# 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:** 22
### Author:  [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2022, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/421 "2022-05-29T03:27:10Z")
In th3 old days, we just called it “superstition.” Covered a lot of ground.
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### Author:  [@philipdalton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/philipdalton)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2024, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/422 "2024-01-18T19:48:14Z")
Actually the number of Britons who believe in God has now decreased from 75% in 1981 to just 49% now. It is bound to go lower than this eventually because people in general tend to go with the flow, they follow current trends. The less people believe in God the more people will begin to wonder if the atheists have got it right after all.
Have a listen to what I have to say on the matter:
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2024, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/423 "2024-01-18T21:04:54Z")
Maybe there’s a Thread God responsible for threads rising from the dead?
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2024, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/424 "2024-01-18T22:00:24Z")
Baron Samedi?
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/425 "2024-01-19T02:31:26Z")
If he was played by Geoffrey Holder I’d like to meet him.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/426 "2024-01-19T02:39:32Z")
I think there is a fault in the premise that so many people believe in “God”. It seems to me that there are a lot of sects that believe in different deities with different aspects and goals, all using the designation of “God” to create a false sense of community and power (in numbers).
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### Author:  [@philipdalton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/philipdalton)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/427 "2024-01-19T16:14:42Z")
Take the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins for instance. His main objection to God’s existence is that for Him to be the Creator of everything would require Him to be uncreated, which according to Dawkins is impossible. According to Dawkins, all living beings must have begun to exist at a certain point in time, and God would be no exception to that rule, therefore He can’t exist, because He would have had to have been created in order to exist in the first place. But just because something is beyond human comprehension doesn’t automatically make it an impossibility, does it? Does anyone have any thoughts they’d like to share on this?
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/428 "2024-01-19T16:37:21Z")
Yes, I’d be surprised if that is Dawkins’ main objection to the concept of God, because if it is, he’s not as bright as I thought he was supposed to be. That argument smells to me like a straw man.
For me it’s simply lack of evidence. “God” as commonly defined in the Abrahamic religions is neither necessary nor sufficient to account for the universe as we know it. Same for other deities, capitalized or not.
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### Author:  [@jjakucyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjakucyk)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/429 "2024-01-19T17:46:27Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> Yes, I’d be surprised if that is Dawkins’ main objection to the concept of God…That argument smells to me like a straw man.
Agreed. Now, he might say something along those lines to turn the typical Kalam Cosmological Argument back on theists. The argument, which is the favorite of Christian apologist William Lane Craig, is:
(i) Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence
(ii) The universe began to exist
(iii) Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence
This argument gets spun by Craig and other theists to say the cause must be a god creator, even though it doesn’t follow from any of those premises. The rebuttal is asking who or what created god then? If the answer to that is “god doesn’t need one” then that’s special pleading. You could just as well argue that if god doesn’t need a creator then neither does the universe. So perhaps Dawkins conceded one of the points for the sake of this particular argument, but it doesn’t sound like him.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/430 "2024-01-19T18:18:58Z")
> [@philipdalton](#):
>
> Take the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins for instance. His main objection to God’s existence is …
Been a while since I read RD or saw him speak, but I did read quite a bit of him at one time and I have ZERO recollection of him offering any such “main objection.”
Can you identify where you perceived him saying as much?
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/431 "2024-01-19T18:43:25Z")
> [@philipdalton](#):
>
> Take the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins for instance. His main objection to God’s existence is that for Him to be the Creator of everything would require Him to be uncreated, which according to Dawkins is impossible.
No, as others have said this is a somewhat garbled rendering of the standard refutation to the Kalam and other first cause arguments. All things must have a cause, so the universe must have a cause, and we call that God - but God does not have to have a cause, by definition. That’s called special pleading, and is a fallacy.
The Kalam fails for other reasons. First “everything has a cause” is a law of physics which creationists have made up. It is more or less true in the macro world, but not in the quantum world which is inherently probabilistic. Second, there is a leap from creator to intelligent creator to creator as shown in the Bible. Maybe the creator is a grad student in some universe creation lab who has no connection to the universe spun off.
