How Does One "Make Themselves" Believe?

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: DeadSeraph

What happens when the switch gets turned off, seems more relevant to your thread?

Okay, then, tell me how the switch got turned off in my case????? And yeah - what happens now that it is turned off?

When I was just a little kid it was switched off.

I meant the big switch, dear. Not attacking you or coming to you in judgement here (sorry if I came across that way). What happens when the switch of your current life gets turned off? That is what spirituality and religion is all about, isn't it?

Seems to me you have your pick of any philosophy you like, or none at all.

a reply to: DeadSeraph

What happens when the switch of your current life gets turned off? That is what spirituality and religion is all about, isn't it?

I don't know.
I think about it all the time. I just don't know. My dad died 5 years ago August. My mom is 76. I have definite ideas about what happens 'after that switch' of life gets turned off, but NONE OF IT has anything to do with the Abrahamic holy books.
Or some God-guy sitting in the clouds judging any of us.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

coincidentally, I don't believe in a "God-Guy sitting in the clouds" either

a reply to: DeadSeraph

I'm glad to know that.

__________________

Guys and gals, I'm sorry to appear to be "posting and running", but I have to go to bed now, and sleep. I've been awakened rudely over the last 3 days (and I HATE IT when people or animals or sirens or alarms wake me up).

I'm hoping tonight to get a really good, solid night's sleep.
I am also hoping to see more feedback from ATS readers and members tomorrow.
Thanks for your attention. I will drift off thinking about these things......

Brightest blessings to all.
Goodnight.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
I might not get many responses or interest for this thread - but, I just don't understand what I am "supposed to do" to make myself "believe" stuff that I just don't believe.

I don't believe in the OT stories, or Adam and Eve, or Jonah and the Big Fish, or Noah, or Exodus, or the Virgin Birth, or The Resurrection, or Original Sin. I don't believe in Heaven or Hell, or Predestination, or any of it. I tried, I really did. And it just didn't stick the landing...from the time I was a little kid wondering what the heck they were all so sad and somber about in church.....

how it all seemed just absurd, even to me, a little kid.....

I don't believe in the Burning Bush, or Mohammed being contacted by Gabriel or whoever.......I don't believe ANY of it.

So - what happens in a person's mind when they have the switch "turned on" somehow? All I can tell you is how the switch "turned off" for me.

I don't want to be adversarial or condescending, but the other day I read a post by someone here who said they just couldn't "force" believing it. I can't either.

Can any of you help me understand how that's supposed to work? If I just really don't believe, what am I supposed to do?

All I really DO believe in is the Buddhist idea - that we can all reach Enlightenment. And I'm just an American Midwestern girl, born and bred.....
I just
don't
get it.

No one is supposed to make themselves believe.

You can only believe what you experience.

And I would not allow someone putting a gun to anyone to force them to believe. That removes from them their right to make their own choice and it's wrong all the way around.

Congratulations BuzzyWigs! You are one of the few people I know who intrinsically never believed in a god. I'm on the same boat as you, and am equally confused as to how people can possibly sustain and suppress reality in order to choose to believe something that has absolutely no proof to it.

Most people, it seems, truly believe in the beginning, and as they grow and mature they slip away from the fantasy of religious ideology and become more rational.

I'm glad to see others saw the irrationality from the beginning too

Nevertheless, I don't think I will ever conceive how someone could block out all information to keep a faith. It is truly mind boggling to me.

a reply to: WarminIndy

They don't now but a hundred years ago people were forced to go to church under threat, in various places about the usa. I wish we had a choice not to pay taxes, but that gun is forever at the heads of the populace. That's what's messed up about this illusion.. sad really.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Have a pleasant one , i hope you don't have to listen to mangely mutts barking all night like i do half the time, i understand your hate of loud obnoxious people making unnecessary noise when it's not wanted.

Peace

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Quick answer? Cut off a little hunk of your soul and buy admittance.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

You go girl....

I tried to believe that stuff too. I saw that people who did truly believe it seemed to have lives that worked (at least the parts I could see) better then mine.

It was a matter of survival for me and I just couldn't get it - regardless of the jargon used to describe it.

