More Random Irreligious Thoughts

* Imagine the following: Destroy every religious text of any persuasion in existence; eliminate every religious institution; sack anyone involved in organised religion (or even disorganised religion); purge the name of any and every deity ever proposed, and then for good measure wipe clean the memories of every person with respect to anything and everything to do with religion in any shape, manner or form. Let’s turn the entirety of humanity into a flock of another kind, just like real sheep who presumably have no concept of all the sorts of things religions go on, and on, and on about.

Firstly, that would make for a much more peaceful planet, but that’s not my real point here. If the human race all of a sudden had no inkling of religion and associated rituals like prayer, deities, and thou shall nots, and miracles, and associated baggage - the slate wiped clean – would we invent it all over again and if so would it all be in the same old form as we know it now?

All of our religions cannot possibly be correct, but all of them could be wrong. Assuming that’s the case, could there be out there a really bona-fide god or gods – supernatural deities – with some sort of associated baggage that we have no comprehension of? Say these hypothetical supernatural entities have never made contact with Planet Earth.

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* Why is religion (and history too for that matter) so popular vis-à-vis say science or economics. Religion (and history) is told in story form and we’re natural born story tellers and recipients of say bedtime stories. Whole bookstores and libraries are filled with variations of “once upon a time” “they lived happy ever after”. There are multi-tens of thousands of movies and TV shows that play upon our need for stories. So that’s one reason. Another reason that religion is so popular is that it comes as a package deal. All the Big Questions (is there a God, your purpose, the meaning of life, free will, your soul, an afterlife, etc.) are wrapped up together in a nice box with a lovely pink ribbon. Reject religion, reject the pretty box of answers to your Big Questions, and you have to actually do some hard intellectual yakka to find out your own answers to those questions, individually, one at a time. So most take the easy road, the package deal, instead of striking out on their own, seeking their own intellectual answers come what may.

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* In May of 2013, the current Pope (as noted on the “Huffington Post”) said that atheists were okay for salvation and a place in heaven providing they had lived the sort of life that God intended. Alas, the very next day a spokesperson for the Vatican refuted that – no way can an atheist get on the good side. Well, so much for papal infallibility! It really is all so phoney – an absolute joke. 

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* Miracles (if they exist) are God’s correction fluid (whiteout) – assuming God exists. If existence is affirmed on both counts that actually makes a mockery of an all-knowing, all-powerful supernatural deity since it would have been logical and preferable to have set in train the necessary conditions that would have negated the need for a later miracle. For example, don’t bother to raise the dead; rather ensure they don’t snuff it in the first place!

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* Despite many references in the Bible of God talking to someone, Adam and Eve, Cain, Jacob, Jonah, Moses, etc. we never get an actual description of what God looks like. He speaks in a cloud or as a burning bush. All images of God, artworks, are of the human imagination. So, what did God really look like and why was He ashamed to actually show His face (something true unto this very day). Perhaps God doesn’t want to be seen because He was starkers – absolutely naked – and perhaps, assuming some mortal actually saw God, well no one dares mention the ‘emperor’ who has no clothes. If humans were made in God’s image, and God was ashamed of His nudity (as Adam and Eve were ashamed of there lack of clothing post their nibbling on a forbidden snack), then perhaps that accounts for our reluctance in most public environments to show off our birthday suits.

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* If you’re really honest about things, what’s THE most important wish list part or objective or goal or aspect of your life? Is it money? Is it power? Is it reputation? Is it winning the Nobel Prize? Is it success? Is it having the most perfect family? Is it pitching a perfect major league ballgame? Is it becoming POTUS, or perhaps Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Is it (fill in the blank)? No! More likely as not, your number one priority it is NOT DIEING! Well good luck with that ‘cause it ain’t gonna happen.

So, what’s the next best objective? An afterlife! Why? What’s really annoying about snuffing it is lose of consciousness. The idea that your consciousness that you spent a lifetime building up from scratch will just dissolve into grey goo to be consumed by bacteria is pretty abhorrent. If you have an afterlife, the minimum you must retain is consciousness or self-awareness. You may still be old and grey and can’t get it up; you may not have access to alcohol and tobacco and other similar addictions; you may only get TV reruns and old magazine issues to read; you favourite pizza may not be on the menu; you may even have to share your afterlife with your ex-boss, or your ex or your in-laws, others you’d rather not share anything with or be within ten miles (or kilometres) of; in short not everything will be just hunky-dory, but at least you’ll retain your consciousness for all eternity (and be bored witless even before the first several thousand years or so passes by). Is that a price you are willing to pay?

