Is it irrational to believe in God?

[noname223]

Yeah I am playing devil's advocate. I think I am not an expert on this issue. And personally I rather doubt that God exists. I am not sure whether I believe in the following arguments but I want to elaborate it because it is kind of interesting for me.

I have the feeling some atheists develop a certain arrogance concerning believers. Like only they would be in the possession of rationality and science. They don't fall for such naive and simple ideas like a higher being. They are convinced that logic rules. That scientific methods are the only means to attain knowledge.

I think the initial point of that was enlightenment. In the past churches had even way more power. They influenced the destiny of whole countries. There was like this blind trust in faith without questioning it. Something similar happens to some atheists. They are blind to arguments which could destroy their world view. It is the other extreme of the other side of the spectrum.

The argument which has the most influence on me concerning this issue is the following: People strive for meaning in life. It is build in our genes to believe in something higher than us. It seems for me as if this need is not part of our rational mind. It feels irrational. But is this really irrational? I think it is debatable. Personally I am very interested which bias I currently have. Whether I have a positive shift or negative stift in thinking. Living with a mood disorder is quite an obstacle to find the answer to the question.

Here are some arguments why it might be not irrational to believe in a higher being.

Logic cannot give all the answers to all questions in life. There will probably remain questions which noone can solve. The notion that science could give us all answers is kind of naive. There are questions which science cannot solve.

Some physicsts have interesting stances on the creation of the universe. It probably was insanely unlikely that the universe could just start. There were so many events that were nearly impossible. Or at least extremely unlikely. How could it happen anyway? If the scientific explanation refers to an extremely low likelihood why should the existence of God be ruled out? I heard from some physicsts that they started to believe in a higher being just because the development of the universe was so extremely unlikely. Than there is also the question what started the big bang. If I had more knowledge in this field I could elaborate more on it. There will be probably some people in the replies who will lecture me.

Moreover I think one should differentiate between the belief in God or following the dogma of a church. One common argument against religion is: there are several thousands of religions how likely is it that you are following the right one. Especially due to the fact that most people are vastly influenced by the region where they were born. Some religions claim to be the sole representation of the truth. Honestly I cannot really defend that. I think it is kind of arrogant and shortsighted. But that is only my opinion. I am playing devil's advocate here and I think the better argument would be for an enlightened and liberal understanding of religion. Yeah points like that really make me dislike many religions. But I try to spit the facts pro-religion.

Personally I think it is extremely unlikely that God is this almighty being who has a plan for all of us. I think if he existed he, she or they are might be completely different than most people have in mind. I don't think it is likely that God is similar to the notions that many religions depict. I think it is extremely unlikely that there is one religion which found the truth about God. And many believers claim like they would have found the sole truth which is kind of unsympathetic to me.

I just wanted to state some points which are quite unpopular in this forum. I think it is good trying to think outside the bubble. Though maybe I am not the best expert in this subject. I am probably atheist or maybe agnostic. There are several reasons why I think religion is tearing us apart. Most religions lead to devision and hatred. They are far away from an enlightened approach to it. Maybe an enlightened approach to religion is impossible anyway. I hate the influence of the catholic/protestant church on my country. Though I cannot deny there are some positive influences. But I think it was healthier for the country if we all developed some higher ethical values or standards (independent of religion). The problem is probably that most people choose nihilism and "money rules"/ "the indiviual rules" as ideology instead.

 

[TheLastFemaphrodyke]

My own personal views are convoluted themselves.

I personally do not believe in a deity of an all controlling, submit to me, do as I say or else you are condemned to eternal torment, omnipotent, all powerful, preached about in places that require your money and weekly devotion kind.

Churches, historically are nothing more than forums to control the masses, obtain wealth and servitude from the masses and to keep systems in place to direct energies and materials by changing their dialogue to suit their needs.
Good diamonds here? Send the missionaries to round up the natives and create god fearing mine workers desiring to scratch their families from poverty.

As for science, the science itself is there, it is our understanding of it and presentation of it that changes throughout history. Science is science, it is only our mental capacities that alter as we learn.

