WHY DO MOST PEOPLE HAVE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS?

Typically, the modern secular story goes that science explains the way the world is, by means of facts about physical things; so religious ideas like God, prayer and life after death, only apply in the world of religion and have nothing to say about the real physical world. Some people claim that science produces the facts, which we need to know, while religion produces beliefs and values, which we do not need to know but some people like to think about them.

This produces a taboo on talking about God, except when we are specifically talking about religion. A few years ago I was at the Liverpool Hospital having my sinuses examined by consultant. He produced a long thin tube, which he pushed up my nose. He said ‘God has given us sinuses, which usually work well, but when they go wrong, God has also given us the skills to use technology to put it right’. I wasn’t expecting talk about God from a medical specialist at the hospital, and I confess I jumped to the conclusion that he must be a liberal Christian. He broke the taboo. You can ask the question of yourself:
In what circumstances am I comfortable mentioning God, and when would I feel that mentioning God would be socially unacceptable?

Facts and Values

In practice this sharp division between facts about the world and religious beliefs jars with most people. Successive governments try to persuade more students to study science, but students persist in wanting to study the humanities. Far more people read novels than science books, and far more people watch the soap operas than documentaries on new technology. In public most of us go along with that secular picture of reality, but in our own lives most of us live as though it is not true. Why?

The scientific facts, the ‘how’ questions, are important for some people at some times; but the ‘why’ questions are important to all of us. Scientists believe the universe began with a Big Bang. Most of us do not need to know whether it is true or not; but most of us, at some stage in our lives, will be in a state of utter despair and will ask questions like: ‘Why does it have to be like this?’
Pre-modern and non-western societies take the ‘why’ questions seriously, and offer answers which are integrated with the ‘how’ questions. The answers are normally expressed in stories. Like novels and soap operas, they help people to explore what happens in life, how to evaluate it, and how to respond. In response to some things it is appropriate to have a good cry, in response to others it is not. Some things are to be resisted, others accepted. We learn appropriate responses through stories.

My first example is bereavement. Suppose the person you love most of all dies. The doctor comes, you burst into tears, and you say ‘Why?’ It would be a crass doctor indeed who said ‘I can tell you why. The heart stopped beating and the lungs stopped breathing.’ That would not help at all.
There is a Hittite myth about a goddess who was preparing for battle and asked a human man for help.

He agreed, on condition that he could spend the night with her. She agreed. He ended up moving in with her.
However she laid down one rule: he was never under any circumstances to look out of the window. You can guess what happened. One day temptation got the better of him, and he looked out of the window. He saw his wife and children. He begged for permission to return to them. Unfortunately the rest of the text is lost, but a likely ending can be reconstructed.

He went back to them and thereby lost the chance of immortality. Again, as you listen to the story you cannot help asking yourself ‘Which would I have chosen? Would I rather live in a land where people live for ever and nobody is ever young, or would I rather live for a limited time, in a land with babies, children and families, and let them succeed me when I am too old to enjoy life the way I used to?’

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: