Most people don't believe in God. At least not really.
I'm speaking primarily of people who claim to believe in God. My assertion isn't that no one really believes in God. It's merely that far fewer people than you might think really do believe in God.
This assertion does not itself reflect any view on whether God actually exists. It is instead about whether people believe that God exists. The philosopher Georges Rey aptly refers to the claim that they don't as "meta-atheism."
My inclination towards meta-atheism first developed as I studied, for my recent book The God Question: What Famous Thinkers from Plato to Dawkins Have Said About the Divine, the history of theodicy -- that is, the efforts by various thinkers over time to explain how the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God might allow all the horrible imperfections and evils in the world. Two things especially struck me as I worked my way through these writings. First, this so-called "problem of evil," which atheists regularly raise against religious belief, is not as instantly destructive of theism as many atheists think: many sophisticated, insightful, and profound things can justifiably be said in response to this problem. But second, more importantly, the more sophisticated, insightful, and profound the responses to the problem become, the more, it strikes me, it is impossible for anyone to genuinely believe them.
For just one notorious example, the 17th-century thinker Leibniz argued that God, by His nature, would create the best of all possible worlds; and since sometimes certain evils are necessary in order to bring about greater goods, even the best of all possible worlds, overall, might have to include various amounts of evil. When you follow this idea into its details, you will discover that, strictly speaking, it may work: on some philosophical level you may be able to reconcile the existence of God and all the evils in our world.
Except for one thing: it seems literally incredible, beyond believable, that this world -- with its history of wars, diseases, natural disasters, deaths of innocent children -- is the best of all possible ones. Voltaire's great novel Candide found Leibniz the best of all possible targets for lampooning, since almost no one, not even those inclined towards belief in God, could take that idea really seriously.
Meta-atheism is also supported by more contemporary things than dusty old philosophy books.
Hypocrisy is of course not limited to believers, but one must be struck by some of the more flagrant cases of religious hypocrisy regularly in the news. Television preachers' criminal activities, priests engaged in pedophilia, evangelicals publicly condemning homosexuality while privately practicing it, family-values legislators conducting extramarital affairs, even religious teens promoting abstinence while sexing up: there is no shortage of alleged believers violating the tenets they claim to believe.
One common response, of course, is to cite our weakness of will, or sinful nature. But ask yourself: if you really believed in an all-powerful God who condemned that behavior, who condemned (for eternity) individuals who engaged in that behavior, could you really, even for a second, engage in that behavior? (Compare: if you really believed that the bridge you were about to cross was going to collapse, would you even chance driving over it?)
Actions do speak louder than words: they reflect what we really believe. And most religious believers regularly engage in actions inconsistent with genuine religious belief. So they must not really believe after all.
There are many other, more mundane, examples. Even believers may not believe that this is the best of all possible worlds, but surely they believe that everything that occurs does so because it is God's will that it occur. But then why, exactly, should anyone get upset when anything happens, since everything that happens does so because the all-knowing and all-good God wills that it occurs? Or more painfully, people grieve when they lose their loved ones, especially children. But if you really believe in God, what is there to grieve about? This world, the actual world we inhabit, is far inferior to the afterlife, to heaven, to being with God. Certainly a child who dies young, before ever having the opportunity to be morally culpable for anything, would merit the more positive final disposition rather than the more negative. But then her death would be an occasion for rejoicing, on her behalf, not an occasion for grieving on our own.
This brief case for meta-atheism doesn't address all forms of "belief," of course. These days, lots of people will say (for example) that they believe in "something greater," even if they don't sign on to any specific set of institutional religious beliefs. But then again, if you don't believe in a "something greater" with the specific properties God allegedly has, then it isn't God you believe in either.
So most people do not believe in God, even if they claim -- not merely to others, but even to themselves -- that they do.
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The answer seems to be, since Nietzsche's 'death of god', that we have substituted the causa sui project, of making ourselves god (seeking of fame, power, money). We keep the idea of god around to falsely (Sartre's 'bad faith') give up control of our life to. Since we 'know' god isn't there, or he has put us on call-waiting, we can safely give lip service without fear of reprisal. This is the neurotic solution, to have our cake and eat it too. I am my own god, but won't admit it, so I seemingly give my freedom to a non-existent being without power. I imagine that morality descends, yet what morality I really have comes from inside. It is a shell game of three-card Monte I play with myself, knowing all along where 'it' isn't, but pretending I do know where it is.
