What Prevents a Person from Moving Beyond Religion?

[T.G.G. Moogly]

At the top of the list is obviously insufficient intellect, the absence of a strong innate curiosity about how things work. It is no different than eventually understanding there really isn't a Tooth Fairy, and understanding instead how the money comes to be under the pillow. This is not a person's fault, it's not willful. We all know people who's religion is everything to them because it's all they know. These are primarily the Fundamentalists.

Secondly would be peer pressure to include cultural pressure. Practicing religion can have its rewards, even for people who have the intellect to know it's just superstitious nonsense. It can bring great wealth.

Also, some people are very superstitious, even though they may be quite bright. Call it simply being overly emotional. Religion and superstition just feel good, even if I'm a doctor or a scientist with respectable credentials.

Are there other reasons?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I think one of the main things is that for 90% of religious people, the fact that they're religious really doesn't matter. It's just kind of a default setting like cheering for the local sports team. Sure, you could take the time to look into the sport and analyze other teams and decide that one from two states over is actually more to your liking, but why bother when it's just so simple to cheer for the guys who wear your city's name on their jerseys? There's no particular benefit to it and the relevant and important parts of your life won't be affected at all if you bother, so there's not a need for it.

Religion is the same way. Most people see their own religion as vaguely good and it doesn't cause them any problems and there's generally no real improvement in one's life brought about by switching to Hinduism or atheism or Yogic Bouncing, so there's no need for it.

 

[Treedbear]

...
Are there other reasons?

Fear of death/wanting to live forever/emotional attachment to deceased relatives.

 

[rousseau]

I think one of the main things is that for 90% of religious people, the fact that they're religious really doesn't matter. It's just kind of a default setting like cheering for the local sports team. Sure, you could take the time to look into the sport and analyze other teams and decide that one from two states over is actually more to your liking, but why bother when it's just so simple to cheer for the guys who wear your city's name on their jerseys? There's no particular benefit to it and the relevant and important parts of your life won't be affected at all if you bother, so there's not a need for it.

Religion is the same way. Most people see their own religion as vaguely good and it doesn't cause them any problems and there's generally no real improvement in one's life brought about by switching to Hinduism or atheism or Yogic Bouncing, so there's no need for it.

Yea, good point. I'd also couple this with social pressure and intellect.

If someone's entire family is Christian it makes more sense to just go the path of least resistance and say 'meh, sure, whatever'.

On intellect, I'd think it's mostly a certain type of person that takes religion seriously. The average person, as you say, goes 'sure, Christianity, whatever'. But those who are sincerely convinced and influenced likely tend to have limited reasoning capacity.

 

[steve_bank]

It depends. In Saudi Arabia and Iran you risk a lot for apostasy. Jail and in Saudi Arabia there has been beheadings, not since the 90s.

In the US it can be family and per pressure, and years of religious conditioning.

 

[southernhybrid]

A lot of it has to do with tradition, community, indoctrination and comfort level. While supposedly, the average atheist is more intellectual than the average theist, let's not pretend that there aren't a lot of very intelligent, intellectual theists as well. Of course, you can be very intelligent and simply never explore the possibility that the beliefs that you hold dear may be false. Or you can convince yourself using what you think is reason, that your beliefs make the most sense.

I think of myself and my sisters as examples. I am the only atheist of the three. One of my sisters, who is far from intellectual gave up Christianity but quickly went on to find some other woo beliefs that she liked. The other one was never able to give serious consideration that her beliefs might be false. Part of this is due to fear, imo, but you'd have to know my sister, who has suffered from anxiety and intermittent depression for most of her life, to understand why she is so fearful. As a child, she was fearful of many silly things, so after being heavily indoctrinated into fundamentalist Christianity, I would expect her to be afraid to ever question what she was taught as a child. Her current version of Christianity doesn't seem as harsh as the one we were taught as children, so that's a good thing. I've found it best if she and I never discuss religion. It only causes her great distress, and I don't want to hurt her.