Now, the really good part, in science there is the multiverse hypothesis, I can see, how there can be multiverses.
Now, understanding this and accepting this, means that in some universe somewhere, it is rather capable that deities could and do exist, at and to the capacity as they are described, thought of and portrayed.

 

[Arrow]

Honestly it's hard to say. I'd agree that humans appear to have a natural inclination toward believing in gods or higher powers, because it seems like all throughout our history we've been building shrines and monuments to things we couldn't possibly have any real knowledge about yet strongly believed in anyways. In my mind what it boils down to is, if you don't have an answer for something, you can't just make up an answer and assume it's right, that doesn't make sense. If you don't know, then you simply don't know. But clearly this is a difficult ask; when humanity doesn't know, it will know, it will essentially will itself to know, and it will provide the answer on its own when there doesn't appear to be one, for questions like "why does any of this even exist, how am i conscious, do i have a soul?"

saying believing in god is irrational is like saying it's irrational for the male praying mantis to pursue a female praying mantis because in breeding with it the male will just get fucking eaten. it's a silly thing to say because the praying mantis seems to have been genetically coded through millions of years of evolution to act like this. yes, if the male didn't bother mating and just lived its life, it would live for longer, but that's missing the point.

I'd say that believing in a god is an evolutionary coping mechanism for being intelligent enough to understand that one exists within a world of other existing things but not having the ability to fully grasp why. "god/gods did it, and they're powerful enough to do it!" truthfully, it doesn't make sense when you think about it hyper-logically, but it's still quite prevalent even in more secular societies, so you can't just write it off as stupidity.

also i used to hate hearing religious people say this, but they'd say things like 'atheists have their own god, and it's SCIENCE/(insert some other thing they worship here)!" but at the end of the day i think they have a point; bascially, the function that a belief in god serves is the same kind of thing that other random things you worship and obsess about as being 'bigger than yourself' are. some atheists literally worship the 'universe' and talk about it like it's this all knowing super cool entity, or they'll end up following astrology or something else which is literally just that religion but newer and not taken literally, so that makes it 'cool'. it's the same evolutionary cog spinning in the background, generating the same result, which is "even though i don't know how things work I'll just assume something really big and awesome has it all figured out so I can relax :)" I don't think it's a coincidence that religious people seem to be happier--it's not because they're literally right about god existing, it's because all people probably have some natural inclination towards believing in a god so when you just roll with your programming you feel a little more at peace than if you fight against it.


TLDR: Irrational? Sorta. But we evolved to be like this so it's understandable.

 

[ConstantPain]

I recognize that I could be completely wrong but yes, I do think it's irrational to believe in God. I can't get beyond how it's possible for God to be all knowing and all loving and for us to have free will.
Then on a personal level it's just a gut feeling because I remember when I was 3 years old and told to say my prayers before bed. I never wanted to and hated it because it seemed completely pointless! It made no sense to me at 3 years of age when all I knew what was what people were teaching me. They claimed there was a god and heaven and hell but nope, I didn't believe it. Also my baptism was a horrible traumatic experience for me, getting completely submerged in a lake while prayers were read!
So I'm with you on acknowledging I could be wrong but for me believing is irrational.
In relation to the societal benefits, I really enjoyed a book titled "Good without God, What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe" written by the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, Greg Epstein.

 

[friendofbirds]

ive had a wide array of religious experiences and i do believe God is real... but i dont know, nor do i care, if thats a particularly rational belief either. but i also have no interest in converting anyone or convincing anyone at all, so im intentionally not really being concrete in my answer.

i think whether believing in God is rational or not is kind of besides the point. human beings are not paragons of rationality and we do things with no objective reason all the time. theres no reason to make art, to tell stories, etc, besides the fact that we do it. i think religion is the same way. the massive variety of religious belief and expression is proof of this i think

 

[hungry_ghost]

No, it's not irrational. It makes perfect sense for people to look up at the stars and reflect upon their existence.

 

[Lost Magic]

It is not irrational because there may well be: one, or many or maybe we are all God. I do think that all of this has been designed, because my brain can't accept the intricacies and sometimes the wonder of what has been put on this earth as some kind of accident. DMT, NDEs and other unexplained phenomenon has also led me to believe that there is a potential of a creator of sorts. Now, does this mean that we continue to exist beyond death? I don't claim to know. But to be honest, that's a good thing. I think knowing too much would scare people. I see death as a grand adventure that awaits.

