How does one come to believe something?

FrumiousBandersnatch

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So you think multiple personalities are the norm?
No; as I said, "our sense of self is the construct of a number of processes working together". I went on to roughly outline the functions of those processes.

I pretty much understand the SELF as that which IS the unifyer of ALL experience in a person... That when the parts of the self are disparate from one another we have a condition of dys-function...
That's a reasonable summary of what I was saying. The self provides a referent for experience, and the sense of self that we have is the product of a number of processes working together; if one or more of these processes is disrupted or becomes dissociated from the others, the self becomes dysfunctional.

The absence of physical objects as referents for understanding of self...

Your understanding seems to require that all understanding be reduced to materiality in one way or another...
The question was how that applies to understanding of the self...
Or the grasp that understanding has OF materiality...

I do not reduce consciousness of self to perception of materiality...
OIC. Well, these are processes - they have a material substrate but they consist of patterns of activity in that substrate, so they are material abstractions - I suppose there's a sense of the immaterial about them...
 
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Deidre32

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There was a thread a while back entitled "Belief not a choice?" and several atheists in that thread insisted that people only come to believe things by evaluating evidence. So I thought I'd extend that into a syllogism and see if it floats.

1. People only come to believe something by evaluating evidence.
2. People who are Christians believe that God exists.
3. Therefore, People who are Christians only came to believe that God exists by evaluating evidence.

Is the above a sound argument? If not, why not?

That is part of it, for part of faith beliefs come from our worldviews, life experiences and even personalities. My returning to faith was based on having an experience of faith, an encounter with the holy spirit last year, that happened when I was an atheist. It served as evidence to me, but it might not serve as evidence for someone else who might believe that what I felt or what I saw, could be explained in other ways.
 
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Ana the Ist

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I was an Ayn Rand Objectivist atheist for 17 years and met God at age 36...

I was one of those atheists who simply dismissed Christians and god-believers as having a flawed concept that could not exist in reality... And I would not suffer fools... A is A, and that which is, is not that which it is not... etc etc... I was unchurched, and had no faith in God at all ever...

All anecdotal, not test-tube verifiable mind you - So you are safe - Just words and no proof...

Oh wait! If I showed you my life of the first 36 years, and the last 36, and if you were able to see what I was showing you, there is a whole lifetime of objective "proof"... Still, that doesn't count... Gimme some billiard balls and a pool table, and I will prove God by Pythagoras! Aaarrrgghhh, Me Lad!

Arsenios

Why were you an atheist?
 
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Ana the Ist

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That is part of it, for part of faith beliefs come from our worldviews, life experiences and even personalities. My returning to faith was based on having an experience of faith, an encounter with the holy spirit last year, that happened when I was an atheist. It served as evidence to me, but it might not serve as evidence for someone else who might believe that what I felt or what I saw, could be explained in other ways.

Also, I'm sure I've asked this, but I don't remember if you've answered...so I'm sorry if you did....

Why were you an atheist?
 
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Deidre32

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Also, I'm sure I've asked this, but I don't remember if you've answered...so I'm sorry if you did....

Why were you an atheist?
I remember you asking, and I want to say I replied...lol (I think)

But, maybe I didn't. I grew indifferent about the idea of a god existing. Sometimes, I wonder if a lot of it had to do a few years ago with my grandmother's health deteriorating, and losing hope for her, in general. I left Christianity initially, and it took about a year before I identified as an atheist. Before I told my parents and friends. There was just one day about 4 years ago, when I woke up, stopped praying, stopped going to church, stopped thinking about God. I grew indifferent, and then I also felt an indifference towards the Bible. It was a gradual thing, and then I had this experience last year. And it changed everything.

You might have told me, but are you a life long atheist?
 
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Arsenios

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So, you still willing to try?

Sure...

I will ask God what I should say to you regarding this event, so give it a couple of days...

Meanwhile, I will tell you a story - My first encounter with God as an atheist...

