How does one come to believe something?

Arsenios

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I've tried quite a few and heard about plenty more, and not many involved visualization. YMMV.

Mantras and soundings [oooommmm] count as visualizations for me... Outward foci, you see...

OIC - yes, I've spent a fair amount of time of awareness meditation on my thoughts, both actively (on the ongoing meditation itself - listen to yourself listening... kinda recursive) and passively (on the 'stream of consciousness').

Exclusion of the world, and of all thoughts... What is left is the activity of awareness aware of only itself...

Not hypnotic; it's a passive physical meditation akin to meditative qigong, and in contrast to active forms like tai-chi.

You just get the eyeball to be stilled - qigong [great spelling, btw!] caan do that, into silver light - So can hypnosis...

If you say so; I can't comment on such Chopra-esque deepities.

Deepak don't do dat Boo-Boo Da-Da! :)

Arsenios
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Mantras and soundings [oooommmm] count as visualizations for me... Outward foci, you see...
Seems to me that mantras and soundings were mostly a fad of the 1970's and 80's (the Indian mystic thing). I haven't come across them much since, although no doubt they have their place.
 
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Eyes wide Open

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Om meditation can be seen to create limbic deactivation, resulting in various benefits for the practitioner. It's an internal vibratory process, not an external thing, nor stimuli for visualisations, although any brain wave alteration can create visions whilst conscious, similar to a dream state when asleep.
 
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Arsenios

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Seems to me that mantras and soundings were mostly a fad of the 1970's and 80's (the Indian mystic thing). I haven't come across them much since, although no doubt they have their place.

Their oooommm baggage included a lot of drooling spiritual parasites...

I found them way creepy...

And worldly focused...

There is worldly spirituality...

Best left in the world...

Where its place is...

Arsenios
 
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Freodin

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They do, but they do so outside the discipleship of the Apostolic Church - You are looking, as was I, at western Christians... So that the transformations you are seeing are from really bad into the improvement of almost tolerable... They are not discipled in humility, self denial, and love for others without distinction, as a way of life...



I see that over and over...



The Eastern Orthodox Faith is pretty much unknown in the west, although it is growing...
By "my religion" you seem to understand generic Christianity as you have commonly found it...
The EOC is not in this genre - It is like nothing you know...
We are hidden in plain view...

Arsenios
Maybe you (general you, regarding the "religious" people of all stripes) really are transformed...
But maybe it is just general human hybris... atheists fall into this trap also, though they tend to chose a different flavour...

But personally, I have enormous difficulties align the concept of "humility" with "I am so very special", "I am higher than kings", "I am better than other believers because I have been discipled in humility".
 
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Chriliman

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Maybe you (general you, regarding the "religious" people of all stripes) really are transformed...
But maybe it is just general human hybris... atheists fall into this trap also, though they tend to chose a different flavour...

But personally, I have enormous difficulties align the concept of "humility" with "I am so very special", "I am higher than kings", "I am better than other believers because I have been discipled in humility".

Our entire lives spent on this perishable earth is a discipleship of humility. We shouldn't cease being humble until after our mortal perishable bodies pass away. We aren't meant to be glorified in this life, we're meant to be humble before God and that's what all true Christians should strive for, humility before God.
 
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Freodin

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Our entire lives spent on this perishable earth is a discipleship of humility. We shouldn't cease being humble until after our mortal perishable bodies pass away. We aren't meant to be glorified in this life, we're meant to be humble before God and that's what all true Christians should strive for, humility before God.
Well, if that is what you mean by "humility"... I do not understand why atheists are said to not be humble. Atheists are the most humble people ever! Our humility is better than everyone elses!

Atheists aren't meant to "be glorified in this life" AND in any other life. Atheists are humble before EVERYTHING that exists!

Take that, Christians! You are not the only one who can brag about their humility!
 
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Kylie

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May it NEVER be so!

! ! ! ANATHEMA ! ! !

Arsenios

So my husband will be in heaven, I will be in hell, my husband wil know I am suffering infinitely, and yet my husband will be completely happy?

Is he going to turn into some kind of jerk?
 
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Kylie

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My Dear - It IS so by definition, because it ONLY happens WITHIN you...

That is the quintessential ostensive definition of FIRST-HAND experience...

But it is not a first hand encounter with God, since you have no way to distinguish it from an encounter with something that you merely THINK is God...

I agree, and YOU have NO WAY to test it...

Quid, Erat, Splat!

So you can't say it is an encounter WITH GOD.

Yup - You can do the same with love... And end up married... Then divorced...

Happens all the time...

And you can experience something you think is love (but isn't), get married and have a happy relationship that lasts your whole life. You may think it is love, but it isn't, is it?

Likewise with what you think may be God.

What is real is that they castrated themselves and committed suicide...

And their conviction that what they believed was true was no less than your conviction than what you believe is true.

If someone as convinced as you can be wrong about it, you must admit that you may be wrong as well, despite your extreme conviction.

There is other evidence, but a personal encounter with God is just that: Personal... The evidence will be found externally in a revised life that proceeds from that encounter...

What other evidence? The fact that a person's life will change?

There are plenty of people who have had lives changed by a belief that you think is wrong. Changed lives are not evidence.

You have to have the encounter to know...
Until you do, you cannot know...
You can only believe or not...

So you admit that it is not testable, not verifiable.

I have no faith...

If you believe in something that has no verifiable evidence, yes, it is faith.

Show me just ONE example of an acquired physical characteristic being genetically passed on...

Have you read Koestler's "The Case of the Mid-Wife Toad"? It addresses this issue, and the one time that it seemed to have happened, and what the actual evidence was - K. was a Soviet Atheist, btw... An Apparatchik..

