50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God

[polymerase]

Wordsmith.org has been sending me a word a day for at least the past ten years. I take twenty seconds to read the definition if I never heard of the word. Today the wordsmith author, Anu, mentions a book. That's weird, he has never done that before.

Guy P. Harrison - 50 Reasons People Give For Believing In A God

Given that I have enjoyed his posts every day for ten years I look up the book. Now, you may not believe this but I rarely read or discuss religion. I haven't read the "New Atheism" books. Last book I read about religion was the bible. But this one I might purchase. I look down the list and each one is interesting then I get to number 20.

20. Atheists are jerks who think they know everything.

Yes, we are. Quite a few people in the old MacCentral thought this of me. Called me more than a jerk too. Maybe if I read this book I will become more tolerant of what I perceive as the complete idiocy of the belief of a god.

---

For completeness here is the list. 3,6,9, I have been told recently. 11, "Better safe than sorry" I always think is a joke but people really are serious. Like going to church every Sunday is going to fool some omnipotent god and send you on your way to heaven. Omnipotent but a bit of a dumbass.

1. My god is obvious.
2. Almost everybody on Earth is religious.
3. Faith is a good thing.
4. Archaeological discoveries prove that my god exists.
5. Only my god can make me feel significant.
6. Atheism is just another religion.
7. Evolution is bad.
8. Our world is too beautiful to be an accident.
9. My god created the universe.
10. Believing in my god makes me happy.
11. Better safe than sorry.
12. A sacred book proves my god is real.
13. Divine justice proves my god is real.
14. My god answers prayers.
15. I would rather worship my god than the devil.
16. My god heals sick people.
17. Anything is better than being an atheist.
18. My god made the human body.
19. My god sacrificed his only son for me.
20. Atheists are jerks who think they know everything.
21. I don't lose anything by believing in my god.
22. I didn't come from a monkey.
23. I don't want to go to hell.
24. I feel my god when I pray.
25. I need my god to protect me.
26. I want eternal life.
27. Without my god we would have no sense of right and wrong.
28. My god makes me feel like I am part of something bigger than myself.
29. My religion makes more sense than all the others.
30. My god changes lives.
31. Intelligent design proves my god is real.
32. Millions of people can't be wrong about my religion.
33. Miracles prove my god is real.
34. Religion is beautiful.
35. Some very smart people believe in my god.
36. Ancient prophecies prove my god exists.
37. No one has ever disproved the existence of my god.
38. People have gone to heaven and returned.
39. Religion brings people together.
40. My god inspires people.
41. Science can't explain everything.
42. Society would fall apart without religion.
43. My religion is so old, it must be true.
44. Someone I trust told me that my god is real.
45. Atheism is a negative and empty philosophy.
46. Believing in a god doesn't hurt anyone.
47. The earth is perfectly tunes to support life.
48. Believing is natural so my god must be real.
49. The end is near.
50. I am afraid of not believing.

[Alias]

Well, that list doesn't seem to address what I think are some of the bigger deals.

Infinity vs. finity. Either is hard for man to process, but believe the natural inclination (despite its processing problems) is to process infinity. If the scientific models would just tweak to encapsulate in an infinity wrapper, that would be a slam dunk for atheism.

Imagination, a divine characteristic. Again, when intelligence becomes as globular in magnitude as atomistic, that would be another slam dunk.

It's a marketing or winning problem, which smart guys are weak at. They always expect people to think - They need to be like the lizard guys, and push lizard/mammal brain hot/cold buttons (that perhaps the circuitry for was derived from conscious pre-cognizance of death).

Ed

[polymerase]

(01-11-2010 12:05 PM)Alias Wrote:  Well, that list doesn't seem to address what I think are some of the bigger deals.

Infinity vs. finity. Either is hard for man to process, but believe the natural inclination (despite its processing problems) is to process infinity. If the scientific models would just tweak to encapsulate in an infinity wrapper, that would be a slam dunk for atheism.

Au contraire, I think the list, at least from the religious perspective blankets the infinite and finite nature of everything.

8. Our world is too beautiful to be an accident.
9. My god created the universe.
18. My god made the human body.
26. I want eternal life.

Those four at least cover the problem of our finite lives, we die, worms eat us, and the infinite, god made the universe so why worry about what science thinks of the beginning and end, god takes care of it.

Sure, atheism and science has a much more difficult time with those concepts because we do not make shit up. Some of it is unknowable and some we might be able to figure out. Doesn't mean we have to give in and make up stuff to cover the scary unknown of the infinite or our finite lives.

As for lizard people, I think I would rather keep that on the side of religion, wars, and marketing. These are things that do not need to rule us if we were to become just slightly smarter than we are now and give up some of our reptilian ways. Just because we made this stuff up so that we could be brave enough to leave our caves doesn't mean we have to keep on believing it. Even reptiles evolve.

