What Is Religion and Why Does It Persist?

I'm not convinced of most of the propositions offered by most religions. I haven't been since I was very young. Although, there's little I can say about why this is the case that hasn't been said by so many others over and over again. There is one element that seems to be missing from most of the arguments against religious dogma, though. What's missing is a rigorous understanding of their psychological bases.

Most apologists for atheism of course understand that there are neurological causes behind religious experiences. There was a good article in h+ Magazine not too long ago that mentioned the part of the brain that is being affected when one feels the intuition of "oneness" that is so commonly spoken of by those professing to have had these experiences. Most atheists also understand that religious belief is based not on being convinced of facts in the way one becomes convinced of every day propositions, but rather on a desire for religious propositions to be true.

Few, if any of them, however, seem to understand the psychological utility of religion. Religion brings comfort and a feeling of salvation or liberation not just by giving people a comforting imaginary friends, but because religious experiences have a profound impact on a person's psychology such that it reorients that person's desires in such a way as to significantly ameliorate a problem that most if not all human beings have, that problem being conflict of will.

The liberation or salvation offered by religion is not just from eternal damnation. Those who are religious merely because they are afraid of going to hell are not getting the best out of their beliefs. The horror from which religion can, in fact, deliver a person is guilt, shame and internal conflict. Now, of course, there are religious communities and governments that, rather than saving a person from these things, in fact make them all the more likely. People who practice their religion in this way are easy targets. They are motivated by hate, shame and disgust. Those who get the best benefit of religion are those who had painfully weak or divided wills but were able to overcome it through religious conversion. It is from oneself that religion offers liberation and salvation. And it is those who don't feel they need such a thing that are most likely to do without religion.

Atheists are right to point out the hypocrisy of so many self-proclaimed religious people. Christianity stands out in that it does not offer salvation in return for being good or doing good things. Being good is instead the consequence of salvation. It is once you have truly "accepted Christ into your heart" that you will naturally have the will to do good things. Any part of your mind that was pulling you away from the way of living you feel is best is supposed to be eliminated by the acceptance of Christ. Billy Graham said that if you're still struggling with sinful desires and occasionally giving in to them "you need to rethink whether you're really a Christian or not".

While religion has done more than enough to reinforce the shame and guilt people feel over desires that may not at all be harmful in many instances, a truly effective response to religion has to address the problem of personal conflict of will. Fortunately, this is a psychological problem, and all religions offer psychological solutions, although dressed up in mystical ideas. The reason secular Westerners gravitate more toward Buddhism is that it offers solutions rooted in psychological principles that can be separated from its mysticism more easily than can the methods of other religions. The most vocal atheists resist religion because religious people often try to impose upon everyone solutions to problems that they may not really have. And even if they do have the problems that religion was created to solve, religious people articulate those problems using metaphorical myths that they expect people to take literally. And of course, in taking them literally, the religious themselves very much miss the point and end up exacerbating the guilt and shame from which their religion was designed to liberate everyone.

Religious irrationalism will not be eliminated until there is a secular way of bringing about the religious experiences that can relieve the internal conflicts that so many people have. Scientologists think L Ron Hubbard formulated one, but that's a whole other story altogether.