# 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:** 3
### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/41 "2022-04-18T14:51:44Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#):
>
> In any case, many of us believe in God because we see evidence of God and find such a belief both useful and comforting.
Yes. In addition, not all of us were raised in our faith. And many of us find our faith as something that challenges us rather than gives us all the answers.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/42 "2022-04-18T14:54:37Z")
Yes, but it comforts them.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/43 "2022-04-18T15:01:27Z")
My MIL seems like a devout Catholic. She goes to church (mass, I guess) every week. She spends a day every week on her hands and replaced knees scrubbing the church floors. She donates money to the church weekly, plus in support of various projects. She helps out in the church kitchen when they make food for whatever they make food for.
She knows I am an atheist and we’ve had a few private conversations about atheism. She has confided in me that she doesn’t _really_ believe in god. She grew up with the church as an important part of her life. It is her only social outlet, as all of her friends are involved in the church.
I wonder how many people who say they believe in god are in her situation.
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### Author:  [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/44 "2022-04-18T15:05:45Z")
> [@Pleonast](#):
>
> Scientific inquiry allows us to organize our experiences into replicable patterns
Allows us, sure.
Does it really happen - Not as much as most Scientists “believe”. Real data shows otherwise :
> **[Replication crisis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis)**
>
> The replication crisis (also called the replicability crisis and the reproducibility crisis) is an ongoing methodological crisis in which the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to reproduce. Because the reproducibility of empirical results is an essential part of the scientific method, such failures undermine the credibility of theories building on them and potentially call into question substantial parts of scientific knowledge.
> The replication crisis is frequently...
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/45 "2022-04-18T15:11:19Z")
I also suspect there are a lot of people who are actually atheists or otherwise non believers who claim to be believers because it’s basically the default in a lot of cultures. Saying your true beliefs would incur significant social costs, pretending to believe almost never has any social costs. And I know people who sort of default to “Christian” as their identity even though they don’t really believe, just because it’s sort of the default cultural self-identification of those around them. I would have no problem believing 20-30%% of self-identified believers in the US don’t really believe.
I would also say that about 95-99% of self identified believers don’t actually act like they believe. If you really think your eternity will be determined between infinite reward and infinite punishment based on a few decades on Earth, there’s no way you would fucking dick around with that and risk infinite punishment by engaging in sin. I don’t think anyone truly deep down believes in the sort of religions that promote those ideas except people whose lives are basically monk-like, because dicking around with eternal reward/punishment, if you truly believed, would be pure insanity.
Now - some have solved this by believing in a softer, gentler version of religion that’s more forgiving - and so be it - but plenty of people claim to believe in fire and brimstone and then go ahead and cheat on their wives or steal or commit other crimes that have fleeting benefits on Earth but potentially infinite punishment.
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/46 "2022-04-18T15:13:42Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> Yes, but it comforts them.
Ha! Nicely done.
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### Author:  [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/47 "2022-04-18T15:44:46Z")
I think part of the answer is pretty simple: We know we’re going to die, and it’s terrifying.
Inventing another, post-life plane of reality helps mitigate that terror. Being less existentially terrified may have at one time been a reproductive advantage, and as you point out it may have helped build longer-lasting societies.
Do other animals know they’re going to die, and have beliefs about a post-life plane of reality? There’s really no way for us to know.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/48 "2022-04-18T15:54:26Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#):
>
> As morally wrong that is.
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#):
>
> But of course I am sure we are all stupid.
Please stop baiting other users with these comments. Any more and you’ll be asked to stay out of the thread.
You can explain about why you have faith without such comments.
And to others, no sense rising to his bait.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/49 "2022-04-18T15:58:57Z")
> [@Polerius](#):
>
> Why is it that many thousands of years ago, a new animal comes to the scene (humans), they see the real world around them, experience the sun, the sky, the land, the animals, and think: “This is not all of reality. Someone created all of this and when I die I’ll get to the same plane of existence as the being who created all of this”
>
> It seems strange to me that humans even started having thoughts of beings not belonging to this physical reality.
>
> Some possible reasons:
>
> 1. Having these thoughts enabled some humans to build long-lasting societies, so the trait survived
> 2. Having these thoughts is a random side effect of having the kind of brain we have, and since it doesn’t kill us, the trait survived
> 3. There is indeed a creator, and we were indeed built with the ability to conceive of things beyond this world
> 4. Other?
>
> Does anyone else find it strange that humans even started having these beliefs to begin with?
>
> As to the OP’s question itself: I think the answer is related to the answer to my question of how these beliefs came to be.
