Amie

I was simply responding to your thread you opened called religious morons.

livius drusus

When I was a cafeteria xian, I picked the parts that confirmed my pre-existing moral structure and ignored the rest or chalked it up to ancient ignorance and thought nothing more of it. Granted, I never considered the larger issues (problem of evil, efficacy of prayer, etc) at all until I was in my 20s and deconverting. Compartmentalization is the name of the game, imo.

Threads are not just their subject lines. You could have chosen to express your offense in a serious manner or even, gog forbid, respond to the actual op which was far less polemical than the title would lead one to think.

Abacus

I don't think most religious people are morons, though some certainly are. I think that in many cases, and perhaps in most cases, people feel a strong sense of social identification or community through their religious beliefs. Especially when they have actively participated in a religion all of their life. In these cases, being confronted with possible problems in their belief system is sometimes enough to evoke some powerful emotional responses in the believer. Rational arguments won't even stand a chance.

Another possible factor is the "fear of death". I'd wager that very few of us, theist or atheist, don't get a bit scared when contemplating our impending deaths. For some people, the promise of an escape from death, no matter how absurd the concept of an "afterlife" is, is enough to believe. Again, any rational arguments against this stands little chance of succeeding.

While I don't have any respect for their beliefs, I do respect their right to believe whatever silly thing they want, so long as they keep it personal and it makes them happy. I don't see any point in debating them. It's better to just let them live in peace, as long as they let us live in peace.

However, there are real religious morons out there. For example, those who want to teach Genesis in biology class. These people need to be fought. Their beliefs have grown beyond being merely personal to the point where they can seriously and negatively affect our society.

RowleyBirkinQC

I think it is just human nature. Religion obviously serves some need that humans, as animals, possess. An otherwise rational person can switch his brain off (figuratively, of course) when he needs to think about religion. It is the only way to maintain the fantasy. Seattle Mariners fans do the same thing.

When the religion also offers eternal life or paradise after death, that's all the more reason to protect your religion by sheltering it from logic. Why give up everlasting bliss just because it isn't there?

thebeave

A number of books have been written to explain the phenomena you are referring to; that is, compartmentalizing the belief systems part of your brain from your rational, critical thinking side of your brain. I would recomend you read Michael Shermers' book Why People Believe Weird Things, and another one he wrote called something like God and Man in the Age of Science (I probably bungled the title of that last one).

Sagarmatha

Religions bring psychological comfort and feelings of security to many people. The idea of an omnipotent loving god looking after them, giving 'answers to the unexplainables and saving them from the greatest fear of most human (death) is very attractive for those mortal people. They may be very rich, intelligent, powerful, but they nevertheless still experience sickness, sorrows, pain, insecurity, fear,weakness,...
In such difficult moments beliefs which offer them a way out of the sad reality (through the belief of the omnipotent loving god or the idea of total happiness in the heaven) is certainly very interesting. As long as there are still bad things in life, the idea of good things will always be very attractive, be it a religion or a fairy tale.

The idea of an afterlife/never-ending life is much more interesting for many people than of a life which ends when the death comes.
And also the idea of a life which has special meanings is more interesting than of a life which is just a natural coincidence/phenomene.

Evil Milkman

I read the title as "Religious Morons?"

He is asking a question in the title and the OP. In a sentence, "why do some people refuse to use reason when defending their religion when they use it for every other part of their lives?" The title is arguably appropriate, I see no reason to get overly upset.

My two cents only.

yelyos

I personally believe that the reason people don't tend to apply reason to their own religion is that most religions discourage reasoning and thinking about them through the principle of faith. People are encouraged to "have faith" and blindly believe that the religions are true, while being threatened with dire punishments if they stop believing. This will usually deter anyone from thinking about their religion.

Religion is one of the few types of beliefs that works to prevent the believer from thinking; people are not encouraged by a belief that crystals heal, for example, to stop thinking about why crystals would heal. It is because of this peculiar quality of religious beliefs that religion is one of the most widely held false beliefs today.

P.S. The name of Shermer's book is How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science.

openeyes

Hey you theists, this is a secular discussion board. Many of us, like Paddy, can't understand because it seems so clear to us, why otherwise intelligent people believe in a god and an afterlife. It's a common question and worthy of discussion. I find Amie's response hostile, and seebs' patronizing. If the topic isn't your cup of tea, you don't have to post.

seebs

I didn't entirely mean it to be patronizing... but at the same time, there's an important underlying message: We believe things that seem irrational for many of the same reasons that everyone else believes things that seem irrational to others. To many theists, atheists look totally crazy, utterly irrational, and so on.

People *aren't* really rational. This should not suprise anyone, by now.