Why Do People Believe In God

Why do people believe in God despite the overwhelming lack of evidence for his existence? Why do people go on praying to God despite the fact that there is no evidence that prayers are answered? How can people continue to believe in the various religious denominations, sects, and cults when science has so thoroughly destroyed many of their central beliefs? People continue to flock to churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques despite the many fakes, scams, frauds, absurdities, and even crimes of their denominations’ and leaders.

Perhaps the answer is our fear of death. Religion may not have arisen solely because of the fear of death, but if you ask people today, they will tell you that there has to be some continuing life after death. Religion provides assurance that there is such life.

Death is part of nature. Every living thing dies. All humans die. No matter how long science is able to extend the length of a human life, we will all die. It is inherent in all living things. Why do we fear death? Why is death the most terrible part of life? Why have we surrounded death with such enormous horror and grief? You would think that such a natural, universal event would be stoically accepted by us as inevitable. But it isn’t.

We fear death because fear is part of our survival as a species. Any species that does not develop some type of fear of death is likely to become extinct. Our young species has managed to survive for hundreds of thousands of years in part because of our fear of death. Like other genetically successful species, we have developed evolutionary methods of avoiding death, at least until we have reproduced and spread our genes. Whether we will be as successful a species as the long-lived turtles, sharks, and alligators, remains to be seen.

I believe that one of the many strategies the human race uses to deal with its fear of death is the creation of imaginary beings called “gods.” By creating gods, humans seek to avoid the despair that might accompany a full understanding of their fate. The invention of gods is a tranquilizer that helps man deal with the fact that when we die, we die to eternal oblivion.

Most people realize that the human body does not survive death. What they hope for is the survival of human consciousness and memory. The idea is that our spirit or “soul” survives in an afterlife. It would make little difference if the spirit or soul survived but did not remember living on earth. Most people wish for the survival of our memory. In heaven we would know who we are and remember our lives and family on earth. For most people this includes seeing and getting back together with our loved ones (although Jesus said that in the resurrection there was no marriage, Matt. 22:23-30). For most, the afterlife is an idealized version of life on earth. There is no pain, no misery, no stress, no sin, no evil, only unlimited joy. For Catholics it is the “beatific vision.” For Moslems it is “Paradise,” an eternal feast in a green garden with beautiful virgins serving the faithful. For most people, people in heaven are aware of what is happening on earth, and many believe that the dead can intervene in earthly events.

There is something contradictory about the idea that our consciousness survives our deaths. Death is, ipso facto, the death of consciousness. Consciousness is a function of the brain, and if the brain is dead it does not function. We want to believe that somehow through the hand of God, our consciousness, our brain, goes on working after death even though for earthly purposes it is finished. We want to believe that the mind is not really part of the body, but rather, a spiritual function. Science knows that the mind is the brain and the nervous system, a purely physical phenomenon, and like the rest of the body, it dies.

Another reason people today seem to want to believe in religion is that religion gives an answer to the question of evil. Religion tells people that certain actions are right and certain actions are wrong. People fear that without religion, there is no reason for morality, no punishment for evil, no reward for good. People say that without God there is no meaning and purpose in life.

We live in a violent world, full of tragedy and sorrow. Our invention of a God helps us to deal with life. Without God, we find no transcendental reason to be good rather than evil. Without God, life seems meaningless. We see evildoers prospering, while good people suffer. We want an explanation. We desperately need to believe that there is a supreme being who hands down moral laws, rewards goodness, and punishes evil.

When believers argue that without God there is no meaning and no purpose in life they are making a meaningless argument. Meaning and purpose are not things that exist as separate transcendental entities in the universe. They are concepts invented by human beings to explain certain things. Meaning and purpose exist only in the human mind. If a thing has meaning, it has meaning only to the mind of a person. It is the sense, significance, import, intent, or end of something as construed by the mind. The purpose of something is the goal or object for which something exists or is done by a human being. The existence or nonexistence of God has nothing to do with meaning or purpose. Even if God existed, the concepts of meaning and purpose would still be functions of the human mind and not something created by God.

There is something magnetic about great art. People are powerfully attracted to and inspired by it. When we view a great painting or sculpture, we are able to lose ourselves in it. We forget it is a piece of canvass or a chunk of rock, and see it instead as a representation of something. It is capable of moving us deeply. The same is true of great music. While we listen to it, we do not think of it as a series of sound waves varying in length. We are transported, lifted out of the moment, moved to wonderful feelings and emotions. When we read a novel, we forget that it is just a story, and get caught-up in its plot.

