Why don't other people subscribe to your religious beliefs (or lack thereof)?

[John Dule]

Simple question. In your mind, what crucial facts or experiences are other people missing that would help them see things your way? Why don't more people subscribe to your beliefs? What is it they don't get?

Please don't give an answer like the following:

There isn't anything they "don't get." Belief is personal and everyone is entitled to their own unique viewpoints; there's no way to be objective in matters of faith. What's true from my perspective may not be true from yours. I just hope you someday come around to accepting Jesus (or whatever)

Instead, please model your answer on this response:

They are simpletons who were completely indoctrinated by their belief system since birth, and they haven't taken a single solitary second to question their own views in their entire lives. They're uneducated and stupid and they're not capable of introspection (like I am). They can pee their pants.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

They are simpletons who were completely indoctrinated by their belief system since birth, and they haven't taken a single solitary second to question their own views in their entire lives. They're uneducated and stupid and they're not capable of introspection (like I am). They can pee their pants.

[If my soul was made of stone]

they lack my wide variety of mental health afflictions, esoteric interests, and contrarian aversions to anything greater than one person they aren't hypersane visionary shamans capable of transcending the spiritual confines of their tunnel vision like me

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Many reasons, but here are some from the viewpoint of a mainline Protestant:

1. Dule already crudely alluded to this in the OP, but culture is probably the most obvious explanation. Most Christian countries have become secularized over time and religion means far less to people than it did in the 1950's.

2. People don't believe that they need to follow a personal being or entity or have their transgressions atoned for by the Blood of Christ.
2a. People do not agree with the Church on sin or that certain things should be considered sins or moral errors.

3. Science has replaced religion in the minds of those who see religion primarily as a way of explaining the origins of the universe.

4. Mainline Protestant churches have adopted a wishy-washy theology and messaging that does not compel people to make changes or sacrifices in their life and build a transformative relationship with the Holy Spirit, and so they see no personal incentive to join a church as opposed to sleeping in the extra hours on Sunday mornings. The most fundamental tenet of Christian belief (John 3:16) has been downplayed or forgotten.
4a. On the flipside, conservative Christian churches' persecution of LGBT people and the downplaying of marginalized groups has colored the perception of all Christian faith traditions in a negative way.

5. Wholesale rejection of metaphysics and the value of prayerful contemplation of Scripture.

6. The underlings of the world fail to recognize my superior intellect and the rejection of progressive Anglo-Catholicism is evident of that. How I pity them. _/s

[Antonio the Sixth]

I do in fact believe that hard agnosticism is the correct approach to metaphysical inquiry, so I'll follow Dule's policy and not go for the answer, but I want to restate that I don't think me being correct about this makes me better or smarter than someone who came to different conclusions. The very nature of my attitude to metaphysics means that having dick-measuring contests about different frameworks is silly.


Anyway, as for why most people do hold to affirmative religious beliefs, I think there are a number of answers:

1. Religion fulfills a fundamental social function. I keep coming back to the fact that the etymological root for religion is the idea of tying together. Religion is the most powerful social glue there is. Every society under the sun has some type of rituals in place to symbolically and materially bring its members together. The rituals don't always have to be connected to a cosmology, but clearly a cosmology helps imbue the rituals of a special quality that makes them uniquely emotionally compelling. It's easy to see that our modern secular rituals feel like a pale, hollow imitation of the power and wonder of religious ones.

2. Religion fulfills fundamental psychological needs as well. The most important questions in life cannot be answered empirically. Why do I exist? Do other people exist, and if so, why are they distinct from me? Why does the universe work the way it does? Is there any purpose to it? Those are terrifying questions to be staring down, and the fundamental tools that we have to answer more basic question are useless there (in fact, they are reliant on us having already found answers to some of those questions). Religion provides answers to those questions. By their very nature, those answers are outside the realm of empirical inquiry, so they can't be said to be true or false. But simply accepting them as true can at least soothe this existential anguish that could otherwise consume us.