Plus, the argument often goes from science proves the universe had a beginning to ignoring the findings of when the Big Bang happened and having the beginning 6,000 years ago. If there was a creator god we know it wasn’t the god of the Bible because the Bible gets the story all wrong.
The real reason for atheism is the lack of good evidence for any god. We can refute some specific gods with other arguments.
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### Author:  [@knavette57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/knavette57)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/432 "2024-01-19T18:47:04Z")
_The thought of death and non-existence is terrifying, we can’t really comprehend non-existence on a deeply intuitively level because we’ve only experienced existence_
In way, though, we have. I have no comprehension of my existence before I was about, oh, maybe two years old. Before that, it is the darkest of voids. Also, I do sleep deeply enough that I often feel upon awakening, that I was very much in a hole of blackness, with no idea or very little idea of my existence – and this occurs while I am very much alive, my bodily processes ticking right along, with possibly a dream or two within all that. If that can be the case while I am still living, I can imagine that death would be much more a big black shade going down that blocks out any sense of me-ness. I just cease to exist. I wish there were an afterlife, but it is also comforting to me that there is not. I have certainly believed this all my life and at age 66, with death ever becoming a closer reality, I am not inclined to change my opinion about it.
However, for many, it is just too painful to contemplate not seeing loved ones again or not going elsewhere into some Great Perfection Beyond Death. Part of the problem, is that we do not always know how to help the grief stricken. Belief in a God can assist with that, if one can feel they are not alone in their sorrow and there is a Big Person who helps them out, and promises them reunification with those whom they loved. I really wish it were so, but I think we only live on in the memories of those who remain behind. That is the best outcome, from what I have seen.
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### Author:  [@philipdalton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/philipdalton)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/433 "2024-01-19T20:26:25Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> > [@philipdalton](#):
> >
> > Take the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins for instance. His main objection to God’s existence is that for Him to be the Creator of everything would require Him to be uncreated, which according to Dawkins is impossible.
>
> No, as others have said this is a somewhat garbled rendering of the standard refutation to the Kalam and other first cause arguments. All things must have a cause, so the universe must have a cause, and we call that God - but God does not have to have a cause, by definition. That’s called special pleading, and is a fallacy.
> The Kalam fails for other reasons. First “everything has a cause” is a law of physics which creationists have made up. It is more or less true in the macro world, but not in the quantum world which is inherently probabilistic. Second, there is a leap from creator to intelligent creator to creator as shown in the Bible. Maybe the creator is a grad student in some universe creation lab who has no connection to the universe spun off.
> Plus, the argument often goes from science proves the universe had a beginning to ignoring the findings of when the Big Bang happened and having the beginning 6,000 years ago. If there was a creator god we know it wasn’t the god of the Bible because the Bible gets the story all wrong.
> The real reason for atheism is the lack of good evidence for any god. We can refute some specific gods with other arguments.
It is a fallacy that the Bible teaches that creation began 6000 years ago, it doesn’t specify an age for the universe. God creating “the heavens and the Earth” occurred prior to the first day of creation. Even if the “days” of creation were literal days each lasting just 24 hours, there is still nothing to indicate that the age of the universe or Earth is just 6000 years.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/434 "2024-01-19T20:38:53Z")
> [@philipdalton](#):
>
> It is a fallacy that the Bible teaches that creation began 6000 years ago, it doesn’t specify an age for the universe
The Bible pretty much teaches you whatever it is you want to believe.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/435 "2024-01-19T21:11:44Z")
> [@philipdalton](#):
>
> It is a fallacy that the Bible teaches that creation began 6000 years ago, it doesn’t specify an age for the universe. God creating “the heavens and the Earth” occurred prior to the first day of creation. Even if the “days” of creation were literal days each lasting just 24 hours, there is still nothing to indicate that the age of the universe or Earth is just 6000 years.
I worked out the timing myself, and depending on when you think some other events were, it is pretty much 6,000 years. I’ve read Genesis in Hebrew, in Hebrew School (beautiful poetry, much better than any translation I’ve ever seen) and days are days. One of the major points of the story is the reason for the Sabbath. It also does not just say day, it says evening and morning, the nth day.
Now, I admit that many people will throw out the parts of the Bible which cause problems, and keep others, but I’ve never yet gotten some metric for doing this.