When I finally accepted the idea that I would never get it and just continued to seek and practise (and lots of buddhist literature) and gave myself a break, I finally started to find a 'faith' that works (at times and more and more often).

I don't believe in a creator god and I don't believe it is required to live a spiritual, effective and happy life.

It helped me to take the focus off of me and what I wanted and 'needed' and focus outside.

I may never get it in this life - s'okay.

I recommend "No Time to Lose" by Pema Chodron. Read it everyday, it's the first chapters of "The way of the Bodhisvattva" with her commentary and I find it of great practical use in day-to-day life and thought.

originally posted by: awareness10
a reply to: WarminIndy

They don't now but a hundred years ago people were forced to go to church under threat, in various places about the usa. I wish we had a choice not to pay taxes, but that gun is forever at the heads of the populace. That's what's messed up about this illusion.. sad really.

100 years ago was 1915, I hate to remind you but we were in WWI at that time.

Do you mean maybe several hundred years earlier?

a reply to: WarminIndy

My pops told me stories about how they were pretty much forced to go to church. It wasn't at the end of a gun, but in some towns if you didn't go and the locals found out they would make life difficult for you and your family. He hated those towns. His father was roughneck in the oil fields so they moved around a lot so that would have been about 60 years ago when he was a teen.

100 years ago was probably worse, but then again it was the Mcarthy era that the US changed a lot so maybe not.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
So - what happens in a person's mind when they have the switch "turned on" somehow?

Hey there Buzzy.

In my opinion, a veil goes over their eyes. Not to broad brush them all of course. That veil is thicker on some than it is others. For some the belief is just comforting. Likely due to any number of subjective experiences. With others, it is thicker. Where they abandon reason and logic in place of faith.

Faith.. what a funny thing. You know I've noticed faith in God described like this: You have to spend enough time deluding yourself that he is there and it's all true, for you to even experience it. Of course, they never say it in so many words. But that's really what is is.

I figuratively thank God every day that I didn't have dogmatic parents. I had parents and grandparents who believed in education and finding one's own way in life. While I am obviously no genius, I can definitely say a lack of strict dogmatic teachings in my youth didn't subdue my mind. And as I got older and older and asked more and more questions (not just about religion but about things in general) I was able to see how things didn't add up to my particular faith being the universal truth.

I admit it was a long process for me to let it go, even in the face of the obvious flaws. But once I did I knew I made the right choice. That choice has only be re-enforced by observing theists from outside that worldview and more objectively. Which leads back to my original statement of them having a veil over their eyes.

Ofc I'm not saying that veil is necessarily a negative thing. It is and it isn't. Depends on the person I'd say. Kind of hard to describe what I mean. But one thing is for sure, that veil isn't always intentional. I'm betting you know what I'm trying to convey here though.

In most, if not all religions where there are claimed Gods. Faith is required. Faith to ignore facts that contradict what is deemed as truth. Faith to believe this or that holy text is the divine word of God. Faith to believe this or that interpretation is what your God wants. Faith multiplied by faith plus subjective experiences may build a person up "spiritually" but has equal chance to corrupt and turn into fundie extremists.

Anywho..

True belief and faith are not analogous to credulity, and we shouldn't mar belief and faith whenever someone believes a fiction because they are convinced to do so. Belief and faith can only occur when there is something to believe and have faith in. A book, a sermon, is not that much of a something, and is simply unworthy of true faith, for one can never believe beyond its propositions and arguments. A mark of true faith is the faith in the things we can see, feel, and trust, whether it be oneself, loved ones, or one's surroundings. they are all we can ever rely on when they are needed most.

originally posted by: Grimpachi
a reply to: WarminIndy

My pops told me stories about how they were pretty much forced to go to church. It wasn't at the end of a gun, but in some towns if you didn't go and the locals found out they would make life difficult for you and your family. He hated those towns. His father was roughneck in the oil fields so they moved around a lot so that would have been about 60 years ago when he was a teen.

100 years ago was probably worse, but then again it was the Mcarthy era that the US changed a lot so maybe not.

And the McCarthy Era was 60 years ago.

