Question Asked "do you believe in the faith you follow through choice?" I would expect most respondents would answer "yes", yet this is clearly not the case and is largely true only for people who have converted from one faith to another. A child growing up in Belfast with Protestant parents, Protestant grand-parents and Protestant great-grand-parents is going to be Protestant. A child growing up in Italy is 90% certain to be Catholic, a child born and raised in N.E. Thailand is 97% certain to be Buddhist etc etc. Where does the choice come in? Surely for anyone who doesn't question belief in God, the God they follow is down not to choice but to geography - does this not make a mockery of belief?

Accepted:
December 28, 2008

Comments

Interestingly, one of the more well-known statements of your premise -- that belief in most cases is a matter of accidents of birth and circumstance -- was offered by a well-known defender of religion, the British philosopher John Hick. But we'll get to that.

Most people don't think very hard about their religious beliefs. And when we get to the level of specifics (that Jesus was God incarnate, that the Koran was delivered to Mohammed by an Angel, that the Amida Buddha built the Western Paradise...), it's guaranteed that most people are wrong, because there are no majority beliefs at this level of detail. But what to make of this is harder to say.

After all, something like both of these points (beliefs held by custom and habit and no majority view in any case) may be true for political beliefs, and for views on certain controversial ethical matters. It's likely true even for certain sorts of scientific beliefs, and ceretainly for various broad background "philosophical" or "metaphysical" commitments. So the first point is that it may be a bit harder than it seems to single religion out. But there are a couple of other points.

Even if my commitment to liberal democray, or libertarianism, or communism or socialism or whatnot isn't well-thought-out, it doesn't follow that such commitments are rotten by nature. After all, some people hold their views thoughtfully. And this goes for religious views as much as for any other sort. But we can add that there are many ways of holding religious beliefs. There are plenty of believers who realize that they really don't know a lot about ultimate things. The specifics of their traditions give them ways of conducting their religious lives, and that could be valuable for a variety of reasons, not all of which have to do with getting the details right. Hick, by the way, thinks that religious views are partial attempts to grasp a reality that we can't fully grasp, but that many religious traditions can put people in touch with ultimate reality, even if the believer's account of the matter is confused. (Compare: I don't need to understand the active ingredients in the medicine I've been given for it to do its job.)

All this is consistent with thinking that there's far too much thoughtless religion in the world, and that fair bit of evil that can be traced to unthinking but zealous acceptance of bad dogma. For all that, however, the fact remains: it's not quite as easy as it seems to dismiss religious belief by the sort of argument you offer.