 

[Underseer]

At the top of the list is obviously insufficient intellect, the absence of a strong innate curiosity about how things work. It is no different than eventually understanding there really isn't a Tooth Fairy, and understanding instead how the money comes to be under the pillow. This is not a person's fault, it's not willful. We all know people who's religion is everything to them because it's all they know. These are primarily the Fundamentalists.

Secondly would be peer pressure to include cultural pressure. Practicing religion can have its rewards, even for people who have the intellect to know it's just superstitious nonsense. It can bring great wealth.

Also, some people are very superstitious, even though they may be quite bright. Call it simply being overly emotional. Religion and superstition just feel good, even if I'm a doctor or a scientist with respectable credentials.

Are there other reasons?

Considering the incredible amount of emotional manipulation involved in the indoctrination process, do you really think the main thing keeping theists in the theist camp is lack of intelligence?

There has been a lot of research done on this topic in recent decades.



The above discusses certain specific forms of sloppy human thinking exploited by religious indoctrination, but it hardly covers them all.

For example, the Euthyphro dilemma was proposed thousands of years ago. It proved that authority-based moral systems cannot produce morality, only demand obedience, which is not at all the same thing as morality. So why would all religion claim to make their followers more moral when none of them can?

Because if you believe that your religion makes you a better person, then you will be afraid of questioning the claims of the man in the pulpit for fear that doing so will cause you to become a bad person.

Every religion claims to provide what none of them can because of what amounts to a cheap marketing tactic, but a lot of religious leaders really pound this argument relentlessly. They repeat the claim that their religion makes people more moral over and over without providing an ounce of valid evidence supporting their claim. Repeat a claim often enough and people believe you.

Once you convince people that religion makes them more moral, you've committed an incredible act of emotional manipulation. Even smart people can be afraid of questioning something if they believe doing so will cause them to become bad people.

Theists aren't morons who aren't able to reason themselves out of a mental prison. They are more like abused spouses who believe their abuses spouse when he/she says "You are nothing without me! Do you hear me? Nothing!"

 

[braces_for_impact]

Convincing people that morality was tied to religion is probably the best idea they've ever had.

 

[steve_bank]

The Vatican is manned by PHD thirsts. Harvard, Yale, and Oxford have divinity schools do they not? The other end of the spectrum are schools like Liberty University and many small schools. The majority of educated engineers I worked with were Christians, some creationist. Us humans compartmentalize. Being an intellectual and a theist are not mutually exclusive.

Galileo got in trouble but ge remained a devout Catholic. Newton was Christian with a few mom traditional ideas.

 

[J842P]

At the top of the list is obviously insufficient intellect, the absence of a strong innate curiosity about how things work.

I think this is too easy of an answer. For starters, I've known many brilliant theists. But I've also noticed, that along with intelligence tends to come ever superior abilities to rationalize ingrained beliefs.

 

[Underseer]

The Vatican is manned by PHD thirsts. Harvard, Yale, and Oxford have divinity schools do they not?

I dunno what the educational backgrounds of Vatican leaders are, but I know that Vatican leaders have made unbelievably fatuous arguments in the past such as that children who report pedophile priests to the police will go straight to Hell. I'm not going to claim to be an expert in theology, much less a Harvard Divinity School graduate, but I'm pretty sure there's no theological basis for the above argument, and I'm pretty sure it's full of awful logic.

The other end of the spectrum are schools like Liberty University and many small schools.

These days, many theology schools have to hire crisis counselors to help students keep their faith despite the things they learn in their classes about, say, the origins of the Bible. I'm willing to bet that all those new expensive evangelical universities don't need those expensive crisis counselors because they just don't bother teaching students any facts that might cause a crisis of faith.

In fact in order to become a professor at one of those schools, you have to sign a statement of faith promising not to teach such things to any students ever.

The majority of educated engineers I worked with were Christians, some creationist.

