This is not an attack on those of you who believe in some sort of creator or supreme being. Despite the fact that Atheists are often attacked for their beliefs, I have generally been very tolerant towards anyone who wants to talk to their God whoever or whatever that may be. Of course, that does not mean that I do not hypothesize why anyone would believe in the idea of a God. A being that cannot be directly seen, touched, or empirically verified naturally raises skeptical questions for many people, me included. To answer this question, I have had several different insights. Many of these go back to my early days of rejecting God the Father. Here are a few of my beliefs on the enigmatic question of “Why does anyone believe in God?”
- The Need for Comfort:
People who feel helpless want to believe that someone is out there who can help them. God can serve this role because believers often see God as omnipotent and omniscient—both all-powerful and all-knowing. God is more powerful than any superhero created by Marvel Comics. If I can only make an intimate connection with God or indeed make him MY GOD, then I can tap into his infinite power to help provide for my needs. Perhaps it is to give me back my health or to provide wealth or to smite my enemies. MY GOD will help me when I ask him to through the intercession of what are called prayers.
- The Search for Meaning:
People often rely more on emotion than logic or reason. People are swayed more by stories than by facts or data. They want to believe in a supreme being because they cannot think of any other reasons for how the universe or humanity was created. Rather than relying on something that sounds as incredible as the Big Bang Theory or The Theory of Evolution, they want to believe that there is some type of purpose in creation. Einstein did not want to believe in Quantum Physics because he did not want to believe that “God played dice with the universe.” Humans have a need for a logic of sorts to describe our purpose for being here, but it is not a logic of science.
- The Power of Culture and Upbringing:
Everywhere you look there are allusions to God. In God we Trust on our coins. One Nation Under God in our Pledge of Allegiance. Our leaders say prayers to a God before beginning major political events. We sing endless songs extolling the wonders of God. People are taught from infancy that God will take care of you if you only believe in Him. As a Catholic, I learned to pray before I went to sleep at night:
Now I lie me down to sleep and pray the Lord my soul will keep,
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul will take.
Amen
I have several friends who had pancreatic cancer. Many of them prayed or had friends and relatives who prayed for their remission or cure. Not one of them lasted more than six months before dying of this horrible disease. I can cite a litany of other times when God has failed to intervene on humanity’s behalf, but it would not make one iota of difference.
Deeply held beliefs—especially those formed in childhood—can become extraordinarily resistant to change, even in the face of contradictory evidence.
People want to believe that God helps humanity. People want to believe that God is kind, compassionate and full of infinite love and patience.
- A New Perspective on Why People Believe in God:
History is filled with brilliant scientists, philosophers, theologians, and ordinary people who have wrestled with these same questions and reached very different conclusions. The existence—or nonexistence—of God has resisted definitive proof for thousands of years. Perhaps that is one reason the debate has endured for so long. It reminds us that, regardless of our convictions, intellectual humility is appropriate when confronting questions that may ultimately lie beyond our ability to answer.
Lately, I have had a different perspective on why people believe in God. If my other reasons are less than charitable, this one is I believe more complimentary toward humanity. As I reflected on my earlier explanations, I gradually realized that none of them fully captured why millions of thoughtful people believe in God. There seemed to be something deeper involved.
I began to realize that it would take a very egotistical person to say that “I don’t need God” or that “Science can solve all of our problems.” It is a little like the ancients who wanted to believe that the Earth was the center of the universe or that the Sun revolved around the Earth. It might just be the height of egotism to think that creation revolved around human beings or that God revolved around human beings.
I once wrote that God did not make man in his image, but that man created God in his image. Regardless of which way it was, humility and humbleness would dictate that we do not make humanity the center of the Universe. I don’t have any answers to why we are here or even what I am doing here. I have made my own purpose in life. I have not had any divine callings. I have never heard the Voice of God or any other voices for that matter. I sometimes pray for my friends or humanity only because it can’t hurt. Perhaps, there is a benevolent God listening to my prayers. I would give you a hundred to one odds that is not the situation but greater minds than mine have reached different conclusions.
The realization of our own limitations and frailties may just be the most powerful motivator for a belief in God. Who among us would have the audacity to say that they can prove “God does not exist?” Who among us would have the audacity to judge God by the state of the world? Who among us could say that other people were “stupid” for taking the time to pray to a God?
Maybe God is not a crutch so much as a recognition of our own limitations and frailties.
Whatever your reasons for believing or not believing in a God or Divine Presence, I hope you find peace and tranquility and compassion for others in your beliefs. If there is a God and he is a loving compassionate God who cares about human beings, than surely he would want you to demonstrate the same kindness and love towards others. This includes everyone and not just people who belong to the same church as you do.