3. There is also the standard line about pattern recognition. It's a bit of a canard, and I don't believe it's as important as the first two answers, but the scientific evidence is overwhelming, and I have to mention it in order to make this a complete answer. Our human brains are so well-calibrated to identify patterns that we often overshoot and perceive a pattern where none exists. So when we find ourselves in a situation where we feel like things are connected somehow, but don't have empirical evidence to explain how they might be, we might be tempted to invoke supernatural explanations. Even people who aren't religious as such easily develop these tendencies (I'd argue that much of election punditry, including on this site, is based on identifying imaginary patterns).


Also, flipping this around, here are two reasons I believe some (albeit comparatively few) people espouse hard atheism:

1. People fundamentally misunderstand the nature and scope of empirical inquiry, and thus believe that they can apply them to metaphysical questions. I've explained earlier why this is nonsensical, but if you do apply the scientific method to assess a religious claim, then Occam's Razor would lead you to refute it. This is usually what atheist intellectuals end up doing, which says a lot about their disciplinary blind spots.

2. Let's be real here. Some people just have an axe to grind against religion. Often for very good reason, mind you, as plenty of evil things are justified in the name of religious values. But this justified rejection of the actions and behaviors of religious people and institutions can bleed into an effort to challenge the truth-value of religious beliefs. Thus, many atheists have emotional reasons to reject beliefs just as much as religious people have emotional reasons to maintain them.

[RFayette]

To keep it simple, I'll just answer for Christianity in general as opposed to specific denominations.

1.  They were brought up in a different faith tradition and either never encountered nor never took seriously/investigated the claims of Christinaity.  

2.  They rejected a false understanding of Christianity (i.e. thinking the trinity teaches 3 gods as the Quran seems to claim).

3. They are uncomfortable with the idea of God sending people to hell.  They also may be convinced there is no God on account of evil/pain/suffering in the world.

4. They are unfamiliar with philosophical arguments in favor of God or the evidence in favor of Christianity, including contemporaneous miracles (see Craig Keener).    

5. They love their sin, or in more neutral terms, there are moral proscriptions inherent to the Christian religion that they find offputting and opt not to believe in Christianity rather than reform their ways to be in accordance with the faith.  

[afleitch]

As someone who did struggle with faith and even more with letting it go, I think there's a feeling that you'll lose yourself if you just stop with the ritual. We're so used to seeing religious converts espouse stories of personal change which but for the countless numbers that just give up religious belief and practice, there's no shared testimony. Perhaps there should be. I de-stressed, my coping ability for my Asperger's increased, I became less irritable, less insular and generally, kinder. Given I had suffered a mild medical condition as a result of the internal stress of having to deal with what I knew, deep down, was contradictory and dealing with a great degree of homophobia in Christian circles, if I hadn't cut the cord, and kept up the pretense of having to stake my place in a belief system that at it's base was as much about Saul's psychosis and Jesus walking on water, casting demons into pigs and flying up into the the sky as it was about all the high 'art' of reverends, doctorates and s e r i o u s philosophy constructed to keep the whole thing spinning, it would no doubt have destroyed me.

I don't do masochism. And not under the guise of spiritual 'suffering'.

And even when I say such things, the worst of faith will assume there's fabrication, that I'm 'debased' without faith in god. But I think there's a fair amount of fear behind it.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

1. People think the existence of God is necessary for existence and/or morality, and/or they just want to believe in a higher power (atheism).

2. People who are firm in their religious convictions are not likely to be drawn to a theologically pluralistic religion (UUism).

3. The religion itself as it is practiced can be and often is very alienating to people who are not white, educated, upper- or middle-class Americans, and while I appreciate the commitment to social justice even I think that sometimes certain UUs just use it to turn left-liberal politics into a religion.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Answering for the Orthodox Church since other people have already done Christianity in general:

1. Most Americans don't know we exist. I sure didn't until a friend of mine converted and introduced me to it.

2. Of those who do know of us, many see us as an ethnic cult that is for Eastern Europeans and nobody else. Events such as Greek Fairs being hosted by Orthodox parishes does not help with this.

3. Many people who are interested come into contact with toxic individuals online who represent the Orthodox faith poorly. These individuals are argumentative and frequently openly racist. They are rarely baptized or even catechumens, but they present themselves as authoritative because they watched a few Jay Dyer videos. I will admit, I doubt I would have become Orthodox if I had been exposed to these people before I had resolved to convert.

