What's So Special About Belief?

[Skorian]

Wow, that is a good question. I think that would be different for each person.

Ah, but the answer I am looking for is an answer that would be true for everyone. The distinction is how specific the answer is.

In many cases maybe it's just what they were taught or what they grew up "knowing" so to speak (in other words it's they way people around them believed and so it just became a part of them through their environment). But I'm sure there could be other reasons as well.

It could be that something major happened in their life and what they believe is something that explains it for them. That's kinda how it is for me. Over time my belief has changed to better fit my life and experiences. It's not as ingrained for me as it is for many people which allows it to evolve as my life/experiences/perceptions change.

 

[LonelyDragon]

Ah, but the answer I am looking for is an answer that would be true for everyone. The distinction is how specific the answer is.

I don't think belief is the kind of thing that can be nailed down to one driving force for everyone. The only way I can see for that to be the case is if everyone had the same belief, personality, upbringing ... basically all the same person.

Look at it this way. If you ask people why they like their favorite show on tv you're going to get different answers. Even if it's the same show. (Some may like the acting, some the story line, etc.) So I don't think something as complex as belief can be nailed down narrowed down to one reason or cause.

 

[Skorian]

Ah, but the answer I am looking for is an answer that would be true for everyone. The distinction is how specific the answer is.

I don't think belief is the kind of thing that can be nailed down to one driving force for everyone. The only way I can see for that to be the case is if everyone had the same belief, personality, upbringing ... basically all the same person.

Look at it this way. If you ask people why they like their favorite show on tv you're going to get different answers. Even if it's the same show. (Some may like the acting, some the story line, etc.) So I don't think something as complex as belief can be nailed down narrowed down to one reason or cause.

I know, but you missed my point. Most beliefs tend to have a great deal in common with each other.

One possible explanation I would give is that people have beliefs to help them deal with their own weaknesses.

Those with the strongest beliefs often seem to have alot of fear. People in general want others to think like they do. This is the catalyst for why so many religious folks preach fear and use fear to try to bludgeon others into believing as they do. This is also why fear is such a large part of many religions. The religion itself helps them face their fears. In many cases allowing them to believe in mystical forces that protect them. Or justifying getting your enemies before they get you (a different approach to removing their fear). Religion helps people to gather together under the same ideals. Many people use the rational that because others agree with them, that what they want to believe is infact true and deny the fact that the idea itself is what needs to be looked at. Denying that agreement on something is often meaningless.

 

[LonelyDragon]

Ah, but the answer I am looking for is an answer that would be true for everyone. The distinction is how specific the answer is.

I don't think belief is the kind of thing that can be nailed down to one driving force for everyone. The only way I can see for that to be the case is if everyone had the same belief, personality, upbringing ... basically all the same person.

Look at it this way. If you ask people why they like their favorite show on tv you're going to get different answers. Even if it's the same show. (Some may like the acting, some the story line, etc.) So I don't think something as complex as belief can be nailed down narrowed down to one reason or cause.

I know, but you missed my point. Most beliefs tend to have a great deal in common with each other.

One possible explanation I would give is that people have beliefs to help them deal with their own weaknesses.

Ok, I think I see where you're going. And that is one possible explanation that probably covers a great many people. But then there's also trying to explain their existence. (Or the existence of the world/universe or whatever.) When I was trying to figure things out when I was younger I asked people why they believe in God they've answered with a question something like "How else do you explain you existing?" Obviously people have come up with other theories to answer that. But it at least says to me that looking for that explanation is behind at least some people's beliefs.

Oh and btw, I usually answered them with my own question. "Are you telling me God is really cruel enough to create me and put me in my life?" I have since come to realize that He is and apparently believes He has good reason.

 

[Skorian]

Ah, but the answer I am looking for is an answer that would be true for everyone. The distinction is how specific the answer is.

I don't think belief is the kind of thing that can be nailed down to one driving force for everyone. The only way I can see for that to be the case is if everyone had the same belief, personality, upbringing ... basically all the same person.

Look at it this way. If you ask people why they like their favorite show on tv you're going to get different answers. Even if it's the same show. (Some may like the acting, some the story line, etc.) So I don't think something as complex as belief can be nailed down narrowed down to one reason or cause.

I know, but you missed my point. Most beliefs tend to have a great deal in common with each other.

