thoughts on religious/spiritual belief

[firecat]

This was originally posted as a comment in vito_excalibur's journal here; it's slightly expanded here.

Whether or not deity exists, it seems clear that a lot of people have a lot invested in deity's existing (believing or hoping or acting-as-if or...). I'm probably just not looking in the right places, but sometimes I wonder why more attention isn't paid to why so many people invest so much in it. Most of the speculations about that I hear are insults or dismissals from people who don't have the investment and who think that having the investment means you're deluded. That may be so, I suppose, but I also think that throwing away some pretty amazing (and yes, also some pretty horrible) human accomplishments as entirely based on delusion is depressing and reductionistic - kind of like saying oh, thoughts and feelings are nothing but electrical signals in the brain. Yes they are, but they aren't "nothing but."

Can you think of any neutral-to-positive and non-insulting reasons that many humans have a lot invested in believing in the existence of deity? What do we get out of it; why do some of us need or strongly want it?

(Disclosure - I need/strongly want spiritual experience and have had spiritual experiences [that could also be explained in non-supernatural ways, but I choose to experience/remember them as spiritual]. I neither believe nor don't believe in the existence of deity. I usually boil this down to "I believe in deity on alternative thursdays.")

Comments

[elainegrey.livejournal.com]

I hold both the belief in the divine and the understanding that it's not necessarily an accurate representation of what Is, as the same time. I can accept that my experiences of mystical and spiritual types are observable as electro-chemical neurological functions.

I think that we invest much in belief in divinities as answers to Why questions. I also think that when it comes to issues of illusion and delusion, Buddhist practice leads to a much more honest stripping-away than some Western rational attitudes. Many people who might dismissively assign delusion/illusion to faith in deities, have other beliefs and values that might crumble equally when examined.

I remember discussing with another nuclear physicist the then current research into closed vs open universe. I observed that people seemed to care a great deal that the result be closed, that that had some meaning. His earnest response was that it would be all meaningless if the universe were open and to die a heat death. Further conversation just emphasized the gap between us. I could care less; somehow, to him, meaning at the level of his life was tied to a cyclical universe.

[firecat]

I agree with you on Buddhism. I'm always wondering whether it really counts as a religious/spiritual system or something else, and I decided that I wouldn't even try to fit it into my post.

I've had various emotional reactions to the notion that the universe is open. I've felt disappointed (there's something wonderfully tidy about a cyclical universe), and I've also felt amazed, like that would make everything the universe has and will produce so much more precious.