Aging Capriciously 
Aug 14, 2026 @ 10:03:57
Thanks for another thoughtful essay, John. I was an atheist for 75 years until I finally realized I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. So I’m with you on your new perspective. A little humility in the face of the wonder of creation is all that’s needed for a leap of faith.
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 11:41:52
Hi John, hope wall is going well. We have not been down to Tucson in about five months. Karen has not gone to her dulcimer group, and we have had to cancel two concerts and our October trip to Egypt due to her illness. She is measruably better but still workng on being 100 percent. I am looking forward to getting together again with you sometime for lunch or whatever when we are next down in Tucson. I am hoping we will be coming down again regularly. I think I miss her dulcimer group more than she does. Thanks for the comment. I agree, A little humility goes a long way. If we only taught two things in school, I would teach humility and integrity. Have a nice weekend. John
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 11:21:46
I don’t believe he exists, but I also don’t know. I just go by what I see, and I am fine if people have faith in something. The only thing that annoys me is people who think any scripture, especially the Bible, is the word of god. They believe that Christ was a Christian and his followers were Christians. I tried to explain he was a jew, raised and taught as a Jew. Christianity came almost 100 years after him. This whole talk of god or no god we can’t know either way, but the evidence is more toward no than yes; but the kicker is, if he loves all and I am wrong, it should not matter. I loved the post. I have one almost done, kind of similar. Great minds think alike, I guess.
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 11:37:57
Hi Kevin, maybe we should start a “Great Minds Club” kind of like the Club of Rome or the Great Books Club or something else 🙂 Thanks for the comment. I agree about the “if he loves all, it should not matter.” The funny or not so funny thing is that to the “true believers” it matters a whole bunch. I was once told that if Jesus did not really rise on the third day, than Catholicism was all for nothing. And this was by a Jesuit priest.
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 13:39:43
As a child— I used to say that prayer. Then one day (or night… LoL) I stopped.
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 14:11:58
Me too. Although I do not remember when.
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 16:08:51
Religions were created by charlatans as a means of controlling others, as for God, if there was one he/she would be dismayed at what the charlatans/politicians have done.
Want to believe in something? Try, the power of the human mind.
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 16:36:03
Jon, If the power of the human mind was all I had to believe in, I would shoot myself. I am an atheist but I am not arrogant enough to think that humanity can see or think beyond its human senses. We have limits to smell, sight, sound, touch and cognition. People that trust in human abilities are the most likely to default to God when push comes to shove. I have never defaulted to God even when my parachute failed to open on a jump which I have written about. Read Max Stirner sometime. My believe in anything is tempered by my believe that we are finite beings and it is not possible for us to know or understand everything. Could we be some grand experiment by superior beings? Could we be some sort of cosmic accident? Could there really be an ominipotent or omniscient God? Are the Buddhists right or are the Hindus right? Will I find out when I die if there is a God or a Satan or Heaven and Hell, or will my ashes simply help to fertilize some plants or not? Will I have a soul or consciouness that lives on after I die? I don’t really know and most of my life I don’t care. Can I make the planet better for the people that are born after me? Maybe. But Maybe’s are perhaps the only thing in my life worth trying now. So I keep on writing my blogs, giving money to charities, going on a yearly retreat, reading, doing my radio show for veterans and denouncing trump whenever I can. Is Trump the Messiah or is he Evil Incarnate? I don’t know but I hope I can see him behind bars and wearing orange before I pass from this world.
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 17:22:26
Jon, if you are up to another “God” post, here is one I wrote a few years ago. Perhaps you will see a differences in my thinking since then and perhaps not. I hope not so much. https://agingcapriciously.com/2024/10/17/only-god-can-save-you/
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Aug 17, 2026 @ 16:18:54
Sorry for the delay in responding John, but I needed to dwell on both your posts. Both of them suggest a degree of self doubt when it comes to religion, I have no such doubts myself, I firmly believe the human mind (collectively) can overcome all mankind’s failures and weaknesses. As Marx is reputed to have said “religion is the opiate of the masses”.
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Aug 17, 2026 @ 17:14:28
I guess we will have to disagree on the “power of the human mind.” I suggest you read Max Stirner, “The Ego and Its Own.” By the way, the opiate of the masses today is sports. Religion is hardly on the map anymore. Less than 50 percent of Americans belong to any organized religion. About 70% to 75% of Americans identify with an organized religion, according to data from Gallup and the Pew Research Center. However, fewer than half (around 47%) maintain a formal membership or regularly belong to a specific house of worship like a church, synagogue, or mosque. More people watch football on Sunday than go to church. 53% of Americans watch football (whether professional NFL or college NCAA) during a given period or season, and roughly 35% to 44% watch games regularly on a weekly basis, depending on the specific threshold of engagement and time spent during the season. Funny if you think of it.
