I’ve heard a lot of atheists hypothesize that one of the reasons religion was invented was because people had to manage their fear of death. If people believe that they will continue to live on in some fashion after death, it mitigates their fear of death. Can the fear of death explain the origin of religion, or the origin of religious faith in people today? Perhaps, but three points should be made.
First, not all religions include conscious existence beyond the grave. For example, in many Eastern religions absorption into the One (personal extinction) is the end of all things. Clearly immortality is not the motivation for those religions and religious practitioners.
Secondly, so what? Even if the origin of religious belief in humans is motivated by a fear of death and desire for personal immortality, that tells us nothing about whether or not religion is true or false or whether there is life beyond the grave. Maybe humans fear death because it is unnatural (having originally been created by God for immortal life), and maybe humans desire immortality because we are immortal souls. Simply identifying a motivation to believe X does nothing to tell us whether X is true or not.
Thirdly, not all believers who follow religious traditions that offer immortality necessarily want immortality, and not all believers who follow religious traditions that offer immorality chose to follow that tradition because they feared death and/or wanted immortality. In the way of a personal testimony, while I think heaven will be a great place, and I’d much rather go there than go to hell, I did not become a Christian because I feared death or wanted immortality. Truth be told, part of me would prefer personal extinction upon death rather than an afterlife.
So for all the atheists out there, when it comes to debating religion, focus on trying to demonstrate that religion is false before you try to speculate as to how people came to believe false ideas. Put another way, philosophize before you psychoanalyze.
Thinking to Believe 
July 6, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Yes! Very true Jason.
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July 6, 2012 at 4:42 pm
I do both. Theists with their arguments happiness-purpose and from angst themselves affirm what atheists so note. Anyway, since some people want only to worship God and get benefits thereby, then that fear doesn’t enter. What does enter is why then find Him responsible for falsely answered prayers and miracles? Why, like full animists, do reduced animists= theists think so superstitiously that divinity favors them when the evidence illuminates otherwise. Why, does God play favorites? No, Yahweh lets the rain fall on all. And Christianity does not proclaim happiness always.
So,why worship anyway?
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July 13, 2012 at 4:52 am
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my religious faith is not based in or due to a fear of death or a desire to be immortal.
My religious faith, specifically in the Lord Jesus Christ, is due first to a real experience that I had which occurred on 3/9/2003. Subsequent to that experience/event, my religious faith has been upheld/sustained by and through continued experiences with and in Christ as based in and on God’s Word.
And when I first came to Christ, it wasn’t an attempt to outrun death or escape hell. It was a desire to be rescued from the (then current) situation of my prior life.
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July 13, 2012 at 5:09 am
People’s inner states make for those experiences without divine input: don’t beg the question of that input! These are not inter-subjective experiences that confirm objectivity but just those inner states! People’s religious experiences gravitate to the religion with which they favor. What Christian has Hindu ones [ Perhaps immersing oneself in a different religion could belied that, but but that would be rare! We gnu atheists can have those experiences, but knowing the sterility of theism, we know that our mental states are at play!
Inclusivists would explain that those experiences point to a higher reality, so that they essentially are the same,but one religion having a tripartite God belies that!
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July 13, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Don’t really know you Griggs, which is fine. But really, dude? Assumption, assertion, and silliness. Well done.
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July 14, 2012 at 12:47 am
No, one must read and rearead my comments so as not to misunderstand them1 Ah,to what are you specificall referring anyway? Why do you just have to use your pre-judging instead of rationally discussing matters? Others tell me that those who do as you do lack understanding.Idetail my comments so they are more than assertions. What others call mere assertions are well-supported comments that they refuse from prejudice to understand!
Your projection boomerangs on you!
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July 15, 2012 at 12:14 am
Fair enough. I’ll break it down:
“People’s inner states make for those experiences without divine input: don’t beg the question of that input! These are not inter-subjective experiences that confirm objectivity but just those inner states!”
Assumption. Since you were not there and since I gave no specific details of my religious experience, you can’t speak to it authoritatively in anyway.
“People’s religious experiences gravitate to the religion with which they favor. What Christian has Hindu ones [ Perhaps immersing oneself in a different religion could belied that, but but that would be rare!”
