I became a self-professed atheist in elementary school. Here are some of the questions I had then and later: Why should I take something “on faith” and pretend something is true just because someone said so? That’s what I would have to do, pretend. Also, religion seemed more than a crutch than anything else, instead of facing life as it is. Then, there is the question of why most people adopt the religion they happen to be born into and then assume it’s the right one for them or the right one in general.
These questions came up partly because we were required to have one lesson a week in Christianity, and I had family members who were strong Christians (not my immediate family).
For some reason, the last set of questions came up again today.
Why do people adopt the religion of their culture? That’s not too difficult to understand. It’s available and familiar and they may know someone in that religion. It’s an easy choice. Some have explored quite a few approaches and settled on the one most familiar to them in their culture.
Why do they think it’s the right one for them? It may work for them. It may serve social, emotional, and even intellectual needs. It may be good enough for now. Again, some have explored widely and settled with what seems a good match.
Why do some think it’s the universally right religion?
At a psychological level, it may help them feel more secure in their religion. They doubt, which is a good thing, and they don’t like it or recognize it as a good thing, so they try to persuade themselves by saying that their religion is the only true one and all others are wrong or false or less good. Instead of just being happy with it as it is, they take it a step further and elevate it compared to other religions. They make it into a competition.
The upside to doubt, as many within different religions will tell you, is that it’s honest and it invites us to go deeper. In Zen, they talk about Great Doubt. Doubt everything, investigate everything. Doubt is inevitably here so why not make good use of it?
If they were born into their religion and see it as the one true religion, how do they resolve that cognitive dissonance? How do they explain to themselves that they happened to be born into the one true religion? They may say “God was good to me, it was meant to be” as someone did when I asked many years ago. Although, to me, that doesn’t seem to really resolve it.
This goes for more than religion, of course, it applies to anything that has to do with our culture. It’s natural to adopt whatever we are born into or find in our immediate culture, and it’s also honest to recognize what’s happening and that it would likely be the same – and look very different in its expressions – if we were born into another culture.
The way I have “resolved” this is the typical modern approach. I don’t have much to do with religions. I prefer to investigate more directly and understand religions as a collection of stories, metaphors, projections, and pointers. And I acknowledge the role of culture in my values and how I perceive the world.