How did you come to believe what you do?

I'm an agnostic, and I'm very curious these days about why people believe what they do. I had a conversation with a very close friend of mine today, and she told me that we get to pick what we want to believe. She said if it works for you to believe in something, then believe in it. This statement was not only confusing but disconcerting to me. I have always been under the impression that people believe what they believe because they actually think it's TRUTH. But if more and more people feel as she does, then we're dealing with beliefs of convenience, right? The reason I'm agnostic is because of uncertainty. There is no evidence that a Supreme Being exists. The main argument I hear is how believers just "feel" it or they chalk up synchronicity as God's work. Our brains are very powerful, and we can "feel" anything if we put our minds to it.

I would love to hear all points of view on this subject. Agnostic also means "open", which means I am open to listening to all sides. I'm open to a Supreme Being existing, when I see the evidence.

 

Just speaking anecdotally, from my own experience, it appears that many claim beliefs that they don't actually hold, simply due to peer pressure and a desire to "fit in".

 

I'm not sure

that is to say, I was raised without religion rating a mention. multi-generational atheism right back to great-grandparents, born in the 19th century. but there was no mention of atheism as a concept, either. the supernatural realm was just a non-issue. it was as relevant to our suburban western lives as herding alpacas in the Andes would be. ie, not at all. my folks were big on music, literature, science, nature, vegetarianism, that sort of thing. god was just some whacky concept subscribed to by certain stitched up old ladies - it was all very alien.

my atheism as a distinct self-identity didn't really develop until well into adulthood, and is primarily a result of travel, thought, political activism, education, and exposure to the corrupting influence of religious beliefs - Christianity in particular.

 

My beliefs stand mostly from personal experiences. I have some prejudices against Christians and other religious people because a lot of them have always treated with disgust and condemnation because I don't believe in God and have experienced a lot of bullying from them. Certain bullying I experienced when I was young got me to wondering if this is how god wants his people to act, then I really want no part of it. Christianity was meant to save souls and not be a force of intimidation and oppression.

The other thing that influences me too is that there are a lot of problems and contradictions with the Bible that I've come to realize over the last couple of decades of explporing the subject. For examples, I have huge problems with the concept of free will.

But my beliefs I came to happened over a slow long number of years.

 

What constitutes a belief and what doesn't is always going to be a bit tricky, what I believe in are approaches, and those approaches can give me statements about individual questions, or religions and so on.

I believe that in order to come to correct conclusions in questions like these, I need to understand both the problem and any proposed solutions (a mindset I believe comes from education and some experience with persuasive yet flawed reasoning, mostly in the sciences). In order to understand the problem about the existence of God, I need to understand what the word God means. This does not mean that I need to have a full understanding of everything that God does or have done or so on, it just means that I need to know what the word means, ie, what can I prove the existence of that would bring me an answer to the question of the existence of God. It was with this mindset I arrived at this forum, five years ago, and I've still not managed to pin down what people mean by God (or for that matter the existence thereof), at least not in any way that gives me a route to any meaningful answers.

After a few years, I stumbled over the wikipedia site for ignosticism, and found out that the approach I had not only was a valid end point of reasoning, given the information I have, but an established approach to religion. That's when I stared going by theological noncognitivist.

 

Well, here you go: that’s relativism for you. There's no such thing as absolute "truth" in the postmodern world.

Why do you think our brains are that powerful? If our brains are capable of religious feelings would it not be reasonable to assume that this may well be because there is something that this capacity is directed at?

While believers will tell you that they see our whole existence as evidence, not even believers (if they know the first bit of theology) expect that it's possible to find empirical evidence for the Supreme Being one of whose main supposed properties is that it transcends this world.

 

they actually think it's TRUTH...
You can conceptualize that any way you choose. Should you choose to believe something as true then it may well be TRUE for you. It's your reality so the question is, does that truth fit into your logical conclusion?

That you are open to listening to all sides is a good sign that you are open to discovering those truths that you really want to believe. The truth [the ball] is in your court for you to find. Or don't. But only you can find your truth.

Start with googling things like afterlife, spiritual, names of people your read in the forums, words dealing with religion and philosphy that you might not understand. Read. Then read some more. It doesn't always have to make sense, you don't have to believe it, you don't have to care. But if you want the truth, only you can find it. No one is going to hand it to you in any way that you will accept as the TRUTH. To wit... your original post.

 

indeed, a meaningful (and useful) definition of the word 'god' would be handy. I've not found one, either.

