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Here are a few reasons people believe:
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Meaning and Purpose: Religion can offer a framework for understanding the universe and our place in it. It can provide answers to big questions about life, death, and morality.
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Community and Belonging: Religious communities can provide social support, a sense of belonging, and shared values. This can be especially important during difficult times.
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Comfort and Hope: Religion can offer comfort in times of grief or hardship. It can also provide hope for the afterlife or a better future.
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Tradition and Identity: Religion can be a core part of a person's cultural heritage or family identity. People may feel a connection to their ancestors or cultural background through their faith.
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Ethics and Morality: Many religions provide a moral code that guides people's behavior. This can be helpful in making decisions about right and wrong.
I don't believe, but I can see why people stick with it and don't look beyond it. You can get all these things without religion, its just not something that's taught/passed down in the same way as religion is. Additionally, deconstructing is very difficult. You're raised to believe something to be real and you're expected to just drop it and step out of Plato's cave? You'd look like a madman to any friends/family who aren't willing and ready to step out and look around.
As a large language model, I cannot endorse any one religion
Come on, this list of reasons was written by an LLM
It makes people feel better, not in general but better than others, most religions are about "this is how I'm better then you heathen"
Also, it can depend on certain other factors.
My partner and I had a difficult conversation recently about how we plan to handle her brother when her mother passes.
Her mother is obviously religious and raised him religiously Christian.
He is a sweet man with a severe developmental disability. Things literally take a very long time for him to learn. He still acts like a teen and he's pushing 40. That's not his fault, that's just life. We love him.
The thing is though...
We don't believe in religion, but we also think that when his mother finally passes, it would not be wise to try to turn him from Christianity.
He struggled and still struggles years later due to the passing of his father. The idea of being able to see his father in heaven is big to him.
At one point, he panicked because he was playing DOOM 2016 on his game console, and he asked my partner (his sister) if he was going to go to hell for playing it. She reminded him that the Doomslayer kills demons and loves bunnies and reminded him the themes of the game say demons are bad, even if the game itself is violent.
We don't think it's worth it to try to break his brain when he's over 40 and his mom finally passes. Hell, she's in good health, he could be over 50 when it happens. He has a learning disability and it would literally be unfair to him to try to force a change in belief on him at such a late stage with such a disability.
It's not worth it to wreck his mental health so we can feel better about being "truthful" with him. We're focusing on trying to relate healthy interpretations of Christianity to him.
The one point I can really agree with is the meaning and purpose part. I’m not religious and the whole what happens after death part really fucks me up quite a bit. It’d be really damn nice if I could just go “I’ll go to Heaven” and be done
Personally I don't see what the afterlife has to do with your purpose or sense of meaning in this life. For me, I figure my purpose is whatever I find fulfilling in life while hopefully helping others do the same. Anything that comes after that is a bonus.
Part of the identity crises that comes with(out) religion is the ultimate question of purpose: why are we suffering, surely it has a reason? Some of us are content to accept that there is no purpose, and therefore we must define our own; others need a purpose greater than themselves and/or to have one defined for them, and look to religion for that purpose. There is no right answer, and the struggle of identity and purpose are well documented in religion, fiction, history, and philosophy.
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