Why people are religious

[Edwardo Piet]

Indoctrination/spiritual quest + bad logic.

[abaris]

You inherit a particular faith from your family and, unless you decide to leave it, you get comfortable in it.

But only if your parents enforce it. In my case, they didn't. They weren't areligious, let alone atheist, but they didn't force me to go to church, nor did they encourage me to read the bible. Although the gave me a children's bible when I was little, called the Pathmos bible. I still have it.

So, I grew up believing, but not really giving it any thought. I never reflected on what I believed, and the first time I did, I didn't believe anymore.

[Angrboda]

Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith

[Regina]

You inherit a particular faith from your family and, unless you decide to leave it, you get comfortable in it.

But only if your parents enforce it. In my case, they didn't. They weren't areligious, let alone atheist, but they didn't force me to go to church, nor did they encourage me to read the bible. Although the gave me a children's bible when I was little, called the Pathmos bible. I still have it.

So, I grew up believing, but not really giving it any thought. I never reflected on what I believed, and the first time I did, I didn't believe anymore.

True, mine were never particularly strict and that's probably why I've ended up leaving it. But I mean in terms of the particular religion you inherit. I know more about Catholicism than I do Protestantism, despite being raised in a predominantly Protestant country. Family is everything in religion, I guess alongside a personal unwillingness to study alternative faiths.

[Mystic]

That seems like an illogical way to go about it to me personally.

That is your way of defending yourself against the truth.  To hold onto the lie is simpler.

It seems doing away with all beliefs and search of a greater path and guidance is simplest of all but is very lazy way to go about the issue. This is what it seems to me at least.

[Silver]

It seems doing away with all beliefs and search of a greater path and guidance is simplest of all but is very lazy way to go about the issue. This is what it seems to me at least.

Nothing is lazier than accepting what one has been taught since birth. To struggle through belief, to finally accept the truth is to struggle literally.

[Whateverist]

The reason is 'nurture'.

[Mystic]

It seems doing away with all beliefs and search of a greater path and guidance is simplest of all but is very lazy way to go about the issue. This is what it seems to me at least.

Nothing is lazier than accepting what one has been taught since birth.  To struggle through belief, to finally accept the truth is to struggle literally.

You have to go through a lot of justifying what you been taught since birth. If it's a false religion which is the probability most are born into, you have to reason bad, and justify badly, and follow things for no good reason, and come up with reasons to yourself that are not convincing to yourself but you go with it.

[abaris]

True, mine were never particularly strict and that's probably why I've ended up leaving it. But I mean in terms of the particular religion you inherit. I know more about Catholicism than I do Protestantism, despite being raised in a predominantly Protestant country. Family is everything in religion, I guess alongside a personal unwillingness to study alternative faiths.

But nevertheless you grew up in a culture. A culture of catholicism. That's what happened to me too, but it was a little more complicated. My grandfather, whom I adored, was jewish. But the first time he saw a synagogue was when he was burried. At least in a very long time. All he taught me were dirty songs from the trenches of WWI and some jiddish words. My grandmother was mainstream protestant, but never went to any church, other than at Easter and Christmas when the whole family went. My grandmother, too, was great in teaching me dirty variants of turn of the century singalongs. Sadly, I can't post them, since they are German and you wouldn't know them. And in translation they would lose all their charm.

So, there I was, an Easter and Christmas Catholic, never really reflecting on religion.

[Angrboda]

That is your way of defending yourself against the truth.  To hold onto the lie is simpler.

It seems doing away with all beliefs and search of a greater path and guidance is simplest of all but is very lazy way to go about the issue. This is what it seems to me at least.

A Buddhist once told me that he had been searching for secular answers and one day realized that he had to wake up and "stop masturbating" on useless subjects. I guess it's all a matter of perspective whether what you think you are doing is worthwhile. Calling not searching for those things lazy is just a personal expression of what you value. Another might consider it masturbation. The point is, it's not necessarily valuable simply because you are doing something rather than nothing. Sometimes the nothing is what you should be doing.