Funny question, isn’t it?
If you don’t believe in (a) God, but live in a place where most people do, you’ve probably thought about this – even if just to understand others better. If you do believe, however, it’s likely that you know why you believe, but haven’t given much thought to what makes others believe.
Well, as readers of this blog know, I’m one of the former – I don’t believe in God or gods, but I like to understand people better. Therefore, I’ll try to list the several possible causes of belief in God, and add what I think about each. I mean mostly the Christian God, here, though I believe this list could apply to the other monotheistic religions.
The list isn’t probably complete, so, if you’re not included, please comment. 
- You can’t explain the existence or origin of something, so you believe God must have done it. Once, we didn’t know the cause of a lot of things. Today, the last few remaining questions seem to be “how did the universe come to be” and “what is the origin of life”. This is the God of the Gaps, of course. Much like ancient people believed that Zeus or Thor created lightning, and were wrong, it’s quite likely that these last two questions also have a natural explanation – and, yet, we still make the same mistake that our ancestors did: come up with supernatural explanations, instead of simply admitting that we don’t know, yet.
- The universe seems too complex, too ordered, too beautiful, to have appeared naturally. A variant of the above, really. Things seem much too interconnected to have appeared randomly, and we have everything we need in this world to survive; it almost seems like the universe was made for us. A universe with billions of stars, and we’re on this infinitesimal planet… made for us, indeed. I may write more about this point in the future; it would make this post too long.
- You’ve been educated that way. I was, myself. But we shouldn’t accept “knowledge” on authority. Parents and teachers can lie (e.g. Santa Claus) or simply be wrong (the Earth being in the center of the universe, whites being superior to blacks, etc.). It’s always a bad idea to lose the ablity to question. Besides, as Richard Dawkins says, most people have the religion of their parents, which makes one’s religion a matter of chance – if you’d been born in Saudi Arabia, you’d be a muslim; in India, you’d be a hindu, and so on. If you accept your parents’ religion, it was randomly selected, in a way – so why be so sure it’s the “real” one?
- You feel that your faith in something greater than yourself gives your life purpose and meaning. This is a very common one. Life seems so random, so ephemeral, and so pointless… surely, there’s got to be something more, doesn’t it? Trouble is, this is no more than wishful thinking. We want it to be true, therefore it must be true. Besides, life – wordly life, in our reality – is much more fascinating and meaningful than these people believe.
- You’ve “felt” the presence / touch of God. Another common one. Feelings or sensations, as we know, are subjective. Quite often, we feel what we expect to feel, or what we want to feel – it’s either a placebo effect, or wishful thinking, again. Besides, if the only thing God does is to make us feel “warm inside” from time to time (if you believe in him for just this reason, that’s what you’re implying), then does such a God deserve worship? He’s no more than a “spiritual foot warmer”, after all…
- It’s comforting to believe that someone is taking care of you. It is, indeed – but, if the reason for such comfort doesn’t exist, it can actually be dangerous. It’s like convincing yourself that you have Superman-like powers, or that your (perfectly common) shirt is bullet-proof. If you behave according to those beliefs, you’ll probably injure yourself, or even die. If you don’t, then you don’t really believe, right? Anyway, this is – once again – wishful thinking. Believing (whether it’s true or not) feels good, so you believe.
- You’re afraid of death, and want to believe that it’s not the end, that you simply go to a better place. Wishful thinking, once again. In reality, things don’t become true just because we want them to be true. Alternatively, it may not be about you: sometimes, the death of a loved one causes you to need to believe that the essential part of them isn’t really dead, it’s just gone to a better place, where there is no more suffering, and where you’ll meet them someday.
- You feel that (finite) life in this world is meaningless unless there’s something afterwards. In other words, if, no matter what you do, you die and turn to dust, what difference does it make whatever you do in your life? So you have to believe that there’s something more. However, not only is this wishful thinking (again…), but it’s a limiting view of life. If you believe that the purpose of life is something “exterior”, then this view makes sense; however, if you instead believe that the purpose of life is life itself – that is, that life needs no external justification, and is worth it on its own – not to mention that it can be utterly enjoyable, and that you actually can make a difference while you’re here -, then you can easily see what’s wrong with this view of existence.
- You want to believe that there’s some kind of absolute, perfect justice in the universe, even if only after death. I’d like that, too. Really. You can’t imagine how strongly I wish that was true. I’ve seen monsters living in luxury their entire lives, and never paying for their crimes, and I’ve seen terrible things happen unfairly to good people – sometimes randomly, sometimes caused by the monsters I mentioned. I wish that both would get what they deserve. It would be so… comforting to believe so. Unfortunately, wishing doesn’t make it so. The best thing we can do is try to make things better here, not resign ourselves and hope for some kind of “justice” later.
- You’ve had some unusual experience that made you believe. Not necessarily a miracle (that’s the next one), but an “amazing coincidence”. Say, you prayed for something that was quite improbable, and it happened. The problem here is usually referred to as “counting the hits and ignoring the misses”. I’ll write more about it in the near future.
- You’ve witnessed an apparent miracle. Now, this should be it, right? I mean, if you witness an actual miracle, it means, at least, that the supernatural exists – not necessarily God (or gods), but at the very least there’s something out there, right? So, what are those miracles? Oddly enough, they are always one of the following:
- A disease goes into remission, or actually vanishes, even though doctors were pessimistic;
- Someone “speaks in tongues”, or acting as if they were possessed;
- Something, by random chance, looks like a religious entity (such as Jesus or the Virgin Mary in tree bark, or in a slice of pizza);
- Statues or pictures of religious entities, usually in a church, appear to “cry” or “bleed”;
And that’s it. All but the first are so absurd that they don’t deserve consideration (if all that God does is appear on slices of pizza, then that’s not a god I’d want to worship anyway…). And that one, well, doctors can make mistakes, and there’s still much about the human body and diseases that we don’t know. Still, if it was actually God doing it, and since God has no limits, then why doesn’t he heal amputees? Are those “beyond” God? Does God hate them for some reason?
- You’re desperate for a miracle. Similar to the previous one, but in this case the “miracle” hasn’t happened yet. But you’re desperate, and ready to try anything, including becoming religious – or, possibly, changing religions.
- You see your death getting closer and closer. You don’t really want your existence to end. If something – anything – promises that it won’t, that there is an afterlife, you grab it.
- The example of another believer or believers inspired you. I’d say that this is actually more common in less religious societies, like in Europe, than in more fundamentalist ones, like the US or Muslim countries. I’ve seen it happen myself. Some of the best people I knew in my youth were devout believers (though not fundamentalists), and they radiated happiness and love wherever they went. It’s quite natural for others to be inspired by them. But I’d say that they weren’t good people because of religion; they’d be good people anyway.
- Other believers were there for you when you needed it. Similar to the above, and, again, I know cases like that. Say, you were going through a bad phase, your close family rejected you for some reason, you didn’t have any real friends, and the only people who really cared and tried to help were members of a church. It’s understandable that you may start to believe, too. Still, I maintain that you don’t need God or religion to be a good, caring human being. There are good and bad theists, and good and bad atheists.
- You like the sense of community that comes from belonging to a church. Again, similar. In this particular case, curiously, you don’t even need God; it’s the group itself, and its activities, that makes you feel like a part of something.
- Being told what to do and what to think comforts you. Sad, but true. A lot of people don’t want the burden and the responsibility of having to think and decide for themselves, and anyone or anything who relieves them of that burden and responsability will have their hearts and minds. This doesn’t happen only with religion, of course. Many people join groups – religious or otherwise – just so they can be told what to do and think.
- While reading the Bible, something made you believe. I almost didn’t include this one, as I’m convinced that reading the Bible, critically and dispassionately, and in its entirety, will unconvert at least ten people for each one it helps converting. Almost everyone who reads the Bible already believes; I’ve never heard of someone believing just because they read the Bible. Even most Christians are forced to ignore most of it.
And that’s it. I’ve tried to be comprehensive, but it’s possible that I missed a couple of reasons.
Now, please be honest: if you’re a believer, do you fit into one (or more) of the above? Or is your case different? I’d like to know.
Add to:
No related posts.
Tags: christian, christianity, faith, god, religion
Subscribe to this blog
[...] list goes on and some of the items are quite intriguing. You can see the whole article here. If you’re so inclined, the comments at the bottom of the article attempt to counter his [...]
Interesting reading.
Im not a believer in a higher power. My parents and their parents are my ‘Gods’ – they created me – if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here.