As someone comments below, Protestants are either Calvinists (predestination--we were chosen by) or Arminians (e.g., Kierkegaard was so influenced)--god gives us a choice, but there is no penalty if we DON'T choose, only rewards ('Pie tomorrow', Dickens) in the utopian future (Marx; Teilhard) or heaven. Sartre, however, reminds us that not to choose is a choice.
Thus, to take up what you don't answer, it is about choice, especially in 'bad faith'.
God is defined by Christians as being both All Good and All Powerful. As the Omnipotent and Only god, he created all things including Satan and devils (who are evil) and humans, along with their potential for evil. He also created Hell, i.e., never-ending burning of his own creatures who don't obey his laws. Even a mildly merciful god could not think up such a sadistic scenario as eternal torture. The conclusion is inescapable that if the Biblical God is Omnipotent, he cannot be Omnibenevolent, as the Old Testament says:
- I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things – Isaiah 45:7
- Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? Lamentations 3:38
Now, if you veer from the Biblical concept of God to a dualistic approach, you might find a way out of the predicament. The Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda is Omnibenevolent but not Omnipotent. He must fight Ahriman, the evil god, until the end of the world. Pretty well matched in power, the hopeful prediction is that the Good God will win. He may not be All Powerful, but he's All Good, and that makes more moral sense to me.
I do good for a very simple, selfish reason---it makes me feel good about myself. When I do bad things, it makes me feel awful about myself. These feelings are not "divinely inspired" they are accounted for in the biological and societal evolution of human beings. I think anyone who'd rather be happy than miserable can understand my simple, honest if selfish, motivations...I wonder if people who claim to be religious can be as honest about their motivation.
Do they do good works because it is what their god wants them to do, or because they are afraid of being punished? If it is the later, can it really be called "doing good works" or shouldn't it merely be called what it is: avoiding punishment.
Do you know how much it costs to make a cloud?...
Every institution and every movement has it's share of charlatans.
You are exactly right. There is too little real truth to be found in MANY churches.
But I did not say ALL churches.
If a man tells a lie about God, does God then not exist?
The real truth of God is found in the Bible and there are some true Bible believing churches.
Keep looking and pray that God will lead you to one of them.
To those who profess belief I would challenge you to prove it like these people do. If you are unwilling, perhaps as Daniel Dennett says, you simply value the belief in the belief in God and do not actually believe in God.
Suicide bombers.
No question about their sincerity either.
If all we are is the result of some carbon compounds accidentally coming together, and our consciousness some meaningless by product of some electrochemical reactions, then morality doesn't exist for us any more than it would for a pocket calculator. Acts that we consider good or evil have absolutely no more significance than a row of dominoes falling this way or that way.
We'll make rules to make society operate better, but get past those and you're home free. Reminds me of the Woody Allen movie where a doctor has his black mailing mistress killed, gets away with it, and movie ends showing him continuing with his happy productive life. Allen's unhappy conclusion was that's all there is to it. On the other and, if you believe that our actions have real after life or karmic consequences, then that raises things to a real order of seriousness and the doc's got away with nothing.
I'd suspect that the fine atheists who lead good lives in their gut are motivated less by morality as an artificial societal construct (how much motivation is that) but at least on some level have a feeling that good and bad actions are real, with real consequences. (And will probably they'll deny it)
I do not think many atheists would deny that: its a ethical system call consequentialism. One tries to judge the 'correct-ness' of one's behavior based on the consequences. As an atheist, I simply do dot believe there is a cosmic arbiter who will route my eternal soul to heaven or hell based on those behaviors.
I do not believe there is a divine mandate for morality, or absolute morality can exist, especially from religion, who's moral decrees change with the winds. Humans are wired by evolution to be empathic: we feel what others are feeling. I do not believe there is anything supernatural regarding morality and altruism. Here's an RSA piece you may enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g
Is it required that God exist for me to consider ME getting assaulted to be a bad thing and support a society in which that type of behaviour is curtailed? Again, hardly.
People who think God is required for morality just dumbfound me. Are you seriously arguing that if believing God exists is the only thing keeping you from going on a serial killing rampage or something? Sheesh.