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Aug 17, 2026 @ 17:35:10
Based on these figures John, Trumps seeming success is a result (or so it seems), of the USA’s Godliness!! Regarding “sport” has this really become a national addiction?
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Aug 18, 2026 @ 03:30:46
Jon, I would have to say yes but that is an opinion. I know logical rationale people that go crazy when “their” team is playing. People with advanced degrees screaming in the stands like banshees. The need for some sort of “identity” seems to “trump” any rational thought. My cousin paid 3 thousand dollars a piece for him and his son to go to a super bowl game a few years ago. Everywhere you look there is news of sports. If it is not an addiction, it should is an epidemic. Trump is putting MMA fights on the White House Lawn and hardly a president in recent years has not had his sport to show that he is a real man or perhaps a real American.
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 16:36:30
Dear John and Metis,
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 16:39:00
Cute cartoon SoundEagle
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 16:41:33
Dear John and Metis,
The Fear of God
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 17:20:47
You might enjoy this blog post I wrote a few years ago; https://agingcapriciously.com/2024/10/17/only-god-can-save-you/
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 17:01:06
Dear John and Metis,
Cognitive science and evolutionary psychology reveal that humans possess a deep-seated mental predisposition towards religious thought insofar as our standard brain functions, such as looking for patterns and assuming an intentional agent for causing an event, make belief in some higher powers feel natural or justified.
In examining the cognitive roots of belief, research from large-scale studies, including the Cognition, Religion and Theology Project at Oxford University, demonstrates that children and adults across many cultures naturally lean towards ideas, such as an afterlife or purposeful design, because of normal mental traits. There are plenty of evolutionary theories of how organised religion and shared religious practices helped early human societies to cooperate and survive. In relation to the role of genetics and evolution, most scientists think that religious belief is a byproduct of useful survival skills rather than an adaptation specifically meant to find God.
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 17:16:59
Yes, I have a BS and MS in Psychology and I remember much of the same things you have said SoundEagle. But I regards so many such theories as described by Stirner in “Der Einzige und sein Eigentum” (translated as The Ego and Its Own) An 1844 book by German philosopher Max Stirner. What I have more difficulty understanding are the hypocrites who profess a religion that they do not follow at all.
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 18:57:16
Dear John and Metis,
I would like to assert that new voices must be found and nurtured to challenge conventional Christianity.
If there was a God, what would they be like? Given the number of Christian denominations and groups, even if this question could be answered, it would be sociopolitically fraught with contentions, disagreements and controversies, perhaps even more acutely so, as we drift and slide on the increasingly widening contemporary path towards fostering interfaith dialogue and diverse viewpoints, which are deemed to be important for those who wish to cast away their former spiritual/intellectual cocoon and overcome their epistemological impasse, thereby emerging anew as a changed person who has examined their lives conscientiously so as to become a better human being, or even a born-again freethinker.
In any case, the question is hard to answer because even the concept of discernment demands critical examination. After all, do theologians and priests, let alone Christian laypersons, fully comprehend the nature of reality and truth, especially when it gels very poorly with the neat and tidy stipulations, moral issues and cornerstones promoted by scriptures and dogmas?
It is exceedingly difficult for some folks to acknowledge that religious indoctrination can be very insidious and damaging. Religious ideology is often significantly anti-thought-provoking or thought-terminating for those who aspire to seek truth via reason, logic and evidence as well as holistic (re)examinations and spiritual contemplation. For example, a lot of Christians would have great difficulty in accepting the messages and teachings of such an extreme Christian outlier as the late John Shelby “Jack” Spong (16 June 1931 to 12 September 2021), who would be unlikely or unwilling to answer the question presented by this post. I have known of him for more than two decades. He was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church, whose “Twelve Points for Reform” were elaborated in his 2001 book entitled A New Christianity for a New World:
Spong was one of the first American bishops to ordain a woman into the clergy, in 1977. He was the first to ordain an openly gay man, Robert Williams, in 1989. In his 1991 book entitled “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture”, Spong argued that St Paul was homosexual.
All in all, the late John Shelby Spong was to religion what the late Edward Osborne Wilson was to science. The post that touches on this issue the most is my very special post entitled 😱 We have Paleolithic Emotions; Medieval Institutions; and God-like Technology 🏰🚀“, available at
I look forward to your reading my said post and leaving some thoughts and feedback there, as I am very keen and curious about what you and your sidekick Metis will make of the post.