I can understand why people believe in something – I have the same sensation of feeling a little lost, with a mountain of questions that can’t be answered. It would be nice for an event or for someone or thing to tell me the ‘truth of everything’ which would provide hope and belief, but it’s not going to happen.
Like everything that has existed, there is a beginning and an end. So my personal belief is, that by showing people not to be afraid of the end and death eg.(think of all the people that have ever lived that have faced death, if they have done it, why can’t I), is the key to a successful life.
James.
i do not belive in a god but i understand the concept as to why we needed to belive. explaining somethings even with a good education can be difficult i can not imanage how it must have been for the prmitive man to explain the terrors of nature. that being said now days i feel that the belife in a god is causing more harm then good we need to learn we are here bu geological consent when the world goes through its next chane if we are not better prepaired we like the the other creatures who use to walk this earth will be no more. of course the religious sector will say god brought about are end and they may be right to some extent if they ment the earth. the earth is the god we should be serving for without her we have no life. yet we chose th destroy the one thing that means the most to are servival.
if we could all except that god was a consept to make us more civilized and that now we should put are faith in science and resarch and cure are problems we could truly raise to grateness but also as humans we have one more problem we are slow to change and we fear it as well
“transcended: that which goes beyond our normal experience.
threwout human history men and women have experienced a hidden sacred dimension of life. beyond there normal thoughts ideals and experiences. we seek ecstasies. we seek to go beyond ourselves, to experience this dimension of something else. if we do not find it in religion we find it in other activities. in art,sports,sex,and even in drugs even mistakenly. because this is the way we are constituted. we areas human beings able to have experience and concive of ideals that go beyond what we can grasp. this is part of the human condition.”
I just wanted to say that this makes so much sense to me. I’ve always been a Christian but the older I get (26 now) and after reading the bible, I am not convinced. I am moving away from it because of my true self and feelings are coming out. I am a dedicated liberal. All of my friends think I’m just back sliding into sin but I feel as though I can see for the first time. I have questions that no one answers because they are “too hard”. I don’t like feeling as if my life here and now is a waste just to get into a club in the after life with a bunch of assholes who wouldn’t accept me here in this life. Great Read.
Look, I believe in God because I have felt Him. Not because I wanted too. I have had experiences. I am a child, and therefore have child-faith. But the final line is that I believe in God because He is real. God has told me what to do. God has told me to write a book. God has given me the best oportunities. God has sent me to sleep at night crying because I am so overwhelmed. And the thing is, I’m only 14 years old and I get it. I believe God because I when I sing, it is like some kind of feeling overwhelms. God gives me these feelings and I believe that He gave them to me. If God were not real, why would people die for their faith? If God were not real, why would we be on earth? If God were not real, I would be dead. I believe in God because I so often feel these feelings. I so often feel very overwhelmed with emotion because of what God said to me. The fact is, God is real. And if you don’t believe me, rethink what you think. Things don’t have to make sense.
I think that this is a bunch of bull….
THERE IS A GOD,,,
and you know deep down…so stop tryn to hide it…and not to be mean or rood…but you need to get your facts straight…not all things in the world can be 100% proven but how in the world can you say that you yourself dont believe in him??
I know you know there is and just dont want to…
ever been to church..well if so or not go..and feel him…You know your going to hell right?
You full of bull…and im sry but im 14 and I know more than you…thats SAD….I hope and pray god moves on you..and helps you see!….goodbye(later.)
Hi
AM SO HAPPY FOR THIS ARTICLE AND I REALISED I NEEDED GOD BECAUSE I WAS A FIRM BELIEVER IN JUSTICE.
I CARRIED GOD LIKE A BURDEN WOULDNT DO NO WRONG,DID GOOD AND EXPECED RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE BUT ALL AROUND ME IT WAS NOT SO.
I SAW INNOCENT PEOPLE SUFFER.SAW GOOD DEEDS UNREWARDED..SO MANY THINGS..CHRISTAINITY MADE ME WEAK,I WAITED FOR GOD TO BE JUST,THERE HAD TO BE A REASON FOR WHY I WENT THRU ALL I DID,BUT I REALISE THERE IS NOTHING LIKE PERFECT JUSTICE BECAUSE THERE IS NO GOD.NOW I CAN MOVE ONE AND TAKE MORE RESPONSIBILTY FOR MY LIFE.
THX SO MUCH
I typed “Why do people believe in god” after seeing a commercial for a religious/sprirtual CD and yours was number one.