In the theater and motion pictures we are captivated by the story. We forget that the characters are only actors mouthing the lines written for them. We suspend our disbelief. We let our thoughts and emotions go with the story as if it were really happening. Our art, as a reflection of ourselves, is something we not only create, but something which--if it is even halfway good--can move us to suspend our knowledge of reality. It captures and enthralls us.

This can all be explained by the working of the brain. I believe that each person in his or her innermost mind recognizes that there is no God. We must deal with the absence of God and the powerful desire that he be present. To deal with this we have created God--the pictures, stories, music, theology, ritual, liturgy, mystery--everything. It was necessary to do this to explain what we did not know, to help us deal with death, and to explain our awe, fascination, and need for meaning. We objectified our feeling of the numinous. Once we created God, as with all of our artistic creations, we were captured by him. God became not just a creation, a story, a picture, but a reality--a creator, a God who is wholly other.

But somewhere deep in the mind of every halfway intelligent person is the realization that there is no such thing as God. He does not exist. He is a figment of the human imagination. That is a melancholy thought. But it is the truth.

Is Life Really Beautiful?

The primary reason for the existence of religion is to relieve people of fear. Marx called religion the “Opiate of the Masses.” This was a perfect explanation of the religious impulse. We live in a world filled with pain, sorrow, depression, and horror, but the religions tell us that there is a God out there who loves us and loves the world. This God will take care of us and, after death, will provide us with a paradise of joy and happiness.

I was speaking to someone and I proposed that if there really was a God, we should not worship or love or adore him, but rather, we should hate him. The person responded that we should worship him because “life is beautiful.” I replied that although life has moments of beauty and happiness, there is far too much sorrow and unhappiness to say that life is beautiful.

Consider the following: The great majority of people in the world live in abject poverty. Most of those people suffer from hunger, disease, famine, tsunamis, cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, plagues, infestations, and war. When one looks at the continents of Africa, Asia, and South America, one wonders how there could be a loving God looking over those people. Hundreds of millions of the people on those continents are subjected to widespread diseases such as cholera, malaria, sleeping sickness, AIDS, Dengue Fever, and Yellow Fever. They have insufficient clothing, shelter ,and medical care. They are ruled-over by tyrants and dictators. Hundreds of millions of women throughout the world are treated as chattels without civil rights. They are beaten, raped, stoned, and subject to genital castration designed to eradicate their sexual pleasure. It is hard to imagine that such people are happy.

What about the lucky people in America and the more affluent countries of Europe? One would think that they have many reasons to thank God. But we need to ask, are the lives of Americans so blessed and happy? Let’s start with health. Practically everybody in America has somebody in their family suffering from some serious illness. Millions of Americans have children with serious congenital diseases and infirmities such as autism, blindness, deafness, physical deformity, Down Syndrome, mental retardation, mental illnesses, muscular dystrophy, diabetes, epilepsy, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, cancer, and hundreds of other less common syndromes and disorders. The parents of such children often live lives of great sorrow.

Millions of adult Americans also suffer from terrible diseases. Heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, liver disease, Emphysema, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), AIDS, Crohn’s Disease, chronic pain, and hundreds of other conditions beset the happiness of their lives. Millions of Americans suffer from mental problems, depression, anxiety, fatigue, lonliness, phobias, panic attacks, disabling shyness, and stress throughout their lives. Millions of Americans suffer from the effects of terrible automobile accidents and other injuries. They go through life as cripples with disabled or missing limbs, internal organs, and other essential parts of their bodies, or suffering from terrible pain.

As people get older, they greet a host of problems afflicting older Americans such as strokes, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, hearing and seeing defects, prostate problems, osteoporosis, erectile dysfunction, sleep disorders, Alzheimer’s and memory loss, and hundreds of other medical and psychological problems that impair their happiness. As people age their bodies breaks-down, their skin wrinkles, their hair disappears or turns white, their energy fails, and they lose their sexual ability and attraction.

Millions of Americans are addicted to alcohol, pain medication, and illegal drugs. Almost all of them are living in terrible misery, unable to shake the imprisonment of their addictions. There are millions of homeless people living on the streets, in tents, under bridges, and in shelters. Millions of other Americans are addicted to behavior patterns such as gambling addiction, fetishism, sexual addiction, frigidity, obsessive-compulsive behavior, dependency, and other forms of addiction. There are millions of people with sexual deviations including the need to molest children or rape women. Millions of people engage in abusive behavior, physically beating or verbally berating their spouses, companions, and children. Millions of spouses, companions, and children are victims of such abuse. Such people cannot possibly be happy.