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* There are many, probably a majority of the population, who will claim to have had some sort of up close and personal experience with God, or Jesus, or angels, or some sort of supernatural entity. They will of course use that very personal experience as not only evidence, but proof that God, etc. exists. And it is extremely difficult to counter argue their conviction based on their experience. However, I too have had an intense up close and personal experience too, but one which I’m sure shows that these sort of profound spiritual experiences are some combination of wishful thinking (a desire to believe) and mental hallucinations. 

Now like many hundreds of thousands, even millions of people, I like to put out food for wild birds, especially in environmentally stressful times like winter or during a drought. Over the course of many years, I’ve had thousands of visitations – what bird is going to turn down an easy free feed? At the end of the day, there’s usually some cleanup to be done like sweeping up all the leftover birdseed husks, etc. And so it came to pass one early evening, I was waiting for two birds to finish up before I did the daily cleanup. And in due course they flew off, up over my roof. And so I went outside to start the cleanup, but there sitting on the apex of the roof were the two birds. As I looked up at them, they looked back at me, and for some inexplicable reason, I received a telepathic message from the two birds: “thanks for all the food; we’ll be back tomorrow”. And then they flew off. It was so real an experience that I just stood there stunned, in fact so moving was that experience, so bonding was that human-animal encounter that tears immediately started welling up in me.   

This was the first and only time I ever had such a vivid even spiritual feeling that remains as vivid and as spiritual now as it did seconds after the fact. But clearly I was imagining the whole thing. Birds cannot speak the human language. Telepathy doesn’t exist far less exist between birds and humans. Birds probably have no concept of being given a gift and thus no mental concept of giving thanks.

So yes, when someone says they had an up close and personal encounter with God (or equivalent), I’m sure that they are 100% sincere and a believer. But I’m equally convinced it’s a case, as was mine with the two birds, of self-deception.

Pray Tell: Part Two

If there is anything the Big Three monotheistic religions agree on it’s the power of positive prayer. What I ‘pray’ for is an end to human stupidity; those who believe in the power of positive prayer in the first place. My prayer will of course go unanswered.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Prayer and Conflict

When it comes to all out conflict, that is to say war, even civil war, every country, every part of their defence force, every soldier, intones that ‘God’s on our side’. Whether it’s a local sports event between teams or individuals, or a global conflict between nations, there can be only one winner, and therefore, the Almighty can’t be on everyone’s side. To claim otherwise is to act in the logically equivalent way of pissing into the wind.

Prayer and the Laws of Physics

Given the relatively low electromagnetic energy output of your brain that’s required to pray, and the inverse square law of physics (doubling the distance results in just one quarter the strength), your message to God would quickly become indistinguishable from the ever-present background electromagnetic noise, both artificial like radio/TV waves o the natural background ‘hiss’ of the entire universe (known as the cosmic microwave background radiation). God can’t ‘hear’ you.  Further, prayer can only propagate outwards at the speed of light maximum, so if God is having some R&R out around the Centauri system, it will be four years plus before He gets your message, which doesn’t do you much good if you’re sinking in quicksand. As for vocal prayers, well they won’t get beyond Earth’s atmosphere. In space, no one can hear you pray. So by all means wish upon a star, but consign God to the rubbish bin. 

Prayer and God’s Comprehension Abilities

Another absurdity about prayer if you think about it, consider this analogy. Could you listen to and comprehend thousands upon thousands of individuals all yakking to you at once, all on differing subjects, and speaking in many different tongues? No? Then what makes you think even God could manage it, or any deity for that matter? 

Prayer and the Power of Positive Posture

Chances are, when you hear the words “let us pray” you go into prayer posture mode – palms held together, fingers pointing skyward, down on your knees, head bowed, etc. Of what possible relevance could adopting this that or another posture make? If your prayer is worthy of God’s attention, then it doesn’t make any difference if you’re standing on your head or hopping up and down on one leg or doing push-ups or chin-ups for that matter. It’s the thought that counts, not the posture you adopt while think those thoughts.

