How does one come to believe something?

[Arsenios]

You realize that putting words in people's mouths is intellectually dishonest, right?

Here's an example:

"You're a Christian because you like abusing children."

Not very nice, is it?


And it's a sign to me that you don't have an actual argument.

You said that your mind is a function of your brain...
Your brain is a biological and material organ...
Without your brain you have no mind...
So your brain is your mental treasury...
Your mind depends on it...
Others worship food for parallel reasons...
Others power...
Others wealth...
All would deny worshiping these objects...
Yet devote their lives to them...

Philosophically, your making your mind a function of your physical brain...
Places your brain above your mind...
I can grant you that "worship of brain" is a tad over the top...
But it adds up to the same thing in my understanding...
So please forgive me for overstating your understanding...
I will remove it from the prior post.

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Hmmm, I think I've struck a (correct) nerve...

You seem to be the one making all the logical fallacies...

I hadn't heard of the term prior to you...

It looks like a good insular term to maintain one's mental superiority...

So I handed it back to you...

Such accusations are invariably confessions...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Back to the OP -

How DOES one come to believe something?

I sometimes think that experience is the ONLY teacher...

Yet as children we come to believe what our parents teach us...

OR...

We rebel against such teachings...

As adults, we need experience to come to believe...

Without it, there is but blind faith...

Arsenios

 

[ScottA]

Sure - it's called imaginary or fictional.

Okay, so you can imagine it in an imaginary or fictional way - very good, that's a start.

 

[bhsmte]

Back to the OP -

How DOES one come to believe something?

I sometimes think that experience is the ONLY teacher...

Yet as children we come to believe what our parents teach us...

OR...

We rebel against such teachings...

As adults, we need experience to come to believe...

Without it, there is but blind faith...

Arsenios

Several variables come into play in regards to the how and why people come to form beliefs. One of them is; pure psychological need, which is specific to each person. If someone really needs to believe something to satisfy a deep psychological need, the mind will manage a way to reconcile the belief.

How we think also plays a role. Analytical vs intuitive thinkers, perceive evidence and experiences differently.

Google; psychology of belief and you will find interesting reading on this topic.

 

[ScottA]

We should pathologize each other more.

The interesting thing, though: A sighted person - even though unable to "show a blind person something visual" - usually has no problem whatsoever demonstrating to him that she has a reliable sense the blind person doesn´t have.
That´s why your persisting empty appeals to your own superiority and our handicap (including the above analogy) ring just hollow.

I disagree. A blind person would have to take the hues and colors of a sunset completely on faith, and could respond to warmth on their face as no evidence at all of any such thing. And could also take the common defense used here, that multiple people saying the same thing doesn't prove the claim either.

The analogy is a very good one, but a blind person takes a whole world of unseen things on faith and the word of others, without the use of that sense completely. They could just as easily say that the touchy-feely stuff, does not even come close to demonstrating claims of the sighted.

 

[ScottA]

Hey, we're finally getting somewhere.

1. No intellectually honest person would say they know most things with 100% certainty. So I think saying you're a "believer", especially in terms of this subject, is appropriate. Other people of other religion faiths say they "know" they're correct. If the claims are mutually exclusive, then you can't all be right.

Which leads to:

2. So, if person A says "No, it's you that's not telling the truth. I know my beliefs are true, which means your beliefs can't be true.", how does a third party determine who's correct?

1. If you don't believe me when I state my position, that is fine, but it does not mean we are getting somewhere - it means we're not.

I am not responsible for others.

I am not making claims, I am sharing knowledge. It is you who define it as a "claim", simply because you don't believe what I have said. A claim against something, does not make that something a claim...that's projection. It also assumes the fact is untrue - which you are not in a position to do. So...your superior philosophical knowledge is not working for you and not helping our discussion, and you should know better.

2. The third party would first have to identify the subject and issues correctly, meaning, that all solutions do not fix all problems. In this case, worldly evidence cannot answer your question: an outside demonstration cannot be conducted inside. Once or if that is realized, the third party would have to prove the matter to themselves, or be otherwise convinced to believe it.

 

[ScottA]

Actually, the demonstration of claims IS part of Philosophy. I'm still open to sending you a basic Philosophy book to help you out. Totally serious.

