The TRUE REASON Behind Religious Faith
It’s been eight years-eight years of me being an atheist. During this time, I have engaged in countless debates with family, friends, and relatives, advocating atheism and countering the religious view of the world. My arguments were based purely on logic and reasoning, and they often helped me clearly dominate such debates.
There was one problem. Even though I could dominate discussions, my arguments could not penetrate deep enough to change the opponent’s opinion. Even after losing the debate, they kept on holding on to their views, in some cases even more firmly than before. This was somewhat unexpected. If I know something is wrong, I must be able to make others understand it and persuade them not to do that wrong thing. But this was different here. I was failing to convince others on this topic.
Clearly, something was missing. I did not understand the mindset of believers well enough to clearly counter it. I could not identify the root cause of theism.
But one day, it just hit me — the true cause of theism, the actual reason why believers keep clinging to God despite everything. And I would like to share that root cause here, so we can work towards a society based on science and reasoning rather than blind faith and superstitions.
The root cause of why people are tempted to believe in God is:
“HOPE of disproportionately large benefits by worshipping god “
Allow me to explain. A believer worships God and prays to him, spending his time and money on him.
Now why does he do that? What does he hope to gain from it, or is it just a selfless act of gratitude?
Think about it briefly; you will realize it is not a selfless act. People don’t worship God to express their appreciation. It’s not our nature. We are not such generous beings. Whenever we worship God, we always want something in return, whatever it might be.
There is a huge list of such desires. They may be single and distinct, such as job, money, relationship, help in difficult situations, etc., or broad wishes, such as happiness, prosperity, peace, etc.
And from what we have learned through religious texts and stories, we know that gods are powerful. They see all and know all. They have total control over the world and each of its beings. They are always watching us, and it is them who write our destiny.
So whenever we worship God, we are basically trying our best to make these powers work in our favor and benefit us as much as possible. It is as simple as that. We pray because we “hope” it can help us. And as long as there is this hope of benefitting, we will keep worshipping. We will stop worshipping when we realize that there is nothing to be gained by it. Let’s understand this better.
Let’s imagine a hypothetical world in which there are currently two critical ideas regarding God:
- God indeed exists, and it is he who has created this universe and all the beings in it.
- Despite creating this universe, God does not interfere in its way of functioning and neither in the lives of living beings. That is to say, he neither punishes nor rewards.
Now let’s examine the behavior of beings regarding God and worship in such a world. As per the second point, God does not interfere in the human world. He lets it run as per its own rules. So if the beings worship God, they would only be showing their gratitude to God for making such a beautiful world and giving them a chance to live. These beings would not expect to gain anything by getting God’s blessings. Whether they worship or not, they have no hope of it impacting their lives. Their lives will continue as usual, regardless of whether they pray. Now if they choose to worship God, they would only be spending their time and money to show their gratitude towards God and nothing more.
So what will be the percentage of believers in such a world compared to today’s world? If you speculate, you will realize it would be much lower than today. In fact, in such a world, no one will worship God, and as time passes, a fair number of people will also start to question his existence, turning into atheists. The percentage of atheists will slowly outgrow believers, and as atheist ideology spreads, the percentage of believers will rapidly reduce and finally become nil. This might seem irrational to some people, but as you contemplate it more and more, it will make more sense.
Okay, we just saw how a population with 100 percent believers can turn into a hundred percent atheist if we remove just one variable from the equation: HOPE for profit. Now if we present the above explanation in front of believers, they often counter with the following argument– Whatever we do in the world, we do with a sense of profit. We study, exercise, and learn new things, all for gain. Hence, what is wrong with worshipping God with the same purpose of profit?
To counter this argument, we must understand the difference between worshipping God and other activities we do for our benefit. Studying, exercising, and learning new skills all require a significant amount of effort from our side. The benefits we reap from such activities are also proportional to our effort. Whereas in the case of praying, the effort we put in is considerably smaller than the benefits we hope to gain. By praying, we seek help in jobs, studies, relationships, complicated situations, etc., but we know that the amount of effort we have to put in is just a few minutes of prayer.
Hence, from the point of view of a believer, it is nowhere close to a fair trade-off but is more like a cunning deal. By praying, we hope to gain benefits from such shrewd deals, i.e., enormous benefits from small efforts, and it is obvious that such expectations are totally wrong. And people with such expectations are basically slackers disguised as devotees.
Let’s discuss one last thing. You might have noticed that in this article, I have emphasized the word “hope” each time I use it in phrases such as “hope of profit” or “hope of benefit.” This is because what binds believers to God is this “hope” of profit, not actual profit. Human beings are just one of the millions of species on the planet, and like each one, we also came into existence just by chance. We weren’t created by any divine entity, and no such entity as God exists. Hence, there is nothing to be actually gained from worshipping a god, but only this “hope of profit” binds believers. This is like a business. Believers follow God just because they expect disproportionately large profits by worshipping God.
So here we are at the end of this article. We live in a world with ninety percent believers and only ten percent atheists. And while the proportion of believers may seem intimidating, we must never forget that society changes and evolves with time. It leaves its past notions and accepts new ones. And these changes always happen slowly. At first, only a few people drive these changes, and they are accepted by the majority much later. Atheism is also such a change. It is in its nascent stage today, but it will slowly but surely spread, and a day will come when a hundred percent of the population will turn atheists. It may take some time, but it is inevitable. And for now, we need to hold on to the following proverb:
“What is popular may not be right, and what is right may not be popular.”
Thank you for reading.