You're right though, the list has no retort. But each one is a chapter heading and the author may fill in the details you are missing to make it a slam dunk for atheists.

[Michael-Adams]

Well....your rantings against religion sound suspiciously like some folk's ranting for their misconceptions of their religion.

[polymerase]

(01-11-2010 08:27 PM)Michael-Adams Wrote:  Well....your rantings against religion sound suspiciously like some folk's ranting for their misconceptions of their religion.

How do you know that my rantings are misconceptions and your conceptions are the truth about religion? Do you base it on a suspicion?

[Celandine]

Religion was not only a way of explaining what was unknown at the time,
but also dandy for keeping people in line, in an unenforceable situation.




It was also a means to Identify...

...and Unify the Masses.


Maintaining Control using the Threat of Excommunication...

....Or WORSE!


It was an effective tool to get peasants to work for you,
...by using a Promise of reward in an 'AfterLife',

....or alternately, the Threat of ETERNAL Damnation.

[polymerase]

That was then but this is now. Religion has transformed itself from a way to control people into something else. Or at least people say it has. There are no penalties for leaving a church. You can walk into any denomination and say, "I used to believe, now I do not. Don't hold it against me OK. Can I still hang out here?" No religion ostracizes or makes that nonbeliever a lesser person because they no longer believe, you can still belong. You can still marry the reverend's daughter.

OK, maybe some religions would try to change your mind, hold you over the weekend and pray on you until you saw the light again. Nobody gets excommunicated anymore. Well, not too many but those are bad religions. You don't need the 50 answers if you are in a good religion.

[Celandine]

(01-12-2010 06:10 AM)polymerase Wrote:  That was then but this is now. Religion has transformed itself from a way to control people into something else. Or at least people say it has. There are no penalties for leaving a church. You can walk into any denomination and say, "I used to believe, now I do not. Don't hold it against me OK. Can I still hang out here?" No religion ostracizes or makes that nonbeliever a lesser person because they no longer believe, you can still belong. You can still marry the reverend's daughter.

OK, maybe some religions would try to change your mind, hold you over the weekend and pray on you until you saw the light again. Nobody gets excommunicated anymore. Well, not too many but those are bad religions. You don't need the 50 answers if you are in a good religion.

Doan remember that Bishop in Argentina that dint believe in tall smokestacks?
He's been on-again-off-again ex-communicated on someone's say-so for a while.

Some religions do indeed drum you out of the corps if you try to swear-off
it's called "Shunning"

Religion became the lucrative business it continues to be today as a form of power,
often linked to and sanctioned by the state as a way of controlling the masses.
They form an aliance to work hand in glove... and the pay-off is that they BOTH
get to live in palaces and rake in the cash. What can't be controlled as unlawful
can be neatly covered by declaring it as "A SIN" So you've not only got the state
watching you, and God (well.. his goodly congregation) watching you.. but weirder
still they managed to convince you to snitch on yourself! Can you even imagine
people filing into a PoliceStation Phone Booth in order to CONFESS!!!!!!!

ANYWAY.. as the saying goes: "It's nice work ...if you can get it."

...and once they get it they hang onto no matter what...
.

[polymerase]

I was being partly facetious and partly giving the new age religions a break in my comments. Congressman Patrick Kennedy (son of Ted Kennedy) was recently banned from receiving holy communion because he believes a woman should have the right to have an abortion. If you have ever been to a Catholic funeral or marriage there is a great way to pick out the atheists and non believers. They don't take Holy Communion. Doing this to Kennedy is a type of shunning.

It is easy to pick on the Catholic Church since they have such weird ceremonies but every religion has a type of shunning. That was where the facetious part of my other post was. Show me a religion that treats someone who has become a non believer, or worse, an atheist, the same as when they believed and I will show you a religion that is full of crap. Or that reverend can let his daughter marry an atheist. Not.

Each religion has a way of marking the believer from the nonbeliever. and:
17. Anything is better than being an atheist.

[Reboot]

(01-12-2010 02:11 PM)polymerase Wrote:  If you have ever been to a Catholic funeral or marriage there is a great way to pick out the atheists and non believers. They don't take Holy Communion.

Wrong again, you live in a narrow tunnel made of your opinion only. How do you know that, have you asked them? You're just assuming.

My 3 siblings and I never do because we don't practice the Catholic faith anymore but we believe in God. We just respect the laws of the Catholic church is all. There are many more people and family, nieces, nephews, cousins etc I know that are like that too.

But I guess because poly would like to believe that in his narrow view, that's the way it is or should be. LOL.