You can send it here: 120 West 45th Street, Suite 2700, New York, NY 10036

You've kept saying that there's no physical evidence of a god. Now you're saying there can be. Which is it. Because we can definitely investigate physical evidence.

Be careful what you ask for. It is just as I said. But the level of physical investigation you are talking about has already failed you.

Which means it's unknowable. Which means the claim is the same as any unsubstantiated claim.

No, I gave you the answer to the way that it is knowable - which I myself, and millions of others have done. Your lack of knowledge on the subject only substantiates one thing: your lack of knowledge.

 

[quatona]

I disagree.

That´s fine with me.

 

[Arsenios]

Several variables come into play in regards to the how and why people come to form beliefs. One of them is; pure psychological need, which is specific to each person. If someone really needs to believe something to satisfy a deep psychological need, the mind will manage a way to reconcile the belief.

So let's say you are in Soviet Russia in the early 1950s, and you get picked up on an untrue accusation, and placed on a train and get dumped off at a labor camp in the Gulag with only your dress shoes and light clothing... And it's winter...

Would you say that you would then have a great and pure psychological need to believe something that would give you hope?

Or how about getting caught and buried in an avalanche?

Or maybe being claustrophobic and afraid of the dark, and having a power outage on an elevator?

Or perhaps a pure psychological need, as in a sociopath's need for his next victim?

All very specific to each person, and to go on, they need to believe something to keep on going...

As an atheist, I used to believe that Christians believed in God because they were powerless in the world because they didn't exert much effort to attain anything... They needed a god to justify their lack of effort... Psychological need... Deep...

But the OP is deeper than that... It asks HOW one comes to Faith... And profound need as a result of personal failure is normally what it takes... As long as we think we are fine, we won't hear much - Our eyes and ears are slammed shut, and our ego-coping skills are functioning... It is only when that all comes crashing down in personal failure that we then are open to coming to Faith... And then by listening to other people of Faith, or directly from God... Sometimes both...

The kicker is that we ALL will experience total personal failure, because we cannot keep alive those we love who die, and we ourselves die... No earthly or material value we may treasure is forever - All come to an end, one way or another... So that it is God Who gives the experience that brings us to Faith... And the stories are legion - A WWII sailor whose buddies were being taken by sharks in the ocean when their ship sank, and the sharks were beginning to circle him, and he prayed and promised God to serve Him if He would get him through this terror he was living... And the sharks swam away, and he lived. [Then he forgot his promise, but that is another story]

All anecdotal - But then so is daily life... Lived great or lived small...

How we think also plays a role. Analytical vs intuitive thinkers, perceive evidence and experiences differently.

I was Mr. Logic... Met God... No more Mr. Logic...

Pretty straight forward...

Google; psychology of belief and you will find interesting reading on this topic.

I "google" God in prayer as I meet people - Better results that way...

The best way I know to come to Faith is to meet God...

I was hard core in my atheism...

Took God less than one minute - A LOT less...

For those who, as was I, never have had encounters with God, I can only say this: Be true to Truth unto death... You will meet God after trials... And the Joy you will find, in the midst of catastrophic loss, will never leave you... If you abide in the Truth... I was found by God Whom I was not seeking...

And if you seek Him, you will find Him...

Arsenios

 

[Ana the Ist]

I was Mr. Logic... Met God... No more Mr. Logic...

That's far more honest than most people in your position.

 

[Arsenios]

That's far more honest than most people in your position.

The reason that Christianity is a Faith is because logic is but tinker-toys in its scope.

The Mystery of the Faith, which is God incarnate within you, is ENTERED...

IF, as so many Protestants attempt to do, one tries to PROVE this Faith logically...
One will utterly fail, for logic cannot hold it - Logic is hopelessly inadequate...
One is entering into the Genesis of the Source of logical reasoning...
Logic is ABOUT material reality...
Christianity is entry into the Source of ALL reality...

This is why the epistemological pre-requisite for knowing God
is not logically systemic, but is repentance from evil
and is the wholehearted embracing of all that is loving and good.
The path to God is very much a quest with all manner of hazards...
It is not for the faint of heart, but for the utterly bold...
Yet the battles are fought in lowliness of heart...
Because they center around denial of self...
And the turning to God...

So that in this overcoming of the dependence of self on the world...
Which is the meaning of self-denial...
The results show forth unimaginably...
Because such lives move in great love and joy...
And in utter fearlessness of material opposition...

