Why do some people have religious beliefs?

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I understand. But if you go around calling yourself a Christian theist, and people say to you, "Yeah! Good on you! Those atheists don't know what they're talking about!" then you should be careful about what friends you might make. Conversely, you might find that you agree with an atheist on almost every single issue. Labels are misleading.

No, a lot of them really don't get me. Like some of them have agreed with virtually everything I've said in a conversation but were left puzzled by the overall context I was speaking through. Yah, labels can be bad, because its reduces us all to one term or concept. People are a lot more complex than that, and our commonalities outweigh our differences.

I figure that if you act Christ-like, you don't have to wear the label to let people know. People can figure it out on their own, whether you advertise a certain way you want to be perceived or not.

I understand that you did not mean to direct this thread to me, but if A leads to B and B leads C, then you've done just that.

Take a look at your points:



You haven't left much room for anyone of faith to be rational. We've succumbed to peer pressure, filled a psychological need, or willfully deceived ourselves. You can't say those things about faith without saying that people who hold faith must have succumbed to peer pressure, have a weak psyche, or are otherwise disillusioned. Which means, since I admit to holding faith, that you feel that way about me. And I am tired of being indirectly called delusional on this forum. I gave a huge amount of thought over numerous years to the concept of faith and how it fit into my life, a process that repeats frequently, and in a few paragraphs you want to discount that. I am also a person of solid intelligence, I've got the test scores and work reviews to back it up, but you talk as if the two cannot coexist. My faith isn't about peer pressure, a need to hand things over (because I don't), willful self-deception or anything else: it was pure, cold, hard logic on my part, and the simplified, summary explanation is that while science explains what happened to create the universe, it cannot say WHY it happened. To me, faith fills in the why.



While I do enjoy the social aspects of a church community, I actually find faith to add more challenge to my life, as v. simplifying it. I have hardly ignored the physical reality of the universe, nor does my faith ask me to. It is absolutely ridiculous to think the majority of people with faith ignore or don't care about evolution and science. The two coexist quite nicely in my life. I only have one friend, in the hundreds of Christians I know, that has trouble with evolution. ONE. Just because that group is vocal does not make them the norm, yet you happily use it to reach a conclusion.

The reason the debate does not end is because there are evangelicals on both sides, atheists and theists, who sincerely believe the world would be a better place if more people prioritized and believed just as they did. You are, in this thread, evangelizing your position, and until you own that, the debate won't end. I can understand why certain people feel that need, to convert people out of faith, but it is annoying that they don't just own up to it, and hide behind concepts of logic and science instead, and insidious attempts to analyze the psychology of believers.

I have no interest in debating whether or not God exists. I never join in that discussion; it cannot be resolved, and each person must decide that for themselves, using reasons that cannot be known outside of that person's own head. Some people go through phases where they are trying to decide what they believe, and then the question is worth answering, and in those cases I am happy to discuss where my personal decision came from. But the people in threads like this usually aren't seeking, they've decided, and when debate is invited in that situation, it is because you want to change hearts and minds. It is a peer pressure game, just like you accuse the churches of using.

But I can't let you all have a field day negatively psychoanalyzing what you think my subconscious motivations in holding faith are. And you ARE psychoanalyzing ME, because there is no "people who hold faith" without considering all the individuals who fall into that. If A leads to B, and B leads to C, then A is going to take you to C, too.





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Interesting, because I am not considered suggestible. I'm not into mysticism, either.

DW_a_mom, would you mind me asking how you have acquired your faith? Were you raised in your religion, or did you convert in your adult life after careful examination of various religious beliefs, as well as a secular world view? (Switching from one Christian denomination to another does not really count, since the core beliefs remain the same).

A real explanation would take pages. This is the very short version, and I am wondering if it is worth posting at all, I always feel I am being set up when I post in these threads, and I hate walking right into the set up.

To me, the key question was if God exits. I spent many years as a teen and young adult on that one question. I felt that beyond that, religion or the system of belief was more like a faith family, and if God existed, as long as I didn't find my faith family to be toxic to me, I would stick with it.

The religion is like my cultural heritage, part of what I was born into. But the faith that God existed in some form had to come from someplace else, because I didn't take much else from my family growing up as far as ideas and ideals, so why would I take that one without substantial challenge?

The more I questioned, the more I felt like God, as I understand him, tried to show me that he did, in fact, exist. Those were intangible experiences, and maybe they were influenced by a desire to reach a certain conclusion, given that I did have parents who wanted me to reach that conclusion, but I feel like they were tiny little personal revelations none-the-less. I also have a father who wanted me to be a Republican, and I most certainly am not one, even if I feel I can appreciate where they come from.

It isn't an experience that can be transferred onto anyone else.

I don't really believe in a traditional looking God; I find Him to be more of a force than a person. And I certainly do not believe that religious texts are meant to be taken literally. The logic doesn't work for me otherwise

That's not the argument I'm answering for. I made that very clear. If you are making the claim that God doesn't exist, it is up to you to prove there is no God. You're just making the claim that "it is reasonable to not believe in god."