Engineers think everyone else is an idiot. Creationism is perfect for them.

Us humans compartmentalize. Being an intellectual and a theist are not mutually exclusive.

I agree with your sentiment. Lots of highly educated, highly intelligent people are capable of believing all manner of stupid things, but I'm not sure the above examples you gave are good examples

Galileo got in trouble but ge remained a devout Catholic. Newton was Christian with a few mom traditional ideas.

Those are much better examples.

The symptoms reported for Newton's death are consistent with lead poisoning. Newton believed in alchemy and was obsessed with creating a Philosopher's Stone so that he could have infinite wealth and immortality. The fact that Newton most likely stupided himself to death trying to turn lead into gold is much better supporting evidence for what you are trying to say.

Newton also believed that he could use Bible codes to predict when Jesus would come back. Mind you, if you are a Christian and believe what the Bible says, the Bible specifically says that no one will be able to predict precisely what Newton was trying to predict. So either the Bible is true and what Newton was trying to do with Bible codes was stupid, or the Bible is not true, and therefore what Newton was trying to do with Bible codes was stupid.

Newton argued that because he was not able to explain the stability of planetary orbits, that no human would ever be able to explain it, and declared that therefore God alone could explain it. This set up Laplace to deliver one of the juiciest insults in recorded history (at Newton's expense).

When Newton gave the world the Law of Gravity, other intellectuals asked him if he had a theory to go with that law. The less said about his proposed theory, the better. Suffice it to say, his theory was never proved by experiment, and the world had to wait for Einstein for an explanation for why we have gravity and why gravity obeys Newton's Law of Gravity.

Mind you, Newton was arguably one of the smartest human beings in history. If one of the smartest motherfuckers to ever live said and did things that profoundly stupid (including in matters of his own expertise), we have to assume that the rest of us mere mortals are more wrong about more things.

So no, it should not be particularly surprising that lots of smart people believe incredibly stupid things.

Speaking of incredibly dumb things from incredibly smart people, now would probably be a good time to discuss Platonism.

 

[steve_bank]

'intelectual' says nothing about what a person thinks about or applies him/her self to. It refers to people who do 'think work' as an occupation as oposed to those who work in some kind of functional occupation. A theologian is as much an intelectual as a theoretical mathemetician. As a pejorative it means geek.

1. relating to the ability to think and understand ideas at a high level, or involving ideas:
2. a person whose life or work centers around the study or use of ideas, such as in teaching or writing

 

[Treedbear]

...

The majority of educated engineers I worked with were Christians, some creationist.

Engineers think everyone else is an idiot. Creationism is perfect for them.

I've known engineers on both sides. The open minded one's liked the calculated safety of Pascal's Wager.

...
Speaking of incredibly dumb things from incredibly smart people, now would probably be a good time to discuss Platonism.

"Slowly I turned...step by step...inch by inch...,"

 

[Elixir]

What Prevents a Person from Moving Beyond Religion?

In many (most?) cases, their parents.

 

[rousseau]

'intelectual' says nothing about what a person thinks about or applies him/her self to. It refers to people who do 'think work' as an occupation as oposed to those who work in some kind of functional occupation. A theologian is as much an intelectual as a theoretical mathemetician. As a pejorative it means geek.

1. relating to the ability to think and understand ideas at a high level, or involving ideas:
2. a person whose life or work centers around the study or use of ideas, such as in teaching or writing

I think the solution to the paradox here is that the overwhelming number of people are 'make it through the day' smart, not 'systems thinking' smart. Being an engineer doesn't imply that someone has the mental capacity to out-think religion, it just means they were smart and motivated enough to get an engineering job, or are intuitively smart enough to not call themselves an atheist. Read: I've known some pretty dumb engineers, and actually, a lot of them are dumb.

Where religious leaders are intellectual it may be very likely that many of them are also 'very smart' but not 'systems thinking smart', and that many of them are actually closet atheists.