Taking note of positive posture, banging your head against or humping the Wailing Wall (I’m not quite sure what anatomical action is going on here, perhaps it’s a unique form of Jewish fitness exercises or perhaps the participants have been out in the noonday sun too long), looks plain ridiculous, though that’s not hardly unique – looking ridiculous that is. Take Islam for example…

Prayer and the Power of Proper Geographical Orientation

In certain religious cultures, like Islam, not only must you adopt a just-so posture (and doesn’t it look ridiculous too all that bowing and scraping to nobody in sight), but you’ve got to position that posture with respect to your geography. If you’re 179 degrees east of Mecca, and you have to face Mecca (that too is ridiculous for Allah doesn’t live there anymore), do you face towards the west, or look straight down, since Mecca is for all practical purposes under your feet down through and including the centre of the Earth? And if you’re 180 degrees opposite, does it matter if you look due east or due west (or again straight down)? Even if a devote Muslim were but 100 miles from Mecca and faced in that general direction, that is towards the horizon in that general direction presumably, that line of sight, because of the curvature of the Earth, would pass way over the top of that alleged Holy City.

If geography is important, I can only assume that praying in church (or on some other so-called sacred or holy site) is more effective than outside the boundary of such a zone. But such a concept strikes me as being irrational – but who said religion was rational?

What does a deity care about geography anyway? Presumably He’s somewhere up there. Again, it’s the thought that counts, not your position with respect to some manmade structure. But who says that logic has anything to do with religion – it doesn’t. Logic is not religion’s strongest point, rather it’s weakest.

Prayer and the Big Picture

As noted above, if prayer actually worked we’d have no poverty, world peace would be the norm, and all would be perfectly fit and well and live happy ever after. The Big News headline of the day would be something like “Jane took her dogs out for a walk in the park”. So praying for anything is quite an outdated concept. Just look at the state of the world around you. Prayer doesn’t work on any sort of statistically meaningful level. Further, as in the case of supposed miracles (see below), prayer validation is also a highly selective bookkeeping exercise by religious institutions in that a hit is documented and displayed for the entire world to see; a miss is never mentioned or discussed.

Prayer and Miracles

If you pray for X, and X happens, it matters of course about the probability of X happening anyway. So praying for the Sun to rise in the morning isn’t in the same league as praying for the Chicago Cubs to win all 162 regular season games. Now the question arises, has there ever been one absolutely ironclad documented case of someone(s) praying for something(s) that are so absolutely unlikely to come to pass that it has to be defined as a supernatural miracle when it in fact did come to pass. Has such an event ever happened such as to convince a panel of say Nobel Prize winning recipients, or a panel of Supreme Court judges that a miracle by prayer has happened and therefore both the supernatural and the power of positive prayer exists and has been established beyond all doubt? If so, I haven’t read about it. And it’s no use saying that this or that religious has voted in the affirmative for such events since they have a vested interest in being bias in the affirmative. Based on any judgment by any neutral panel of umpires, miracles by prayer have not, repeat not, had their bona fides ever verified. 

Prayer and the End Times

God’s coming! God’s coming!! God’s coming and boy is She ever pissed!!! You hear that every day in just about every possible way from those Right Wing televangelists, the Westboro Baptist Church, and those hellfire and brimstone Christian Fundamentalists who have convinced millions of sheep (their flock) to pray for the Second Coming and the End of Days, the End Times of the Book of Revelation and the sooner the better. Alas, the world has been hearing that message for 2000 years now without results. Talk about crying wolf – the sky is falling; the sky is falling! Okay, so where is the Almighty already – She who must be obeyed? With every passing day that goes by without a no-show, the raw egg on the mugs of the evangelists, etc. just keeps on getting smelly and smellier as it gets more and more rotten. Of course the reason for the no-show is that not only doesn’t prayer work, it has nothing to work with. God doesn’t exist and the sooner the sheep see through the bovine fertilizer, the flock can just get on with their real lives.

Prayer and Psychology

Despite all of the above, maybe prayer gives you that warm inner glow and thus is maybe psychological beneficial to you; peace of mind and all. If so, that’s where the benefits begins and ends

Prayer and Concluding Statements

Belief in the power of prayer won’t go away because on average more good (or at least neutral) things happen than bad things. One can say that’s because of the billions who pay for good (or at least neutral) things and if those billions didn’t then there would be more bad things than good things happen in the world.

However, IMHO, if no one had uttered a single prayer over the past several millennia, would the world as you know it be ultimately any different? I’d bet the family farm the answer would be in the negative. Prayer or no prayer; it’s the same old world.

I contend that the proportion of good (or neutral) vs. bad is 100% independent of prayer. There’s no statistical evidence to the contrary. Therefore, the power of positive prayer, pray tell, is 100% absolutely and totally irrelevant.

Pray Tell: Part One

If there is anything the Big Three monotheistic religions agree on it’s the power of positive prayer. What I ‘pray’ for is an end to human stupidity; those who believe in the power of positive prayer in the first place. My prayer will of course go unanswered.

