The Problem of Belief

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090119/lf_afp/lifestylebritainreligiontransportatheism

The above article talks about a worldwide campaign to eradicate God.

Though I understand that this is created as a direct reaction to Muslim terrorists I still think in essence it is wrong headed.

I'm approaching all this as a pragmatist. I'm not saying unequivocally whether God is real or not.

However, one thing I do know that many times people need to believe that there is a God whether or not there is one or not and that many people on earth right now would kill you right now if you said that there is no God and you said this to their face.

Such strong feelings on both sides must be taken into consideration if people want to live through these kinds of confrontations either in person, in print, by phone, or even television.

Though I understand that this movement to eradicate God from normal usage worldwide is sincere and based entirely upon the terror people feel from people who they consider crazy believing in virgins being given to them if they blow other people and themselves up. I understand this. However, entirely eradicating God I don't believe is possible or useful in any way.

I think this needs to be approached in another way. My thinking is that whether God exists or not human beings need to believe sometimes or even all the time that there is such a thing. Whether this comes from growing up as a little child with parents who take care of us and then needing parents to make the hard decisions still as an adult I don't know. However, I have experienced in my own life and the lives of everyone I know that at times people seriously need to believe in God or something.

It is less important, I believe whether God exists or even whether God can be proved or disproved. This in the in I don't believe is important. What is important is that many or most people's lives would be over if they didn't believe in God.

If you want to make everyone on earth a criminal for example, you could give everyone a drug that made them not believe in God. All societies would immediately collapse without the altruism that a belief in God brings. People would have no reason in most parts of the world to do anything to help anyone without a belief in God. Though this might not be true of Buddhist nations that don't necessarily believe in God it would be a disaster for the rest of the world.

To repeat: It isn't important whether God exists or can be proven, people need to believe in God for civilization itself to continue. This is what I believe is important.