Wishing you a wonderful week and a fantastic mid-August!
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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Aug 14, 2026 @ 22:43:23
Thanks for the thoughtful comment SoundEagle. I will read your post tomorrow. I read Bishop Spong’s book several years ago along with Hans Kung, Thomas Merton, Meister Eckhart, and many other Catholic theologians. I am currently reading Tolstoy’s book “The Life of Jesus: The Gospel in Brief.” I have also been to services at many different religious centers including Bahai, AME, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, UU, United Church of Christ, Reform Catholic, Lutheran, Buddhist, Jewish and many new age Christian churches. Each experience gives me a different persective on religious thinking. It is one thing to read a book, it is another thing to attend a 3 hour Baptist revival meeting in Alabama. Each experience opens a door to another part of reality. It is fascinating what people believe and why they believe certain things. Psychology only scratches the surface at understanding the dynamics of human behavior. IMHO.
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Aug 15, 2026 @ 06:13:00
Good column!
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Aug 15, 2026 @ 06:57:39
Thanks Gretchen, I hope you and Robert are doing well. I really enjoyed our visit with you and only wish we all lived closer. I am glad you enjoyed the post. John
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Aug 15, 2026 @ 13:54:34
Well thought out and well-written. None of us will know definitively until we die (and perhaps not even then). Faith is comforting. If one is comforted without it, find. That’s their choice. I wish more “believers” would be as understanding towards agnostics, atheists – and even people of other religions a- s you are towards those who have a strong faith. And that goes for people outside the “norm” too. We’re all God’s children (if God exists) so that means we’re one family. Unfortunately todate it is a woefully dysfunctional family!
jaine toth jetwriter46@gmail.com 520-350-9381 – home 520-350-3966 – cell Author of Dizzy Izzy & The Red Witch: Memories of My Parents, available on Amazon.com, and *The Arts: A Key to Spiritual Transformation, *available to read free online at https://bahai-library.com/toth_arts_spiritual_transformation
Happiness is like jam: you can’t spread even a little without getting some on yourself. – Source unknown
He looketh on all things with the eye of oneness, and seeth the brilliant rays of the divine sun shining from the dawning-point of Essence alike on all created things, and the lights of singleness reflected over all creation. – Baha’u’llah
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Aug 16, 2026 @ 03:21:15
Hi Jaine, thank you for the thoughful reply. Yes, I guess we will all have to wait to find out what comes if anything after. I once said to a friends who was telling me about her dysfunctional family “Would’nt it be nice if we had a normal family?” She replied “John, we do have a NORMAL family.” I took her meaning right away. There are exceptions, but the norm today may just be “Dysfunctional.” Or perhaps that is the view we get from the media and it is distorted.
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Aug 15, 2026 @ 15:11:06
John, this is an exceptional post Sir! Bravo to you, BRAVO! 😁
I think I might borrow some of your hard work (with credit given of course) for my “Why Christianity Will Always Fail” page over on my blog, if you don’t mind.
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Aug 15, 2026 @ 15:14:14
I like to share my ideas Professor. I have no copyrights on my posts. Feel free to use what you want to when you want to. As for giving me credit, don’t worry about it. I think most of my ideas come from many wiser people long dead and long forgotten who really deserve the credit. But I appreciate your kindness and integrity. John
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Aug 15, 2026 @ 15:46:09
Professor Taboo, I read your post. It was outstanding. I am humbled in respect to your depth and insights on the subject. I loved the videos. You did this in 2018. Have your ideas changed any since then? I tried to leave a comment but I screwed something up and it bounced me out. I thought I would just leave my comment here. Again, it was an extraordinary post. Probably should be taught in every religious class and divinity school in the world but as you noted, it would probably not make much difference. True Believers have a difficult time unbelieving their true beliefs. That might make a good song if I had any musical talent.
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Aug 15, 2026 @ 16:04:29
Hmm. Goodness. Apologies on the difficulty to comment. Let me go check my Moderation and/or Spam folders to see if that un-kicks you. 😉
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Aug 16, 2026 @ 03:16:57
No problem Professor.
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Aug 16, 2026 @ 05:53:17
John, I reset all the (Open) Discussion parameters for commenters. Perhaps that did it, freed it up for your comment. Or if you’d like I can just copy/paste your comment here and put it on the Page there. 🤷♂️
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Aug 16, 2026 @ 09:01:53
Thanks Professor. I will try again later. Have a great day.
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