The Purpose of Prayer Before-the-Fact

What do I mean by prayer? Prayer is asking a before-the-fact favour from some sort of supernatural deity. That favour (not yet granted) may not of necessity be a selfish wish or even something for yourself, but perhaps praying for good things for someone else (like a miraculous recovery from their terminal cancer) or for humanity as a whole like a chicken in every pot. You pray for Him to change His mind for results which you want (and presumably you think He does too). Before-the-fact prayer shows up in the win or loss column, there is, or is not a miraculous recovery from someone’s terminal cancer; there is or is not a chicken in every pot. But it is all an exercise in futility, IMHO. For example, I’m sure nearly all passengers and crew prayed for deliverance that night to remember, the night the RMS Titanic sank. Prayer didn’t alter the score. Losers outnumbered winners, so did God play favourites? The all-powerful Almighty could have saved them all, so maybe God just didn’t give a damn, full stop. 

The Purpose of Prayer After-the-Fact

There’s also that prayer of thanks or gratitude that’s after-the-fact for a meal, services, good weather, a safe journey, finding your missing keys, surviving the Titanic disaster, etc. but these prayers don’t show up in the win or loss column.

Prayer and Your Time, Effort & Energy

Quite apart from your own time, effort and energy spent  in the act of praying, think of all those trillions of man-hours (sorry, person-hours) wasted over the millennia by those (the great washed and unwashed) in pursuit of an illusion – that praying brought results. Do you really think either your personal world, or collectively our world today is a better place for all that time, effort and energy? No? Then I say again – what a waste. Further, no scholarly studies ever done on the beneficial results of praying have ever shown that praying works. Any time-and-motion, cost-benefit analysis of prayer would have to give those who practice it, and any management (i.e. – religious institutions) who endorses it, the Big Thumbs Down.

Prayer and Your Dreamtime

If in your dreams, you pray, would that count towards extra brownie points with God, assuming of course that praying actually yields brownie points in the first place?

Prayer and Your Pain or Gain Personal Satisfaction

Prayer is an ultra cheap way of feeling all warm and fuzzy in that you’ve done your bit to make the world a better place. No blood, sweat and tears; no pain and all gain, no hard yards to tackle. On the other hand, you could get your praying palms dirty and do some real charity or other volunteer work if you really want that warm and fuzzy inner glow. 

Prayer and Statistical Results Personal

Does prayer work? If you pray, do you get proof-positive results? I doubt it. In fact I’d go so far as to say there’s not a snowball’s chance in Hell – not that there really is a Hell of course. The proof of the pudding is of course, if prayer really worked, there would be miracles in that we’d all be lotto winners or at least pretty rich and famous! We’d be total successes in our employment, and in our relationships, we’d all have perfect partners and perfect children (that’ll be the day). And our automobiles wouldn’t break down!  Further, the Sun would shine down on us every day of our lives; no clouds, no rain, no snow to shovel, not too hot, not too cold, just day after day in paradise. If prayer does seem to work at times on a personal level, it’s probably more a case of mind-over-matter, the power of positive thinking, and akin to the placebo pill in medicine. Every now and again, the improbable happens. Just because you prayed for an improbable event doesn’t mean the prayer worked, and therefore that there’s a God who answered it. If you pray for X, and X happens, might not X have happened anyway? Damn straight!

Prayer and Statistical Results Generic

Even if we all just prayed for good things in general, not selfish or personal things in particular, and if our benevolent prayers really worked, then you would expect that there would be no disease or suffering or criminals or warfare, etc. We’d all live in a utopian Shangri-La. But we don’t! I mean, come every Christmas and Easter, the religious elite, like the pope, publicly pray for peace on earth and goodwill towards men (and women too) among other good things. That’s noble of them. But, come next Christmas and Easter, the religious bigwigs have to do it all over again! God ignores the pope and associated kissing cousins! Now if the pope, and kin, can’t get positive results, what hope for the great unwashed? It all seems to be an exercise in total futility to me. Since a result such as universal peace in the world (as one of many possible examples), hasn’t happened; that’s obviously not the case – just read your daily newspaper headlines, then either God doesn’t exist, or He doesn’t answer prayers. If the latter, then God doesn’t give a right royal stuff about us, so why should we give a tinker’s damn about Him (being traditional and assuming the masculine)? If we don’t give a damn in return, then the Almighty’s existence, or lack of existence, is basically irrelevant.

