Why do sensible, educated people believe in God?
As I explored previously in this blog, belief in God involves acceptance of logical paradoxes, disregard for the lived experience of other people, and belief without reasonable evidence. So what is the motivation for belief?
One answer is that belief in God is the cultural norm. Most nations have a dominant religion, and that religion permeates society and culture. So there are Protestant Christian, Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Shia Muslim, Sunni Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish and other religions, each with its own diversity of sects, which each dominate a culture. People are also taught the precepts of religion from childhood. It is easiest to simply believe and observe the rituals than to intellectually challenge the medium surrounding us all.
Another motivation for belief is hope in the midst of despair. All people, at some time, experience disappointment in life, defeat, discouragement and depression. Some people have lived in situations utterly without hope; others may experience an internalized feeling of despair. In either case, religion can be a source of hope and I would not want to take that away.
But for those who would live their lives by a standard of truth, and are able to withstand the vagaries of life without reliance on religion, I expect that more of them would reject religion. In western cultures, particularly in America, we have a culture of questioning academic orthodoxy and dogma. For educated people trained in critical thinking, why does religion receive a pass from rigorous skepticism?
I think part of the answer is the halo effect.
The halo effect is a form of cognitive bias, one of dozens of common, repeatable human errors in perception or judgment. These errors are explored in a number of popular psychology books, including Inevitable Illusions by M. Piattelli-Palmarini, Predictably Irrational, by Daniel Areily, Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli, Nudge by Richard Thaler, Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb, etc. Most of these cognitive biases reflect internal heuristics (rules of thumb) which people use to make rapid, simple judgments about complex things.
The Halo Effect was first rigorously documented in 1920, by Edward Thorndike. Thorndike defined the halo effect as a cognitive bias in which one facet of a person or thing affects judgment about other facets of that person or thing. The usual example is that a person who is deemed to be attractive is also perceived, without evidence, as being smart, neat, diligent, well-behaved, friendly or other positive qualities.
In the case of religion, I think that the positive aspects of religious doctrine lead people to conflate being *good* with being *true*.
Certainly, there is much about religious doctrine that is objectively good. Most religious teachings include some version of the Golden Rule. It is well represented by Jesus’ admonition to love your neighbor as yourself. In general, the Christian New Testament reflects core human values of goodness, including kindness, empathy, forgiveness, fairness, justice, service and responsibility. There are also teachings of gender inequality and intolerance, which are considered negative in modern values, but predominantly, the New Testament is an instruction to be good. It is much like the departing words of the alien in Steven Spielberg’s Christ-like story, "ET": “Be good.”
But one critical value is missing from the human values represented in the New Testament, the value of Truth. In any prioritization of human values, Truth should be one of the highest values, exceeded only by kindness. **
My grandfather spent a number of years as a missionary in Japan, running a Christian bookstore and teaching English at a Christian boys’ school, while raising his family. He believed that mission work should first address the physical needs of people for food, shelter and economic development, then education, then fellowship, before broaching the ideas of the Christian religion. He believed that living the example of a good life was the best way to bring about conversion to Christianity. After World War II, he was the founding director of the Methodist Committee on Overseas Relief, and later was director of the World Council of Churches’ world literacy program. By objective criteria, he was a good man, and lived a good life. But living a good life doesn’t make his religion true.
One of my friends argues that on balance, the force of religion for good outweighs any question of whether or not it is true. It is depressingly true that there is evil in the world, and evil behavior by people of all cultures. Perhaps some of those people could be influenced by either the teachings of Jesus, or the prospect of eternal damnation for their deeds. But the persistence of evil despite the prevalence of religion gives me doubt.*
On balance, the influence of religion for good does not offset the fact that it isn’t true. I think that a false belief in God will ultimately lead to greater evil, as it has so many times in the past.
In the long run, you cannot reason to sound conclusions from false premises. Belief in something that isn’t true, will eventually lead to conflict with others who hold conflicting absolute beliefs. This is especially true for belief in an all-powerful god and in god’s absolute truth.
In writing the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin wrote of the self-evident truths of inalienable human rights. It was John Adams who inserted the line “endowed by their creator”. I suggest that human morality should be derived along the thinking of Jefferson and Franklin, as a self-evident truth that people should be good, according to core human values, without the need for instructions from a god that doesn’t exist.
--
Appendix
* Donald Trump recently mused aloud that his chances of getting into heaven were small, but perhaps he could tip the scales by winning the Nobel Peace Prize. That isn’t my notion of how the scales of heavenly grace would work, but whatever.
But just as the Christian religion urges people to be good, it offers a Get Out of Hell Free card through repentance and forgiveness. Evildoers through the ages have relied on the idea of heavenly forgiveness while perpetrating heinous crimes against humanity. In the time of Martin Luther, the Catholic church sold "indulgences", which were pre-approved forgiveness tokens for planned or completed sins. Religious people banking on divine forgiveness span the spectrum from Ivan The Terrible (who tortured thousands, murdered his son and then prayed for forgiveness) to fundamentalist Christian pedophile ministers to decamillionaire televangelists. These Christian faithful sinners are either banking on heavenly forgiveness or are secretly complete atheists. I’m inclined to think that they believe that they can game the system with late-life repentance. It is hard for me to understand exactly what these people believe, given the deep hypocrisy between their public religious exhortations and their private behavior.
**In an attempt to restore truth to the New Testament and exclude superstition, Thomas Jefferson constructed a manuscript of the teachings of Jesus. Jefferson collected text from the four gospels, but excluded all miracles, mention of the supernatural, the divinity of Jesus and the resurrection. Jefferson called his final manuscript "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth". It was first published in 1904.