One possible explanation I would give is that people have beliefs to help them deal with their own weaknesses.

Ok, I think I see where you're going. And that is one possible explanation that probably covers a great many people. But then there's also trying to explain their existence. (Or the existence of the world/universe or whatever.) When I was trying to figure things out when I was younger I asked people why they believe in God they've answered with a question something like "How else do you explain you existing?" Obviously people have come up with other theories to answer that. But it at least says to me that looking for that explanation is behind at least some people's beliefs.

Oh and btw, I usually answered them with my own question. "Are you telling me God is really cruel enough to create me and put me in my life?" I have since come to realize that He is and apparently believes He has good reason.

Ah, but do we really have to answer where we came from? I mean there are many answers and many possibilities. Wouldn't it stand to reason that in terms of religious beliefs in many cases the answer isn't really about real answers or truth, but instead in justifying the rest of the religion? I think it's more about having a defensive position and something to believe and latch onto. Which is why the most religious often need the least amount of proof towards what they believe. Instead saying things like nothing a GOD did would prove his existence. Which is rather redundant and ridiculous really.

I guess what I am saying is that a great many beliefs are literally an attempt at defending ones self from something. What religions are not this? I think there are some, but they are a different breed. I think I just confused myself .

 

[TheLonelySkeptic]

Ok, I think I see where you're going. And that is one possible explanation that probably covers a great many people. But then there's also trying to explain their existence. (Or the existence of the world/universe or whatever.) When I was trying to figure things out when I was younger I asked people why they believe in God they've answered with a question something like "How else do you explain you existing?" Obviously people have come up with other theories to answer that. But it at least says to me that looking for that explanation is behind at least some people's beliefs.

Oh and btw, I usually answered them with my own question. "Are you telling me God is really cruel enough to create me and put me in my life?" I have since come to realize that He is and apparently believes He has good reason.

Ah, but do we really have to answer where we came from? I mean there are many answers and many possibilities. Wouldn't it stand to reason that in terms of religious beliefs in many cases the answer isn't really about real answers or truth, but instead in justifying the rest of the religion? I think it's more about having a defensive position and something to believe and latch onto. Which is why the most religious often need the least amount of proof towards what they believe. Instead saying things like nothing a GOD did would prove his existence. Which is rather redundant and ridiculous really.

I guess what I am saying is that a great many beliefs are literally an attempt at defending ones self from something. What religions are not this? I think there are some, but they are a different breed. I think I just confused myself .

Though the topic seems to gone down a different avenue while I was asleep/at school, I'm glad this discussion was inspired. Keep it going!

 

[Skorian]

Political, social, personal, economic and other avenues of opinion aren't immune from ridicule. Why should religion be of any exception?

I'd like to hear some arguments.

Hmmm, in regards to your last post, I will wrap the two together. Assuming that many religions are based upon helping people to protect themselves from their own weaknesses. Assuming fear being one weakness people have. Would it not stand to reason that a challenge upon the identity of these beliefs is a threat to peoples prospect of identity and seen as an outright threat to their stability and sanity? And wouldn't such a threat result in the responses that seem to so commonly take place? I mean if one believes in GOD, then one believes that abandoning that faith will constitute them going to hell. One could almost assume that many religious folks live in abject terror. Many even believe that if that belief is stripped away that their belief in their religion is all the keeps them from going postal on their neighbors. Rarely are any other beliefs so rapped up in people’s emotional states.

This is why most religious discussions go down in flames. Those who are defending their faith are quite simply not interested in truth, understanding, reality, objectively, knowledge, fairness, or any other rationally fruitful endeavors. And just in saying this, many believers will flee into total states of denial or get angry. Both ways to shut off their abilities to think, learn, or hear. And still even pointing this out won't breach such barriers. They are instead only out to defend their mental state and block out all else.

 

[An archist]

Well, you seem to only be confining yourself to religious belief, yet there are a great many other kinds as well.

