<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>I think that the reason you keep getting these arguments are because its what people have been taught to reply with by well meaning teachers and personalities. </div><div><br></div><div>I think that many authentically religious people (not people who are members for social reasons) have very different actual reasons for their personal belief. Generally, I think people either believe just because they have an unshakable nagging feeling it is true, or because they have had personal religious experiences, or both. </div><div><br></div><div>However these things are extremely private, and very sensitive. For many religious people, these are some of their most foundational ideas about the world as well as being extremely emotional. People don’t want to open up because the fear and pain of ridicule is very sharp.</div><div><br></div><div>Emotionally and mentally it is mush safer to offer up these cookie cutter “non-answers”, though I don't think people consider it consciously.</div><div><br></div><div>I don’t know that I would say that I’m “religious” per se, but I do, against what all the logical parts of my mind say, believe extremely strongly in “higher powers”. I think that people like myself (I’m also very prone to superstition) are just generally inclined towards supernatural belief even in spite of our own common sense. I know it’s logically dumb but I just can’t help myself.</div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite">
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 05/08/2018 22:07, Spike wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:mailman.10.1533503236.6153.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" type="cite">
<p class="MsoNormal">When dealing with religious people, there is
a line of reasoning I find very common: life without religion is
pointless, meaningless, etc, because it has no significant long
term… anything. So, they choose to believe because it gives
life meaning.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A related line of reasoning hold that only
religion offers a basis for morality, and a life without
morality would harm others, so… they choose to believe in order
to avoid harm to </p></blockquote></blockquote></body></html>