The trouble is it is also reasonable TO believe in God.

I didn't want to set you up, but to understand or perhaps confirm a trend that I've noticed. And I guess I also want to make you consider something that I find quite interesting. Imagine for a moment that you had been raised without any god belief. If you had never heard about god as a child, do you think you would have attached the same importance to the question if god exists? (Btw, I spell god in lower case because it is not a proper name, unlike Yahweh, Jesus or Ganesha. It is not out of disrespect).

I also wonder, what if you had been raised as a Hindu? Would your search for the truth have involved multiple deities? I mean, there must be a reason that people who are raised in a monotheistic faith tend to reach the conclusion that there must be one single god when they examine their religious belief in later life. Whereas people who grow up in a polytheistic belief come to the conclusion that there must be an entire pantheon of gods that correspond to different aspects of life.

This is especially interesting when you consider that we haven't come across any species on Earth that only consists of a single specimen, so the notion of a single divine entity is somewhat counter-intuitive imho.



I also think that you felt the need to reach a certain conclusion, like you said yourself. I have no doubt that you think of your faith as rational, because you have turned the faith that you were raised in into something that seems logically consistent to you and allows you to keep the core beliefs.

In order to do that, you had to decide that the parts of the Bible (I assume?) that were logically inconsistent or contradictory, or perhaps at odds with modern scientific knowledge, are not meant to be taken literally. I think that's what many moderate believers do, even though 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all scripture is god-breathed. I mean, if I read a book that I believed to contain the word of god, I would find it very hard to decide which parts are 100% true and which parts are not.

Anyway, it is interesting that people who are raised as Christians tend to stick with a Christian belief in later life, even though they often modify it to their personal needs. Wheras Muslims remain Muslims, Hindus remain Hindus and so on. Those who are completely at odds with their childhood religion tend to turn into atheists or agnostics instead of converting to a different faith, no matter what religion they were raised in.

Last edited by CrazyCatLord on 06 Feb 2012, 9:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

On what grounds?

You are claiming something exists when there is no evidence. How is that reasonable?

Let's suppose there really isn't any evidence. Nothing exists that depends on evidence to exist. You don't have evidence that I exist, but apparently you believe in me enough to respond to my posts. Or I could have never decided to sign onto WP in the first place, or I could have just lurked in the forum without ever posting. Just because you don't KNOW or believe that I exist doesn't mean I don't exist. God exists whether we know or believe Him to exist. The evidence could be anything created by God--the world/universe, etc., a thinking mind that could conceive of a personal higher being, and so on. The evidence points more in favor of God than against God. If the evidence really isn't evidence, it still doesn't point to God's non-existence.

But all that aside, the Kalam argument is an example of a logical proof. If you can arrive at God from logic, then believing in God is reasonable. That's only one example, and there are a number of reasonable logical arguments that favor the existence of God.

So far you've denied that there is any evidence that God exists without showing evidence that God does NOT exist. You've also failed to show how it is unreasonable to believe in God.

Essentially no reasons have been provided to convince me to change my mind other than "Because I said so."

Still waiting on that evidence. So far all I've seen is a lack of it.

Someone's trying to change your mind about what you should or should not believe, Rho?

Imagine that ... attempted religious conversion ... there ought to be a law against it ...

Theists

Okay, I'll grant you that somehow you have completely convinced me that a god exists, beyond ALL doubt. For the purposes of this discussion, I now know that a god exists.

Now, how do you prove it's your god?

Holy books don't work, because then you have equal evidence for Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and several others. What evidence do you have that YOUR god exists? Why is YOUR god more reasonable to believe in than the ancient Egyptians gods?

I personally believe that when it comes to religion, far too many people get caught up in the semantics of things, and fail to see the whole picture. Does God exist? As others here have said, there is no 100% conclusive scientific evidence one way or the other (in other words, there is just as much proof that he exists as there is that he doesn't). This does not prevent me from believing wholeheartedly that he does, just as it does not prevent many people from believing that he doesn't. But, if you look at the core aspects of most of the major religions, the most important things they teach are how to live your life...they are essentially guides on how to be a better person. Whether or not you believe that there is a God should not stop you from listening to the underlying message and aspiring towards certain philosophical and religious ideals. Note that I did not mention any specific religion...that is because honestly they are all not incredibly different in terms of the messages they preach. It's just the specifics that everyone's always fighting over!

You among others have unwittingly inspired me. All this demand for evidence and such. I figured it's a two-way street.

I don't mind people trying to evangelize me. It shows they care. I can respect that. I can respect it more if it's convincing. Nobody has to convince me there is a God. Convincing me otherwise or convincing me of something that is blatantly heterodox is going to take some work. I see not why I'm less entitled to evidence in support of an alternative than someone who holds different views.

i do wonder about that - it rings true in some ways. i am terrified of death, because i "know" (as an atheist/agnostic) that i will cease to exist when i die. that is a hard idea to face.

i thought of you when i read it - you're always concerned with big ideas (it's a compliment by the way).