4. The Orthodox Church follows in a theological tradition rooted in the writings of the early leaders of the Church, and generally does not give much weight to modern ideas. I will also mention that this is a point of attraction for many people and we are gaining converts from liberal Protestant churches who are unhappy with the institutions they are leaving. Along those lines, we are not a liberal church and someone who wants one has little reason to entertain becoming Orthodox.

5. Evangelicals who enjoy a service structured around worship songs and a sermon usually don't connect with the Orthodox aesthetic, since we place a heavy emphasis on liturgy. Many of them will think that we look Catholic in our way of serving, which is an obstacle for them to give Orthodoxy a chance. I do know a number of converts to Orthodoxy who come from an Evangelical background, but for most of them the decision to convert was a long and difficult one.

6. Western Christians in general frequently struggle with our method of theology, which is not based in the scholastic practice that was popularized by Thomas Aquinas. While his writings formed the backbone of Christian thought for centuries to come in the west, he was much less influential in the east. With that said, his history with our tradition is much more complicated than the clean break you will see apologists articulate.

7. All of the reasons above that other Christians gave for people not wanting to be Christian.

[Former President tack50]

Because they were raised religious (or in some cases that aren't applicable for 99.9% of Atlas posters; broader society makes it almost impossible to not be religious).

I still genuinely believe that for most people, religion is something you inherit or in some cases, that you absorb from the broader society, particularly in certain countries (not the US or Europe; but it would be nearly impossible to not be a muslim in Saudi Arabia for example becuase there are just so many societal expectations and cultural things)

People like afleitch who go from religious -> non religious are more common than the opposite route; though the main avenue is really religious parents raising less religious kids, who then turn out to raise completely non-religious grandchildren.

The rapid secularization of (Western) Europe is a textbook example of this.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Because the details of Christianity can't be arrived at through natural reason alone and naturally some/many people will find the arguments-from-faith for them unconvincing.

Alternative answer: Because many Christians behave in exceptionally shabby ways, especially to disadvantaged groups in countries in which it's the traditionally hegemonic religion, and naturally this puts people off.

[John Dule]

Because the details of Christianity can't be arrived at through natural reason alone and naturally some/many people will find the arguments-from-faith for them unconvincing.

I think a part of this has to do with (some) Christians' tired insistence that religious beliefs can be arrived at through objective and/or scientific inquiry. I recall a conversation I had once with a user on this site, who essentially tried to convince me that a handful of quasi-scientific studies on "faith healing" proved that God exists. Whenever religion tries to play on science's terms, it will lose.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Because the details of Christianity can't be arrived at through natural reason alone and naturally some/many people will find the arguments-from-faith for them unconvincing.

I think a part of this has to do with (some) Christians' tired insistence that religious beliefs can be arrived at through objective and/or scientific inquiry. I recall a conversation I had once with a user on this site, who essentially tried to convince me that a handful of quasi-scientific studies on "faith healing" proved that God exists. Whenever religion tries to play on science's terms, it will lose.

     The problem is that most people lack the philosophical training to recognize that arguments are predicated on axioms, and to tackle a paradigm requires questioning those axioms. There were some absolutely terrible Christian apologists who were big in yesteryear, e.g. Ray Comfort, Ken Ham, Kent Hovind. They tried to prove Christianity while presupposing a naturalistic framework of knowledge, which is a dead end.

[Kingpoleon]

The kalam/morality/physics synthesis is not significantly convincing. And fair enough. But to argue that it should be convincing to NOBODY? Only assuming universal moral principles.

[The Puppeteer]

Most people aren't compatible with my spirituality because mine require extreme dedication and self sacrifice to a degree that would not be acceptable to most where as in my case I desire nothing else.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I'm a fan of the Pascal Boyer explanation that belief in the supernatural is a cognitive bias stemming from the evolutionary impulse to agent detection: if you assume (without evidence) that branch broke because a lion is nearby, you might save yourself from being eaten. Scaled up this biases us towards inferring conscious agency behind everything, e.g. an earthquake, or the creation of the universe, or that mystical experience I had.