalist Christians? I’m not. Just an example. There are plenty of others. > [@](#): > > I don’t know what percentage of Christians, fundamentalist or otherwise, reject Islam on the instruction of their pastors. I don’t think it’s necessary, though; Christianity, or at least the versions I’ve heard of, is a “one god, and Jesus is ~God” kind of deal. You don’t _need_ a pastor preaching to reject a specific alternative religion in that kind of case. It could be a preacher preaching or just what they have absorbed in their communities. People tend to take up the religion of their parents. It is not like each person, at 13 or 18, does a survey of world religions and takes one up based on what they have discovered. My rabbi didn’t have to tell me to reject Jesus. In my community, a majority of us did. Though I think being brought up to reject the majority religion in the US made it easier for me to reject all of them. Which happened when I started to investigate outside the confines of religious education and popular culture. > [@](#): > > This is the point I’m making, though; if this Christian who’s never looked into another religion does lose their faith, they might still well see what facets of that spirituality they do still believe in as being met by some alternative. Dissatisfaction from their current religion, in the form of not finding answers that satisfied, IS analysis. If there was never analysis they’d never know something was wrong. There’s a goal, an examination of results, and a conclusion to change. It doesn’t matter if what prompted a change was an ad or something that looked appealing, that’s still analysis. If dissatisfaction is analysis, then angst is deep self examination. It might lead to analysis, or it might lead to jumping on the nearest religious bandwagon. Some Christians might jump to another variety, or even become Mormon, and some might jump into woo. Or some like Martin Gardner might become deists who seem to get the benefits of some spirituality without having to put their brains in idle. That seems to work for people who feel there must be a reason for all this. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/160 "2018-04-08T00:53:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Have you read this thread? Accept it as an article of faith. 😃 ---
**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:** [April 8, 2018, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895/161 "2018-04-08T00:54:10Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Actually, Islam accepts Jesus as a prophet, just not as Savior. Being a savior is what accepting Jesus means. There have been plenty if prophets, but Christians don’t worship them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-religious-people-try-to-prove-god-exists/811895.md?page=9)