What's the mechanism behind why religious people are religious?

Read this. James outlines how psychological character influences the way religious experience manifests itself, and much more. Plus, it's a pleasure to read because of James' wonderful prose. I almost can't believe that these are the transcripts of a lecture series—to think he could speak in the way he writes blows my mind.

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>no response to the one post that takes the OP seriously and wants to discuss
OP doesn't care about the idea at all, he's just using it as a proxy to bait religious people, probably because he's buttmad at his parents or something

>No, it isn't.
Yes it is.
>Define "illogical", please.
You know the definition of illogical, fuck off moron, we're not playing this game of 50 questions where you ask for everything to be defined so you can try to sneak in between the cracks. Fucking drop proof or shut up.

Yes, that is also true. Interestingly, religious belief may have evolved in higher intelligence people as a counter to the drawbacks of being highly intelligent, including the predisposition to mental illness and depression.

Proof is the concern of the lesser minds. True believers don't require it. There is a plane of thinking above your dynamics of evidence and so on.

It's so funny to watch your hapless search for proof. You won't find it, you know, you have to look inside yourself to discover the truth. There, you can find something even better. It's called fulfillment.

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>Read this
No. Tell us what it says, this isn't a book club, present your arguments or go away. "Read this" is not an argument.

Retard materialist
>I'm not defining it
Yeah, because you know you can't satisfyingly do so. Dumb pseudo. Maybe if you weren't a midwit you would believe in something beyond the senses lmao

Logic is inherently sequential and therefore non contradictory. That God is illogical makes perfect sense to someone to whom God is illogical.

Coming on here and throwing a temper tantrum is only making you look stupid, you aren't going to change anyone's mind.
Also you need to be 18 to post.

No, proof is the concern of any sane, rational adult. You don't get to just hand wave it away. The reason everyone laughs at you in 2019 is because you think your fairytale is special and above silly things like proof and logic.

I know life is scary but believing in delusions is just pathetic.

Stop being a lazy cunt and read a book for once in your life. If you are genuinely interested in the topic, then you will get more out of it than acting the pseud-whisperer on Yea Forums

What constitutes "proof"?

>The only thing you can be sure of is that you exist.
>Believing that the reality you're experiencing is the ultimate reality is just that, a belief.
>You were and are able to make a leap of faith, you believe that what we're experiencing is most likely the ultimate reality and you also believe that free will is a thing even if it is logically impossible in a pure material world.
>When presented with two proposition for the universe, which can't be proven true or wrong, one with a purpose and a God, one purposeless and godless you made the leap of faith in believing that nothing matters.

Why would anyone do that is beyond me, being miserable and nihilistic for absolutely no reason rather than believing in an absolute justice and a purpose.
The only rational position is agnosticism, but apply this position to everything and you'll not be sure of anything apart from yourself.

>this isn't a book club

I'm agreeing with you. Within the realm of reason, where the rules of logic apply, it is illogical to not have any of your five senses to reveal god to you.

You need to use the sixth sense.

You know the definition, provide proof or shut up and keep your stupid delusional fairytales to yourself schizo.

>pseudo
First day bro?

I said we're not playing the "define this" game.

You know the definition of proof retard. Fuck off.

You don't know what logic is, you're just a brainwashed materialist. Drop you 100 years ago and you would have been a Christian. 3000 years before that and you would have worshipped whatever tribal god you happened to be born under. You're clearly a lemming who is swept along by cultural tides, hence your inability to adequately defend your position and thinking that using buzzwords and a 14 year old's idea of provocative language is good enough. It isn't good enough.

There's no such thing as looking inward. The only information inside you is your genes and your neurons, and none of them spell out fulfillment.

Or maybe I looked inward and all I saw was Talos. That's as valid as any other god.

>sixth sense
there's no god in my proprioception, either.

Rationality can set you free, but it can also be a cage that traps your mind and prevents you from seeing the truth.

You've come far enough using reason, but true enlightenment only will be bestowed upon you when you abandon it.

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Oh sorry man did I use the wrong epic Yea Forums term? Haha I'll make sure to play by the rules next time! Thanks for looking out!

Yes, we're not playing it because you're irrational.

If that is so then you can believe in whatever you want (there is also no way of determining what is the correct belief among the 1000's that exist) and keep living in your lala land until reality hits you in the face.

Dude this literally a literature board

When you argue with me, it's really yourself who loses.