I was walking into my living room with a cup of coffee one morning and absolutely crushed my little left toe into a solid table leg, and my oh my did it hurt, and as I was saving the coffee from spilling, an unbidden little thought came to me that said: "It was because you were having a rotten thought, you know..." And I reared up and yelled "Well that's a load of crap! Where the Sam Hill did I ever get THAT thought? Thoughts have nothing to do with stubbed toes! What a stupid thing to think!" And another sneaky thought came in: "Watch next time..." "Yeah RIGHT"

So the following morning I was coming in with my coffee again and danged if I didn't crush the same little toe on the same table leg, and it hurt a lot more, but I jumped to what I was thinking the instant before the painful smash... And it was: "I wonder how HE would like it if someone did the same thing to him like he did to her..." And I said, well that rotten thought was just a coincidence - No big deal...

Day three arrived, and I had a couple of friends over for morning coffee, a young man and his wife, and as I was bringing them their coffee into the living room coffee table, a massive affair, I totally smashed the very same little toe into the heavy leg and it hurt so bad I might have lost a little continence, and I got the coffee down and dove onto my back onto the sofa clutching my poor little toe it total agony, OK?

And my friends looked at me, and at each other with worry, and back at me in pain, because I was laughing... And they said "Why are you laughing???" And I replied: "Because I was having a rotten thought!"

I stopped indulging those kinds of thoughts from that day to this very day...
And I have never stubbed my toe again...

So that is my first reply to you...

Maybe more later...

Maybe not...

We'll see...

Arsenios
 
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Arsenios

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Also, I'm sure I've asked this, but I don't remember if you've answered...so I'm sorry if you did....

Why were you an atheist?

Because God cannot logically be both omnipotent and omniscient...
If He KNOWS what will happen in 5 minutes, then He CANNOT change it...
And if He can change it, then He doesn't know it...

Arsenios
 
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Ana the Ist

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I remember you asking, and I want to say I replied...lol (I think)

But, maybe I didn't. I grew indifferent about the idea of a god existing. Sometimes, I wonder if a lot of it had to do a few years ago with my grandmother's health deteriorating, and losing hope for her, in general. I left Christianity initially, and it took about a year before I identified as an atheist. Before I told my parents and friends. There was just one day about 4 years ago, when I woke up, stopped praying, stopped going to church, stopped thinking about God. I grew indifferent, and then I also felt an indifference towards the Bible. It was a gradual thing, and then I had this experience last year. And it changed everything.

You might have told me, but are you a life long atheist?

I did ask, I don't remember you answering...though it's certainly possible that you did and I missed it...but thanks for replying anyway.

You could say I'm a lifelong atheist but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. As a child I believed what I was told and I was only informed about god in a very vague sort of sense. I would say that I believed in some powerful guy in space who granted wishes if you prayed to him and he had a son named Jesus lol. That's about it until I was 11 or so and I began thinking about it seriously.

I had never been to church except for a funeral or wedding. Thanks again for replying.
 
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Ana the Ist

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Because God cannot logically be both omnipotent and omniscient...
If He KNOWS what will happen in 5 minutes, then He CANNOT change it...
And if He can change it, then He doesn't know it...

Arsenios

No offense...but that's a rather sophisticated argument for someone claiming to be an atheist until they were 36. You're saying that you were an atheist because of a paradoxical understanding of future knowledge and free will at the age of 5?
 
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Ana the Ist

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Sure...

I will ask God what I should say to you regarding this event, so give it a couple of days...

Meanwhile, I will tell you a story - My first encounter with God as an atheist...

I was walking into my living room with a cup of coffee one morning and absolutely crushed my little left toe into a solid table leg, and my oh my did it hurt, and as I was saving the coffee from spilling, an unbidden little thought came to me that said: "It was because you were having a rotten thought, you know..." And I reared up and yelled "Well that's a load of crap! Where the Sam Hill did I ever get THAT thought? Thoughts have nothing to do with stubbed toes! What a stupid thing to think!" And another sneaky thought came in: "Watch next time..." "Yeah RIGHT"

So the following morning I was coming in with my coffee again and danged if I didn't crush the same little toe on the same table leg, and it hurt a lot more, but I jumped to what I was thinking the instant before the painful smash... And it was: "I wonder how HE would like it if someone did the same thing to him like he did to her..." And I said, well that rotten thought was just a coincidence - No big deal...

