Bound to Belief

It is said that people will believe anything. Actually, people need to believe something. We are wired that way. We have reason, and our reason drives us to find the underlying truth behind perception. So—take anyone you want. If you ask them enough questions, you will discover that they hold certain beliefs to be true…in spite of the fact that they have not one shred of proof for their belief.

Religion is the basis of what most people in the world throughout time have believed. Christianity currently claims about one third of the people in the world. While there is no proof for God, the flipside of that attempt to discredit this belief is that He cannot be disproved either.

Other religions offer a bit more of a baffling set of things people will believe. Scientology offers a religion admittedly invented by a science fiction author with decidedly science fiction elements. The fact that anyone believes that shows just how strong the urge to believe is.

Even the Scientific or Secular worldview has its tenets that are accepted only by faith:

Spontaneous Generation, or the idea that simple living organisms can spontaneously emerge from non-living matter, has long been discredited in its medieval versions. However, a form of it is still believed to happen or at least to have happened on occasion.

The idea that complex organic systems and processes have emerged by natural selection over long periods of time through random mutations contradicting the second law of thermodynamics is today’s scientific consensus. What would the step-by-step process of eye development or flight look like?

When we reject the natural belief in the God who created us, we will literally grasp at anything to fill the vacant spot, and evidence has nothing to do with it.