DOPE-HARDCORE-0 Posted:

I already said it in the OP. I’m not arguing GOD v. NO GOD. It’s been done elsewhere. Religion is not faith: Faith is a personal belief structure to which you, for whatever reason, prescribe. Religion is the dogmatic, often hierarchical secular construct which pbumes itself off as the gateway between you, the believer, and whatever heaven/paradise/virgins your faith promises you at death if you are true to yourself, your god, and your faith.

Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying – and agreed. As far as I’m concerned, faith is the personal, individual system of beliefs that one single individual, for whatever reason, subscribes to. I’ve got no problems with faith.

Religion, on the other hand, seems to be what happens when that individual becomes convinced that it is their God-given right to force other people to agree with them and enforce/promise dire consequences if they don’t.

QFT:

Basically, it’s the cult/brainwashing stuff that springs forth from literal readings of books, if you want my opinion. I don’t care about what god or how many you have, whether you have a spirit or not…these are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The question is how a sane, rational person can buy into the normative ideals fostered by a given religious organization. Welcome to the thread.

Thanks!

To answer the question, I’m not entirely sure. I would say that there could be any number of reasons – comfort, an easing of the myriad difficulties which arise from thinking for oneself, fear of the unknown (although I’m not sure how that would be diminished – it seems to me that many religions focus largely on a fear that verges upon paranoia of Something Bad that they never quite explicitly define), and maybe even something as simple as a desire to ‘fit in’ to the community currently surrounding them.

On the other hand, though, you specified that we’re talking about people who are both fully sane and fully rational…and honestly, I don’t think I have any answers to that question.

There’s one taking form in my mind, though, I believe. Just need some time to mull it over and flesh it out. I have to find a way around the problem of a person who recognizes the inherent difficulties of belief in an empirical reality solving those difficulties by method of declaring, with no readily apparent rational justification whatsoever, divine purpose for it all.