 

because they are. and they're capable of feelings, whatever grandiose flavour or name you choose to give those feelings. emotions (the technical term for feelings, if you will) serve a purpose - always more prosaic and dull than we would like to imagine, but there you go. love might FEEL like the most meaningful and mystical thing imaginable, but it is, after all, just hormones moving us to reproduce.

 

I bet your girlfriend/boyfriend will be pleased to hear that!
But in effect it doesn't answer the question I asked. So if feelings serve a purpose, why should one assume religious feelings not to serve a purpose?

 

dearest, I haven't had a girlfriend/boyfriend in years! marriage will do that to you

meantime, my point was that our emotions serve biological purposes. the emotion you refer to as 'religious feelings' (what I would refer to as just a plain old swoon), likewise. not necessarily directly, of course, but it'll tie in to some bodily function or other. romantic, no

 

Sorry, but somehow your posts gave me an inner picture of you that had you look far too young to be married. More like a cute little 15 year old nerd who’s just discovered his bi-curiosity. And I don’t even mean that in a bad way: Keep young at heart!

If these religious feelings serve a bodily function, does it make you bodily handicapped in any way if you don’t have them?

And what bodily function do you think it is that the feelings served that made humankind waste precious resources on building pyramids, cathedrals and libraries filled to the brim with papyri, scrolls and books on metaphysics? I can’t see much of an evolutionary advantage in feelings that sent humankind on a wild-goose-chase for something beyond the material world, if there is nothing to find. Yet, our species has been very successful so far. So my closest bet would be that the purpose of those feelings is “the will to live” in a very very broad sense (“‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’” – Acts 17-28a), but I’ve got an inkling you won’t agree with that.

 

I suspect you're accustomed to a somewhat antiquated idea of 'maturity', or perhaps you're largely conventional in your social tastes Middle aged parents of teenagers and young adults where I live would all probably seem young at heart, were you to find yourself in their dreadful heathen company. Some of us have long hair and beards, some have purple hair and don't wear shoes, some play guitar walking in the street, some raise goats and volunteer at the local socialist cooperative.

Meantime ... pyramids and cathedrals are a desire to 'control' life and death, which is a VERY basic instinct indeed. It's enhanced in us due to opposable thumbs and bigger brainpan, but it's essentially the same thing as a deer running from a wolf. If deer had thumbs and a more practical bonce, they'd build deeramids and deerthedrals.

Just because we enjoy the product of our fears/hopes/survival instincts, doesn't mean that these things are meaningful beyond that stated.

 

Is that really the best that you can do? "I suspect".

 

People all insist that what they believe is True, even if the Facts deny them this.
They will claim a source inside their head has revealed the Truth to them, in spite it is different from what Science may have shown.

They do NOT consider the source MIGHT be satanic in its nature, which could be why what they believe is erroneous.

 

I suspect you're a rascal!

 

ah .... Dave, you DO realise that you've just identified a possible source of all those voices inside your own skull, dontcha? That is to say, isn't it in satan's job description to disguise himself (ever so cunningly) as the big cheese? given that, how in hades are you able to spot the difference?

on the strength of your obsession with sex and hatred of women alone, I'd suggest you might want to sent your satan detector to the shop for recalibration.

 

But you don't have any PROOF to substantiate that suspicion.. therefore,,, live in darkness.

 

Religious feelings serve the same purpose as do feelings of tribalism in general. The two (religion and tribalism) really do go hand in hand. They move us to form social groups.

 

And the feelings of disdain within non-theists towards the Theists. IMHO, it is the emotion driven state of non-theists that drive them with such a frenzy toward their actions against Theists.

 

there you go again, asserting it's night time!

 

frenzy now, Inc? that's some imagination you have there

what it actually is, is the discomfort being presently experienced by Christians in world which no longer defers to their faith. the only possible way of processing this is to demonise it (by calling it frenzied, et al). if you don't demonise it, you might start sliding down that very slippery slope yourself.

 

Wrong presumption on your part.

"darkness" meaning not having been enlightened or lacking sufficient knowledge to provide proof of your suspicion.

 

I am not worried about any slippery slopes... I have on my traction gear that enables me to remain in fixed position while the mud flows around me. You should try it. It is available at Amazon dot com.

 

is it any (*)(*)(*)(*)ing wonder I lack sufficient knowledge, when none of you will stump up?

enlightenment. aka, being a tosser

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awesome. kinda like Dave, then. he's stuck in 1852 mud.