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How is religion still strong, despite most scientific advances debunking/disproving common religious beliefs for centuries?
How is religion still strong, despite most scientific advances debunking/disproving common religious beliefs for centuries?
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Science hasn’t solved the fear of death and what lies beyond, and many people need something to help them work through that uncertainty
I’m not religious but there are lots of positive aspects of religion that don’t rely on the proven existence of a magical sky being
Science tells us “how” or “why.” It says nothing about “should.”
Science tells us how things work. It tells us nothing about how things should work.
This isn’t even a question of religion. It’s a question of philosophy. Why does philosophy exist?
Science answers nothing about the deeper search for meaning and purpose. That’s what religion and/or philosophy do.
Sometimes religion just gives people a set of guides and ways to live their life. And that’s okay.
Reddit has this weird militantly atheist bent, owing to its average age being somewhere around 20. There’s a lot of good things and comfort to be found in religion and religious ceremonies.
I have to constantly remind myself that Reddit isn’t real, and it’s not the real world.
Is it strong? Atheists will outnumber religious people in Australia soon, and in Europe – they already are in some countries and agnostic people are outnumbering believers in nearly double digits.
Science is hard logic. And that doesn’t really help when you fuck up by not studying the entire year and you’ve the test next day.
Praying vaguely with a hope for miracle? Yeah, that’s what I go for
Cant completly erase what’s part true
well if someone tells you for the entirety of your life that god exist then you’d most likely believe it
i do believe however that as education increases less and less people will believe
Men in Black still has the best answer to this. “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it.”
nothing has been debunked. the more we know, the less we understand.
It’s a familial cycle akin to abuse. It just gets passed on, and on, and on…
I’m not religious but have a respect and appreciation for it. The basic tenants taught in Christianity are a solid base for society. I’m sure the same could be said for any religion. I suspect turning away from religion is why society is degrading in the manner it is today
Specifically what parts of religion are debunked by science?
Religion is a social community more than anything to base a belief around. People become comfortable in the system and experience benefits, so they go along with it without really questioning.
Religion was never about facts or truth. That’s the point. It’s all about claiming/believing something to be true of which you have no evidence (yet conveniently, your social sphere consists mainly of people who believe what you believe and want you to, too.
Because people don’t want to know, or can’t understand, the reality of the association between fact and belief.
Same reasons people don’t trust doctors.
A lot of folks are raised on it, so any POV that’s too different is too alien to understand/entertain.
Humans seem to be coded to believe in things. It’s an offshoot of our inquisitiveness and curiosity, born from needing to know what happened to the sun after it set, why one person died but not the other when the river flooded, and things like that.
Education, it doesn’t matter what science has disproven if people don’t understand how science works in the first place. It’s no more valid to them than religion.
Most people who are religious are raised with religion. They are told what to believe from a young age, and are often told of consequences for not holding those beliefs. By the time a person hears contrasting views or scientific evidence that may conflict with their personal religious beliefs, they have personally held these beliefs for a long period of time and it is not easy to question those beliefs.
Relatively few people raised without religion join an organized religion later in life. To be sure, some do, and there may be any number of reasons they do (e.g., genuine belief, social pressures, marrying a religious person, wanting a sense of community). But I imagine that if no one was raised with religion and then people only heard about religion as adults, the number of religious adults would be a lot lower than it is currently.
One, it’s traditional. You’ll notice that a lot of people have the religion of their parents, the proportion of people who convert to another religion is slim. They were taught to think that way, so that’s how they feel.
Two, religion (unless you’re a theology student) just makes the world simpler. Do this, you’ll be a nice person. Do that, you’ll get to the bad place when you die. Easy. Science makes stuff hard and complex and ever changing. We don’t want complicated answers when it comes to complicated matters like “what it is to be a good person?”, “what awaits for us after death?”, “do we matter?”, etc.
Three, the science answers to life are SCARY. Believing that you don’t matter, that your existence is irrelevant and happened by chance, that there is nothing after, that we’re probably alone in the Universe (at the moment)….that’s very distressing.
Four, religion does do some good for some people so some people keep on believing.
People just don’t question and actually want to believe those, also based on my observation very few people read those scientific debunkings. They don’t care. Many religious people don’t even read the book that they are supposed to follow.
In most cases if they don’t call themselves religious because it’s to constricting for them they start to find supernatural meanings in feathers, rocks, astrology, butterflies etc. Being a powerless insignificant human being is too scary for most.
The scientific consensus is that quitting smoking lengthens your life and improves your mental health. Many people quit (or at least try) for this reason.
People involved in their religion also have improved mental and physical health. It’s probably not because of Divine intervention, but the science shows the link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_health
Isn’t it anti-science to not join a religion?
Blind loyalty.
People need a sense that someone else is ultimately in control.
Societies in general need to believe in several lies to even exist.
What has science disproven or debunked about religion? They tend to exist in two separate mediums, on of faith and one of empirical fact. The two concepts generally do not intersect.
So most religions have the belief in a deity or all-powerful god of some sort. This stems from the lack of knowledge of where the universe comes from and what created it. Scientists have many theories on this but they are technically hypotheses because they cannot be tested. This gap in science leaves room for the possibility of a god and for many people until we crack down on how the universe was created, religion will most likely exist. Also as many other posters said the belief in an afterlife relieves the fear of not-existing, a result of our evolution in order to keep humans from doing dumb shit that could kill themselves. Anyways the harsh reality is we will likely never know what created the universe because we literally cannot see the origins of the universe due to the opaqueness of its infancy and the fear of death will always terrify humans; hence religion will most likely exist forever.
Because public education doesn’t directly challenge and disprove religions and other fantasies. Religions, like all rich organizations, know how to use the courts and lobby politicians.
So people are dumber than they used to be. (Quick, think of three friends who read actual books.)
At the end of the day, willful ignorance, people would rather believe a fantastical mythology than an alternative where there is no masterful being balancing the scales, no hell for bad people, no heaven for good people, just each other.
I’m guessing one reason could be because the fear of an actual Hell dimension that you could wind up being tortured in for eternity if you don’t worship God/Allah, etc. could be a very strong motivator.
Probably because most, if not all folks, religious and non, hold axiomatic beliefs that aren’t proven by science or incongruent with an atheistic worldview.
I have a lot of (what I consider to be) highly intellectual friends who are very religious. They see Religion as a more rational approach to life than non-religion. Our universe is so complex especially when it comes to the idea of ‘God’. Does someone watch over us? Did something create us? No one really knows.
Our experiences shape our thoughts and emotions and they in turn create new experiences. Some of us have grown up religious and through those experiences, we found connection, meaning, logic, etc.
Some people, because they’re morons and don’t accept change. Others may believe there’s a whole new field of science that hasn’t been discovered. Some to understand the unknown. Some wouldn’t make it without that belief. Others could have vastly different reasons from what I’ve suggested.
former christian but most likely pointing to something along the lines of community, coping mechanism, fear, source of belonging, indoctrination at a young age so you don’t doubt how you were raised because it’s your identity.
Cuz it’s never been about knowledge. It’s been about being able to hold a specific “faith” (read: imaginary dogma) to conform to an in-group and receive social acceptance.
All of them
Because people are generally very dumb
OP can you clarify or give some examples of what you mean when you say “most scientific advances debunking/disproving common religious beliefs for centuries”?
> despite most scientific advances debunking/disproving common religious beliefs for centuries?
Many people around the world don’t have access to this information. Reasons range from opression to poverty. IMHO, [this is the top reason](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_of_influence).
cuz they get ’em when they’re young and they keep ’em stupid
Fear, plain and simple.