Assertion. Prove it. Prior to my Christian experience and conversion, I detested Christianity. I held it in the lowest esteem possible/imaginable. Other factors lead people to their particular faith of choice, which has nothing to do with preference or favor, as well. In fact, in regards to Christianity, it is a tenet of the faith that people are not led to Christ solely by their own volition. There is a divine aspect involved, as well.
“We gnu atheists can have those experiences, but knowing the sterility of theism, we know that our mental states are at play!”
Silliness. There are religious experiences that cannot be duplicated by unbelievers, no matter how hard they try. In fact, unbelief is anathema to the very experiences you say atheists can have by/through mental state. Not so at all. Unbelievers cannot be baptized by the Spirit of God, by default, ergo, silliness.
“…a tripartite God…”
Assumption, Assertion, and Silliness. This is an obvious reference to the trinity doctrine. Such a reference assumes several things:
1.) That all Christians believe in the trinity doctrine (they don’t)
2.) That Christianity in general requires a belief in a, as you call it, tripartite God (it doesn’t)
3.) That I, myself believe in the same (I don’t)
These assumptions are based on the (false) assertion that the Christian God is tripartite or tri-une. He is not.
And so, making such assumptions and uninformed assertions is, as I declared, silliness.
Unless, of course, since you mentioned Hinduism, you are referring to the Trimurti as the tripartite God. Then that is a completely different topic.
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July 15, 2012 at 2:19 am
No, you are projecting onto me your manner! A.J. Ayre, atheist, had that same type of Christian experience but knew better! You falsely assume that Spirit of God from an unsubstantiated anthology!
Do you think that we naturalists have that sin that
won’t let us become believers, and that we want to be immoral, so we cannot let that Spirit in? People who maintain that just prattle!
I didn’t have to be there to know how such happens! I know how NDEs and OCD’s happen- people’s own minds at play with some natural element influencing them such as atoxia.
So, stop the projecting and try to understand without the blinders on!
Theists become so scared at naturalism that they just cannot comprehend the truth! That appears to be why C.S.Lewis’s ” Mere Christianity ” revels in sophistry as John Beversluis reveals in “C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion.”
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July 17, 2012 at 11:50 pm
You’ve proven your own ignorance, friend. You think I’m talking about near death experiences, obsessive compulsive disorders, and/or various forms of ataxia? Seriously?
And yet you have the arrogance to maintain that you “didn’t need to be there” to know what I’m talking about?
Quite presumptuous of you to make such statements when they aren’t even remotely close to resembling anything I’m talking about.
An honest, humble person would at least ask me to give an account of the (as of yet un-described) experience I briefly mentioned before they launch into an accusative diatribe against it. But not you. You rather disqualify yourself from the discussion. Oh well. See ya.
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July 18, 2012 at 4:10 am
Describe your experience but remember that it would follow others’ that we skeptics find as stated previously. Your outburst cannot instantiate any fact!
Please,everyone stick to facts! The fact about those experiences is as I state.
People can induce religious states by fasting and other means. So, naturalism wins this argument!
I won’t pay any more attention to such petulance! People can claim any feelings and experiences as revelations but we skeptics gainsay their cliams.
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July 18, 2012 at 4:10 am
claims
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July 18, 2012 at 11:28 am
Griggs,
I have not been following this discussion, but these words of yours stuck out to me: “People can induce religious states by fasting and other means. So, naturalism wins this argument!” How does it follow that because X is a possible explanation for Y, that X must be the explanation for Y? My sticking a garden hose in your house and turning on the water could explain why your house is flooded, but that does not mean that this is the cause of your house being flooded. Perhaps it was a broken pipe, etc.
So for the sake of argument, let’s say that certain things we do to our bodies can truly replicate religious experiences. How would this disprove that a God exists? Who says that God has to cause religious experiences? Even if it could be proved that all religious experiences are self-induced, it would not disprove God’s existence because theists have more substantive reasons for believing in God’s existence than mere religious experience. Indeed, some theists have not had a religious experience at all. Their beliefs are based solely on the arguments and evidence for God’s existence.