What do you stand to gain by such staunch adversity to yourself? You weren't born with all the answers, you will have to put in a bit of labour to find the key to the gate within.

I've already found it, it makes no difference to me if you do too. But who wouldn't want to?

You need to be 18 to post here dear femanon

These kind of threads are the living proof americans live in the fucking middle ages. Any philosophical questions you guys come up has to do with god and religion and religious people. Moreover, you mix your poor understanding of religion passed on to you by local protestant priests lost in that wasteland you call a country with your even poorer understanding of biology, namedropping the usual "brain" "iq" "biological impulse" and other notions you absorbed from 20 minutes of bored researching on the internet. Why don't you pick a book and discuss that, instead of making a thread where you showcase how vague your knowledge of anything is? You can learn way more by reading almost any book on the topic rather than come here and discuss your half-baked ideas with bitter and angry people like me

Yikes, edgy teenage atheist stumbles upon Yea Forums for the first time. Please go back to Yea Forums.

Are we violating your safe space, sweetie?

That's the mantra of the nonbeliever. A logical supposition. But the logic is blinding you. Someday, I know, your eyes will open and you will finally see the wings on your back just waiting to guide you.

When one reaches spiritual fulfillment, there is no doubt they have found the right path.

Even your attempts at a comeback at just boring regurgitated pieces of drivel.
Also,
>we
Lmao

Who wouldn't want to? People who want to truly know things don't "look inward" and go with whatever feels right.

You're not smarter than a protestant just because you read Aquinas.

There's no such thing as spiritual fulfillment. At best you're a LARPer wasting everyone's time, at worst you're deluded.

>The only thing you can be sure of is that you exist
Wrong, the rest of your post is invalid

But you don't have only two alternatives, you need to justify your specific god and metaphysics as opposed to all the other religions, cults and different philosophical conceptions of god/gods or godless metaphysics.

>go with whatever feels right.

So, it is your wish to go with what feels wrong?

curious

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I don't have to defend shit all, YOU have to prove your God exists.

Not everyone operates under your burden of proof paradigms. Nevertheless, you cannot prove god exists. If one could do so, it would rather defeat the point of having faith.

everyone is religious. You just believe in "god" while someone else believes in money, power, beauty, intellect or whatever.
It's just a way of defining the purpose of your life.

We're not playing it because it's pointless. If you don't know the definition of simple words, go back to school.

We know where our intuition comes from, so if observation and data lead us to a counter intuitive conclusion, it's not the conclusion that's wrong.

This is the most retarded, brainlet, low hanging fruit answer in this entire shitty thread.

What is logic?

>read Aquinas
What exactly in that post made you assume he read Aquinas?

How is that wrong, please enlighten me.
You do, of course choosing that the universe was created by something akin to what we commonly call God will usually lead to more leaps of faith (a particular god, a particular creed, a particular branch of it etc..)
I believe in a God because I had no rational reason not to and it brings me more happiness than not believing.

>poor understanding of religion passed on to you by local protestant priests
Christian larpers on this board like to pretend that religion is less stupid if its catholic.

>We know where our intuition comes from, so if observation and data lead us to a counter intuitive conclusion, it's not the conclusion that's wrong.

just look at the knots you tie yourself in with logic. you have completely lost track of what you are after because you refuse to follow your heart.

I know it's not easy though. Introspection is the hardest thing for some people to do.

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What ever seems more likely and doesn't sound like a wish fulfillment.

>X is true because I feel like it's true
this is not a reliable gain accurate information on anything, much less life's deepest questions.

Introspection is what brought me *out* of religion, not into it.

God is a speculative idea posited as the external cause of the universe. No empirical evidence can be provided as any sensory data would derive from the created world. I’m fact, all facts in the universe taken together would still not prove anything.

The difference between Thor and God is that Thor is a personification of natural forces and their subjective effect on consciousness. God however stands for the lack of fullness of the subject, its finitude, and points to the fact of its constitution by another.

Religion is not a scientific theory, but stands for world views. A world view of many gods exclude one with only one god, because in those different cases “god” stands for different things.

Fulfillment is a goal to be sought after, not a concept to reject outright.

>God is a speculative idea posited as the external cause of the universe
That you pulled out of your ass

>Introspection is what brought me *out* of religion, not into it.

what did you find inside that brought you out

>Not everyone operates under your burden of proof paradigms
Then enjoy being laughed at by every other person alive idiot.

lions are unconcerned about the opinions of sheep

The same thing all religious believes will find with enough introspection: nothing.

