Suppose you are an educated person who is aware of the study that people who smoke one packet of cigarettes a day may develop as many as 150 extra mutations in their lungs every year, which can eventually lead to cancer. You know that tobacco smoking claims the lives of at least six million people every year, and if current trends continue, the World Health Organisation predicts more than 1 billion tobacco-related deaths in this century.1
If, despite your knowledge, you are addicted to smoking, you face cognitive dissonance, which is defined as the mental discomfort or psychological stress of performing an action that contradicts personal beliefs, ideals and values. Cognitive dissonance causes continuous mental stress, and you lose your peace of mind. Hence, you desperately want to reduce dissonance to maximise happiness and minimize pain.
The cognitive dissonance can be reduced by
- Changing actions and habits,
- Changing thoughts and beliefs
If you exercise the first alternative, you quit smoking so that your thoughts/beliefs (smoking is harmful to health) and actions (no smoking) align with each other. However, it is difficult to get rid of any addiction. Hence, most people follow the second option.
Instead of quitting smoking, they stop reading such studies and instead convince themselves that smoking does not cause much harm, often by referring to the example of those people who smoke regularly but live long and also quoting the nonsmokers who died young. For instance, when a well-known comedy superstar, Groucho Marx, became disturbed by the effects of smoking after reading an article on the subject, he gave up reading.
Religion is far more addictive than smoking. No wonder Karl Marx called religion the OPIUM of the masses. Interestingly, while the law prohibits smoking till you become an adult, the dose of religion is given to a child from a very early age.
Hence, by the time a human being becomes an adult, they have already become a religious addict if brought up in a religious family. Sometimes, the person acquires higher education, learns the fallacies of religion, and questions his belief in God.
He now faces cognitive dissonance because
- Due to his knowledge of science, reason and logic, he believes that there is no God, as there is no evidence of God.
- Due to his culture, tradition and upbringing, he has the habit of praying and following different religious rituals.
Hence, an educated and rational person loses peace of mind due to cognitive dissonance, i.e. conflict between his thoughts and actions, and he desperately wishes to resolve the dissonance to get peace of mind.
Two methods exist to resolve cognitive dissonance caused by false belief in God and religion.
- Accept that there is no God and stop all religious activities
- Continue with religious activities, stop seeking evidence for God, and discard rational thinking
The first option is tough because breaking a habit that has been taught since childhood is challenging. Moreover, you don’t want to become socially ostracised by your friends, family and society, who all believe in God and have deep faith in their religion.
Hence, most people choose the second option by continuing with all religious activities.
As long as you keep praying, following religious rituals, and visiting temples and pilgrimages, even if it is to gain society’s goodwill, your mind is forced to justify your actions, which is only possible if you believe in God.
Hence, however, educated you become, you can’t stop believing in God unless you align your actions with your beliefs and develop the courage to discard all religious activities, which is not only difficult but almost impossible for most people in the world.
References :
- https://www.quora.com/Why-do-even-highly-educated-people-believe-in-God-even-though-there-is-no-strong-evidence-of-his-her-existence/answer/Dr-Awdhesh-Singh-1#PKskM ↩︎
Highly educated people are not religious in rich and developed countries. But in poor countries education has a different purpose. For the majority it’s to get a job or pursue a profession. And the quality of education does have effect on your thoughts. But educated people in poor country don’t have time to seek rational and logical thinking. Second reason is science education. Most people have primitive knowledge about science. Till high school they study basic science and very small population has scientific temper. To conclude, highly educated people in poor countries are religious .