Day three arrived, and I had a couple of friends over for morning coffee, a young man and his wife, and as I was bringing them their coffee into the living room coffee table, a massive affair, I totally smashed the very same little toe into the heavy leg and it hurt so bad I might have lost a little continence, and I got the coffee down and dove onto my back onto the sofa clutching my poor little toe it total agony, OK?

And my friends looked at me, and at each other with worry, and back at me in pain, because I was laughing... And they said "Why are you laughing???" And I replied: "Because I was having a rotten thought!"

I stopped indulging those kinds of thoughts from that day to this very day...
And I have never stubbed my toe again...

So that is my first reply to you...

Maybe more later...

Maybe not...

We'll see...

Arsenios

That's a real eye opener Arsen.
 
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Arsenios

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No; as I said, "our sense of self is the construct of a number of processes working together". I went on to roughly outline the functions of those processes.

That's a reasonable summary of what I was saying. The self provides a referent for experience, and the sense of self that we have is the product of a number of processes working together; if one or more of these processes is disrupted or becomes dissociated from the others, the self becomes dysfunctional.

OIC. Well, these are processes - they have a material substrate but they consist of patterns of activity in that substrate, so they are material abstractions - I suppose there's a sense of the immaterial about them...

OK - Let's try it this way, because I can see you have given no small amount of thought to these matters:

Have you ever concentrated your attention on your own thinking process itself without any content?

And held yourself in that concentration for any length of time without distraction?

And if yes, how long and with what result?

I do NOT, btw, recommend this practice to anyone to do outside of the Orthodox Christian Faith and its discipling by an eperienced elder... For anyone interested, another parallel approach is set forth in the book: "The Way of the Pilgrim"...

Arsenios

ps - The process I described will produce utterly pure, content-less thinking... And doors there can open, God willing...
 
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Arsenios

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No offense...but that's a rather sophisticated argument for someone claiming to be an atheist until they were 36. You're saying that you were an atheist because of a paradoxical understanding of future knowledge and free will at the age of 5?

No - I was 19 when I heard and digested that argument... In the military... Studying under Nathaniel Brandon...

I had asked God to make Himself known to me as a child, and had gotten no answer...

So I was functionally atheist at that point...

Yet I had prayed fervently to him for a year from age 2 1/2...

For my Mother to live...

She did...

Arsenios
 
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Arsenios

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That's a real eye opener Arsen.

It sure opened MY eyes to rotten thoughts...

I simply wrote it off to some "deeper self" I had within me of which I was unaware...

Once a person has a significant encounter with God and "gets it", then one can see, looking back, the little provisions God made for you across the years of your previous life in His Great Mercy... It really is a matter of paying attention, and not so much a confessional process, but one of living repentantly for what is highest and best in you, and turning away from all that is not, or is evil or wrong, which I always did, yet with great evil within me which I sought to heal, but first to understand... I destroyed my life in that quest... And failed...

THEN God came, no question, across three Christmases...

Arsenios
 
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Deidre32

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I did ask, I don't remember you answering...though it's certainly possible that you did and I missed it...but thanks for replying anyway.

You could say I'm a lifelong atheist but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. As a child I believed what I was told and I was only informed about god in a very vague sort of sense. I would say that I believed in some powerful guy in space who granted wishes if you prayed to him and he had a son named Jesus lol. That's about it until I was 11 or so and I began thinking about it seriously.

I had never been to church except for a funeral or wedding. Thanks again for replying.

Thanks for asking. Everyone finds their own way, I do think that life in Christ is a great one, but everyone has to decide for themselves. :)
 
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Ana the Ist

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No - I was 19 when I heard and digested that argument... In the military... Studying under Nathaniel Brandon...

I had asked God to make Himself known to me as a child, and had gotten no answer...

So I was functionally atheist at that point...

Yet I had prayed fervently to him for a year from age 2 1/2...