Millions of Americans live in poverty surrounded by a land of plenty. They eke-out a living in slums, tenements, housing projects, trailer parks, and rural shacks. They often go hungry in this land of plenty. Many go without decent clothing, shelter, ordinary medical care, and live in places without heat, cooling, electricity, telephone service, computers, sanitation, or even running water.

Millions of Americans are the victims of discrimination. People of all minorities suffer from bigotry. Millions of homosexuals, transvestites, transsexuals, and other trans-gender people are the objects of prejudice and condemnation by millions of other people.

Every day one reads in the paper about people who commit crimes. There are thousands of kinds of crimes committed every day by millions of people. It is difficult to guess what percent of the populace is dishonest, violent, dangerous, fraudulent, and deceitful, but judging from the constant news of crimes, schemes, scams, and corruptions, the number must run well into the tens of millions. There are millions of people engaged in serious and not-so-serious crime, including robbery, larceny, drug offenses, burglary, mugging, assault and battery, murder, and thousands of other kinds of crime. Millions of Americans are incarcerated in prisons and jails. There are millions of wives, children, parents, and other close relatives of prison inmates. These people must suffer having their loved ones in jail. There are millions of victims of crimes whose lives have been ruined by the crimes of others.

Millions of Americans are in unhappy marriages or relationships. Millions of Americans are suffering from the breakdown of their marriages or the breakup of relationships in which they were very much in love. Half of all marriages end in divorce. A majority of those who do not get divorced go on living in unhappy marriages. Millions of people are engaged in illicit sexual entanglements that cause them emotional pain and guilt. Millions of people are almost suicidal because of the infidelity of a spouse or loved one. Millions of people suffer from feelings of inferiority or lack of self-worth. Millions of people suffer from the feeling that they are too fat, too thin, or unattractive.

Millions of Americans hate their jobs or suffer under cruel, tyrannical, or sadistic bosses. There are millions of people with sour, nasty, cruel, vicious, malicious, and evil personalities who make it their business in life to damage, spoil, and injure the lives of other people. Millions of people live lives consumed with envy, jealousy, and hatred of others whom they perceive to be more fortunate than they.

Millions of families have children with serious behavior problems. Many of these children may grow up in middle class homes with respectable parents, yet the children are constantly in trouble with school, neighbors, the police, and others. Thousands of such children run away every year only to wind-up on the streets caught-up in drug addiction, prostitution, and crime.

For every Bernard Madoff carrying-out a giant stock swindle, there are thousands of businessmen, brokers, hedge fund managers, and others engaged in insider trading and other blatant violations of the rules of business law and ethics. Millions of Americans cheat others in smaller ways for smaller amounts of money. If one were able to calculate the amount of money embezzled from businesses, organizations, and charities each year it would probably be up in the billions if not trillions. I have known several embezzlers in my lifetime. I’m sure everybody has.

Although one would expect great probity from the wealthiest and most successful people, it is simply not there. Doctors routinely over-bill for services. Andy Rooney told a story about a doctor who came into his room while he was in the hospital for treatment. The doctor said hello and mentioned that he liked Rooney’s work. He then departed without examining or treating Rooney, and later billed Medicare for $240. I have heard many such stories. I have had personal experience with dishonest doctors. One doctor who came in and handed my wife a card while our son was being treated for a broken bone at the hospital, later billed for services even though he did not examine or treat my son at all. Doctors frequently bill for services never rendered. Medicare and Medicaid pay tens of billions for fraudulent claims by physicians who are wealthy by any standard.

Eventually, we die. Death is not a simple leaf dropping off a tree. Death is usually painful. Often, it is horrible. It is usually accompanied by the grief of loved ones.

Yes, life does have its moments of happiness and beauty. There are some wonderful things in life, and some people do live very happy, prosperous, safe, healthy lives. Those people can be thankful for all they have, but they probably represent a small fraction of the people on earth. If you stop and consider all of the unhappiness, pain, disease, grief, and guilt suffered by the vast majority of people in the world, it can hardly be said that life is beautiful.

While many people suffering from the terrible things listed here may not think life is bad, that is because of the human ability to cope with the things that make us unhappy. It is a wonderful thing that people going through the most extreme torments will often try to look on the bright side of life. But if we stop and look at all of the problems faced by humans and listed here, we can hardly say that life is beautiful. We can hardly find reason to thank that mythical being called God.

Surely, if there was a God, and he was a good and loving God, life would not be filled with such misery. There would not be millions of starving, diseased, oppressed people in Africa and other parts of the world. There would not be so much tragedy, horror, injury, illness, poverty, hunger, anger, war, and death. We would not have to wait for some mythical afterlife to experience a better life. Life on earth would really be beautiful for everyone.