At risk of dwelling too much on Woody, he's made dozens of movies with all the same theme, always hoping for someone to prove him wrong, and is always left disappointed. But maybe you or someone else can point where he's off.
Describes most people that argue on HP IMO.
Matthew 23:13 ¶ But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
1) they can talk to god (in prayer)
2) god answers their prayers
3) divine inspiration is real
and yet when one of their "extremist" members chooses to pray for a child to recover and the child dies, or they murder a child because they say "god told them to do it" the mainstream reviles this person for being crazy.
What possible criteria could you have for thinking THAT person is crazy when YOU believe that the same god talks to you on a regular basis?
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
The reason that people can believe in a god and yet also accept evil, etc. is that they really do not LOOK AT and ANALYZE what is going on around them. They see isolated cases which are easy to dismiss or to rationalize saying that "God's ways are not our ways" or "there's a reason". It's not until you are forced to look rationally at what is really going on around us and the scale of suffering that you finally realize that there is no way a benevolent omnipotent god would have created this world.
It also helps to look at the lack of evidence for a soul that exists independently of the body. The two - the problem of evil and the lack of evidence for a soul - (along with a bit of religious history and the history of the bible) were what finally woke me up to the fact that religions are ALL manmade.
But until then, I really did believe in an omnipotent, benevolent god. In fact, I was horribly depressed - this is quite common with deconverted religionists - for some time at the loss of my constant companion. It took at least a year to come to terms with the loss. If I didn't really believe, I don't think the loss would have been so devastating.
"If people really believed that sin would cause them torment, they'd stop sinning." Shoot, I believe that being fat will shorten my life, but I'll walk my chubby self to my freezer for some ice cream later. Plenty of people smoke, drink, etc. even knowing the risks--precisely because the consequences aren't immediate--and it doesn't get less immediate than after death. If we got zapped us immediately after each sin (or each puff caused bloody coughing), it would be easier to stop.
Who says believers (specifically, Christians) think that God wills everything that happens? Christians have debated this issue for hundreds of years. I can't speak for Catholics, but Protestants who do are "Calvinists,; the rest of us are, even if we don't know it, "Arminians." We believe that God gave us free will. Free will means that we can make choices; the universe's nature is that our choices have consequences for others. Even lack of action has real consequences for real people. (See US infrastructure)
Yes, we believe that God may cause things to happen, but we'd never say that God makes everything happen. There are even believers who don't think that God will let anyone suffer eternal torment--they're called Universalists.--yes, as in Unitarian Universalists. Believers are a much wider group than suggested here.
Much like hell.
But think about all the times you (or someone else) is tempted to do something illegal. The punishment has a direct result on how much you're willing to chance it. Kill someone? Not likely - the punishment is too high. Speed? Why not? What's a speeding ticket? So if you believed in hell and the concept of eternal torture and suffering why would ANY sin be worth it? Why is it that a speeding ticket is a better deterent than hell? Here's a hint: Because a speeding ticket is more real, and even the religious, deep deep down, give more credit and validity to human laws than godly ones.
The reason for this is that awareness (of the infant, pure subjectivity) becomes consciousness by a standing-apart (ekstasis = objectivity), by a 'watching', a split, a negation.
On a different track, I am always aware of my death, as a standing-apart, waiting, watching my consciousness, so to speak (as consciousness, I watch; death, as consciousness seems to watch me). It is the overlap of these two, and the failure to differentiate them, that is similar to your 'ice cream shortens your life' example.
Add to this his statement that 'Death, although we think of it as annihilation, is the suppression of Nothingness'' and there is a deep psychological impasse, which can be sorted out (note: suppression = negation, thus negation of Nothingness).
Rather than sort it out at the philosophical level, someone made a comment, last month, "metaphysician heal thyself'. Cute. However, the mystic has ceased or negated consciousness. The usual satori experience is the sudden realization that 'I' don't exist in time (time[-as-consciousness] seems to stop), yet I am still 'alive'--this conundrum points to the failure of both consciousness (as affirmation; as science) and mysticism (as negation). There is a third choice, the Muddle of the Excluded Middle (see my permalink).
even a smattering of science, the purported events stated therein become laughable. From what I've seen, religious belief comes from equal parts socialization, early childhood brainwashing and an awesome level of wishful thinking and self-delusion.