DNA tests to determine paternity, for example? Where does the child get the genetic material that matches that of the father if not from the father?

Not as much as Arthur Koestler...

He was an author, essayist and a journalist.

Why should I believe a thing he says about evolution?

Would you take advice from a carpenter about computer repairs? "Yeah, just delete the SYS32 folder. Makes your computer much faster."

We used to explain everything by material development... The mechanism is NOT understood, irreligious of its higher theoretical accountings...

Yes, the mechanism is very well understood. The fact you don't understand it does not change that fact.

Billiard BALLS I say!!

REAL evidence!!

There is real evidence for evolution.

The fact that you claim it is not evidence doesn't change the fact that it is very well supported evidence. (Maybe if you got your information about evolution from actual evolutionary biologists instead of authors and journalists, you'd know better.)

You are but defining your own limits...

Is this "I know you are, I said you are, but what am I?"

Wow, I haven't heard that since I was a kid.

Well, we ARE behind enemy lines and we ARE conducting operations...
So there ARE going to be counter-offensives...

Yes, all the different versions of Christianity are at war with each other.

I share your scorn for untestable feelings...

And yet you rely on it.

Or perhaps you can describe the rigorous testing that you put your faith through.

Widen your perception: It is not popularity, but historical pervasiveness that is being proffered...

Isn't that the same thing?

If you claim it is not, then please describe how to tell the difference between the two.

It is a fallacious doctrine - Social Metaphysics - Groups assemble themselves and proclaim and enforce their version of truth... The Roman Catholic Church did it in the west... Gallileo can attest... Environmentalists do it now... So do evolutionists... Enforcement is less painful than burning at the stake, but more pernicious and pervasive...

You have no idea how science actually works, do you?

"Here's my claim. Here's my evidence. If you want to say I am wrong, then show me the error in my data and explain how it is in error."

ANd yet you make it seem like scientists are just saying, "You're wrong because I don't like your conclusion!"

Evidence of SELF?

Evidence of what it is studying.

Yes, God is NOT material, so what evidence would you prefer?

Photons are not material, the higgs boson is not material, and yet we have plenty of testable and verifiable evidence for them. Why can you not provide testableand verifiable evidence for God?

That is your limitation of understanding. God is not an OBJECT, so encountering Him will not be an objectively provable event... No video-cams...

By your logic, there can never be any evidence for electricity.
 
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Kylie

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A sentient creator being exists, or does not exist. We can imagine both, no one is saying that imagining things makes them real.

I agree.

But when there is nothing to indicate that a particular is anything other than imaginary, then there is no rational reason to believe that the thing in question is real, is there?

As for questions dealing with knowing whether or not anything is certain, trusting evidence, convincing you personally or others, divine psychology, being reasonable, believing in the wrong God, and myself being conclusive and actually right... I think those are side questions that don't really have any bearing on whether or not God actually exists.

So you are saying that the issue of whether we can trust evidence or not has no bearing on whether God exists?

I hope that's not just so you can discount any evidence that goes against the idea of God.

Of course, I can use that exact same argument to discount any evidence anyone presents to claim God DOES exist. Therefore God doesn't exist.

I don't get the point you're trying to make. You're saying a lot of things which seem to go in different directions, and I'm wondering... so what? Where is this leading?

If you look carefully, each paragraph I wrote was placed after a quoted section of text. The words I wrote were a response to the quoted text.

It's quite simple.

Why do I bother. I give up on the discussion. Have a good one.

Yeah, it's hard to have a discussion about something when you admit that you will dismiss everything I say.
 
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Near

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If you look carefully, each paragraph I wrote was placed after a quoted section of text. The words I wrote were a response to the quoted text.

It's quite simple.
I don't think it's worth discussing, and there's nothing really at stake for either of us as far as I'm aware. It's a pointless discussion that isn't really fruitful. So that's why I don't really care.

Yeah, it's hard to have a discussion about something when you admit that you will dismiss everything I say.
No, it's just that you seem to be jumping to conclusions about how I think, which you've pointed out in a negative way, and I think it's pretty disrespectful; that's why I don't really want to converse. It just seems like you're wrongly portraying me as something who shuts his ears and covers his eyes to any argument that is against theism. That simply isn't true.
 
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Arsenios

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Maybe you (general you, regarding the "religious" people of all stripes) really are transformed...
But maybe it is just general human hybris... atheists fall into this trap also, though they tend to chose a different flavour...

But personally, I have enormous difficulties align the concept of "humility" with "I am so very special", "I am higher than kings", "I am better than other believers because I have been discipled in humility".

The discipleship of the Ancient Faith is utterly counter-intuitive...

"Higher than kings" means "servant of all" which means servant of God...

A woman, posing as a male monk in a men's monastery, was accused of impregnating a local girl, who dumped her baby on "him" and "he" was thrown out of the monastery for "his" sexual miscreance... "He" raised the child in a hut outside the monastery till the child turned 18 and began its life independently, and was admitted back into the monastery... the monks never figured out that "he" was a she until her death...

Counterintuitive...

Does not make any sense at all except self-denial for the benefit of others...

And a profound intimacy with God...

Arsenios
 
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Kylie

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I don't think it's worth discussing, and there's nothing really at stake for either of us as far as I'm aware. It's a pointless discussion that isn't really fruitful. So that's why I don't really care.

Then I have to wonder why you came into a discussion thread if you don't think it's worth discussing.

No, it's just that you seem to be jumping to conclusions about how I think, which you've pointed out in a negative way, and I think it's pretty disrespectful; that's why I don't really want to converse. It just seems like you're wrongly portraying me as something who shuts his ears and covers his eyes to any argument that is against theism. That simply isn't true.

So then you admit that you could, conceivably, be shown something that would change your mind?
 
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