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Because there is no downside. I mean, the only thing that atheist think is appealing is that they can reason themselves out of religion. What makes you think that 'reasoning yourself out of religion' is attractive, desirable or a worthy goal? It just isn't. It leads to existential crisis in most if not all cases. And then atheist take pride in surviving that crisis. Which, sure, admirable... But attractive? Of course not.
You can be religious and do anything in the world. Literally. I know that atheist love to focus on dumb fucks and literalists, and on how religions are being abused. But the truth is that religion is deeply personal and peoples relation with religion is completely their own. It's extremely simple to pick and choose from the myriad of options within religion. Most religious people are not literalists.
And then you get connection with people, see them regularly, participate in rituals, celebration days, rules for engagement with life.
Plus, don't forget, an extremely old and mystic piece of human history. The attempts of people to live in a world that has a God. Their struggles, their victories. In essence a reflection on the human condition. And you get to be part of that. Atheist are often too fast to explain religion as a sort of 'failed science', while it's absolutely not. And of course if you can't figure that out you're going to ask why people want to believe in something like that.
There will never be a rational reason for the human condition. Religion will never ever not be part of humanity. As the only way in which the human condition can be contextualised is in a world that is created, and religions are the keepers of that knowledge.
What makes you think that ‘reasoning yourself out of religion’ is attractive, desirable or a worthy goal?
I think for a lot of atheist converts it becomes hard to keep the alternate reality going, and so reasoning out of it becomes unavoidable. Some people are raised atheist. Personally, I just like to know things even if it sucks.
Most religious people are not literalists.
I suspect that's not actually true at a global level. In Africa many people are so literalist they'll believe they're bulletproof because a spell was cast. Even in the West there's areas where I'm guessing most churchgoers believe funny things about natural history.
There are billions of religious people in the world. I understand that there are millions of examples of people who are literalist and dumb. Religion has a lot of pitfalls. But most religious people are navigating religion in a personal and open manner, avoiding those pitfalls and using the same examples to do so.
Again, I'm not sure that's actually true. I suspect literalists may be a small majority.
I get along with religious people of all sorts in real life, to be clear, but I don't think the progressive, quiet Christian or Muslim is as universal as the average Lemmy user may think it is, based on where they live.
Because there is no downside
Sure, unless you care about LGBT+ people not being discriminated against and murdered. And unless you care about teaching strong critical thinking to avoid conspiracies including anti-vax. And unless you care about the future of the planet in the face of climate change which is largely ignored by religious people who are more focused on the next life than this one. And unless, and unless, and unless....
There are tons of downsides.
As the only way in which the human condition can be contextualised is in a world that is created, and religions are the keepers of that knowledge.
Yeah no, we can contextualize with rational thought, it's just that more work needs to be done that has historically been stifled by religion considering they have historically killed people who didn't go along with them. Religions don't have some monopoly on knowledge in this field, what they have is some shit they just made up, some of which works, and a lot of which doesn't. But they have no methodology by which to test which parts work and which don't so they just push all of them regardless.
That's a very shortsighted view of religion. People two thousand years ago were extremely religious and lgbtq friendly, etc. Most religious people are vaxxed. I mean the things you attribute ro religion is shortsighted, obviously so.
You're looking at a small subsection of the world during a small subsection of time. It's not applicable to religion as a whole and why people are religious. People are obviously not becoming religious in order to be antivax anti lgbtq, etc, etc. The reason is obviously not found there.
And no, we can not contextualize the human condition through rational thought. Humans aren't just rational, we don't just act rationally. We have irrational feelings, emotions and thoughts. So it's literally impossible, in a literal sense. This is basic logic.
Doesn't sound like you know much about atheists.
I know more about atheism than most atheist.
Clearly not.
Okay.