Expert: Austin Cline - 6/2/2007

Question
As an atheist, I just don't understand religious faith. Obviously, most people on Earth are raised to believe in supernatural beings of some sort or another, which is where these beliefs come from. I myself was raised Roman Catholic. What I do not understand is how the rest of the world can believe these things when common sense dictates otherwise. Most people don't believe monsters and wizards truly exist, so why do these same people believe in benevolent magical beings? Everything about religion is so ridiculous, I just don't understand how people sincerely believe it. I figured out that there was no such thing as a god when I was 10 years old, in the same way that I concluded that there could not possibly be a Santa Claus (around the same age.) I was fully encouraged by my parents to attend church, pray, etc. and forced to attend bible school until 6th grade, and I played lip service out of fear of dissapointing them, but I knew all along it wasn't true. I don't understand why more people don't see through the fog. Am I just more thoughtful than others? If so, does that mean that if others thought about it more then they would realize that it makes no sense for there to believe in this hocus-pocus? It's just frustrating to be looked down upon or considered immoral by the majority of others when they are wrong, and I feel like if they just though about it some more they would wake up.

Answer
It can useful to compare belief in gods to belief in other creatures, but such comparisons can cause problems. Religion is so much a part of culture, whereas wizards are not, that we shouldn’t be surprised to see the former persist while the latter does not. Where religion and culture do promote belief in things like witches, those beliefs also persist.

There is a lot in human culture which get preserved even though it doesn't make much sense. It is also true that most people don't spend a lot of time critically examining their beliefs - not just in religion, but in politics and other areas. They don't need to in order to survive. Poor beliefs are often "good enough" for most purposes.