# 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:** 7
### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2022, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/121 "2022-04-20T20:27:01Z")
This is such poor reasoning from someone who was otherwise brilliant. Whatever anyone’s thoughts on the existence of God or gods are, belief certainly screwed with Pascal’s ability to reason.
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### Author:  [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2022, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/122 "2022-04-20T21:15:09Z")
Even with Thudlow’s expansion it doesn’t work for me. It still amounts to lip service in my view.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2022, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/123 "2022-04-20T21:31:08Z")
> [@P-man](#):
>
> Even with Thudlow’s expansion it doesn’t work for me.
Somewhat along the same lines is William James’s essay “The Will To Believe,” which might or might not work better for you.
> **[The Will to Believe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Believe)**
>
> "The Will to Believe" is a lecture by William James, first published in 1896, which defends, in certain cases, the adoption of a belief without prior evidence of its truth. In particular, James is concerned in this lecture about defending the rationality of religious faith even lacking sufficient evidence of religious truth. James states in his introduction: "I have brought with me tonight ... an essay in justification of faith, a defense of our right to adopt a believing attitude in religiou Ja...
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2022, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/124 "2022-04-20T21:47:16Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Basically what I’m saying is that even with all our science, I think it’s arrogant to assume that we little carbon blobs of mostly water sitting on an inconsequential spec in the vast infinite universe have a true sense of their place in how everything works any more than a fish or amoeba does.
>
> Not sure I’d go that far.
> I agree with your point about levels of reality…I’ll be honest and say that my gut feeling is probably that there _are_ levels of reality beyond what we’re aware of right now, and therefore I don’t assert that there’s no afterlife, merely that there’s no evidence for such a thing (and we should live our lives as though there isn’t one).
>
> But there’s no arrogance to saying that we have a good understanding of many phenomena thanks to science. Science is not about arrogantly assuming anything, it’s about testing our ideas.
Perhaps a bit of hyperbole on my part. But I think even what we know we don’t know about concepts like quantum physics, dark mater, gravity, and so on tells us that there is a lot more to how things work than what we currently understand.
Also keeping in mind, most people don’t actually understand basic science and physics.
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### Author:  [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/125 "2022-04-21T06:42:06Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> You understand that _all_ commemorations are held on days that are by definition _not_ the day the historical event happened, right?
You understand that virtually _all_ commemorations are held on the same date year after year, right? Or at least within a few days if it’s held on a Sunday, say. Name me another commemorative day that has a month variance from one year to the next.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/126 "2022-04-21T12:04:58Z")
> [@Biffster](#):
>
> You understand that virtually _all_ commemorations are held on the same date year after year, right? Or at least within a few days if it’s held on a Sunday, say. Name me another commemorative day that has a month variance from one year to the next.
It doesn’t matter. That’s just an arbitrary convention. The calendar year itself is a constructed convention. There’s no rule of natural law that commemorations are more or less historical based on how closely they adhere to the calendar date of a past event.
One could decide to commemorate a historical event every 200 days, or every 500 days. Or alternate between 200 and 500 days. That wouldn’t make the commemorations less historical, even if most other feasts were not done that way.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/127 "2022-04-21T12:27:46Z")
Hanukkah, Passover, Ramadan, certainly a few others.
And for much the same reason. They are based on a calendar other than the Gregorian calendar.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/128 "2022-04-21T12:37:15Z")
> [@Pleonast](#):
>
> Easter _is_ the same date every year–in the Jewish lunar calendar.
If that were true, shouldn’t easter fall at the same time relative to Passover every year
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/129 "2022-04-21T12:44:06Z")
> [@jjakucyk](#):
>
> While I may derive some small benefit from murdering/stealing/raping/whatever, a society where all those things are OK is a shitty place to live, because you end up spending your life defending yourself from the other murderers, thieves, and rapists. That’s where secular laws come from.
_"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man._
_"To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues._
_“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”_
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> if they really believe that the very creator of the universe is watching us all, someone with the power to snap his fingers and make whole galaxies, and he’s a vengeful god and all that…why do they feel the need to police blasphemy, or apostates?
The believe he has specifically tasked them to police blasphemy and apostasy so as to prevent their spread, and will make them account for why did _they_ not do _their_ job. Same reason “christians” elsewhere in the West get bent out of shape about secular education or other people’s sexuality.
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/130 "2022-04-21T13:23:41Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> Hanukkah, Passover, Ramadan, certainly a few others.
Lunar New Year, as well, right?
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/131 "2022-04-21T13:51:12Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> > [@Pleonast](#):
> >
> > Easter _is_ the same date every year–in the Jewish lunar calendar.
>
> If that were true, shouldn’t easter fall at the same time relative to Passover every year
Yes, Easter is the Sunday after Nisan 15 (that is the first day of Passover, a fixed date).
