# Why do so many people still believe in God?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 17, 2022, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965 "2022-04-17T20:24:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 18
### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/341 "2022-04-27T16:42:31Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> I didn’t realize you were using the entire population as the base, not just the subset who had experienced conversions.
I was just using the numbers as presented in the survey.
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> But it still looks to me like the movement from affiliated to unaffiliated is 6.8%, not 11%. Whatever.
How do you get that number?
Raised Catholic, now unaffiliated 4%
Raised Protestant, now unaffiliated 7%
4+7=11. How’d you get 6.8?
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> There are certainly many fundamentalist Protestant denominations that demand much more time and energy from their members than Catholicism does, so that generalization is untrue.
I didn’t make a generalization, as I said “largely”, not wholly. And you are making the assertion that if someone switches from Catholicism, they go to one of the protestant denominations that demands more time and energy, which, while I don’t have a study to back it, has not been, IME the case at all. Most that I’ve met (at church, as I still go from time to time for the social reasons already mentioned) came to a Lutheran church specifically because it had fewer demands on their time and energy. _Maybe_ there are those who didn’t think that Catholicism was intense enough for them, so switched to something more hardcore, but I would be willing to wager that if a survey were done, they would be a statistical flyspeck.
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> 29% describe themselves as “atheists, agnostics, or nothing in particular”. Dig deeper and you’ll see that the latter two categories are much, much larger than the first.
Unless you are claiming that agnostics and nothing in particulars believe in God, that’s entirely irrelevant.
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> _I’m quoting those numbers directly from the cited survey!_ It’s the 20th paragraph of the report, about halfway down the webpage.
Ah, I see, you weren’t quoting the numbers from the survey, you were quoting the words of the survey itself without attribution. If I had known it were a quote, it would have been easier to find, as opposed to looking at tables and such.
But, it still doesn’t say what you seem to want it to say, as changing religious identity includes going from affiliated to unaffiliated, which seems to be, as the survey says and I will properly attribute:
> [@](#):
>
> By a wide margin, religious “nones” have experienced larger gains through religious switching than any other group. Nearly one-in-five U.S. adults (18%) were raised in a religious faith and now identify with no religion.
> …
> for every person who has joined a religion after having been raised unaffiliated, there are more than four people who have become religious “nones” after having been raised in some religion.
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> I bring all this up in order to debunk Princhester’s statement that
Well, you are not doing a very good job of it. @Princhester said “join” a religion, not change religion. It is not changing whether or not one believes in god, it is just changing the flavor of god one believes in.
And that number does seem to be
> [@](#):
>
> 4.3% of all U.S. adults
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> hence this assertion is refuted.
No, the straw that you have formed here has been refuted. Maybe you can nitpick the “almost all” and it should have been “the majority”, because even if you consider someone who changed from Lutheran to Methodist to be someone who changes religion (which no rational person really would), it is still 58% of people _don’t_ change at all. If you consider a change between protestant denominations to not be a change in religion, then it’s 66%, and if you count out those who left religion (so not religious people), then 84%.
So, if you ask someone if they are religious, and they say “Yes”, there is an 84% chance that they are in the same religion they grew up in.
Depends on how you define “almost all”, but 84% is certainly the lion’s share, and all you are doing is picking over nits in attempting to refute that assertion.
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### Author:  [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/342 "2022-04-27T16:43:45Z")
Sure, there are lots of people who can be accurately described as “closeted nonbelievers” going through the motions for social reasons. But there are a lot more people who feel ambivalent or questioning about their relationship with God, yet still show up to services, and not all of them do so because of peer pressure.
I suppose the point I was making could really be simplified to “I don’t think you can draw a clear binary distinction between believing in God and not doing so”. Obviously there are people who fit neatly into one pigeonhole or other, but a great many people don’t.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/343 "2022-04-27T16:49:24Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> Coincidentally
And it’s not just a coincidence, it’s completely irrelevant. Do your scotsmen know any red herrings?
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> And a question for all those who know people who go to church and say they believe in God, then come hang out with you and say they really don’t – clearly these people are lying to avoid peer pressure.
Why do you think that they say they believe in god while at church?
I go to church sometimes for various social reasons. I never say that I believe in god while I’m there, why would I lie?
