Why do people believe?

Why do people believe in Christianity? More specifically, what are the psychological incentives of belief that has made this religion so sustainable?

Ever since the election in November, I have been giving this question much thought. I have the fundamental opinion that organized religion does more harm than good to society. Since I am part of this society, I feel compelled to understand it in an attempt to ultimately do something about it.

So this is an attempt to understand why it is so compelling to people. So compelling that they will ignore their own self-interests and overwhelming facts in order for them to continue to believe.

Here are the reasons I have come up with using my own experiences with religion and my limited psychology background. They are loosely ordered in most important to least important from a majority perspective. Feel free to add your own or comment on my list.

Thank you.


1.) Protection from and creation of fear

Religion offers answers to maybe the 3 most important unknowns in life:

Where did we come from? God created everything including man. This is important because it casts God in a paternal role. As children created and reared by our parents, we are taught or forced to follow what our parents say without much reasoning or even agreement. We also value the perceived protection our parents provide us. There is little wonder to me why God is cast in a very similar role in religion.

Why are we here? To follow and believe in Jesus and (most of) the teachings (rules) found in the bible. This is key because it gives people a sense of purpose in life and broad reasoning for their actions.

What happens when we die? If you believed in Jesus and were repentant of your sins, you will go to heaven and attain eternal life. This is most important protection religion has to offer and is the single most driving force behind people's willingness to believe. I belief these ideas pray upon a human beings' self preservation instinct.

The converse of these assurances is that a new fear is created. If one does not follow the rules, one will go to hell and suffer for all eternity. This creates a scenario even worse than eternal death itself and ratchets up the emotional stakes even further.

So for a person to cease believing in this religion, they also cease believing in these same protections over their family and loved ones that are living and already dead. It is this additional emotional trap that makes it even more painful to for one to give up the beliefs. It forces someone to accept that not only are they going to die but so is everyone they love. Powerful stuff...


2.) Power and Control

Christianity at its heart is an attempt at control. Control of sex. Control of thoughts. Control of money. Control of social behaviors. Control of competing ideas. While this power and control isn't available for everyone, it is attainable by the clergy (and leaders (Pres. Bush)) of Christianity. (i.e. the people that generally benefit the most from religion.) These people that benefit the most are usually the loudest voices to encourage people to not waver in their belief (faith) and to follow the rules set forth by the bible. Thus keeping their power intact.

Even for those that are not in a leadership role, the rules of religion gives people a means to tell others what they should and not should be doing.


3.) Community

Church offers a sense of belonging to something beyond the immediacy of the religion. Human beings are very social animals and generally hate to feel alone. The church structure brings people together socially and makes them feel apart of something beyond their beliefs.


4.) Competition and Superiority

The "holier than thou" effect. It gives people a way to feel better about themselves or even unique amongst their peers. They feel they know and operate on a higher level than weaker believers, other religious people, or non-believers. This mental construct can make one feel that they are doing a good job following the rules and thus are closer to God. Therefore they feel more assured about point 1.


5.) Helping and Conversion

While this is a combination of point 2 and 3, I feel it is separate enough for its own category. Christianity encourages helping people in need. Whether it is helping people in need or bringing more people into the "fold" via conversion. These actions have a pleasurable effect because they give a sense of reward. Even people in the church community that were not at all associated with the activities themselves can feel this reward.


6.) Hate

While human beings are social creatures, we do have an inherent distrust of people we do not understand or know. Biblical teachings give people the "moral" grounds to hate people that are different than them. While religion isn't needed to have reasons to hate others, it does create an unwavering conviction that a Christian's hate is justified and cannot be wrong in light of any facts or circumstances.


7.) Imagined Religious Experiences

I just finished a book called "The Vanquished Gods" by Dr. Richard H. Schlagel. In one of the chapters he talks about the various phenomena of religious experience.

He makes a point that religion is not just a result of ignorance or cultural influence. He theorizes many religious people have experienced some type of physical/psychological religious experience. Once such being "temporal lobe epilepsy". While not as severe as grand or petite mal type episodes, a common result is a felling of a pervasive benevolent presence tied with a sense of emotional warmth and safety. These events are somewhat common in situations of profound stress or hardship. But also can effect people out of the blue.

Dr Schlagel goes on to talk about other types of physiological phenomena such as out of body experiences, extremely vivid dreams, astral projections, schizophrenia and other types of dementia.

All of these combined result in a significant percentage of the population feeling they have been in touch with God personally. He also goes into the historical stories and accounts behind the religious prophets in many religions and how many appear to have suffered from the things listed above.