For my Mother to live...

She did...

Arsenios

So basically, you asked god to make himself known...he didn't...and that was the basis of your atheism? At least until you got older and learned more sophisticated arguments...
 
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Ana the Ist

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It sure opened MY eyes to rotten thoughts...

I simply wrote it off to some "deeper self" I had within me of which I was unaware...

Once a person has a significant encounter with God and "gets it", then one can see, looking back, the little provisions God made for you across the years of your previous life in His Great Mercy... It really is a matter of paying attention, and not so much a confessional process, but one of living repentantly for what is highest and best in you, and turning away from all that is not, or is evil or wrong, which I always did, yet with great evil within me which I sought to heal, but first to understand... I destroyed my life in that quest... And failed...

THEN God came, no question, across three Christmases...

Arsenios

God showed up when you stubbed your toe?
 
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Freodin

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Sure...

I will ask God what I should say to you regarding this event, so give it a couple of days...

Meanwhile, I will tell you a story - My first encounter with God as an atheist...

I was walking into my living room with a cup of coffee one morning and absolutely crushed my little left toe into a solid table leg, and my oh my did it hurt, and as I was saving the coffee from spilling, an unbidden little thought came to me that said: "It was because you were having a rotten thought, you know..." And I reared up and yelled "Well that's a load of crap! Where the Sam Hill did I ever get THAT thought? Thoughts have nothing to do with stubbed toes! What a stupid thing to think!" And another sneaky thought came in: "Watch next time..." "Yeah RIGHT"

So the following morning I was coming in with my coffee again and danged if I didn't crush the same little toe on the same table leg, and it hurt a lot more, but I jumped to what I was thinking the instant before the painful smash... And it was: "I wonder how HE would like it if someone did the same thing to him like he did to her..." And I said, well that rotten thought was just a coincidence - No big deal...

Day three arrived, and I had a couple of friends over for morning coffee, a young man and his wife, and as I was bringing them their coffee into the living room coffee table, a massive affair, I totally smashed the very same little toe into the heavy leg and it hurt so bad I might have lost a little continence, and I got the coffee down and dove onto my back onto the sofa clutching my poor little toe it total agony, OK?

And my friends looked at me, and at each other with worry, and back at me in pain, because I was laughing... And they said "Why are you laughing???" And I replied: "Because I was having a rotten thought!"

I stopped indulging those kinds of thoughts from that day to this very day...
And I have never stubbed my toe again...
Interesting story.
From the way you told it, maybe you can understand the reason why I phrase my request in the way I did.

As you told your story, you never attributed it to God at that time. But now, in hindsight, as a believer, you assert that this was "[your] first encounter with God as an atheist".

Was it? Well, you certainly believe so.

But a believe can be mistaken, much more easily than "objective evidence".

So I am asking for something that I can "see"... without the need to believe that I have seen it already.

So that is my first reply to you...

Maybe more later...

Maybe not...

We'll see...

Arsenios
Truth be told... I am not expecting anything relevant. A simple response showing that you remembered to do what I asked would be nice.
Though I would love to get something more substantial...
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Have you ever concentrated your attention on your own thinking process itself without any content?

And held yourself in that concentration for any length of time without distraction?

And if yes, how long and with what result?
Yes, I've tried that kind of 'no-thought' meditation. I've never been able to fully drop thought content during deliberate meditation (because recognising you're not explicitly thinking is itself a thought), but normally that's not a requirement. However, I have had periods of no thought (or, at least, no memory of thought) when simply resting or day-dreaming.

Another technique I find relaxing is to stare fixedly (at anything static) until objects get a negative-image border, and then the visual field eventually blanks out - that's when you know that even the normally autonomous saccades have ceased. This focus on visual relaxation tends to damp other thought too.

The process I described will produce utterly pure, content-less thinking...
Content-less thinking would seem to be oxymoronic...
 
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Arsenios

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So basically, you asked god to make himself known...he didn't...and that was the basis of your atheism? At least until you got older and learned more sophisticated arguments...

Yes...

A.
 
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