Am I Religious?

Sat, 25 Oct, 2025

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There are not many things in common across the cultures of the world, but I believe that religion is one of them. In every community there are followers of faith. But, if religion is so prevalent, why is it that some people choose to not follow a faith? Or to follow the one they do?

Am I Religious?

Content Advisory

This article deals with content which may be upsetting to some people - particularly those with strong views on religion. Discussion includes: religious truth, philosophy, and ethics.

Religion and belief are protected characteristics in the United Kingdom under the Equality Act of 2010.

Religion is a highly complicated topic with many different forms and interpretations. It questions the very nature of our being and gives us purpose and belief. But what is it? And should you be religious? I am afraid that I cannot really answer those questions. But, I do hope to shed some light and present my view on religion - as a scientist.

History

If you ask all of the scholars, they will tell you the same thing: ‘religion is common because it started a long time ago’ - or perhaps that in slightly more words and evidently more flowery language. And that is true: people living in civilisations thousands of years ago followed religions. But why do we still have religions? A thousand years is an awfully long time - enough for the rise and fall of empires, the lives of billions of people, and roughly 7454 times the length of Liz Truss’ premiership (popular culture for you!)

Let me ask you something: do you ever question your parents’ opinions? It is fair to say that most of us do. However, would you if there was no evidence for your viewpoint, and your parents had the majority view? This may sound very restrictive, but it was the reality for many people throughout history.

With that context, it is perhaps easier to see how, once begun, religion becomes ingrained into the social fabric of communities. What I find a much more interesting question is: how do religions begin? And, unfortunately, that is a lot harder to answer.

Beliefs, Faith, and Religion

This subject area is complex and confusing, with many different and seemingly interchangeable terms used to highlight similar, but, crucially, different concepts. So, let us establish the facts:

Everything starts with beliefs, opinions held by us which we assumed to be true - examples of this include that ‘Arsenal are the best football team since the invention of sliced bread,’ and that ’the works of Shakespeare are some of the most confusing plays ever written.’

When a set of beliefs are particularly philosophical and concern ‘unknowables,’ such as morals and life itself (yes, we are going deep), they form the basis of faith. It is in this context that faith is used as an umbrella term for personal philosophy.

When a faith is shared amongst a group of people, this leads to the formation of religion. Religion is the formal system of faith and is often marked by sacred or holy texts and the creation of solid rules for living under faith (for example, the ten commandments). Formal religion involves the establishment of a central organisation that arbitrates and controls activities within the faith.

Whilst these definitions of key concepts are generalised, it is important to add that some faiths and religions may not perfectly match them.

There are a mixture of different theories about the beginnings of religions, with most attributing common requirements but differing causes for the great variety of beliefs of the world. An interesting account by Boyle et al. (2019) attributes the establishment of formal religions to a need for a higher, “supernatural” judgement, to help keep order and peace within society.

This is a convincing viewpoint, although it is, of course, worth mentioning that religions were never started to aid societal needs, but rather to support personal enlightenment. An important aspect of this is the afterlife, a belief that there is a form of life after death which is prevalent amongst a range of faiths. One of the most well-known systems of afterlife was found in Ancient Egypt, where it was believed that after death, people were transported to another world (called the Duat) after facing many “challenges” (History Skills, n.d.).

Most religions centre on spiritual teaching, emphasising what is good and what is bad (right vs wrong, etc.) as people who live a good life will be spared in the afterlife. An alternative view on the afterlife is reincarnation, whereby people are reborn after death in different earthly forms and can only break the cycle by reaching enlightenment by living a ‘pure’ life (Dowdey, 2007).

The formation of religions is most often kickstarted by the spiritual teaching mentioned in the previous paragraph, whereby an enlightened individual helps others by sharing what they believe about how to live and how this relates to the spiritual world. It is not exactly clear how people are initially enlightened to begin this process, and atheists have a multitude of different theories for how seemingly spiritual events - those that provide spiritual teachers with evidence for faith - can be explained without the need for faith.

Whatever you believe, faith and religion make for a fascinating study and remain an important element of modern society.

Belief

It is at this point that I find it relevant to pose yet another question: what is the purpose of beliefs? This question pulls us out of history and into the present, to examine what the meaning of faith is. Once again, there is no single satisfying answer - no one purpose and no common meaning. So, what can we say?

For many people, faith is an expression of philosophy, allowing us to link our world views to the spiritual and higher order. Philosophy is inextricably linked to faith and highlights a key aspect of beliefs: they are debatable because they come without proof. Throughout the years, there is nothing that has been debated more than religion. A consequence of the human condition is to ask questions, and what is more accessible than religion and beliefs - we still have those debates today, and I am certain you have at least debated a rather simpler belief: the best chocolate bar?

