Comments on: Why Do You Believe What You Believe?

By: Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:02:06 +0000

Just saw this post and please consider me who admire your thoughts. As for me, i guess what i believe is everything is dynamic. The work, the people around, the things you have seen keeps changing especially the people. I know that people change and those changes happens for a reason. I thing i believe is not dynamic is i believe in God. That will never change. Thank you for letting me share my points.

By: Why I am Not a Liberal Christian « de-conversion

Why I am Not a Liberal Christian « de-conversion — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:02:42 +0000

[...] with unbelievers, philosophy of religion, etc. Eventually, when I genuinely asked myself, “Why do I believe what I believe” I no longer had an [...]

By: cipher

cipher — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:39:54 +0000

Article describing current research that seems to indicate a neurological basis for fundamentalism:

http://tikkun.org/magazine/tik0709/frontpage/neuroscience

By: Thinking Ape

Thinking Ape — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 16:39:54 +0000

Curtis, good points, and yes I believe the family dynamic is the probably the most important aspect of why we believe what we do. But of course for us religious apostates, the rule did not hold. I DID believe what I believed because I was brought up under a certain lens, but due to critical analysis of that worldview it no longer appears plausible or even possible. The reason I stayed away from the family argument is because a religionist would never admit it. I don’t want them to. I want someone to come up with credible intellectual reasons why people believe historical untruths to be true.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 14:49:35 +0000

It’s all good. This is what makes the world go ’round…different people believing different things, and getting along anyhow. Again, if we all believed the same thing, what on earth would we debate about (and who doesn’t love a good debate)? BOR-ing!

Thanks, guys, for the opportunity to learn how others think. I enjoyed it!

By: Curtis

Curtis — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 14:47:58 +0000

Excellent post.

What you didn’t mention (at least not in this post)—and maybe with good reason, I don’t know—is the family values dynamic of religion.

It is easy to conceive of the paleolithic or neolithic extended family unit as threatened by the precocity of its strong youth. What was to prevent the young men, in an environment of scarce resources, to shuck off their fathers like so much corn? We might say that “such would never happen,” but that’s because of the value system in which we were brought up, not because of anything in our genetic code. I am sure that this was a problem for early human families, and the totemic framework of early religion, in whatever other capacity it might have functioned, largely served to preclude the usurpation of the elders by the youth, just as it would go on to serve as a cohesive for the city-state, the empire, et cetera.

In the past several generations, science has presented data about the Universe which makes it more difficult than ever to rationalize religious belief. Ergo, it is faulty to assume that rational decision-making has very much to do with a person’s religious beliefs in this day and age. For some, it does; for far more, it is only claimed that it does—in reality, I feel quite comfortable saying that a majority of those persons who would claim to hold to theism for rational reasons of evidence are merely clinging to family values that they are unable to separate from religious dogma for personal reasons, including the terror of inevitable death. For this reason, hermeneutic intricacy is on the rise.

But, as an atheist, I have never understood the view that the brevity of life and the finality of death are cause for doom and gloom. This is to deny the sheer miraculousness of life—and the uber-miraculousness of consciousness—in the context of the icy vastness of the Universe. It is a matter of education and perspective, for me.

Great post.

By: Simen

Simen — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:27:28 +0000

Lisa, there doesn’t have to be any division between creativity and rigid logic and science. They’re just good for different things, and I happen to think that you (based on what you’ve written) tend to mix up the usage areas, introducing creative license where rigid proof or hard evidence would do.

That said, I see that there’s no convincing you, and that’s not really my intent anyway. I’ll be hoping (not praying ) that you will come to your senses some day

By: LeoPardus

LeoPardus — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:10:42 +0000

Discordianism!! A new discovery. Thanks monkey man. I may have rediscovered “faith”.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 02:35:18 +0000

Ummm…thank you? Of course, you know I’ll be hitting the dictionary mometarily

By: Thinking Ape

Thinking Ape — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 02:04:48 +0000

Lisa – I think you are officially our first Discordian, and I say that as a compliment