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> OTOH, I could quite honestly say that I either do or don’t believe in God, depending on which of various definitions of “God” the person I’m talking to seems to be using.
So, you just claimed that people wouldn’t be doing exactly what you say that you do?
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/344 "2022-04-27T16:51:37Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> not all of them do so because of peer pressure.
It’s not just _peer_ pressure, it’s networking, it socializing. Most adults don’t have a whole lot of friends, they just don’t have time to make them. Church is a place where people get together that they can talk to, that they can make business connections with, that they can find a babysitter for their kid, or they can find a date.
There are a whole lot of reasons to go to church, and not all of them are because one believes in god.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/345 "2022-04-27T16:55:47Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Why do you think that they say they believe in god while at church?
Excellent point. I attended a baptism way back before the Pandemic. Being Jewish, I stood when asked but skipped certain prayers and certain words in others. A few atheist friends, while sharing in the family’s joy, didn’t say any prayers at all.
As I’ve often recounted, at Camp Isabella Friedman I met a righteous atheist rabbi. He NEVER claims to believe in G-d. But he says all the prayers etc as a sign of his own devotion to the Jewish people.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/346 "2022-04-27T16:55:47Z")
> [@Southern\_Yankee](#):
>
> But in this day and age, with all of the scientific advancement we have; the fossil records; etc. why do the majority of people still believe?
Ironically, it is my interest in and knowledge of science that has reinforced my belief in a Creator. Quantum Physics has shown that humans in general have a very poor grasp of what is and what isn’t possible. Things that are absolutely “impossible” have had fabulous laboratory success in experiments done over and over again for many decades.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/347 "2022-04-27T16:58:53Z")
> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> Quantum Physics has shown that humans in general have a very poor grasp of what is and what isn’t possible.
I really don’t see how this follows.
> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> Things that are absolutely “impossible” have had fabulous laboratory success in experiments done over and over again for many decades.
Do you have an example?
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### Author:  [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/348 "2022-04-27T17:05:06Z")
How do you get that number?
Raised Catholic, now unaffiliated 4%
Raised Protestant, now unaffiliated 7%
4+7=11. How’d you get 6.8?
Like I said, I copied it directly from the Pew study. 6.8 is the net figure, which I assume also counts the people moving in the other direction and people moving from non-Christian religions to and from the “none” category.
You were the one who brought up the 29% figure in response to my statement that self-identified atheists are a tiny minority. Most of that 29% are in the “nothing in particular” group, but it is quite possible, and increasingly common, to believe in God without believing in any particular religion. 30% of the group identifying as “none” still say that religion is somewhat or very important to them.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/349 "2022-04-27T17:08:17Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Do you have an example?
[**A Great Article on the Subject**](https://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/2015/07/20/three-experiments-that-show-quantum-physics-is-real/?sh=44d734731ae5)
Electron tunneling, which is impossible according to any kind of common sense, is proved to be true every time anyone employs an LED. That’s one of my personal favorites. A great experiment illustrating that is sending a beam of electrons at a sheet of metal with a series of horizontal holes and finding a solid line on the sheet behind the holes, showing that electrons are somehow is places that they shouldn’t possibly be.
The brilliant scientist, Niels Bohr, once said; "“Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.”
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### Author:  [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/350 "2022-04-27T17:11:27Z")
I’m going to grant all your dubious assertions for the sake of argument. 84% is not “almost all”, and 16% is not a “statistical flyspeck”. Hence, I have successfully pwned Princhester and I’m out of here.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/351 "2022-04-27T18:35:08Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#):
>
> I’m not going to dig up the Pew Religion Survey right now, as has been done in multiple threads previously, but nearly half of American adults currently practice a religion different than the one in which they are raised (that’s the high figure; the calculation obviously varies a lot depending on whether you consider different Christian denominations to be separate religions).
I wouldn’t consider different sects of the same religion that much of a change.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/352 "2022-04-27T19:31:41Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#):
>
> Yes, I missed the at. My apologies.
Well that saved me a response. 😀
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2022, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/353 "2022-04-27T20:22:09Z")
> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> Electron tunneling, which is impossible according to any kind of common sense, is proved to be true every time anyone employs an LED. That’s one of my personal favorites. A great experiment illustrating that is sending a beam of electrons at a sheet of metal with a series of horizontal holes and finding a solid line on the sheet behind the holes, showing that electrons are somehow is places that they shouldn’t possibly be.