I think we daily make a lot of assumptions, which henceforth I will be calling beliefs, in order to make our existence somehow more acceptable. For instance, I believe I will be going to go to school in several hours yet there are no guarantees that I will arrive there safely. We're able to go outside and live in the world because we believe we're not going to get killed in the process. Now, you may not want to call this 'belief' because it is a conjecture which has been tested every day for our entire lives so far. Well, if somebody asks me every day from here on if I believe I'm going to die today, my answer will always be "no, I don't believe I'm going to die today" but eventually I will give that same answer on the very day I die. Does that make the belief wrong? I wouldn't say so. A belief needn't be correct as that's not it's purpose: one has these beliefs not to rigorously prove something to oneself, but to give the person the ability to act as if it has been proven.

Now, I'll admit there's something different between religious belief and believing that I'm not going to get hit by a truck on my way to school today, as the latter pertains to something much more specific (call it microbelief). Well, religion is sort of a big umbrella of belief which gives the believer the sense that everything has been explained already, thereby allowing them to go about their lives more secure and confident in the way things are.

Now, religious belief tends to lend itself towards fanaticism in some. Well, this can happen with other beliefs as well. Free market fanaticism comes to mind right away. “Got laid off? Well, the invisible hand hath seen fit to relieve you of your job. Don't like it? Well, that's the free market! That's the modern world! Disagree do you? You unbelieving red heretic! Go back to Russia! There's a financial melt down? Am I defending an outmoded economic system? **** off! The invisible hand just wants a not so invisible handout right now. Fork it over!”

Another type of fanatic believer one encounters a lot on the internet are these lay believers in science. They are very staunch about religious belief causing nothing but misery throughout all of human history and seem to think that people with religious belief are hopelessly stuck in the Middle Ages. What's particularly ironic about these people is that they confidently proclaim the superiority of rationalism, objective investigation and experimentation of science on the one hand while having never having studied these things themselves. So the bash religious belief while having a very fanatical belief in science. If you can't understand something, you should probably pick your battles carefully lest you're out to get pwn'd. Does this mean that science is this fallen sort of knowledge cuz there are some ********* who think they're experts cuz they read the intro to “A Brief History of Time”? No, but their beliefs are unfounded—just like any other kind of belief.

To go back to the acceptability of belief bashing, well I never thought it was unacceptable. I grew up in an atheist household, in an atmosphere where the common perception of religion was Homer Simpson falling asleep in church while Rev. Lovejoy was boring the piss out of everybody but Ned Flanders in that monotone voice of his. Before 2000 I had no idea that religion still played a role in peoples lives but then we saw these Christian fanatics gain much more prominence. If you're freaked out by the perceived amount of power they seem to have attained, don't be. I heard an argument once characterizing the rise of the Christian right as a result of more and more people leaving these institutions. Which makes sense: as more people stop believing and going to church, it makes sense that the percentage of Christian crazies will increase as they will be the last people to go.

 

[TheLonelySkeptic]

Political, social, personal, economic and other avenues of opinion aren't immune from ridicule. Why should religion be of any exception?

I'd like to hear some arguments.

Hmmm, in regards to your last post, I will wrap the two together. Assuming that many religions are based upon helping people to protect themselves from their own weaknesses. Assuming fear being one weakness people have. Would it not stand to reason that a challenge upon the identity of these beliefs is a threat to peoples prospect of identity and seen as an outright threat to their stability and sanity? And wouldn't such a threat result in the responses that seem to so commonly take place? I mean if one believes in GOD, then one believes that abandoning that faith will constitute them going to hell. One could almost assume that many religious folks live in abject terror. Many even believe that if that belief is stripped away that their belief in their religion is all the keeps them from going postal on their neighbors. Rarely are any other beliefs so rapped up in people’s emotional states.

This is why most religious discussions go down in flames. Those who are defending their faith are quite simply not interested in truth, understanding, reality, objectively, knowledge, fairness, or any other rationally fruitful endeavors. And just in saying this, many believers will flee into total states of denial or get angry. Both ways to shut off their abilities to think, learn, or hear. And still even pointing this out won't breach such barriers. They are instead only out to defend their mental state and block out all else.

I agree that people cling to their religions as a sort of comfort blanket; and yes, religious people do live in abject fear. I was one of these people. Up until I was about eighteen (I'm twenty-one now), I was a total "Jesus Freak." I remember sitting in my room printing out hundreds of little prayer cards that read, "How can Kevin pray for you today?_____________." and handing them out at my school. I don't think anyone could look at something like that and claim that I was "never a true Christian."