This doesn’t address your question directly, but there are a lot of things about human society that are agreed fictions, for example:
- property ownership
- law
- tribal, ethnic, or national identities
- hierarchies
- boundaries
All of these (and many other) things exist only because we agree to behave as if they exist.
So, from my perspective, it’s a very small step from that to agreeing to believe in other kinds of fictions, like unseen supernatural beings.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/50 "2022-04-18T15:59:45Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> I would also say that about 95-99% of self identified believers don’t actually act like they believe.
Good observation. At first, I was going to say that is a different issue, but I then thought it had bearing into what it means when people say they “believe” in G/god/s.
My sister recently cast off Catholicism. For her, I think the main impetus was hypocritical and offensive messaging re: pederast priests. And once she rejected a couple of things, she realized the rest were equally unnecessary. But I remember her saying something like, “If Catholics REALLY believe God is present in the church, that he has the power to cast people into hell, and the wafer is being transformed into the body of Christ, would people think it sufficient to demurely cross themselves upon entering? If I really believed that, I’d be prostrating myself on the floor!” (Nothing like an adult convert to atheism!). 😃
But many folk observe that some of the shittiest human beings are some of the folk who hold themselves out as especially pious and active church members. Which makes me wonder what really does it mean to them to “believe.” To a nonbeliever, the manifestations of their belief seem awfully superficially for a matter of such incredible significance.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/51 "2022-04-18T16:45:45Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#):
>
> I can’t read this type of thread any more, but I do want to point out that asking people who _don’t_ believe in God why _other_ people believe in God is bound to just continue the self-congratulatory atheism love-fest which sheds no light at all upon the subject
As someone who _does_ believe in God, let me mention something that I hope _does_ shed light on the subject: the story of Joseph.
Over the years, I’ve asked various Christians to tell me the story of Joseph: you know, the bit in the first chapter of the first book of the New Testament, where Mary was with child, and Joseph knew the child wasn’t his, and there he was reacting accordingly, but then…
…and that’s when they tell me that an angel appeared unto Joseph to deliver a divine message about Jesus. And, well, sometimes that’s it; sometimes they add that an angel appeared to Joseph _in a dream,_ but sometimes they don’t actually mention that part.
Which, to me, is _amazing_. If we take the story in Matthew seriously, then we’re saying that people back then would act like they’d just met an angel _in real life_ upon meeting an angel _in a dream_.
As far as I can tell, that’s how people thought back then. As far as I can tell, his response was — and, by many today, _still is_ — considered reasonable to the point of being unremarkable: of _course_ he reacted the way he did after getting a message from an angel; even now, people who believe the guy was asleep and dreaming find it so plausible and sensible to so react to a message from an angel that they often don’t bother to even mention that he was, again, asleep and dreaming.
If a Christian mentions the asleep-and-dreaming part, that already tells me something interesting, and I feel it has a lot of explanatory power. But whenever they gloss over that part, that tells me something _fascinating,_ and I figure it has even _greater_ explanatory power.
You can, if you like, call my reasoning self-congratulatory; but I don’t see that it’s, y’know, incorrect.
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/52 "2022-04-18T17:01:08Z")
> [@Pleonast](#):
>
> The human species is pattern-seeking and social. It should be no surprise that we anthropomorphize patterns we pull out of our experiences.
Quite.
There is a lot of argument and at least some evidence that a [propensity towards religion/religion-like beliefs may be hard-wired into our neurobiology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology_of_religion), in much the same way many believe the acquisition of language is. If this is so then than it is very likely that we’re never really going to see a religion-free society. More secular, sure. But a substantial chunk of the populace will always be yearning for more explanation about the mysteries of life than is realistically available.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/53 "2022-04-18T17:37:29Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> If a Christian mentions the asleep-and-dreaming part, that already tells me something interesting, and I feel it has a lot of explanatory power. But whenever they gloss over that part, that tells me something _fascinating,_ and I figure it has even _greater_ explanatory power.
What does either thing tell you? I’m afraid I might have missed the importance of this.
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### Author:  [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/54 "2022-04-18T17:59:02Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#):
>
> But many folk observe that some of the shittiest human beings are some of the folk who hold themselves out as especially pious and active church members. Which makes me wonder what really does it mean to them to “believe.” To a nonbeliever, the manifestations of their belief seem awfully superficially for a matter of such incredible significance.
