I don't want this to turn into a contentious debate, even

>>1500716
>how people could believe in god
They were raised that way.
In many instances, it is that simple.
For millennia...

>>1500716
Difference in presentation. God used to be presented as an absolute, now he's just a big yellow guy on a cloud.

>>1500716
To make it clear, do you mean in a modern, Western context where there are scientific, measurable explanations for the world around us, or a historic context, where there quite often was no other explanation than "God did it"?

>>1500876
Well, I suppose it all works on a spectrum, regarding how much scientific understanding you have. I think that I've always been an extremely incredulous and inquisitive person, but then again I'm not sure if that alone is how I've avoided the brainwashing. It's strange to me how some people seem predisposed to it and some people such as myself, who were even brought up in churches, never were able to take religion and faith seriously at all. It just never seemed worth taking seriously to me, even when I was really young, I didn't know yet that I specifically thought religion was bullshit, but I knew that going to church felt like an utter waste of time.

>>1500716
>why exactly some people believe in god,
I think you're going to be disappointed. Belief in God requires faith which is fundamentally a mystery, not something that can be "exactly" delineated in words. That's why you see it as "illogical," because it is. Kierkegaard calls it the "Leap of Faith," you have to jump over this gap in logic to accept an answer that isn't "exact." It's like the Godel incompleteness theorem: there will always be true statements that are "objectively" correct but can't be expressed within the axiomatic assumptions of the system; i.e., assume a particle-physics universe where everything is causal and mechanistic. This is in line with current scientific understand. But if everything is a mechanical chain of cause and effect, where is the first cause? This is outside the bounds of the system.

Fear of the unknown, cultural/societal pressure and fear of nihilism.

Suppose a man lived the enitirety of his life a devout Christian, he dies, then wakes up in the afterlife. What and where would he go from there? Wouldnt the problems he escaped in the previous life be constant now in the afterlife now that his illusions have been shattered.

>>1501721
Great post desu
even atheists take a "leap of faith" to justify their own ideologies, it's just in the window-dressing of secular humanism or faith in technological progress. the leap of faith is by no means a bad thing, however, as humans are simply not purely rational beings and cannot exist or function without some kind of irrational component to anchor them. how could you get anything done if you couldn't assure yourself that the sun would rise tomorrow?

>>1500716
Let's assume for the moment there is a God.

The believing in God would be rational.

Let's assume for a moment that belonging to a religion provides benefits to people that they enjoy.

The belonging to a religion is rational.

You lack empathy; you're likely autistic with a touch of being a psychopath. These things can be overcome, once you admit to them.

>>1501859
His illusions would not have been shattered; the promises made to him would have been fulfilled beyond his wildest imaginations.

>>1501898
Well this is where the ambiguity of the nature of humanity in the afterlife poses a problem. What I'm saying is that if faith is a reactionary response to the world around you, what action would this person take in the afterlife that he couldn't experience in the his previous life.

>>1501920
Let's start defining terms so we understand each other.

Faith is the human ability to believe what you cannot see. I have faith in the risen Christ Jesus, even though I did not see the resurrection, and I have not seen Him yet.

I also have faith that electrons exist, even though I have not seen one.

I also have faith that tomorrow will come, even though I cannot know that for sure, not having seen it with my own eyes.

What we're doing here on earth isn't living. It's existing. A person who firmly places their faith on the resurrection knows that this world is broken, hopeless and useless, and will be forgotten completely.

And a new life will begin for those who want to live their lives face to face with the living God, and a new death will begin for those who do not.

Christians are not people with a different philosophy than you. We're new creations. Jesus made Adam and Eve human beings; He made us new creations, unlike Adam and Eve in that we cannot lose the indwelling Holy Spirit in us, resurrecting us to eternal life, and transforming us into the likeness of the Son of God.

The new life, in the new heaven, on the new earth, in the New Jerusalem, will be beyond anything I can imagine. That's the promise from the God Who always keeps His promises.

>>1500716
Reminder that there's a correlation between atheism and autism

>>1501937
That's ridiculous. The point of science is not faith but falsifiability. Science doesn't demand faith in the existence of electrons. The existence of electrons is always a hypothesis. If someone finds the proof to the contrary, then it will be discarded and replaced by a new hypothesis. But Jesus and his resurrection can't be disproved. Because religion demands faith and it doesn't allow questioning.

>>1501988
Do you accept that mankind's science has any limits whatsoever?

Do you think perhaps the Creator of the universe may be just a wee bit more intelligent than we are?

Fear of death.

>>1501956
probably because autists don't readily cave to social pressure.

>>1501956
There's also a correlation between autism and being really smart.