Why in 2024 do people still believe in religion? (serious)

return2ozma@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 264 points –
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You’re making large assumptions. There are more religions than you know. The way one practices also may not be familiar to you. You’re demonstrating intolerance through ignorance. Maybe you should be asking questions in this post about religion, or abstain if you’re not interested in understanding it.

Are you familiar with Baruch Spinoza? His take is fascinating. His higher power did not concern itself with the fates of mankind, but is responsible for the lawful harmony of existence. It also does not discount or displace science in any way.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/37996/spinozas-god-einstein-believed-in-it-but-what-was-it

All religion is untested made up nonsense, no exceptions.

If you make it up without evidence, it can be thrown out without evidence. Athiests make no claims, there's nothing to throw out.

The real answer to these questions is "we have no idea", everything else falls under russel's teapot.

Are you this arrogant in condemning everything you don’t understand?

If you truly believe “you have no idea,” then how can you be sure every religion is wrong without understanding them?

I do understand that it is something people made up without any evidence.

I am this arrogant about anything without evidence, if you present evidence, then I have a reason to believe.

Do you not believe in untested hypotheses or theorems? They are also made up without evidence.

The Big Bang itself has evidence, like the rapid expansion of the universe from the universal center in a state of decay toward entropy. According to the laws of physics, the masses that collided could not have spontaneously begun moving towards each other without force. Suggesting they began to move on their own without propulsion is just as made up as a creator pushing them.

I do not, why would I?

nobody asserts that, they assert that we don't know, which is accurate it is religion that asserts it happened through magic

So you don’t believe in any astrophysics? The cosmos is not repeatable phenomena.

Evidence exists for astrophysics

You may not understand science as well as you think you do. There is evidence that supports the theory, but it is untested until it is repeated in a controlled experiment. According to the scientific method, the vast majority of the field of astrophysics remains untested.

i don't assume the vast majority of astrophysics is true

neither do astrophysicists

I didn’t ask that. I asked if you believe in it. That’s all religion is; a belief.

be·lief noun

  1. an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.

"his belief in the value of hard work"

\2. trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.

"I've still got belief in myself"

I don't believe in anything without evidence and if I do I seek to correct that

belief without evidence is a failure of the mind

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Are you familiar with Baruch Spinoza? His take is fascinating. His higher power did not concern itself with the fates of mankind, but is responsible for the lawful harmony of existence. It also does not discount or displace science in any way.

That's basic deism but I would disagree and say it does conflict with science. Science is evidence-based, if you claim something exists you must present evidence to support it. I can't just claim there's a 5-ton diamond in my backyard and say "trust me bro". Nobody would believe me, so why should anyone believe in any god without evidence?

A hypothesis requires no evidence. It’s then tested through repeatable controlled experiments. The events leading to the Big Bang have no evidence. If science can hypothesize, why can’t religion?

Have you read string theory? It’s no different than Spinoza’s god.

A hypothesis requires no evidence.

Correct

It’s then tested through repeatable controlled experiments

repeatable controlled experiments are only one aspect of evidence gathering to falsify a hypothesis. Here are a few other methods:

  • Observational Astronomy
  • Modeling and Simulations
  • Indirect Experiments
  • Lab Experiments
  • Historical Data Analysis

By combining these methods we can still falsify a hypothesis, thus allowing "science to happen".

The events leading to the Big Bang have no evidence.

Correct! There is no evidence for what lead to the big bang because we can't gather any data before it started. But we have mountains of evidence that all point to a "big bang" happening - down to a fraction of a second shortly after it started! [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] .

If science can hypothesize, why can’t religion?

Science is willing to discard ideas that lack evidence or aren't falsifiable. Is religion ready to stop preaching because faith, by definition, is a lack of evidence?

Have you read string theory? It’s no different than Spinoza’s god.

The difference between string theory and Spinoza's god is the falsifiable part. String Theory, being a scientific theory, makes predictions that should be able to be tested through experiments (although testing will likely be a challenge much like Astrophysics and will instead depend on other scientific methods to gather evidence for/against it). Spinoza's God is a philosophical concept and not directly falsifiable through scientific methods. Spinoza's god is the equivalent of me claiming I'm friends with a telepathic unicorn from another dimension, both useless and irrelevant.


[1] Gravitational Waves: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-cosmic-discovery-could-be-closest-weve-come-beginning-time-180950109/

[2] Redshift: https://socratic.org/questions/how-does-a-redshift-give-evidence-to-the-big-bang-theory

[3] Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/cosmic-microwave-background-proves-big-bang/

[4] Abundance of Light Elements: https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_ele.html

[5] Expansion: https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_exp.html](https://www.space.com/52-the-expanding-universe-from-the-big-bang-to-today.html

[6] Olbers' Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27s_paradox

[7] Quasars Existence: https://www.astronomy.com/science/60-years-of-quasars/

[8] WMAP Survey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_Microwave_Anisotropy_Probe](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wilkinson-Microwave-Anisotropy-Probe

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