I apologize for turning this into an autobiography, but it's crucial to my point. After high school, I drifted away from my faith. I had met this girl named Charley, fell for her, we had sex and she got me into drugs. This lasted for about a year until I "came back to Christ" and devoted my life to Christianity again (after days and days of knee-to-floor begging of course). But experiencing the darker side of the world -- that is, the world my parents had sheltered me from -- had seeded doubt in my mind; so I decided that I was going to reassure my faith by doing what few Christians actually set aside the time to do -- read the whole Bible, front to back, and study it as I went along.

As I passed up Exodus I began to think to myself, "I don't believe a lick of this. . .'6 days?' 'Global Flood?' Why would God kill all those innocent babies in Egypt just to make a point?" That abject fear, however, was still so strong in me that whenever one of these thoughts meandered into my mind I dropped to my knees and begged for forgiveness again. I read on, and read on, and read on. I covered the whole of the Old Testament, and by the time I reached the end I couldn't suppress the doubt anymore.

So I did what any fluffy Christian would do: I begged my fluffy God to reassure my faith. Sure enough, I felt "the Holy Spirit" speak to me, saying that, surely, the New Testament would strengthen my resolve. That's the book with all the happy stuff in it, after all. As a matter of fact, when I got to the Sermon on the Mount, all faith I had possessed was gone. I was angry. I felt abandoned. I felt tricked by my parents. I was pissed.

I had been led to believe this dogma -- this source of anxiety, and of fear, and of intellectual oppression -- and had come to realize that none of it made a lick of sense to me. So I started reading other books. By that time, "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris had come out. I saw it on the bookshelf at Barnes and Noble and sat down to read it. I got past the first two chapters and realized to myself: "I don't know. I don't know, and that's okay. It's okay not to know."

And that revelation was more liberating than any invocation of the holy spirit I'd ever been subject to before. So I picked up Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" and that got me interested in Evolution. Now, a few Christmases before my parents had bought me a listening tape called "Someone's Trying to Make a Monkey Out of You!" It was a creationist propaganda tape that up until now I had held to be true. This is important because in reading Dawkins' book I began to realize that Religion as a whole is nothing more than a scam, a money-maker, a vice grip of power and has been since it first emerged from the muddy minds of primitive man.

And that's my point. Religion is based in fear, anxiety, and threats of hellfire not because it offers a release from said things; no, indeed it uses the very things it offers a release from as a way to retard the mind, squander intellectual thought, and empty the pockets of the gullible. Nothing more, nothing less. Science is the single most honest source of information-gathering we have about our world. Logic and Reason are tools we use, and they are drawn from records of how the universe has worked in the past. How we observe the universe dictates our logic, and so far, logic is the only reasonable tool we have for observing the universe. What, to you, is more beautiful? The concept of an event horizon -- the breaking point of a black whole where past not even light can escape; the observation by us mere humans on this "pale blue dot" that we are, indeed, so small and so insignificant and so lucky to exist as part of an unimaginably large universe wherein atoms make up molecules and molecules make up stars and a hundred billion of these stars make up a single one of a hundred billion galaxies? Or a god-man sending demons into pigs and running them off a cliff; or turning water into wine; or the purports of a man in antiquity, wherein a healthy majority of the population couldn't even read, to be the son of God? The garden is just as beautiful without the idea that fairies live at the bottom, and the universe is infinitely more beautiful when our imaginations aren't retarded by prehistoric ideas of megalomaniacal gods.

 

[Skorian]

The funny thing is I was raised Lutheran, but never ever believed it. Not even when I was a small child. I mean I was taken to church every Sunday for 18 years. Which just goes to show that not everyone falls pray to brainwashing no matter its significance. By the time I was in junior high I could see through it. I didn’t know what it meant to see beyond what was being said, but it was obviously ridiculous. I am not going to say that many aspects of religion aren’t useful and don’t have some good intent, but overall it fails to really accomplish what it sets out to achieve. I don’t even need to read the whole bible to see that it is a farce. Instead much like I wrote out a couple days ago. All I need is to take a few pieces of the bible and tear into them a bit to see if GOD is a deserving being of praise. I honestly find the concept of worship itself distasteful.