Thanks for writing this because it makes me feel less alone. I too have had the same viewpoints on many of those you wrote. ESPECIALLY #1
I grew up Catholic and went to Sunday School. My family was really pissed when they found out I stopped going to church and didn’t take my kids to church either. I explained to them that I have my own ideas about what (a) God is and that I wasn’t going to EVER share my viewpoints/ideas with them until they had an open and accepting mind/heart.
Once again thanks for writing this.
–Cheers
That’s it.God doesn’t exist.Jesus was a real and nice man for sure,but he was too crazy.Dreamer.He did good things trying to make peoples life better back on the time but that’s it.He wont come back to earth no more.He’s dead.No way.
Stop believe in those miracles and absurd things that is write on the bible.
Life and death is what we have and that’s it.Live your life and try to be good and smart to survive.
But you are not the only one.There’s belivers all around the world.many believes in other gods and blablabla.
World will be this way till you die.
Hello all,
Great posts.
I was raised catholic but have been an atheist for many years.
The following question has always been on my mind:
If God is so powerful, sublime… then why is there such misery on earth?
For example: Why are there kids being abused? Women beaten to death? Kids born deformed?
I understand that humans are responsible for their actions. But already at birth, there seems to
be so much injustice and inequality. Why would a “good” god make this happen?
Peter.
I’ve been in between the agnostic atheist views for the last couple years, and the only thing that keeps me agnostic is the idea that the universe didnt come from nothing and what created it, or spawned didnt come from from nothing either. In the beginning of a dimension in the universe we call time “what happened?”. E
[...] – Why do people believe in God? [...]
I was raised christian but have been agnostic/atheist for a long time now probably at least 10 years maybe more. I always question myself how we got here. I don’t neccessarily believe what the bible and other religions say. Its all by word of mouth and biblical text. How can anyone know that is the truth? Someone could say just about anything and if you send that message to billions of people that message will soon become true even though it was not. What I’m saying is that there could be no god the way the bible talks about. I do feel that we were created by some powerful force. The is no way we could have just materialized out of thin air. Something had to create us. And that is what I question. That is the answer I am waiting for. Another thing I think about too is,
Where do we go when we die?
Honestly, heaven and hell. What place would that be? Or is hell being reborn over and over again in an endless loop? And is heaven getting out of that endless loop and being like a god so to speak and you get to create your own universe and galaxies, planets and life? Those are the answers that I want to know. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but it’s just my thoughts on things. If you want to critize me I don’t get offended EVER I do what I feel is right for me.
this was a good read one of the best things i vw read online.it bothers me sometime when i mean people that are strong believers yet they know littel to nothing of there god and here i stand a non believer and i can probley run there fucking church maybe its stupidity and not faith
Just posting my ideas on this all God idea. I just figured I comment, and might do so in the future, I stumbled upon this by just going to google and typine “why do people believe in god” to see if some people share my views, and some of you do.
Primarily my main believe in life is you should do anything you can that can benefit you in bettering yourself or what makes you happy, unless it conflicts or makes things difficult for someone else. Personally, I don’t believe in God, or at least as he is described, you see, I believe men, and only men wrote what we have as knowledge of God. And for this reason I can’t believe in this “God”, because I simply can’t believe in men, men simply from the beginning of time have always used knowledge to influence people in which ever way the saw beneficial. I also can’t believe that something written so long ago, is true today simply for the fact things get edited overtime to benefit current times or contradictions [regarding the bible]. I don’t go around telling people not to believe in God simply because I don’t, and I also don’t appreciate people who do believe in “God” trying to make me feel guilty and heartless for not believing in him. They then “compel” their believes on me. I’m just to logical I believe to believe in something as “God”, as he is defined by men. I don’t live any less or see life any different just because I don’t believe there is life after death, I still live happy and do things that makes me happy and don’t make life difficult for others.
In order for me to ever truly believe in “God”, I would have to witness something that I can’t simply explain, up until now I’ve always could logically explain things that has happened to me, and even those few times when something wasn’t explainable, it wasn’t something “out of this world” that would make me believe in something remotely as a “God”. I’m not going to lie to you, I do get a kick out of asking people why they believe in God, only to hear them answer like “because he’s real”, or “who do you think created us”? I sure as hell don’t know, and neither do you, just like I can’t tell you it isn’t God with absolutely certainty, you can’t tell me it is him.
