Venting It baffles me as to how people believe in things with no evidence

[ijustwishtodie]

I don't understand people at all and why they believe in things with no evidence. In addition to this, they also devote their entire lives to their beliefs, a massive example being religion. I just don't get how they do it. Personally, I can only believe in something if I have sufficient evidence to believe so. I could never spend my entire life towards a belief which has no evidence for it. My parents are the types of people to believe in things with no evidence, the main thing being religion. They force me to pray and do other religious related stuff whilst being fully strict about it. They act like their religion is the truth but there's no evidence for it. It pisses me off that they force me to pray when their religion has no evidence of being true in the first place

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

Me too.

I only believe things that there is a lot of evidence for and or that I can reason from first principles

 

[ijustwishtodie]

Me too.

I only believe things that there is a lot of evidence for and or that I can reason from first principles

Same here. I can't relate to people who believe things that have no evidence for them. I honestly don't even know how they do it

 

[kinderbueno]

Same here. I can't relate to people who believe things that have no evidence for them. I honestly don't even know how they do it

I think it's down to brainwashing tbh

 

[GuessWhosBack]

The point of belief is that we have no evidence. Otherwise we wouldn't need faith.
There's much to be said about the importance of religion in civilisation and how faith in something positive, being logically inaccessible, can comfort us through periods of struggle where we see no logical way out. With that being said - I'm no expert.

 

[Kalista]

early-age brainwashing. once it sticks that early, it sticks hard, unless you're capable enough to critically think out of it.

 

[ForgottenAgain]

Religion is built around faith which is the opposite of evidence. You just have faith that something exists and go from there.

I'm just like you, I believe in what I can confirm is real or that I at least can get some evidence for. This is why I'm not religious.

It is annoying because, since religion doesn't require evidence, people can do whatever mental gymnastics to insist that others conver to that religion or practise it. If something good happens: it was God, if something bad happens: it's your fault: lack of faith, sin, etc.

Religion is its own special type of brainwashing and when someone is brainwashed since very little, it's a mental prison that it's hard to break.

 

[Ironborn]

I think a lot of it has to do with ego, they can't handle the fact we actually don't matter.
We orbit one star in a galaxy of a hundred billion other stars in a universe of between two hundred billion and two trillion galaxies.
To think we matter in the slightest is an egregious example of arrogance and ego but at the same time I think terror of how insignificant we are.
Personally I think it's awe inspiring how insanely massive the universe actually is.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Religion has a lot to do with brainwashing and indoctrination. For a few this doesn't work. Those are the ones who question everything and only believe things that are evident.

 

[GuessWhosBack]

The point of belief is that we have no evidence. Otherwise we wouldn't need faith.
There's much to be said about the importance of religion in civilisation and how faith in something positive, being logically inaccessible, can comfort us through periods of struggle where we see no logical way out. With that being said - I'm no expert.

I'd like to clarify, that I am not defending specific religions here, but the concept of a religion. Many religions are in my opinion detrimental in the current age.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Believing means knowing nothing

Religions can neither be proven nor be disproven. Most other things in our universe are proven by experiments and physics.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I guess the need for some sort of way to cope with life's adversities and the unknown can lead to people believing in things that don't have any evidence to back them up. A lot of religious people are indoctrinated from a young age, so many grow up not questioning their faith. There can be a lot of pressure to conform to those beliefs, due to everyone around you having them. To question something that has been ingrained in you since birth and that everyone around you believes in can be hard and terrifying for many. It can lead to isolation and ostracization from your family and wider community and cause one to feel lost. Some people also don't even realize that there are other options. For example, I used to believe in god because everyone else around me, at the time, was religious. I had many doubts, but I suppressed them. I didn't realize that not believing was an option until the internet exposed me to atheism. Not long after, I became an atheist.

Along with that, a lot of religious people also feel like they have "evidence" for their beliefs. This evidence is typically anecdotal and in many cases there are better explanations for those things in comparison to them being as a result of some sort of divine intervention. Back when I was in middle school, we went on a religion retreat and there were these three older teens who were helping out with leading it. At some point, out of nowhere, they called out the non-believers and told us to pray to god and to ask him if he was real, claiming that he would respond to our question. They then proceeded to, one by one, go over their own testimonials on how they had doubts and asked him and he answered their prayers. It was fucking weird. The point is, if you believe in something then you will likely look for signs where they don't exist in order to try and justify those beliefs.