To wonder how anyone can believe in a religion?

@Staringintothevoid616 You completely misunderstand the purpose of religion.
90% of it is not about the theology or the beliefs. Of that, another 9.9% is about finding a comforting tale about what happens after death, so only about 0.1% is about actually believing what the religion says about god(s) and how to live your life.
The 90% is about culture and community. It is about belonging to a membership club and meeting up regularly with like-minded people.
You could totally believe all the theology of a religion in private, but if you don't go to meet-ups (services) what are you getting from it?
Equally, you can get a huge amount of of the meet-ups but have serious doubts about a lot of the theology - which I would guess is the position for vast numbers of religious people.

I'm not religious.
I used to be, but lost the faith I'd had indoctrinated into me when it became clear that there was no higher power, and that all that I'd been told about a beneficent and kindly God didn't reconcile with the same one who required people to sacrifice their firstborns, and killed people in floods.
However, that's my take.
For others, among my friends, religion gives them comfort at times of difficulty, it gives them a sense of community and belonging and provides a like-minded support network (for some) outside family and close friends.
In early days it must have been difficult to look at the vastness of the lands, skies and seas and not to try to attribute that to some higher power, because it's so hard to comprehend how all that can exist.
For some people, it allows them to adhere to 'rules' around moral concepts, although I struggle with this because I feel that if you need the threat of some form of eternal punishment to stop you from doing something, it means that if you didn't believe that, you'd just crack on and do the bad thing (e.g. theft, murder). The frequent argument questions atheists as to why they don't just go around doing bad things if they don't fear an eternal judgement. The reason is that morally, that thing is wrong, and a decent person just wouldn't do it.

I think it is fear.

Fear of death, fear of the chaos of life, fear of making your own decisions.

And also for some men it is the fact that religion still gives them power over women and kids...

@SorcererGaheris How can you believe in all gods? Because all the stories about them can't be simultaneously true. The earth can't have been created by God, and Zeus and Marduk and Odin and Atum and all of the others in various creation myths. To me that's even more bizarre than believing that one story is true and the others false.

Many people simply need rules and guides to follow as otherwise they would be lost : sheeple. They like being controlled.

In addition, many people are far too afraid to face the reality of mortality and finality of death - so any alternative is preferable even if deep down they know it’s all nonsense.

It's a comfort. It gives you a group of people who are 'us' in a world full of scary 'them'. It answers the big questions when saying 'I don't know ' is frightening. It gives you something to look forward to when your life isn't great.

I am an atheist, but I see the appeal. It just doesn't appeal to me.

That’s not what it is for me. I dont have that belief… 🤷🏻‍♀️

I know exactly why. The comfort of believing there is a meaning and purpose to your life, that its not transitory and pointless. That when your loved ones die, one day you'll see their faces again. The hope that when things are truly awful, its part of a plan that will work out for the best in the end. The security of having rules and guidelines to follow. The sense of community of sharing the belief and its rituals with others.
Why is really obvious. It's the how I struggle with. If I could just figure out how to suspend my disbelief I'd be first through the doors.

I wasn’t brought up a Christian but I am now. I am baptised and now attend church regularly. I, like you, can’t bear blind allegiance to any ideology without critical thought and in my Anglican context I’m encouraged to explore that.

I don’t follow ‘man made’ rules. I follow Jesus Christ’s commandment to love God with all your heart and treat your neighbour as yourself. All of the rest of the two thousand years of male centred theology I take with a pinch of salt (rightly or wrongly). But I love the community, the oddballs, the hymns, the candlelight, the choir, the church bells. I love that it’s not clear cut and people have different expressions of their faith. I try to live to that golden commandment. I try to live justly and I pray.

I’m not some dogmatic person who thinks they’ve got it all figured out. But I see the side of religion that does good - the personal vocations in the world m, the food bank, the night pastors, the community outreach to the elderly, the charitable fund raising, the community events etc.

Sad to think of that being disparaged just because people ‘don’t understand it’.

I didn't say that science explains logic, just that a scientific approach is itself logical.

I think many people cannot bear the idea that death is the end of everything. People want so much to believe they will be reunited with loved ones lost and that everything will be magical for all eternity. Religions claim to offer that and so people will buy into the religion for what they feel is the eventual pay out.

No idea. I agree, it's absolutely nuts and I have less and less patience with it the older I get. That said, religion has brought us some amazing art and music, to be fair. But yes, it annoys me, as does Royalism (a lot of overlap between the two with people I know. I bite my tongue a lot)

Logical positivism isn't self-evident. You only think that because you live in a society where it is a fairly common default belief. Science by definition only addresses physical phenomena, it doesn't tell us anything at all about logic, metaphysics, ethics, or epistemology, most of which are more foundational than science.

Strength of numbers doesn't make it fact.
I'll always support someone's right to have a religion (as long as it doesn't affect me in any way) but there's no logic to it, and I absolutely will look at them differently.

You would really have to ask people from various religions. The answers aren't all going to be the same.

Your view of religion is fairly narrow, btw, not all religions have the kinds of belief systems you seem to think they do.

You would also find they have different approaches to things like revelation and those rules you mentioned. Muslims for example have a different set of ideas than Catholics, who have a different set than Buddhists.

Your argument that there are many different belief systems, therefore none must be correct, doesn't hold up logically. You could also make the same argument about many belief systems that are not normally considered religion, like secular humanism, or Marxism.

@Staringintothevoid616

Occult orders are certainly not religions, but Pagan and neo-pagan religions definitely are religions.

@Staringintothevoid616

I think that modern paganism/druidism is very different to what most people would regard as a religion per se.

If that's the case, then I think most people have a rather limited view of what they regard as religion.

Religions are diverse. Traditional Pagan religions, as well as modern Pagan religions, are still religions, even if they fall outside of the scope of what most people think of as a 'religion'.

We clearly have very little knowledge of actual Celtic religions (there was unlikely to have been a singular one).

There wasn't a single Celtic religion. I just used 'Celtic' as a coverall term to specify the kinds of pantheons in which I have the most interest.

How can you ask this when you are like them?

People don't use critical thinking/do research in their day to day life, ask any marketing executive. Personally I accept that I can't comprehend all the complexities of life, i can't calcualte all the risks, I can't solve all ethical dilemmas, so I keep this space in my soul for religion. E.g. when my child is sick, and I say a little prayer, another mother would post on Mumsnet, someone would use grandma's remedy with no proved efficiency, there is no rationale behind any of these actions, it is whatever you find natural.

"In many ways it's logical"

In no way whatsoever is it logical! We are an accident, make of it what you will! The only logic involved is that of scientific explanation. Anything else, be it belief in a god or any kind of 'higher power' is simply a manifestation of an individual's inability to cope with reality. 👍