Are all people religious?

[HabemusFrancis]

This may seem like a silly question, given the large number of atheists, agnostics, or simply undevout people who exist. Yet I believe it is true. I believe all people have “gods” or causes that they worship, or feel the need to worship.

Many of you know I have been an atheist in the past, and even at times wonder if everything we believe as Catholics is really true. Recently I was wondering whether it was “worth it” to believe in God or not, and I almost heard a voice in my head say " You don’t have to believe in or worship God if you don’t want to. However, you will believe in and worship something else."

It jsut seems ( in my observation) that people are dissatisfied with “just themselves” and want to either worship or be part of something bigger, better and “more important” than just themselves. Thus making me believe all people are religious in some ways, with their various causes or ideas.

Do you think this is true?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

This may seem like a silly question, given the large number of atheists, agnostics, or simply undevout people who exist. Yet I believe it is true. I believe all people have “gods” or causes that they worship, or feel the need to worship.

I think you may be applying aspects of your own religious practices or background to people that are not necessarily engaged in the same thing. I suppose that all of us might describe the behaviours and customs of others in terms that you might have used for describing actions without our own communities, but there may be false conclusions that come out of it. What immediately comes to mind are some of the people in the South Pacific that had been cut off from the rest of the world. During one of the wars they were introduced to western soldiers and would see them speak into boxes. As a result of speaking into these boxes large metal birds would fly down to give them food and everything that they needed. The soldiers never seemed to need to work for what they needed to live. Of course what was going on here is the people of these islands were understanding what they saw from a religious perspective of types.

Yesterday I just received the “Oxford Handbook of Religious Diversity.” I’ve read the introduction and the first chapter, but one of the things I’m looking forward to is the chapters in which people from one religious background describe another (ex: A Buddhist explains his understanding of Christianity, for example). I’ve got speculations on the insights that might be given from the exercise, and I expect these different perspectives to get some things right and some things wrong. I almost look at the exercise in which you are engaging to be similar.

Many of you know I have been an atheist in the past, and even at times wonder if everything we believe as Catholics is really true. Recently I was wondering whether it was “worth it” to believe in God or not, and I almost heard a voice in my head say " You don’t have to believe in or worship God if you don’t want to. However, you will believe in and worship something else."

I’d disagree. You don’t automatically fall into worshiping something else. I think about a man that goes to church for worship, goes to work to make a living and take care of his family, spends time with his family, and may engage in other diversions such as collecting coins, drawing, or working on projects at home. If he were to stop going to church and use that time to sleep in a bit longer or spend more time focused on his family I wouldn’t say that he now worships his family an sleep. If someone were to stop worshiping then there may be changes to some of their routines. But those changes in their routines are not themselves worship.

It jsut seems ( in my observation) that people are dissatisfied with “just themselves” and want to either worship or be part of something bigger, better and “more important” than just themselves. Thus making me believe all people are religious in some ways, with their various causes or ideas.

I think that most people are social and like being members of social and sometimes ideological groups and that this desire can be expressed in a number of ways. It could be expressed through wanting to “belong to” a group of people such as in a religion, a political group, those advancing a certain cause such as civil rights or spreading awareness of arts.

Do you think this is true?

Like I said above, I think the perspective from which you approach this might not be the best one for understanding others. Had it been a more generic “People tend to have a set of interests on which they invest a lot of time and effort” I might agree with you. But to refer to these interests as “gods” and their investments as “worship” may inspire false conclusions.

This is one of the times when I think it would be nice to have an anthropologist in these forums. Would be interesting to hear their perspective on this.

 

[Nozzer]

This may seem like a silly question, given the large number of atheists, agnostics, or simply undevout people who exist. Yet I believe it is true. I believe all people have “gods” or causes that they worship, or feel the need to worship.

Many of you know I have been an atheist in the past, and even at times wonder if everything we believe as Catholics is really true. Recently I was wondering whether it was “worth it” to believe in God or not, and I almost heard a voice in my head say " You don’t have to believe in or worship God if you don’t want to. However, you will believe in and worship something else."

It jsut seems ( in my observation) that people are dissatisfied with “just themselves” and want to either worship or be part of something bigger, better and “more important” than just themselves. Thus making me believe all people are religious in some ways, with their various causes or ideas.

Do you think this is true?

In the words of G. K. Chesterton: “When someone stops believing in God, he’ll believe in practically anything else”!

I hope this has helped,

Nozzer

 

[ThinkingSapien]

In the words of G. K. Chesterton: “When someone stops believing in God, he’ll believe in practically anything else”!

Depending on what’s meant be “believe in” there may be room to challenge this expression. But not being well defined (the phrase “believe in” can express so many different things) by itself it’s not necessarily clear what is being stated here.

 

[Tablefor9]

Yes. Yes, they are. Even those who “believe” in no god, live as though they are their own. This is another belief.

 

[Richard_White]

Yes, it is very true that if we don’t worship the one, true God, then we will end up worshiping something else, such as the false “gods” of money, power, sex, greed, etc. The writer and philosopher David Foster Wallace spoke about this in his 2006 Commencement Speech for Kenyon College, if you’re interested (although unfortunately his works aren’t very pro-Catholic).

May God bless you all!