In the philosophic annals, Thomas Aquinas had one encounter with God...
He stopped writing and teaching...
The greatest logic-master of scholasticism of the middle ages...
And he said: "Everything I have written is straw..."

When I read this as a philosophy student some 50 years ago...
At a time when I was an Ayn Rand Objectivist atheist college student...
I was staggered - I recognized a truth I did not have a way of knowing...
That quest, not in the Faith but in the world...
Culminated some 12 years later...

Honesty is not exactly an option for me...
I love the truth above all else...
I hate lies...
I have paid the dues...
I will continue to do so...

So God Bless You "Ana the Ist"...
My atheist friend...
May you walk in Joy...
And never blink!

Arsenios

 

[bhsmte]

So let's say you are in Soviet Russia in the early 1950s, and you get picked up on an untrue accusation, and placed on a train and get dumped off at a labor camp in the Gulag with only your dress shoes and light clothing... And it's winter...

Would you say that you would then have a great and pure psychological need to believe something that would give you hope?

Or how about getting caught and buried in an avalanche?

Or maybe being claustrophobic and afraid of the dark, and having a power outage on an elevator?

Or perhaps a pure psychological need, as in a sociopath's need for his next victim?

All very specific to each person, and to go on, they need to believe something to keep on going...

As an atheist, I used to believe that Christians believed in God because they were powerless in the world because they didn't exert much effort to attain anything... They needed a god to justify their lack of effort... Psychological need... Deep...

But the OP is deeper than that... It asks HOW one comes to Faith... And profound need as a result of personal failure is normally what it takes... As long as we think we are fine, we won't hear much - Our eyes and ears are slammed shut, and our ego-coping skills are functioning... It is only when that all comes crashing down in personal failure that we then are open to coming to Faith... And then by listening to other people of Faith, or directly from God... Sometimes both...

The kicker is that we ALL will experience total personal failure, because we cannot keep alive those we love who die, and we ourselves die... No earthly or material value we may treasure is forever - All come to an end, one way or another... So that it is God Who gives the experience that brings us to Faith... And the stories are legion - A WWII sailor whose buddies were being taken by sharks in the ocean when their ship sank, and the sharks were beginning to circle him, and he prayed and promised God to serve Him if He would get him through this terror he was living... And the sharks swam away, and he lived. [Then he forgot his promise, but that is another story]

All anecdotal - But then so is daily life... Lived great or lived small...



I was Mr. Logic... Met God... No more Mr. Logic...

Pretty straight forward...



I "google" God in prayer as I meet people - Better results that way...

The best way I know to come to Faith is to meet God...

I was hard core in my atheism...

Took God less than one minute - A LOT less...

For those who, as was I, never have had encounters with God, I can only say this: Be true to Truth unto death... You will meet God after trials... And the Joy you will find, in the midst of catastrophic loss, will never leave you... If you abide in the Truth... I was found by God Whom I was not seeking...

And if you seek Him, you will find Him...

Arsenios

There is no question, that peoplenin desperate situations, will gravitate towards grasping onto something, that gives them hope and this is completely independent of the objective veracity of their particular belief. It is really, a survival mechanism of sorts.

I was a christian for most of my life. The more i studied scripture and the historicity of the same, the less i could reconcile the christian story with well evidenced reality. That is just me though, as i got to a point, where i couldnt pretend to believe something i could not reconcile in my own mind.

For others, if having a personal faith belief gives them hope, makes them a better person and better to cope with life, i say that is terrific and they should keep believing. I only take issue with believers, when they negatively judge me because of non belief, need to deny well evidenced reality to protect their belief and or claim to have objective evidence for their belief, that all those who disagree, are being blind and or misled.

 

[Arsenios]

There is no question, that peoplenin desperate situations, will gravitate towards grasping onto something, that gives them hope and this is completely independent of the objective veracity of their particular belief. It is really, a survival mechanism of sorts.

I was a christian for most of my life. The more i studied scripture and the historicity of the same, the less i could reconcile the christian story with well evidenced reality. That is just me though, as i got to a point, where i couldnt pretend to believe something i could not reconcile in my own mind.