You're not a lion, you're a mentally handicapped fox who thinks the moss covered rock is responsible for creating the forest.

>This is the most retarded, brainlet, low hanging fruit answer in this entire shitty thread.
yeah, thinking that you have a "special part of a brain that can be activated by magnets" isn't. What's this part of brain concerned with? Oh, basic stuff really, if you believe in a deity or not. It has to be in a humaniod form, this deity in order for brain to understand it. If you attribute the same exact value to money as you do to god it can't work. It might work if you say that your god is a humanoid that looks like a dollar bill.

Very intelligent being you seem to be

You have to be 18 to post

Why are you quoting Mussolini now?
He also said that God doesn't exist because he doesn't punish hin for screaming insults at him.

>What's the mechanism behind why religious people are religious?
DNA and all its extrapolations.

cute analogy, i like foxes better anyway

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Epigenetics

he was executed

what religion were you

So? Plenty of christians were genocided.

Not at all. God is directly grasped as the subject’s consciousness of itself as consciousness, i.e by the fact of its limitation. What you fail to grasp is that this is God. You automatically go a step further and say that “yes, and additionally he is... etc.” God is for us nothing further than the negative of our own self-definition grasped as a condition of possibility.

Baptist.

Everyone who has taunted god is dead or is going to die... maybe christians were right...

and?

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why were you a baptist

>Not at all. God is directly grasped as the subject’s consciousness of itself as consciousness
That isn't a fact, you just pulled it out your ass.

The same reason most religious people believe, because my parents were.

you poor, poor, mixed up man

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And so how does that mean Mussolini got God's wrath?

It doesn't.

Shut up retard, just because he doesn't buy into your collective delusion anymore doesn't make him less than you.

You're less than a child, even a child grows out of believing in shit like Santa. God is a cope because your pea brain can't handle the horror of reality without thinking there's someone watching over you.

>horror of reality

are you telling me you live in horror?

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Literally the entire reason religion exists today is because people are afraid of dying.

There's no point in discussing that with someone who's own brain drags a veil over their eyes because you're too weak to handle reality.

I sure saw that double question dodge.

typical atheists

>things exist only if we can percieve them wìth our senses
so the black hole at the center of our galaxy didn't exist before we could take a picture of it, bacause it could only be theorized and not seen? in fact that's the only black hole that exists because we haven't seen or smelled or whatever any other black hole in our universe.
and what if you smoked DMT and saw God with your own eyes? would you believe it then?
i'm agnostic but that's such a brainlet reasoning

Usually its capacity for abstract thought

I'm not really sure what genius point you think you're making here. Black holes have empirical effects on other objects which we can observe. God doesn't.

I feel sorry for you, user. Life for you must be a rotting shithole devoid of all love and meaning.

>bacause it could only be theorized and not seen?
The theory was based on the implications of our understanding of physics. There is no theory of god that is consistent with our understanding of the word.

>Life for you must be a rotting shithole devoid of all love and meaning.
Yes, it is. But I can't force myself to believe in God to feel better about something objectively shit any more than you can force yourself to not believe in God.

Love and meaning are human concepts. They can only exist in human minds. My love is for my friends, family, and fellow man, and meaning is only found in what you value.

I wish i could cuddle with you femanon

>Thor is a personification of natural forces and their subjective effect on consciousness
Wrong again, Christcuck.

I'm not a girl but if will make you feel better...

>the universe began and continues existing
>only Black hole have empirical evidence

No, very astute. It is a concept.

The truth has been revealed, user.

A concept you pulled out of your ass

Indeed it has.

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Concepts come from reason, user. The anus has no cognitive faculties.

You know as well as I do that the church is an idol built to obscure the truth. That was perhaps not the intention but it was only inevitable that rituals meant to express truth, once fixed, would become conflated with their intended expression.

now this is what i call midwit posting

>You're not smarter than a protestant just because you read Aquinas
To be fair, anyone who reads Aquinas is going to be pretty smart, regardless of their views on them. A working knowledge of scholasticism probably puts you in the top .0001% for education, and even higher if you're American.

pfffffftttttahahahahahahahahaha

No one gives a fuck about your meme philosopher, fuck off retard.