But let’s assume that if God exists He would cause religious experiences. How does finding areas in the brain that produce the same experiences prove that God cannot be the cause of such experiences? Couldn’t God have created those apparatuses in the brain specifically so that we could recognize His presence? Indeed, a theist would expect such a thing. “Self-induced religious experiences” do not prove that God does not exist or that God does not cause such experiences. It simply proves that God uses our biochemistry to produce certain experiences in us so that we can recognize His presence. The fact that humans have now discovered how to manipulate these same apparatuses to produce the same or similar experiences does nothing to detract from genuine religious experiences caused by God’s activity. If this is even logically possible, then your claim fails.
BTW, we also have to define what we mean by religious experience. That’s a broad and tricky word.
Jason
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July 18, 2012 at 3:26 pm
People have to give evidence for that God-input instead of assuming it! That also goes for assuming that evolution is His means of creation, another argument from ignorance!
Otherwise, the presumption of naturalism perforce rules!
Logically possible has no more value than solipsism, it seems to me! Ti’s the same matter as ontological arguments- no there there!
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July 18, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Griggs,
You seem to have missed the point about logical possibility, so let me explain that in more detail. You tried to claim that since naturalistic or (presumably) self-induced biological events can produce religious experiences, that naturalism is true. But this does not follow for several reasons.
First, it presumes that if God exists He has to provide religious experiences to people. Why think that? People could falsely attribute strange biological experiences to God, and yet God could still exist.
Secondly, your conclusion ignores the fact that religious experience is not the only reason we have for believing in God. In order to show that naturalism is true, one would have to show why all of the rational arguments for God’s existence fail, and provide reasons to believe naturalism is true. Under no circumstance does naturalism win by default.
Thirdly, and most importantly, to think that a naturalistic explanation for religious experience proves naturalism to be true would at least require that there be no other possible explanations. If there are other possibilities, then there is no logical entailment of Y from X. I argued that it does not follow that just because X causes Y does not mean it is not possible for some W to cause Y as well (in the same way that multiple causes could produce the effect of your house being flooded). And I provided one such hypothesis. If God created humans with biological apparatuses to recognize His presence when He manifests Himself to them, it should be no surprise that other causes, engaging those same biological apparatuses, would produce the same effect. So long as this is even logically possible, you cannot say that the human ability to create religious experiences in people apart from God’s causal influence proves that religious experiences cannot be caused by anything other than natural phenomena. This doesn’t follow logically.
Jason
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January 1, 2013 at 1:03 am
I do find all this wordy debate over the question is so unnecessary because the answer is in the question and is blindingly obvious. Unfortunately no one will be able to return from eternal non existance to say, “ha! told you so”, or “oops! sorry about that, it appears I got the god thing wrong all along”.
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December 3, 2013 at 1:16 am
I actually did after being dead for few hours and I can tell you that there is no eternal non-existence , my brain was as dead as it could be but I was never and I never even thought that I could feel as alive as I felt when I died , irony at it’s best and there are plenty people whom I’ve met who’ve been dead for more than a day funny thing that I got to know them only when I experienced this and before I was not even aware of this ‘group’ and yes brain states have a lot to say in this but my brain was dead for few hours so no atheist in the world can prove me otherwise , personally I think that there is no real dualism of the soul because when you experience such a thing you realise what the correlation is between the material reality and spiritual and it is mind blowing , dualism is fine with me because people who haven’t experienced what I did cannot now what it is nor could I explain it (like anyone would understand creation from nothing and that is a continous process that happens every single moment and God is included in our creation in ways that would make you wanna die ) but I realised there is actually something beyond your wildest thoughts going on , God did it so elegantly to let people think they’ve got it all figured out but in fact science knows literally nothing , I already know some things going on which science is just begining to grasp and people can go on blabing but when God does to you and show to you what He showed to me you will never complain about there not being enough proof all I know science knows nothing ( in comparison to all what can be known ) , or perhaps it has some explanation t why I know about things that would happen in the world before they did , I knew all about it years before it did and the exact dates so no worries God works in ways that prove me over and over again that people are full of themselves and think they know everything , you really think you can figure out how our universe works without God , it is not , the universe depends completely on God and He sustains it absolutely , if He wasn’t the universe would colapse into nothingness .
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