 

[abaddon]

I think meaning matters a lot. More than who is or isn't curious about "how things work".

While going over some pros and cons to the naturalist worldview, Dennis Ford in his book "The Search for Meaning" comments:

"The indifferent world upon which the naturalists look can be beautiful and awe-inspiring but it can also be cruel and unjust... Celebrating the sufficiency of the is is unlikely to be found among those who mine coal underground or single mothers waiting tables... Furthermore, naturalists do not have the consolations that are available by transcending this world. The meaning of this transitory, fleeting world of sickness and death cannot be displaced and located in the eternal world of myth, Forms, or teleological ends."​

His book discussed the science-minded folk in another chapter. His chapter on naturalism is about folks like me, who find nature (not science but nature, there's a difference) to be the inspiration for finding our meaning in life. Thus the talk about "the sufficiency of the 'is'" instead of about whatever differing quirk of personality makes "how things work" more interesting to some people.

Expect anyone to move beyond religion? Tell them what the good of moving beyond is, maybe. But something less lame than "you get to be more factually correct about 'how things work'" would be a good idea.

 

[steve_bank]

'intelectual' says nothing about what a person thinks about or applies him/her self to. It refers to people who do 'think work' as an occupation as oposed to those who work in some kind of functional occupation. A theologian is as much an intelectual as a theoretical mathemetician. As a pejorative it means geek.

1. relating to the ability to think and understand ideas at a high level, or involving ideas:
2. a person whose life or work centers around the study or use of ideas, such as in teaching or writing

I think the solution to the paradox here is that the overwhelming number of people are 'make it through the day' smart, not 'systems thinking' smart. Being an engineer doesn't imply that someone has the mental capacity to out-think religion, it just means they were smart and motivated enough to get an engineering job, or are intuitively smart enough to not call themselves an atheist. Read: I've known some pretty dumb engineers, and actually, a lot of them are dumb.

Where religious leaders are intellectual it may be very likely that many of them are also 'very smart' but not 'systems thinking smart', and that many of them are actually closet atheists.

Nice.

 

[steve_bank]

In the past there have been stories of painful deconversions over on the secular forum. I was never really religious so I never went through the process. It can take years to get over childhood indoctrination and family rejection without permanent scars.

Back in the 80s I hung out with a guy who was raised Jehovah Witness. Parents were committed to the faith. When I met him he was a regular guy married with kids. When he rejected the faith the congregation shunned him. His mother and sister could not speak to him or have in their home. To see them he went to a service and sat near them, but nobody would talk to him.

He has probably carried pain from it all his life. At some level childhood indoctrination without being able to understand should be considered a form of child abuse.

 

[Jobar]

Plenty of believers have little to no social life outside their churches. If they stop professing belief, they can lose all their family, spouses, friends, even business relationships. I've seen that happen to too many people, both online and IRL. Some here may remember Patcher, and Johnny Scholar, from II. Lots of others like that. 'Moving beyond religion' can take incredible courage, more than most have, even when they realize their beliefs are nonsense.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Plenty of believers have little to no social life outside their churches. If they stop professing belief, they can lose all their family, spouses, friends, even business relationships. I've seen that happen to too many people, both online and IRL. Some here may remember Patcher, and Johnny Scholar, from II. Lots of others like that. 'Moving beyond religion' can take incredible courage, more than most have, even when they realize their beliefs are nonsense.

People get beyond believing in Tooth Fairies whether they have a social life or not, primarily because they meet lots of other people who have gotten beyond Tooth Fairies. Social aspects do matter but there is still that intellectual component. Interestingly, I meet many people who still claim to see ghosts, usually their parents and friends. They love telling their ghost stories, it's as if ghost belief is part of their identity.

Maybe religion is more about identity and less about belief, particularly for people who could care less about how long it takes to travel to the nearest star, or why the duck builds its nest on the "wrong" side of the highway.