Now, I am agnostic. There are things in this world we fail to understand. There is some evidence that suggests the existence of things we can’t see or understand. But I think the question needs to be asked. If GOD or Satan exist, are they even good? Or are they monsters? Are they so shallow that denying your belief in them should result in you being punished? It seems as if all those traits set down as what leads to a higher state of being are not possessed by GOD himself. So how does that make sense? We are told not to challenge his will. Well, I have news for those too blind to see reason. If he was a higher being he would not be threatened by being challenged. After all if he is good, considering how powerful he is. Well GOD would have nothing to fear from the likes of us.

And yes, it is used to control people.

 

[TheLonelySkeptic]

The funny thing is I was raised Lutheran, but never ever believed it. Not even when I was a small child. Which just goes to show that not everyone falls pray to brainwashing no matter its significance. I mean I was taken to church every Sunday for 18 years. By the time I was in junior high I could see through it. I didn’t know what it meant to see beyond what was being said, but it was obviously ridiculous. I am not going to say that many aspects of religion aren’t useful and don’t have some good intent, but overall it fails to really accomplish what it sets out to achieve. I don’t even need to read the whole bible to see that it is a farce. Instead much like I wrote out a couple days ago. All I need is to take a few pieces of the bible and tear into them a bit to see if GOD is a deserving being of praise. I honestly find the concept of worship itself distasteful.

Now, I am agnostic. There are things in this world we fail to understand. There is some evidence that suggests the existence of things we can’t see or understand. But I think the question needs to be asked. If GOD or Satan exist, are they even good? Or are they monsters? Are they so shallow that denying your belief in them should result in you being punished? It seems as if all those traits set down as what leads to a higher state of being are not possessed by GOD himself. So how does that make sense? We are told not to challenge his will. Well, I have news for those too blind to see reason. If he was a higher being he would not be threatened by being challenged. After all if he is good, considering how powerful he is. Well GOD would have nothing to fear from the likes of us.

And yes, it is used to control people.

This is one of the central themes addressed in my fantasy novel. Given that a being is supposedly all-powerful, why would it be threatened by challenge? If a being is omnipresent, why would it be threatened by investigation? Stuff like that.

And there's that 'agnostic' word again. Gnosticism and agnosticism can't really be used, I think, when discussing God or the otherwise supernatural. The word gnostic comes from the Greek word gnostikos (Latin gnostici) meaning literally "those who know." Gnosticism and agnosticism deal with knowledge. In that sense, everyone is "agnostic" towards claims of the supernatural, since nobody can know for sure. Theism, however, deals with what we believe. We have the Greek word theos, meaning God, and the word theism, meaning "the belief in a god or gods." Therefore, if you have no specific belief in a god or gods, you are an atheist (the prefix a meaning not, or without).

Another theme addressed in my stories is the idea of "might makes right." In Christian theology, God is depicted as the all-powerful, all-knowing alpha and omega, the creator of the universe. Satan, conversely, is a creation of God and is depicted as a quasi-powerful wholly-evil entity of darkness. By what basis do we trust God, the supposed good guy, in his accusation that Satan is the evil adversary? Lucifer, in Pagan mythology, meant "bringer of light/knowledge." How do we know -- what reason do we have to trust God -- that Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, is the bad guy? (Don't get me wrong, I'm an atheist. My lack of belief extends equally to the two entities.)

 

[TheLonelySkeptic]

Well, you seem to only be confining yourself to religious belief, yet there are a great many other kinds as well.

I think we daily make a lot of assumptions, which henceforth I will be calling beliefs, in order to make our existence somehow more acceptable. For instance, I believe I will be going to go to school in several hours yet there are no guarantees that I will arrive there safely. We're able to go outside and live in the world because we believe we're not going to get killed in the process. Now, you may not want to call this 'belief' because it is a conjecture which has been tested every day for our entire lives so far. Well, if somebody asks me every day from here on if I believe I'm going to die today, my answer will always be "no, I don't believe I'm going to die today" but eventually I will give that same answer on the very day I die. Does that make the belief wrong? I wouldn't say so. A belief needn't be correct as that's not it's purpose: one has these beliefs not to rigorously prove something to oneself, but to give the person the ability to act as if it has been proven.

Now, I'll admit there's something different between religious belief and believing that I'm not going to get hit by a truck on my way to school today, as the latter pertains to something much more specific (call it microbelief). Well, religion is sort of a big umbrella of belief which gives the believer the sense that everything has been explained already, thereby allowing them to go about their lives more secure and confident in the way things are.