>
> The brilliant scientist, Niels Bohr, once said; "“Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.”
That’s odd, since many creationists and believers I’ve run into claim to believe because “common sense” says that all things must be created and have a cause. The fact that common sense is not a good indicator of how things work at the quantum level is a good reason that no god is necessary for physics to work.
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### Author:  [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/354 "2022-04-28T07:11:46Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Why do you think that they say they believe in god while at church?
>
> I go to church sometimes for various social reasons. I never say that I believe in god while I’m there, why would I lie?
I’m a lifelong atheist, so is my wife, as are pretty much all my friends and family.
I’ve been to lots of weddings, funerals and other services where atheists pray and sing and recite words that speak to the existence of god.
This incudes my own Church of England wedding and both of my children’s christenings and the times when we’ve been godparents too.
It is purely cultural. No belief required or expected. The language and the ceremony are cultural touchstones that really don’t signify any deeper ideology for many, many people.
So you shouldn’t be at all surprised that merely speaking special words is not sufficient to indicate belief.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/355 "2022-04-28T11:41:55Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> The fact that common sense is not a good indicator of how things work at the quantum level is a good reason that no god is necessary for physics to work.
True or not, that wasn’t the thrust of my statement, which was to simply illustrate that claiming a Creator is “impossible” is not acceptable to me because we have a very cloudy idea of what is or isn’t impossible. In fact, science itself routinely “changes its mind” over time because of new discoveries. Definitive explanations become dead ends and things we never imagined become real possibilities or even actual explanations. That’s the way it’s always been.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/356 "2022-04-28T15:31:33Z")
I mean, that’s something that’s hard to understand intuitively, but it’s certainly not anything that is thought to be impossible or anything like that.
That it seemed impossible to the common sense of a particular Forbes reporter doesn’t really reflect on the rest of humanity.
At best, this is a god of the gaps argument. But even for those sorts of arguments, it’s a pretty weak one.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/357 "2022-04-28T15:33:41Z")
Good luck out there.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/358 "2022-04-28T15:34:52Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#):
>
> I’ve been to lots of weddings, funerals and other services where atheists pray and sing and recite words that speak to the existence of god.
As do I. Sometimes the hymns are fun to sing along with, and I haven’t really had a place to do any singing since my high school garage band days.
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#):
>
> So you shouldn’t be at all surprised that merely speaking special words is not sufficient to indicate belief.
I’m not.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/359 "2022-04-28T18:31:29Z")
> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> True or not, that wasn’t the thrust of my statement, which was to simply illustrate that claiming a Creator is “impossible” is not acceptable to me because we have a very cloudy idea of what is or isn’t impossible.
Ah, got it. I’ve never heard anyone claim that a creator is impossible, so I missed your point.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/360 "2022-04-28T19:20:12Z")
Whenever I contemplate or enter into discussions about the existence of a god, it really comes down to: Are we talking about the omnipotent/omniscient/omnibenevolent Christian god, or are we talking about something else?
Because if we are talking about non-Abrahamic religious systems, such as Hinduism, ancient Greek/Roman mythology, ancient Germanic mythology, etc., those kinds of beliefs about gods, who often have their own limitations, or are, in some sense, peers or even inferiors of humans, it’s really easy to fit them conceptually into observed phenomena.
But the Omnipotent/Omniscient/Omnibenevolent active/interested personal anthropomorphic Creator God? Even the slightest observation of the world around you should be enough to demonstrate that such a being doesn’t exist. Or if it does, then it’s not omnibenevolent. The God of the Old Testament is clearly a vicious monster and not worthy of respect.
The second thing is the idea of worship/praise/whatever. I cannot conceive of a “good” force that would desire, much less encourage, such behavior.
The very basis of god’s contract in many Christian circles: _You must have faith without proof; if you choose wrong, eternal torment._ This, right here, is a cruel and malicious game. If you believe in this god, and choose to follow this god, then, in my view, you are worshiping an evil demon.
These questions are too easy. If we can get away from thinking about this type of Christian god, then the discussion becomes a lot more nuanced and interesting.
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