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Behavior makes you a better person.
Beliefs

Religious belief refers to attitudes towards mythological, supernatural, or spiritual aspects of a religion. Religious belief is distinct from religious practice and from religious behaviours – with some believers not practicing religion and some practitioners not believing religion. Religious beliefs, deriving from ideas that are exclusive to religion, often relate to the existence, characteristics and worship of a deity or deities, to the idea of divine intervention in the universe and in human life, or to the deontological explanations for the values and practices centered on the teachings of a spiritual leader or community. In contrast to other belief systems, religious beliefs are usually codified.
A popular view holds that different religions each have identifiable and exclusive sets of beliefs or creeds, but surveys of religious belief have often found that the official doctrine and descriptions of the beliefs offered by religious authorities do not always agree with the privately held beliefs of those who identify as members of a particular religion.
Adherence

Typical reasons for adherence to religion include the following:
  • Some see belief in a deity as necessary for moral behavior.
  • Some regard religious practices as serene, beautiful, and conducive to religious experiences, which in turn support religious beliefs.
  • Organized religions promote a sense of community among their followers, and the moral and cultural common ground of these communities makes them attractive to people with similar values. Indeed, while religious beliefs and practices are usually connected, some individuals with substantially secular beliefs still participate in religious practices for cultural reasons.
  • Each religion asserts that it is a means by which its adherents may come into closer contact with the Divine, with Truth, and with spiritual power. They all promise to free adherents from spiritual bondage, and to bring them into spiritual freedom. It naturally follows that a religion which can free its adherents from deception, sin, and spiritual death will have significant mental-health benefits. Abraham Maslow's research after World War II showed that Holocaust survivors tended to be those who held strong religious beliefs (not necessarily temple attendance, etc.), suggesting that belief helped people cope in extreme circumstances. Humanistic psychology went on to investigate how religious or spiritual identity may have correlations with longer lifespan and better health. The study found that humans may particularly need religious ideas to serve various emotional needs such as the need to feel loved, the need to belong to homogeneous groups, the need for understandable explanations and the need for a guarantee of ultimate justice. Other factors may involve sense of purpose, sense of identity, or a sense of contact with the divine. See also Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, detailing his experience with the importance of religion in surviving the Holocaust. Critics assert that the very fact that religion was the primary selector for research subjects may have introduced a bias, and that the fact that all subjects were Holocaust survivors may also have had an effect. According to Larson et al. (2000), "[m]ore longitudinal research with better multidimensional measures will help further clarify the roles of these [religious] factors and whether they are beneficial or harmful."
Psychologist James Alcock also summarizes a number of apparent benefits which reinforce religious belief. These include prayer appearing to account for successful resolution of problems, "a bulwark against existential anxiety and fear of annihilation," an increased sense of control, companionship with one's deity, a source of self-significance, and group identity.
Apostasy

Typical reasons for rejection of religion include:
  • Some people regard certain fundamental doctrines of some religions as illogical, contrary to experience, or unsupported by sufficient evidence; such people may reject one or more religions for those reasons. Even some believers may have difficulty accepting particular religious assertions or doctrines. Some people believe the body of evidence available to humans to be insufficient to justify certain religious beliefs. They may thus disagree with religious interpretations of ethics and human purpose, or with various creation myths. This reason has perhaps been aggravated by the protestations and emphases of some fundamentalist Christians.
  • Some religions include beliefs that certain groups of people are inferior or sinful and deserve contempt, persecution, or even death, and that non-believers will be punished for their unbelief in an after-life. Adherents to a religion may feel antipathy to unbelievers. Numerous examples exist of people of one religion or sect using religion as an excuse to murder people with different religious beliefs. To mention just a few examples:
  • the slaughter of the Huguenots by French Catholics in the sixteenth century
  • Hindus and Muslims killing each other when Pakistan separated from India in 1947
  • the persecution and killing of Shiite Muslims by Sunni Muslims in Iraq
  • the murder of Protestants by Catholics and vice versa in Ireland (both of these examples in the late twentieth century)
  • the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that continues as of 2018 – According to some critics of religion, such beliefs can encourage completely unnecessary conflicts and in some cases even wars. Many atheists believe that, because of this, religion is incompatible with world peace, freedom, civil rights, equality, and good government. On the other hand, most religions perceive atheism as a threat and will vigorously and even violently defend themselves against religious sterilization, making the attempt to remove public religious practices a source of strife.
  • Some people may be unable to accept the values that a specific religion promotes and will therefore not join that religion. They may also be unable to accept the proposition that those who do not believe will go to hell or be damned, especially if said nonbelievers are close to the person.
  • The maintenance of life and the achievement of self-esteem require of a person the fullest exercise of reason—but morality (people are taught ests on and requires faith.
Kiddle: Religious belief
Wikipedia: Belief
 
 
 
 
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