Not accepting that the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve existed causes some real problems for the original sin hypothesis, but I won’t go into that now.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2024, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/436 "2024-01-19T21:12:21Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> The Bible pretty much teaches you whatever it is you want to believe.
Especially if you are not bothered by the hobgoblin of foolish consistency.
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### Author:  [@philipdalton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/philipdalton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2024, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/437 "2024-01-20T15:34:59Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> > [@philipdalton](#):
> >
> > It is a fallacy that the Bible teaches that creation began 6000 years ago, it doesn’t specify an age for the universe. God creating “the heavens and the Earth” occurred prior to the first day of creation. Even if the “days” of creation were literal days each lasting just 24 hours, there is still nothing to indicate that the age of the universe or Earth is just 6000 years.
>
> I worked out the timing myself, and depending on when you think some other events were, it is pretty much 6,000 years. I’ve read Genesis in Hebrew, in Hebrew School (beautiful poetry, much better than any translation I’ve ever seen) and days are days. One of the major points of the story is the reason for the Sabbath. It also does not just say day, it says evening and morning, the nth day.
> Now, I admit that many people will throw out the parts of the Bible which cause problems, and keep others, but I’ve never yet gotten some metric for doing this.
> Not accepting that the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve existed causes some real problems for the original sin hypothesis, but I won’t go into that now.
Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth”. It is not specified at exactly what point in time this took place, but it is distinctly BEFORE the first day of creation.
So the Bible does not contradict science when it says the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and the universe is 13/14 billion years old or whatever.
Actually I used to know David H.Boyle who ran the Doctor Who and Conspiracy Theories exhibitions at Blackpool, and his beliefs were based on Erich Von Daniken style pseudo-science. He actually believed that the Earth was 40 billion years old and that us, humans, had been living on it for hundreds of millions of years. According to the book of Genesis though, it is just a mere 6000 years we’ve been around.
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### Author:  [@jjakucyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjakucyk)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2024, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/438 "2024-01-20T17:47:18Z")
Genesis gets the order of creation very wrong, regardless of the span of time:
Earth came before the sun.
The sea came before dry land.
The sea came before the atmosphere.
Light on Earth came before the sun.
Earth came before the stars.
Earth came before other planets.
Land plants came before sea creatures.
Etcetera.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2024, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/439 "2024-01-20T17:52:23Z")
> [@philipdalton](#):
>
> So the Bible does not contradict science when it says the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and the universe is 13/14 billion years old or whatever.
(ETA: ninja’d)
That’s quite a leap. Even if we were to accept that there is an indefinite period of time before the first day of creation, it still remains that the order of events definitely contradicts modern science (e.g. the earth existing before the sun). Not to mention obviously adam and eve versus evolution.
On top of this, there’s just the fact that it’s misleading. The Bible is supposed to be divinely-inspired, and yet for most of the history of the Church, the origin story was interpreted as meaning that there was a literal week between absolutely nothing existing and humans walking about. And it certainly gives the impression that stars are just dots of light, created as an afterthought. A bit of night decoration for the shell around the earth.
It’s almost as if science is how we actually learn about the universe, and then apologists try to find post hoc rationalizations for how it can be compatible with their book.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2024, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/440 "2024-01-20T22:42:27Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> That’s quite a leap. Even if we were to accept that there is an indefinite period of time before the first day of creation, it still remains that the order of events definitely contradicts modern science (e.g. the earth existing before the sun). Not to mention obviously adam and eve versus evolution.
And that the sun was created on the fourth day (how we had days before this is a mystery) kind of makes it unimportant how much time passed since before the first. Which was still a day.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> It’s almost as if science is how we actually learn about the universe, and then apologists try to find post hoc rationalizations for how it can be compatible with their book.
Science creates a hypothesis based on evidence, and then checks the predictions you can make from the hypothesis. Religion and pseudoscience only makes predictions about fact X after fact X is discovered - and then claims the hypothesis predicted it all along.
Genesis makes several very clear predictions about the world - pretty much all of which have been proven wrong. The clergyman scientists in the 18th century worked to verify the predictions of the Bible - but were honest enough to admit that they failed to do so. Creationists today should be so honest.
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