Just because you can't disprove religion, what makes it believable?

Question

I was wondering how, with common sense and logic, someone can believe all that is told to them by a religion. This includes heaven, God, creationism, and such beliefs. I feel like it doesn't make sense that one would fully believe something to be fact just because it's existence cannot be disproved. If I were to come up with a new planet that was too far away to prove its existence, would people just undoubtedly assume it exists, just because its existence cannot be disproved? That seems to be the thought mentality with most believers. My question is, what proof or reason is there for the belief in a religion? And this is not meant to take aim at those who are religious, but rather ponder as to what makes someone have faith.

Answer 1

If I tell you that there's an orange monkey in my closet that sings "Bohemian Rhapsody" when I knock on the door, you'd want proof. You'd want to see that freakin' monkey.

If I tell you that the earth was started by two naked people that came out of dirt, and people are inherently evil bastards because of a talking snake and a tree, you'd believe me.

Jeez.

Answer 2

The belief in Religion and in a Almighty God are more easily acceptable to many people. All the research that has been done by the Archaeologists through out the entire world has not proven Creation, but it supports a young earth more often than an millions-of-years-old earth.
Every time they find something that doesn't fit the Darwinian plan they add years to the earth to make it fit, or just outright pith the discovery because it disproves the common theory.
Christians feel it would be better to place our origins in a supreme being than to believe the evolutionist theory of Gods most prized creation was descended from the mutations caused by nature in the common Ape family. We would like to think we are special and loved by something or someone greater than ourselves.
Finally we need the moral background to keep us safe in reality. Some of the Christian community speak loud enough to keep the morals of society from collapsing.

Answer 3

The easiest answer would be that there is no physical proof, rather a sociological or customary tradition of beliefs passed down, and more a result of faith in those passing it down.
I think a great deal of the ability to believe in gods or omnipotent masters is the human mentality versus the unknown. People have a very strong, very experienced and instinctive sense of survival due to the millions of years of hard work and trial and error. People can't abide the idea that life, a human perception like time, is beyond their control and gods are a conditioned and well thought out, also an ancient device to both give man a handle on the limitations of his life span but to also make reasons for things that are not within his mental or physical control. Basically a kind of story develops that puts an explanation on hard to understand parts of humanity like death, who's watching out for them. All a matter of bringing man above the random natural occurrances of lower or lesser animals. With time, the story or myth becomes part of society and so on.
Personally, I think it's primarily because people are afraid of dying, having put so much stock in their earthly existence thanks to the higher mind, and just as much a tool to keep society operating at a civilized benchmark. It's myth but also a very, very good tool for those controlling the information.

Answer 4

I think faith is like love. It is blind. When logic would make love go the way of the dodo bird, people still persist, and believe it is magical. Faith is the same way. Prove it crazy all you want. Those that have a need to believe, will, nothing will stop them. They will just turn a blind eye to the obvious. Or search for any small crazy strip that agrees with their beliefs, and hold that as the truth.
B

Answer 5

I believe in Buddhism for several reasons:

1) Enlightenment is obtained from an inner truth, a truth we all have the potential to realize from within, not delivered from something outside of ourselves. These higher truths are realized by comparing what someone/some text describes as a higher truth to your own subjective experience and finding yourself how true it is.
2) It fits with the known laws of nature; causality, particle and quantum physics, evolution, etc.
3) When something in Buddhism is disproved, it is reinterpreted at a more metaphorical level or discarded instead of denying reality to make it fit.
4) Meditation rocks!!

Answer 6

My religion has very little to do with belief. We are simply a community of people working together with a common purpose -- peace on earth and justice for all. Believe whatever you like, as long as you continue to grow and to make this a better world for all humanity.

Shalom!
.

Answer 7

To a non-believer this probably will not make sense....
but what makes it believable is the touch of God's hand to open the eyes of your heart.
Only He can do that....and beyond that a person has to have faith.

I pray that God blesses your journey to seek Him!

Answer 8

sometimes...well...miracles that are recorded in the Bible that seem amazing and hardly believable, like Moses parting a sea....well they do still happen...sometimes there are people in the world, in this millennium , who have witnessed uhh ....amazing things that they cant deny...do you understand?thats why it is written " blessed are those who believe without seeing" ....those who havnt seen are perhaps even of better faith than those who HAVE seen things...such as myself....and i admire them so much for their likeness to Christ...you have no idea how fusterating it is also.... when u know something cuz u witnessed it, but no one believes u...much like the islam women being raped but when broughten to court, the Judge will not hear them unless there is a male witness...it is fusterating.....believing is seeing

Answer 9

It may or not be obvious to you but ... people can be stupid while appearing to be smart. At the top of the food chain, language is camoflage for predation and escape. When stupid ideas are camoflaged well enough they may get close to their prey (critical thinking), overwhelm it and kill it.

Answer 10

We dont advocate that that IS a good reason to believe. We simply put that that is a good reason NOT to believe its NOT true.