I believe there’s something of course, something we can’t ever explain and will never ever be able to explain. I remember once asking a friend, if God is God, can you explain why a child who doesn’t even get to grow old enough to commit a sin, can die so tragically, he actually answered, “some relative along the family bloodline must have done something wrong, and god is punishing them by taking their child”. I’m not even going to start explaining how foolish this sounds, but for him to believe his God is capable of vengeance, wow.
♫ True belief in god gives me a deep insight that keeps me original and real human being.I believe in god’s love and power.If to trust in god is termed as blind faith then I would love to be called a blind-believer.My views towards The Almighty (GOD) can’t be changed.He is real,he is the one who created the world.I believe in supernatural spirits and power.I love all the persons,animals,species.I love the whole world,the Universe.I am ASHISH!!
I find it amusing that all the people commenting here about their belief in God have positions that were already shown to be ridiculous at the top of the page. Either they didn’t read, or they’ve just been shown to be what they are: entirely irrational.
It’s all about……control. From our earliest moments out of the womb we spend our entire existences in trying to get and maintain control. Because if we can, it affords us some measure of comfort. Without it we are in a constant state of fear and apprehension. Unfortunately, even after having achieved a modicum of control, we realize that it is not enough. So we forge on. In doing so we not only try to get control of our own personal existence, we try to control others also. All of life’s events, good, bad, or otherwise, can be attributed to that one simple fact. Needless to say, in these endeavors to get and maintain control we must create something to help us understand that which we cannot. And when we have become satisfied with our creation, regardless of how limited our ability is to understand it, we give it a name, and then use it once again to afford us some measure of comfort, and some degree of control over ourselves, and anyone else we can control, which of course furthers on our endless quest for………control. If, for any reason, any event or person offers resistance to us in that quest, we will do whatever we can to overcome that resistance, including destruction of that individual. Because if we don’t, we lose……control. Regardless of what any person who believes in “God” or whatever their name for it is tells you, if you do not conform to their beliefs, either your belief must be changed to conform to theirs, or you must be destroyed. Do not for a moment make the mistake of believing anything they might promulgate about “accepting” the fact that others may exist and live independently of what they believe. The simple truth is that they would rather see you dead. It’s rather sad but true. We experience fear because we are unable to get control. That fear becomes hatred and anger. And while we may acknowledge simple anger such as that which comes when you realize your child has disobeyed you in some way, therefore threatening your ability to control him or her, and recognize that anger is a result of the fear of losing that ability, when it comes to that fear that arises when our beliefs are challenged, the fear and hate and anger totally destroys all ability to reason. It was, and always will be so.
so I started going to this youth gruop and the lady incharge of it has a son who wants to become a preist. and hes there telling us all thase things on how our happiness is god and how his son jesus died for us and that religious stuff. I started getting all these questions the next day on how CAN A PERSON BE A FOLLOWER OF SOMETHING that they dont even know is real. I mean the only way to actually know if GOD is real is to go back in time to where they say it all started. how can these people actually beleive a perfect person created them. Thats kind of silly knowin people beleive the first people on this world were cavemen. If GOD was so perfect whay didnt he make everyone perfect why were they dumb(cavemen). Also if god did create only one man and one woman how did all these people get created isnt it a sin for relatives to have children all coming from only one man and one woman…….??????? in my point of view everything you said is true I mean i am a catholic just because my mom is catholic…….the people really took it far with all the virgins and saints even the pope. I mean if god is so real like the people beleive why doesnt he just reappear, just because hes “DEAD” hes still god. People created superheroes thats no different than god what god makes miracles same as saying superman used one of his superpowers……..My last thought people beleive in god right but they dont beleive in the gods from greece or egypt what makes them think that those gods are any differnt from our god????????? i mean they’re still gods right>>>>>> why are they so sure this gog is real but the gods from those other places are fake???????????
I admit I havent read all the posts and I also admit Ive had ‘abit’ to drink, but I am not a stupid drunk. Anyway, my opinion on believing in God, the ‘intelligence of creation’. People are dummed to the fact that we are so intelligently put together, people take there existance for granted, how it came to be…I suspect some aethiests are so keen to prove that a God doesn’t exists that they do not care to consider (display) why they are so passionate to deny it. If you really want to be rational consider honestly the motivation of your arguments…