> **[List of dates for Easter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_for_Easter)**
>
> This is a list of dates for Easter. The Easter dates also affect when Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost occur, consequently determining the liturgical year except the calendar of saints, feasts of the Annunciation and the nativities of St. John the Baptist and Jesus. Easter may occur on different dates in the Gregorian Calendar (Western) and the Julian Calendar (Orthodox or Eastern). The accompanying t...
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/132 "2022-04-21T13:52:22Z")
Sounds right. Those were just off the top of my head. I’m sure if I went down a rabbit hole and researched, I could find a number of observances that do not line up with the Gregorian calendar.
The solstice is something that requires a bit of effort to determine, a full moon is much more obvious. For cultures that grew up in areas where yearly seasonal variations in weather was not as extreme as further northern latitudes, basing the calendar on the moon makes more sense.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/133 "2022-04-21T14:04:02Z")
> [@Pleonast](#):
>
> Yes, Easter is the Sunday after Nisan 15 (that is the first day of Passover, a fixed date).
Ah, having looked it up, Easter doesn’t take into account the hebrew calendar leap month which throws it out of synch by a month occassionally. But it generally does fall within passover.
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/134 "2022-04-21T14:10:46Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> > [@Pleonast](#):
> >
> > Yes, Easter is the Sunday after Nisan 15 (that is the first day of Passover, a fixed date).
>
> Ah, having looked it up, Easter doesn’t take into account the hebrew calendar leap month which throws it out of synch by a month occassionally. But it generally does fall within passover.
Yep. There’s a lot of edge cases because Christians are basically running their own versions (because of course Christians can’t even agree among themselves) of the Jewish calendar. I guess we’re lucky we still all agree on the days of the week.
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### Author:  [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/135 "2022-04-21T15:19:09Z")
Say two people wake up in a room with no windows, and have no recollection of who or where they are. After a while, they begin to think that the room is not all there is and there must be something outside the room.
Making that assumption (that there is likely something outside their room) is reasonable, but if they make the leap to “outside this room there is a person called Bob and he got together with Mary and Jack and created this room and put us here”, without any such evidence inside the room, then that’s a leap too far, I think.
Couple that with the possibility that one of the two in the room believes the above story about Bob, but the other believes that “a giant frog with human head created this room and put us here”, and the two start fighting because they think the other is crazy/sacriligious for believing the story they believe in, and you have what I believe to be what’s happening in our world today.
Namely, there is likely something beyond what we see, but postulating specific creation & god myths and events happening in the supernatural realm (like Aphrodite springing from Zeus’ head, or Ganesha’s head being replaced with an elephant’s head, etc), and then fighting wars and killing people who don’t believe this, is unreasonable.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/136 "2022-04-21T15:40:26Z")
> [@Polerius](#):
>
> and then fighting wars and killing people who don’t believe this, is unreasonable.
No argument with that last clause. But then, fighting wars and killing people over just about _anything_ that people have fought and killed over is unreasonable.
Other than that, I think you’d have to add something to the analogy to make it closer to the way things actually are—maybe there’s a book or notebook in the room, in which someone has written a description of the time Bob visited the room and talked to the people who were living in it. Maybe one of the people in the room claims to be able to hear voices through the walls.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/137 "2022-04-21T16:05:03Z")
> [@Polerius](#):
>
> (like Aphrodite springing from Zeus’ head,
I’ve been watching this thread and remained silent til now. ATHENA sprung from Zeus’ head. Aprhrodite rose up in a cloud of sea foam after Cronus’ scrotum was cut off by Zeus and fell into the oceean
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/138 "2022-04-21T16:16:35Z")
> [@OldOlds](#):
>
> Here’s all I can say:
>
> I was raised Methodist. I was forced to go to church every Sunday. I never cared about it, and I hated going. As soon as I didn’t have to go every week (17? 18?) I didn’t.
>
> Yet, for several years after that, I believed in god. Why? Because for my entire life I had been told to. And then one day, I realized it was all bullshit. I didn’t believe, and I don’t have any reason to. That was 25 years ago, and I still see no reason to believe.
Similar here. I stopped going to church at 15, mainly because we moved again and didn’t bother finding another church. I’m now a pantheist and agnostic toward a supreme being.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/139 "2022-04-21T16:23:09Z")
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> Aprhrodite rose up in a cloud of sea foam after Cronus’ scrotum was cut off by Zeus and fell into the oceean
[coughs politely]
Uranus’, by Cronus.
[/coughs politely]
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### Author:  [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2022, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-still-believe-in-god/962965/140 "2022-04-21T16:24:31Z")
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> I’ve been watching this thread and remained silent til now. ATHENA sprung from Zeus’ head.
D’oh! Thanks for the correction. I had forgotten which one it was.
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> Aprhrodite rose up in a cloud of sea foam after Cronus’ scrotum was cut off by Zeus and fell into the oceean
That seems much more realistic and something reasonable for people to believe in 🙂
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