Religion

Why do people believe in fairy tales?
It's a narrative that serves to unite a group of people. We see it amongst people who believe that the USA was borne out of religious faith, when in fact there was a great divergence of faith and non-faith. We saw it amongst scientists who believed in a black hole well before there was viable evidence. Even now, we are only finding effects (confirmation bias?) to conform to our theories.

Why don't people become atheist and believe in science?
I'm an atheist and I do not want people to believe in science. I'd rather people develop a healthy attitude of skepticism, particularly directed at those who would abuse science to fool us, intentionally or not. Otherwise, we are only replacing one belief system with another.












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Est modus in rebus sunt certi denique fines quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum Goldilocks

Great question. Fairy tales usually have some kernel of truth to them and just get embellished. For example Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is allegedly based on a family that employed children in their mines who served as the inspiration for the eponymous dwarves.

Similarly there is actually an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving being called God who created the universe. It's just that a lot of myths have grown around his existence, such as that he determines the outcomes of football games etc. Of course that's not true. He likes basketball instead.

He likes basketball instead.

lol 

1. Humans are driven both by logic and emotions, and these 2 forces often coincide with each other, with emotions winning over logic. Comfort, for instance, is an emotion heavily connected to religious ideas. It has an especially strong connection with religious ideas if you are brought up with them and become accustomed to them.

2. Human logic can be flawed. A stupid person, and indeed also a smart one, can draw incorrect conclusions based on flawed premises.

3. There is money in the religion business.

4. There is political power in the religion business.


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Come, lovely child! Oh come thou with me!
For many a game I will play with thee!

How old are you? 12?

1. Lot of mono- religions don't have to explain details, followers are told to have faith and asking questions is showing a lack of faith. So it's easier to digest than facts sometimes

2. Happy ending. Religion preaches a happy ending, science does not Religion you go to heaven, science you die. Plus if things are going bad in your life the thought, 'hey this is ok my true reward is in heaven' as opposed to science explaining

3. Humans in general don't like to be in charge. Most are followers and this away a deity directs their every action, less thinking and responsibility for many.

4. Someone to blame. If something bad happens, something terrible it's easy to blame Satan, as opposed to the facts.

When I was entering college I contemplated looking into becoming a preacher, but I went a different route and have since became pretty solid agnostic.

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Is this Idaho? Because I will not limbo in Idaho.

At one time long ago, all the societies on the planet were isolated from each other, yet they all came up with some kind of religion as viewed by their culture. This leads me to believe that there might be something to this religious business since their isolation would prevent collusion. It's just that they all have it wrong since we poor human saps are severely limited intellectually to grasp the reality of a creator.

The OP mistakenly conflates religion with fairy tale, which skews the question, which probably should have been phrased,

"Why do so many religious people believe in pre-scientific myths and take an antagonistic stance toward science when it contradicts those myths?".

Many religions and religious people do not conceive of God as the pathetic FSM, sky fairy, cosmic butler, etc., which unbelievers so love to despise. Perhaps the OP is unaware of non-Creatorist and non-fundamentalist forms of religion.