This interpretation also gives the rather pleasing revelation that religions are, in fact, making philosophy more accessible - relegating it from the world of pipe-smoking gentlemen and into the public conscience.

Separating Faith From the Mundane

When discussing beliefs, it is easy to confuse beliefs linked to faith with those linked to the more mundane. Your favourite film or chocolate bar is almost certainly not a matter of faith, so where do we draw the line?

I, like a broken record, have once again to say that there is no single answer to this - different people will ‘draw the line’ in different places. But, an interesting and unique question instead asks: does it matter? Many people would argue that films and chocolate bars (to reuse once more) do indeed have faith-like followings, and which one is ‘best’ is another - admittedly slightly less great - unknowable.

I will make the distinction in this article between the trivial and religious, but what I determine to be religious may well be, by requirement, controversial.

One seemingly ubiquitous role of practicing faith is to allow us to contact a greater realm and unlock a larger meaning to life, and this too is an element of belief. Faith is a powerful thing, and allows us to give meaning to life - providing motivation, morality, and peace.

Medieval monks acted as scholars, aiding the transfer of knowledge - their motivation? The will of God to give them purpose in life. Disregarding whether religion is truth or not (that comes next!), the advantages of it throughout history cannot be disputed and have greatly influenced our modern society and knowledge.

Thus is the nature of beliefs. The brain is the most powerful element of our body, and our ability for free-thought has led to a staggering array of diversity in almost every way possible - a certain cause for celebration in our cloudy and uncertain modern world.

Truth?

As people, we strive for truth. Our curiosity has led to everything from the discovery of DNA to landing man on the moon. We have questioned our purpose, beginnings, and ends well before the Ancient Greeks invented philosophy. Unfortunately, our human conscience also restricts the perceived truth of existence, and many of the questions we ask about are age-old and without answer. Beliefs and faith allow us to pose theories that answer those questions and resolve many others yet to be asked.

The advancement of science has given us a greater understanding of our beliefs and led us to question them more than ever; in turn, atheism is on the rise across the world as education and quality of life improves at an ever-increasing rate - so, does religion still have a role to play?

My answer: Yes!

That might sound odd; I’m a scientist endorsing religion? But, there is a very good reason. Science cannot answer every question; it cannot tell you what your purpose is or why the universe exists. It cannot explain consciousness or love. These are the unknowables, the things we cannot hope to know, but religion - or rather, faith - allows us to understand them.

It is truly extraordinary how our beliefs allow us to approach these deep questions and highlights their importance to modern life. I, therefore, encourage you to think carefully about the unknowables (there are many more I have not mentioned) and form your own worldview - a system of beliefs about the deeper meaning to existence.

This is where things begin to become existential, so it is here that I will stop our discussion of deep meaning - now it is your turn to consider them for yourself.

I have one more point to make before presenting my beliefs, one which I think is the most important to me: you have nothing to lose! Blaise Pascal wrote about this towards the end of his life - first in Pensées published posthumously - where he writes “‘God is, or He is not.’ But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. […] Which will you choose then? […] If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is” (Pascal, 1670, as cited in Hájek, 1998).

Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician and polymath known for his foundational work in probability theory and the theory of gases. How then did he become involved with religion?

Pascal withdrew from mathematics and science towards the end of his life and studied his devout beliefs - Catholicism. During this time, he wrote about his faith and philosophy in a somewhat stark contrast to the science that dominated most of his life. His writings on these topics were only published after his death and are still debated to this day (Clarke, 2007).

In the quote above, Pascal writes specifically about Catholicism, but I believe that much of his work can be generalised to cover religion as a whole - hence its use and relevance here.

This view highlights the core principle of beliefs - that they are indisputable due to their basis in unknowables - but uses it to show that we have nothing to lose in believing and everything to gain. The universal win-win of faith.

My Faith

What do I believe?

I believe that there is a greater being who is indirectly responsible for our existence. Science tells me that we have evolved from the first organisms that resulted from random arrangements of particles in the proto-Earth, itself formed as a result of gravity acting upon dust clouds during the development of our solar system - all of this can be explained. What cannot be is the ‘spark’ that began it all, I think that this is where a Creator was involved.

Outside of what we can know is the Creator’s domain. Everything from your purpose to consciousness is known only by Them and is forever unknowable.

Why do I believe this? Because Pascal says that I have nothing to lose.

Sources

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