Prayer and the Godly vs. the Ungodly

Extreme Right Wing Christian Fundamentalists are extremely fond to be in-your-face with an ‘I told you so’ every time there is an Act of God (God’s wrath) that impacts life, limb and property. From oil spills to tornadoes to earthquakes to hurricanes, the bigger and more destructive the better, because they are all signs that point to the ‘fact’ that God’s coming and boy is He pissed! Though giving no supporting evidence, such communities on the receiving end obviously (like Sodom and Gomorrah) are ultra decadent, irreligious, practice witchcraft and other pagan rituals, have a high proportion of sinners in their midst, a high rate of abortions, allow same sex marriages, and all the sorts of things to inspire God’s wrath. Since such people are clearly lost causes, there’s no point in praying for them, or for them praying for themselves.

Atheists especially are a lost cause – they’d never be caught out praying for themselves or anything else for fairly obvious reasons. Now the question is, are atheists, gays, those who have had abortions, devil worshipers, and sinners in general plus other irreligious basket cases more likely than Christian Fundamentalists to go bankrupt, suffer tooth decay, have a shorter lifespan, have more automobile breakdowns, be more prone to lose their house keys, have horrendous golf outings, be hit by lightning, or have bad things happen to them in general? I very much doubt it. There’s not going to be much statistically different between the populations of the super ultra religious right and the super ultra irreligious left, excepting the former tend to have achieved on average significantly lower educational levels.

Prayer and Causality

In any event there is no cause and effect link between prayer and results. If I pray tonight that the Sun will rise in the morning and it does so, shall I therefore conclude my prayer was answered and therefore if I hadn’t of prayed the Sun would not have risen? Well maybe someone else prayed for sunrise and God answered them instead. But if you pray to win lotto and you do so, can you therefore conclude that God wanted you to be rich and famous since it’s unlikely that anyone else prayed for your good fortune? Any link between prayer and results can be summed up with the phrase “shit happens”, even good shit happens, but we’re not talking about God’s shit.

Bad “shit happens” too of course. Take the recent Hurricane Sandy, the perfect storm, the super-storm, the Frankenstorm, the mother of all storms, whatever. I’ve no doubt millions of people that were in harms way and were hard hit by Sandy prayed big time for that not to happen. Sorry, God had His headphones on and didn’t hear you, or He didn’t give a damn. But you really can’t win against the faithful who will always counter that argument that God doesn’t exist to hear your prayers or that God didn’t care by saying that if they hadn’t of prayed Hurricane Sandy would have been much worse. And those who prayed and survived will of course thank God instead of the luck of the draw. 

Prayer and Sports

Speaking of another common usage of prayer, you’ll get fans and players alike on both sides of a sporting contest praying to God for the Big Win (and the megabucks that often is associated with being king of the hill). What absolute nonsense. What sheer stupidity. The phrase “God’s on our side” is rubbish. Not even the Almighty (as a theoretical concept) can give victory to both sides simultaneously. God, assuming a God, doesn’t give a damn about your insignificant event – He’s neutral, so why bother praying? Leave God out of it. God is irrelevant to you insignificant little contest.

Here’s a thought experiment. Take a city with two professional baseball teams, like say Chicago. If all the people in Chicago, even in the entire United States or the entire world for that matter, prayed for say the National League team, The Cubs, to win every game, and none prayed for, or actively prayed against the American League team, The White Sox, would the National League team have a perfect winning record and the American League team a perfect losing record at season’s end? Or, would raw talent, training, practice, expert coaching, a clued up manager, and pure luck (that’s the way the ball bounces) have something to say on the matter of final outcomes? What do you think?

Even without prayer, God’s missed a golden opportunity here. God could easily, assuming a God of course, do this scenario. He could ‘make it so’. There would be no serious moral or ethical consequences to life and limb and the national economy and social structure. It’s only a game. So if The Cubs have a seasonal outcome of 162 – 0; and The White Sox a seasonal outcome of 0 – 162, that would be so statistically improbable that it would just about prove the existence of the supernatural and therefore a supernatural figurehead – the Almighty.

To be continued…

Monotheistic Religion: Why Adopt One?

Given that the Bible is the most contradictory and illogical text that’s alleged to be non-fiction, it’s a wonder anyone puts any stock in the Christian religion, the Bible, God and associated entities. But, billions have and do. Why? Well religion puts you in the driver’s seat. You adopt religion because you’re a selfish bastard! “Why believe” is a no-brainer since there’s a lot to be said for the “what’s in this for me” question and religion markets itself by offering you a theological banquet.