For others, if having a personal faith belief gives them hope, makes them a better person and better to cope with life, i say that is terrific and they should keep believing. I only take issue with believers, when they negatively judge me because of non belief, need to deny well evidenced reality to protect their belief and or claim to have objective evidence for their belief, that all those who disagree, are being blind and or misled.

The issue I was angling toward is that of "psychological need" being the BASIS for coming to belief... My recently reposed brother used to say all the time: "Everybody needs to believe in something... So I believe... That I will have another beer!" He was afraid to die, even though he hated the quality of his life in advanced old age... I used to psychologize people's belief in God as you seem to do, understanding it as a panacea for much that is wrong in people's souls... The old idea of there being no atheists in foxholes is the Christian version of the same thing... My problem being that I WAS the atheist IN the foxhole UNDER hostile enemy fire... (Vietnam)

And what I can report to you is that psychological need played NO part in my encountering God, but objective FAILURE in my efforts for healing of a terribly wounded soul from birth WAS the point God was awaiting for me to reach, and embrace without bitterness or rancor, to THEN do the saving encounter... It went across three Christmases... I had already gone through 3-1/2 years of daily sobbing in my losses in this life and was washed out with it... I was simply done, and I was OK with just being done, and at having been unable to crack the nut of my own soul's issues... As an atheist...

So that the psychological accounting of God's arrival needs more accounting - To attribute cause to it will miss the point, at least in some, and I would say all, genuine encounters... Demons can also show up, and do so, and they need to be discerned and turned from - I was doing that as an atheist... Not even thinking demons are real...

I, like you, never appreciated judgemental Christianity as it is so often found in the west...

Arsenios

 

[ScottA]

There is no question, that peoplenin desperate situations, will gravitate towards grasping onto something, that gives them hope and this is completely independent of the objective veracity of their particular belief. It is really, a survival mechanism of sorts.

I was a christian for most of my life. The more i studied scripture and the historicity of the same, the less i could reconcile the christian story with well evidenced reality. That is just me though, as i got to a point, where i couldnt pretend to believe something i could not reconcile in my own mind.

For others, if having a personal faith belief gives them hope, makes them a better person and better to cope with life, i say that is terrific and they should keep believing. I only take issue with believers, when they negatively judge me because of non belief, need to deny well evidenced reality to protect their belief and or claim to have objective evidence for their belief, that all those who disagree, are being blind and or misled.

You have a nice conversation going and I don't want to interfere. But what is missing in your overall assessment, is the completely foreign experience that people like myself bring to the table...which we can only speak of, because the two (this world and the next) do not mix in a way that works for you. I mean, the feel good stuff that you have described - it doesn't work for me either - because that is not even what we are talking about. And to derive from the warm and fuzzy effects that it is all just in ones mind, and not a real and separate place...is just wrong. This age old divide includes all of what you describe, but wouldn't even exist if we all just did our parlor tricks, felt good, and in the end died. No, it exists because there is indeed something more to life - something beyond this.

That something more is not just something hoped for, though many do and that is all they have. Those many are correctly described as "believers" and people of "faith." Yet there are also many such as myself, who first began the rumors, and continue to confirm the things hoped for, from personal experience. But we are not properly called people of "faith", nor do we "believe", because we have our proof already - which cannot be shared, except in words. As I have said: the two cannot be mixed in your direction - one must die.

The philosophy here, is that of looking outside of one's self, without putting up walls made only from known factors, but to press on.

 

[bhsmte]

The issue I was angling toward is that of "psychological need" being the BASIS for coming to belief... My recently reposed brother used to say all the time: "Everybody needs to believe in something... So I believe... That I will have another beer!" He was afraid to die, even though he hated the quality of his life in advanced old age... I used to psychologize people's belief in God as you seem to do, understanding it as a panacea for much that is wrong in people's souls... The old idea of there being no atheists in foxholes is the Christian version of the same thing... My problem being that I WAS the atheist IN the foxhole UNDER hostile enemy fire... (Vietnam)

And what I can report to you is that psychological need played NO part in my encountering God, but objective FAILURE in my efforts for healing of a terribly wounded soul from birth WAS the point God was awaiting for me to reach, and embrace without bitterness or rancor, to THEN do the saving encounter... It went across three Christmases... I had already gone through 3-1/2 years of daily sobbing in my losses in this life and was washed out with it... I was simply done, and I was OK with just being done, and at having been unable to crack the nut of my own soul's issues... As an atheist...