 

[milly]

I am agnostic. I was born into a church family, had an okay life before the bipolar struck, now I live with my almost-illiterate but hyper-religious aunt. She is 60, divorced, prays at 3am, and believes all the bible stuff word for word. She thinks am bewitched and should be exorcised.

While agnostic myself, I see her faith as redeeming. For example she is happy that she will go to heaven unlike all the evil people. Probably, I wouldn't have a place to live if God didn't promise to repay her kindness in heaven.

I live in a rural township. A kind of hamlet but a strange mix of either church-going or over-drinking folks. Here there are no moderates, or well, I am the only one.

 

[djangoicecream]

Yeah I am playing devil's advocate. I think I am not an expert on this issue. And personally I rather doubt that God exists. I am not sure whether I believe in the following arguments but I want to elaborate it because it is kind of interesting for me.

I have the feeling some atheists develop a certain arrogance concerning believers. Like only they would be in the possession of rationality and science. They don't fall for such naive and simple ideas like a higher being. They are convinced that logic rules. That scientific methods are the only means to attain knowledge.

I think the initial point of that was enlightenment. In the past churches had even way more power. They influenced the destiny of whole countries. There was like this blind trust in faith without questioning it. Something similar happens to some atheists. They are blind to arguments which could destroy their world view. It is the other extreme of the other side of the spectrum.

The argument which has the most influence on me concerning this issue is the following: People strive for meaning in life. It is build in our genes to believe in something higher than us. It seems for me as if this need is not part of our rational mind. It feels irrational. But is this really irrational? I think it is debatable. Personally I am very interested which bias I currently have. Whether I have a positive shift or negative stift in thinking. Living with a mood disorder is quite an obstacle to find the answer to the question.

Here are some arguments why it might be not irrational to believe in a higher being.

Logic cannot give all the answers to all questions in life. There will probably remain questions which noone can solve. The notion that science could give us all answers is kind of naive. There are questions which science cannot solve.

Some physicsts have interesting stances on the creation of the universe. It probably was insanely unlikely that the universe could just start. There were so many events that were nearly impossible. Or at least extremely unlikely. How could it happen anyway? If the scientific explanation refers to an extremely low likelihood why should the existence of God be ruled out? I heard from some physicsts that they started to believe in a higher being just because the development of the universe was so extremely unlikely. Than there is also the question what started the big bang. If I had more knowledge in this field I could elaborate more on it. There will be probably some people in the replies who will lecture me.

Moreover I think one should differentiate between the belief in God or following the dogma of a church. One common argument against religion is: there are several thousands of religions how likely is it that you are following the right one. Especially due to the fact that most people are vastly influenced by the region where they were born. Some religions claim to be the sole representation of the truth. Honestly I cannot really defend that. I think it is kind of arrogant and shortsighted. But that is only my opinion. I am playing devil's advocate here and I think the better argument would be for an enlightened and liberal understanding of religion. Yeah points like that really make me dislike many religions. But I try to spit the facts pro-religion.

Personally I think it is extremely unlikely that God is this almighty being who has a plan for all of us. I think if he existed he, she or they are might be completely different than most people have in mind. I don't think it is likely that God is similar to the notions that many religions depict. I think it is extremely unlikely that there is one religion which found the truth about God. And many believers claim like they would have found the sole truth which is kind of unsympathetic to me.

I just wanted to state some points which are quite unpopular in this forum. I think it is good trying to think outside the bubble. Though maybe I am not the best expert in this subject. I am probably atheist or maybe agnostic. There are several reasons why I think religion is tearing us apart. Most religions lead to devision and hatred. They are far away from an enlightened approach to it. Maybe an enlightened approach to religion is impossible anyway. I hate the influence of the catholic/protestant church on my country. Though I cannot deny there are some positive influences. But I think it was healthier for the country if we all developed some higher ethical values or standards (independent of religion). The problem is probably that most people choose nihilism and "money rules"/ "the indiviual rules" as ideology instead.

I know god is real, I'll probably leave more context in the next reply but for now: just my testimony.