There are secular ways to be pious. See virtue signaling. You are not going to get rid of that because you can’t get rid of people. Yes, secularism is just as prone to this as religious groups.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2022, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/55 "2022-04-18T22:19:29Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> What does either thing tell you? I’m afraid I might have missed the importance of this
The OP asked why people believe in God — and, if someone told me, or told you, that they believed in God because an angel appeared to them and delivered a divine message, then I’d provisionally nod in agreement: “if this person isn’t lying or crazy or whatever,” I’d think, “then, sure, that strikes me as a reasonable reaction: you believe you met an angel, because you — met an angel.”
But if someone tells you or me that an angel appeared to them _in a dream,_ then I’d have a very different response. “If this person isn’t lying or crazy or whatever,” I’d think, “then — so what? That’s like saying you had that dream where you showed up to school without your clothes on, or the dream where your teeth fell out while a hot dog tried to eat you, it doesn’t mean any of that that actually happened. So believing that you met an angel because you met an angel _in a dream_ doesn’t strike me as a reasonable reaction.”
So whenever people relate the story as if they believed it involved a reasonable reaction on Joseph’s part, I can’t help but think it could explain why some folks believe in a divine being: if, for example, they had a dream that I‘d dismissively say was like unto Joseph meeting an angel in a dream — of which other people would say, with no trace of dismissiveness, “yes, quite right; it’d be reasonable to react as though you’d met an angel in real life.”
And, to me, that’s interesting; it has explanatory power. Likewise, whenever people relate the story of an angel appearing to Joseph _and full stop,_ I become even _more_ convinced that plenty of people think it’s reasonable to act like meeting an angel in a dream is as important as meeting one in real life would be: they apparently find the distinction to be so unimportant that they don’t even bother to mention that little detail when they’re retelling the story.
To me, the difference is all-important; but, given that so many people apparently find it to be so _unimportant,_ I find myself shrugging and saying, “well, I guess that’d explain why a number of people believe in supernatural entities.”
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### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2022, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/56 "2022-04-19T02:50:34Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> To me, the difference is all-important; but, given that so many people apparently find it to be so _unimportant,_ I find myself shrugging and saying, “well, I guess that’d explain why a number of people believe in supernatural entities.”
There are many instances in Scripture of God telling people things in dreams, so why would folks thinking it was unimportant that God told St. Joseph (to different from the other Joseph, the one with the Technicolor Dreamcoat, who was famed for prophetic dreams and interpreting prophetic dreams given to Pharaoh) about Jesus’ parentage in a dream make much of a difference?
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2022, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/57 "2022-04-19T03:27:26Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> I can’t speak for other people, but I am someone who would be an atheist if it weren’t for some supernatural things that so far, to the best of my knowledge, have no natural explanation…
Just because you can’t think of an explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t one. And it doesn’t mean that a supernatural explanation is right by default. Perhaps your knowledge isn’t sufficient or you lack imagination.
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### Author:  [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2022, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/58 "2022-04-19T07:49:37Z")
> [@Southern\_Yankee](#):
>
> Personally, the vast majority of people I know are celebrating the Resurrection today as if it was an historical fact.
Even Christians know it is not an historical fact, at least not the day it is celebrated anyway. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. It is a moveable feast. If it were historical it would be celebrated the same day every year. Sometimes it’s in March, sometimes late April.
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### Author:  [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2022, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/59 "2022-04-19T07:52:37Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#):
>
> If this is so then than it is very likely that we’re never really going to see a religion-free society. More secular, sure. But a substantial chunk of the populace will always be yearning for more explanation about the mysteries of life than is realistically available.
There are also a large number of people who seem to be hard-wired to believe in conspiracy theories. About 35% of Americans believe the 2020 election was stolen, for example.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2022, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/60 "2022-04-19T09:58:10Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#):
>
> There are many instances in Scripture of God telling people things in dreams, so why would folks thinking it was unimportant that God told St. Joseph (to different from the other Joseph, the one with the Technicolor Dreamcoat, who was famed for prophetic dreams and interpreting prophetic dreams given to Pharaoh) about Jesus’ parentage in a dream make much of a difference?
My point exactly! As soon as we note that, for some people, it genuinely wouldn’t make “much of a difference” whether they receive a divine message from a supernatural entity in real life or while they’re asleep and dreaming, then I figure we have a partial answer: _why do so many people believe in supernatural entities?_ Because they believe they’ve met one in real life — or, y’know, in a dream, which is an “unimportant” distinction that doesn’t “make much of a difference”. Or they’ve come across plausible accounts of folks who’ve met a divine being in real life — or, again, in a dream, which is an “unimportant” distinction that doesn’t “make much of a difference”.
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