I watched the movie, The Ledge, the other day, and have to sort of basically agree with this NYT Review of it. Despite its flaws, it had enough drama in it to keep me from walking out on it. Basically, the evangelicals were cardboard cutout characters, though their arguments were generally portrayed accurately, if not eloquently. If you are a freethinker, you might still enjoy the movie. If you are Christian, you probably won't because of its arguments against Christian theology, The symbolic imagery in the movie is overplayed and transparent; you want symbolism to dawn on you like a surprise rather than being painted in huge billboard letters.
But leaving aside the artistic and perhaps intellectual criticism of the movie, one point struck me later that seems a general point worth remembering; namely,. almost all serious religion is about dealing with one's own demons. Mostly those demons don't go away with religion if they are not faced squarely; they just morph into religious demons that continue to disfigure and haunt lives -- their own and the lives of others through their preaching and lecturing zeal. There's really no point in rationally arguing with these people; that's not where they are coming from. Their "rational" arguments are "rationalized" arguments essential to their emotional survival. In the movie, Joe turns to religion to deal with his addiction to drugs and pornography. Shana, his wife, becomes attached to religion (and Joe) to deal with fear of abandonment and her drug addiction.
When I recalled throughout my life people who were intensely devoted to religion, I saw an eerie pattern. They were all people with major dysfunctions in their life -- desperately seeking and clinging to anything that would rescue them from something they dreaded worse. Irrational beliefs, and their corollary dysfunction, must have seemed a very small price to pay. for the relief they were attempting to find.
It explains why depressives tend to flock to religion. The unresolvable stress at the root of their disease that creates the chemical outpour that creates the emotional turmoil that creates an internal irrational logic that creates more emotional turmoil which creates more stress which releases more chemicals must seem to an unbreakable cycle of misery. Belief in religion (at whatever cost is paid to rationalize it) must seem a small price to pay to try to escape the relentless anxiety underlying the problem. (See this link for one of the best discussions of depression I've come across -- by Robert Sapolksy.)
Over the last several years, I have watched and listened to people who came to our small meditation group. More than 90% have had problems in their life they were having difficulty resolving. Those who had nonreligious support (for example those coming from AA, NA, or psychological counseling) found meditation helpful in their efforts, and usually persisted regularly until it had beneficial impact. Those without nonreligious support faded when relief wasn't immediate; most went on to seek some other religious elixir.
The above may sound like I am unsympathetic, but I am not. In fact seeing more clearly the dysfunction that is a frequent cause of religious behavior makes me more tolerant of the logical and factual failures of what passes as religious thinking. I do not have tolerance for their infliction of harm on others, nor the self-hatred they project onto others. It's more like, I suppose, understanding why people might sometimes get drunk, without exonerating them from misbehavior that results from their choice. It makes a difference that I can't exactly explain, but I tend to view them less harshly without becoming more accepting of their harm.
I could of course be at least partly or totally wrong. Over the next few months, I will look at this more closely with the people I encounter and remember. But it may very well may be that asking the question, "Why are you religious?" is a malformation of more useful and appropriate questions: "What problems are you trying to solve in your life?" "What demons are you trying to overcome?"