When you cast your vote, when you apply for a job, when you choose to live here rather than there, when you shop at this store rather than this other store, you are probably making decisions based around the concept of “what’s in this for me?’. This candidate promises to give me stuff, I’ll vote for her. This job has a lot of lurks and perks so I’ll apply for it. This location has a lower rate of muggings so I’ll move there. This store has cheaper prices so that’s where I’ll shop. Do I marry this very lovely woman of a fairly low socioeconomic status or a slightly plainer gal who has a very, very rich father? What’s in it for me indeed! Why should it be any different when choosing religion vs. no religion? Okay, here are a few of those ‘what’s in it for me’ reasons for religious belief over atheism.  

Religion answers my every question: Why is this so? That’s the way God wanted it and no correspondence will be entered into over the matter. Why is that so? God works in mysterious ways and doesn’t owe you any further explanations and that’s all you really need to know about that. Easy! You don’t have to think. You don’t have to study. You don’t have to experiment. No matter what the question is, the answer is God.

Religion’s my readymade easily handy scapegoat: When it comes to your misfortunes, someone else is always to blame. Why did it rain on my parade? God rained on my parade! It was an Act of God. Why did I sin? The Devil made me do it! No matter what happens to you, the good, the bad and the ugly, your can pin it all on your version of theology.

Religion offers me up my afterlife: You don’t want to die, but you will. Well, the next best offering on offer is to return from the dead as it were. Only religion offers up the option of a resurrection. You get an afterlife, and not just any afterlife, but one that just keeps on keeping on. Wow! But you need runs on the board to get selected. So, you gather up lots of brownie points towards your life everlasting; everlasting life; eternal life; life eternal; or just plain old immortality, whatever you wish to call it, when you go to church and read your Bible and pray and put $$$ in the collection plate, etc. So, when the time comes and you’re called to account, well you can always answer that you did your bit, not so much for queen and country but for God and Heaven - now let me into and past those pearly gates Saint Peter! Eternity, here I come!

Religion gives me carte blanche universal justification: You can justify just about anything with the Bible, and therefore God, as your authority. You want to stone to death a disobedient child? God says that’s okay. You want to keep slaves. That’s okay too. Or, you could commit a terrorist act on a wicked city – ditto. I doubt the Bible says anything about littering or jaywalking or failure to pay child support, but if it did, I’m sure God would OK that too. There’s the unwritten eleventh commandment: “Thou shall do it if the means justify the ends” – the Egyptians learned that the hard way; ditto the Canaanites and a lot more in addition. There’s the unwritten twelfth commandment – “Do as I say not as I do”, so with God’s ringing endorsement, you can take that philosophy and apply it to your own set of circumstances as often as necessary. 

Religion vs. my self-preservation: If you read your Old Testament, you’re well aware that God has a huge temper and a short fuse. You are told to fear the Lord. God is a jealous god. God is a vengeful god. God is a right royal SOB! God would strike you dead without a moment’s hesitation or without the slightest qualm or afterthought. So, to ensure you get the full measure of your threescore-and-ten, you decide it’s in your best interests to follow the straight-and-narrow path of righteous and especially not venture outside into the path of a thunderstorm, just in case. God is also a useful concept used by parents everywhere to keep their darling little brats in check. God will get you for that my son! It boils down to a sort of cost-benefit analysis. If I believe in God and God doesn’t exist, I lose nothing. If I don’t believe in God, and God exists, I lose everything; I’m screwed. Therefore, it’s better to believe than not to believe, if you’re really worried about that ‘what’s in it for me’ option.

Religion vs. my social life: As a generality, man is a social animal and yet doesn’t usually wish to associate with the ‘other’, so there tends to be formed groupings of like-with-like, like those sharing common religious beliefs. Religious affiliations provides an easy avenue into a social setting without the need for special skills or gear or high annual fees or other requirements as long as you go along with the crowd and the status quo and obey the rules and regulations of the sect. I’m sure there’s many a boy-meets-girl tale to be told in a religious setting.

Religion vs. my employment: Religious institutions around the world employ millions of people, from the pope right on down the line. In many sects, employment isn’t a bad deal, and you’re usually right up there as a much respected member of society (current sex abuse scandals aside), unlike politicians, real estate agents and used car salesmen. 

Now the question, in conclusion, arises, what percentage of the faithful is ‘faithful’ for reasons other than the ‘what’s in it for me’ scenarios? I don’t know, but I’d bet the family farm it’s a way less than 100%. Is that a bad thing? I’ll let others be the judge.