Now, religious belief tends to lend itself towards fanaticism in some. Well, this can happen with other beliefs as well. Free market fanaticism comes to mind right away. “Got laid off? Well, the invisible hand hath seen fit to relieve you of your job. Don't like it? Well, that's the free market! That's the modern world! Disagree do you? You unbelieving red heretic! Go back to Russia! There's a financial melt down? Am I defending an outmoded economic system? **** off! The invisible hand just wants a not so invisible handout right now. Fork it over!”

Another type of fanatic believer one encounters a lot on the internet are these lay believers in science. They are very staunch about religious belief causing nothing but misery throughout all of human history and seem to think that people with religious belief are hopelessly stuck in the Middle Ages. What's particularly ironic about these people is that they confidently proclaim the superiority of rationalism, objective investigation and experimentation of science on the one hand while having never having studied these things themselves. So the bash religious belief while having a very fanatical belief in science. If you can't understand something, you should probably pick your battles carefully lest you're out to get pwn'd. Does this mean that science is this fallen sort of knowledge cuz there are some ********* who think they're experts cuz they read the intro to “A Brief History of Time”? No, but their beliefs are unfounded—just like any other kind of belief.

To go back to the acceptability of belief bashing, well I never thought it was unacceptable. I grew up in an atheist household, in an atmosphere where the common perception of religion was Homer Simpson falling asleep in church while Rev. Lovejoy was boring the piss out of everybody but Ned Flanders in that monotone voice of his. Before 2000 I had no idea that religion still played a role in peoples lives but then we saw these Christian fanatics gain much more prominence. If you're freaked out by the perceived amount of power they seem to have attained, don't be. I heard an argument once characterizing the rise of the Christian right as a result of more and more people leaving these institutions. Which makes sense: as more people stop believing and going to church, it makes sense that the percentage of Christian crazies will increase as they will be the last people to go.

I agree that Science does not, and possibly cannot, provide us with step-by-step instructions to finding the answers of the universe. Logic and reason, however, as I stated in my post to Skorian, are not objectified by us. You gave a good example of how science and reason work: we walk to school everyday not because we know we won't be killed in the process, but because we have a record of days we've walked to school in the past wherein we were not killed, and so we can make the conclusion (you use the word assumption incorrectly, as an assumption is made without evidence) that we will not be killed this time around. This is exactly how logic and reason work. We do not define logic and reason, the universe -- the observation of our surroundings and the interpretation of our experiences -- define them for us. Religion, on the other hand, makes claims that are not based in this sphere of experience, and therefore cannot be proven by this system of reasoning.

People like me stand by science not dogmatically, as you imply, but with knowing that it's the best system we have for determining how the universe works. The scientific method -- that is hypothesis, experimentation and rigorous peer review -- has given us the cure for polio, the moon landing, the very nanotechnology you and I are using to communicate with each other at this very moment. I posit that you cannot disagree with this. With that in mind, please redefine your accusation that science and theistic belief share the same level of absurdity.

Many of your other points I mildly to fully agree with, so I won't address them.

 

[Van Hooligan X]

don't worry zak, i'll help you fight...cause i'm you...so i have too lol


i'm tempted to put 'because that my belief that i am zak'

but then i'd just be getting comments like 'OhZ i SeE wHaT yOu DiD tHuR! lulz!' but also having said that, it would stop this post being spam, therefore:

imma fighting for zak! cause i'm him and tis what i belief

 

[Robin]

Holy damn. Skorian, why do You ask a question You not only, as usual, are the most cunning in due to Your endless general knowledge, but also already had completely figured out Yourself? lol. Just curious!

 

[Robin]

I'd like to hear some arguments.

You came to the right place.

lol

 

[Skorian]

Holy damn. Skorian, why do You ask a question You not only, as usual, are the most cunning in due to Your endless general knowledge, but also already had completely figured out Yourself? lol. Just curious!

Well anyone is welcome to answer any question too.

It's just I have figured out the best way to finding any answer is through asking the right questions. So once I ask the question, an answer usually just comes to me. To me the right question is much harder then possible answers.

I sometimes think that my brain has a brain of it's own.