Robert M. Price: Why religions demand belief

On Bible scholar Dr. Robert M. Price's excellent podcast "The Bible Geek", he answers listeners' emailed questions. On one episode a listener asked why religions demand something as odd as belief. He noted that there doesn't seem to be anything moral or ethical about it, it doesn't feed the hungry or help the poor, etc. It just seems bizarre that faith-based religions revolve around this idea that belief is so important.

Dr. Price responded with this:

It does seem that they're asking for the one thing that will throw you off the path of any kind of critical thinking. If you start this way you're starting off on the wrong foot, on the path to intellectual dishonesty. If you believe the slate of things for which there is no evidence, well, if they can convince you they're authoritative on that, you'll believe anything they say. 

And just to take a step back, why is it that the whole thing is based on something for which there's no evidence? Why do you even need faith in this unless there's some kind of a scam being pulled? I mean, what's commendable about believing something when there's no evidence for it? Why is credulity a virtue?


...God could have made himself easily known without setting up this hurdle jump: "Can you get yourself to believe these impossible things without evidence?" What is the point in that?

Belief is a false stumbling block. It's a sell-out of critical judgement.