So that the psychological accounting of God's arrival needs more accounting - To attribute cause to it will miss the point, at least in some, and I would say all, genuine encounters... Demons can also show up, and do so, and they need to be discerned and turned from - I was doing that as an atheist... Not even thinking demons are real...

I, like you, never appreciated judgemental Christianity as it is so often found in the west...

Arsenios

I happen to believe, personal psychology plays a large role in what we come to believe. I am not saying this as a negative, because as i have already stated, having a personal faith belief may be the best thing for someone.

Again, i only take issue with believers, when they need to negatively judge others who disagree with their belief, need to deny well evidenced reality to protect their belief and or claim they have objective evidence to prove their belief, that all those who disagree are blind to or misled.

 

[ScottA]

What I find peculiar and completely messed up about this topic, is that the doubtful reign supreme. Instead of giving honor to the idea of higher human life as is customary with nearly all other forms of "shooting for the stars", the honor is given to the naysayers.

And what is to be said about a position or logic that only accepts its own facts and is therefore merely self-confirmed? Why should the shortsighted who are unwilling to explore beyond their own realm, have the last say? The answer, is...they don't.

However, the whole matter is more than sad...because some have set for themselves a limit short of a human achievement realized and actively enjoyed by a great percentage of the population. Sad, because we live side-by-side, sharing our natural life, while each headed for a completely different fate.

But the big roadblock would seem to be evidence...as if a moon rock would solve everything. Which, indeed, makes this a philosophical matter...because we are not contemplating the existence of the moon.

Further?

Yes, further.

Further, still?

Yes, much, much further.

 

[Arsenios]

I happen to believe, personal psychology plays a large role in what we come to believe. I am not saying this as a negative, because as i have already stated, having a personal faith belief may be the best thing for someone.

Well it sure can, for a fact, and does so to the detriment of the believer...

In the discipleship of the Church, the Ancient Faith, the effort is expended to eliminate, bypass, or destroy existing personal psychology in the course of denial of self, and then ascend as God directs... But here in the protestant west, people form a circle, hold hands, and have a kind of group feel-good prayer session that supports each other emotionally, resulting in a somewhat smarmy spiritual direction...

The Orthodox Church disciples turning from self and unto God, and this in stages... The quest is life-long...

Again, i only take issue with believers, when they need to negatively judge others who disagree with their belief, need to deny well evidenced reality to protect their belief and or claim they have objective evidence to prove their belief, that all those who disagree are blind to or misled.

I totally get what you are saying here - Look... When I first met God, I knew for a fact and without any question whatsoever that He was NOT the Christian God - It was not even a question... And in my walk with Him, He left me in that belief for 14 years, only to then scandalize me to the bone by telling me that the same Spirit that brought me forth out of darkness caused the Bible to be written... I did not even like Christians, and avoided them as a standard way of coping with them... Finding out that I AM a Christian was TERRIBLE news to me at that time, and I simply was UNABLE to join any local Church... [Orthodoxy, thanks be to God, found me!]

Forgiveness is a good thing to give...

It hands you purification of self in a small way...

And lifts another's burden...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

What I find peculiar and completely messed up about this topic, is that the doubtful reign supreme. Instead of giving honor to the idea of higher human life as is customary with nearly all other forms of "shooting for the stars", the honor is given to the naysayers.

And what is to be said about a position or logic that only accepts its own facts and is therefore merely self-confirmed? Why should the shortsighted who are unwilling to explore beyond their own realm, have the last say? The answer, is...they don't.

However, the whole matter is more than sad...because some have set for themselves a limit short of a human achievement realized and actively enjoyed by a great percentage of the population. Sad, because we live side-by-side, sharing our natural life, while each headed for a completely different fate.

But the big roadblock would seem to be evidence...as if a moon rock would solve everything. Which, indeed, makes this a philosophical matter...because we are not contemplating the existence of the moon.

Further?

Yes, further.

Further, still?

Yes, much, much further.

I do not think the naysayers reign supreme at all...


Arsenios

 

[ScottA]

I do not think the naysayers reign supreme at all...


Arsenios

No, it is a strange and sad paradox. They seem to need to come here to talk, but standing behind their own demands and limitations, then don't actually allow themselves to open up.