Why do you believe in God? Why should I?

I think these are perfectly reasonable questions. Whilst your beliefs may seem perfectly valid to you, there are a great many people who find the very notion of a creator god unnecessary to the universe and even ridiculous. On this site we do not condone mockery of the individual but we do hold that ideas can and should be questioned and that people who believe in extraordinary ideas should be asked to justify them.

Presuming you have answered, I have another question as a follow up.

If you were told that genuine proof existed that your god does not exist and everything written in all the holy books of the world is nothing but folk tales and myths, would you be prepared to listen?

Whilst there are some honest souls who would be prepared to face this imaginary proof, there are many who would not. Indeed, I have encountered religious believers who consider the bible to be the inerrant word of god and that everything which contradicts what the bible says must therefore be wrong. In other words, they would rather believe a collection of bronze age stories than the total accumulation of human knowledge and the evidence of their own eyes. This seems utterly incredible to non-believers but it is true.

A delusion may be defined as; ‘an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder’.

The last part of that sentence is intriguing. The deeply religious may claim a personal relationship with their god. They may even claim that they have spoken to their god or that their god has somehow ‘entered’ them. They offer this testimony as ‘proof’ of their god’s existence. But how can we differentiate between a deeply held belief which contradicts observable facts and empirical evidence from a delusion, a mental illness? Is there indeed a difference?

Consider this. The book of Genesis gives an account of how the world and everything in it was created by God. But scientific progress has allowed us far greater knowledge of the universe and our own small corner of it than was available to the authors of the bible. We now know, without any doubt, that the description in Genesis is not only false, but that it could never be otherwise. We know that the sun and moon are not things placed in the sky simply to light a day and night that already existed without them. We know that all the vegetation on the earth did not and could not exist before these lights were created. We know that the earth does not exist within a dome of water. And yet, we see that some people would rather believe all this than accept any other explanation.

It seems insulting to suggest that holding such beliefs is mental illness and yet how are we to explain it? It is easy enough to understand why someone might believe in a god.

· Acceptance of childhood teaching.

· A lack of exposure to contrary ideas.

· A personal faith bolstered by shared experiences within a believing community or family.

· The comfort of belief in a loving creator and the promise of a better life after death.

We don’t need to share the belief to understand why someone believes. But when belief reaches a point where it requires a denial of facts and a willing blindness to evidence, how can this not be construed as mental aberration?

I do not consider religious believers to be mentally ill. But it seems clear that holding so strongly to such beliefs acts like mental illness. Indeed, we can cite instances where otherwise ordinary people have committed unspeakable crimes and horrors based solely upon their beliefs. That is not to say that non-believers are not capable of such things, but no crime has ever been committed in the name of non-belief. It is also not to say that the majority of religious believers have or ever would act in this way. Their personal morality would prevent such behaviour but it must be stressed that such morality cannot come from their religion, when the Bible and the Quran not only have examples of slavery, genocide, murder, rape and other crimes but actually condones them.

But leaving aside the more outrageous types of behaviour, which could possibly be attributed to the individual and not the faith, we are still left with a situation where, in words of neuroscientist Sam Harris, religion allows “millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own”. Adam and Eve, a talking snake, the resurrection, flying from Mecca to Jerusalem on a winged horse and so much more.

Let’s go back to the original question. Why do you believe?

For the vast majority of people, it seems clear that belief in a particular god is an accident of birth. That is, if you are born in Saudi-Arabia you will almost certainly believe in Allah, whereas if you are born in the United States of America, you probably believe in God and Jesus Christ.

Add to that, the instruction you receive as a child, when you are programmed by evolution to accept without question words spoken from authority. Don’t touch the fire. Don’t go into the forest alone. Don’t touch the plant with the tall blue flowers. God exists, he created the world for us and he loves us.

Considering these two factors it is hardly surprising that most people never even question their faith, let alone find the courage to leave it. Keep in mind that for Christians, leaving the faith of your family and community, or even admitting to serious doubts, can be very traumatic. For many Muslims it could well be fatal.

Now let’s look at those who claim a personal relationship with God. They will not be dissuaded by clever or logical argument because they feel God in them and that certainty informs their every waking moment. Regardless of the literal definition of the word, they claim to ‘know’ God exists and that he loves them. But how do they recognise that feeling as God? When they first heard the voice or felt the surge of emotional wellbeing, how did they understand it to be from God? I’m not suggesting it was the devil, but something far more mundane.

There has never been a recorded instance of anyone living in complete ignorance of God, or Allah, or Ganesh and waking one day to find that that deity had spoken to them and instantly converted them to a believer. What actually happens is that the individual already accepts the truth of their god as does everyone around them, or they are at least aware of the god, even if they have doubts. The sudden magical revelation is not therefore a mystical conversion but rather an unconscious acceptance. Their experience is heartfelt, sincere and genuine but it cannot be offered as evidence because it does not happen in isolation and it can be explained in other terms. That is not to say that they are wrong, but merely to suggest that they could be and that, therefore, their personal convictions are not reliable evidence for the rest of us.

So, we can see that there are a number of reasons to believe but that all of them have alternative explanations and none may be used to convince others.

You may ask, well so what? Why not simply leave believers alone to do their thing? That will be the topic of my next blog.