I don't know where your pops was at, but in California and New York and the rest of the country, I have never heard of anyone forced to go to church.

We were in WWI in 1915 and the movie industry was in its infancy. Maybe the fact we were in war at that time, perhaps more people went to church. Things were really different in the 1920s. Flappers and speakeasies were fairly common then.

He probably lived where there were a lot of people in the Temperance Union. I think the 1920s kind of don't represent a religious time in this country.

originally posted by: WakeUpBeer

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
So - what happens in a person's mind when they have the switch "turned on" somehow?

In most, if not all religions where there are claimed Gods. Faith is required. Faith to ignore facts that contradict what is deemed as truth. Faith to believe this or that holy text is the divine word of God. Faith to believe this or that interpretation is what your God wants. Faith multiplied by faith plus subjective experiences may build a person up "spiritually" but has equal chance to corrupt and turn into fundie extremists.

Let me ask this, what is the difference in belief and faith when it comes to someone seeing Bigfoot, a UFO or a ghost?

Suppose that person never believed that before, but through their own experience, they have no choice but to believe, because it is now a part of their experience.

Is faith always without facts?
Is belief without faith?

OK, let's see, one has been told their entire life that there is no such thing as a UFO, the "facts" have been presented to them, the "evidence" is called pareidolia, birds, weather balloons, mass hallucination or whatever else is said, but then a person one day witnesses a UFO.

They had all their lives what they were told, but then one day....

Did they lose faith in the facts?
Did they lose belief in the facts?

Personal experience overrides faith, every time. Therefore, faith isn't based in factual knowledge or even evidentiary understanding from someone else. No one who ever witnesses a UFO ever says "I have faith in UFOs" nor do they say "I believe UFOs exist", what they DO say is "I KNOW UFOs exist".

Faith is the substance of all things HOPED for, the evidence of things not seen. So we can apply it like this, you have faith that if you type a comment, someone is going to read it and understand it, that's why you communicate. You have faith in your own thoughts and your ability to communicate with others. Your faith is then expressed in the evidence of your communication.

That is why we speak, we have faith in our ability to communicate. We don't just believe we can communicate, we know we can, that is why we exercise our faith.

Now the fact is this, before you communicated you had the ability, but you didn't sit and question your faith in your ability, you merely had to think about what to type. But then, your faith and belief isn't tangible, only your communication is. But you also have faith and believe the person you are communicating with has the ability to receive your communication and respond.

At no time have you thought "I wonder if I type, will it be communication?".

And that is faith and belief manifest without prior forethought because the fact is you had personal experience before you had faith and belief, but now you communicate because you know you can.

Your probably a bit old now. Once you've developed critical thinking and stopped believing in Santa Claus the window of opportunity for getting you to believe in other myths has gone.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs


When I first started reading the bible ,it was more a point of not knowing what to believe about the strange stories rather then not believing . It was like watching a good magic trick when you know from your way of looking at it ,it looked real but also knowing at the same time it was a trick .

There is one main message and one main person that is the key to unlock it all and see the truth .Salvation and God's Christ in the person of Jesus . The message is get saved and the savior is Jesus and if you ask in His name ,God will take care of the rest and you will see it in a different way because your eye of faith will be opened . It's like that magic trick in that once it's explained the magic vanishes and the trick is seen ....peace

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
There is more than one way of taking your title.
This kind of question may be simple curiosity, about a psychological phenomenon.
It may be a question from someone who wants to do it, looking for help and advice.
It may be an aggressive, challenging question from someone who doesn't think it's possible.

It's common practice in this forum that the third kind of question is cunningly (or not so cunningly) disguised as the second.
The wording of your title makes it look like the second kind of question, but it's clear that you're not genuinely looking for advice, because "believing" is not one of the things you want to do.
You could hardly blame people, then, if they took it as yet another version of the disguised third question.

All the same, I'll allow myself to take it at face value as simple curiosity.
I'm in a good position to answer, because I've been through it. I've gone through the stage of "I don't believe in this stuff" and come out of it again;
How an atheist became a Christian

The solution to the puzzle lies in the difference between believing "that" and believing "in", which can be illustrated in John's gospel. The key is that believing "that" (believing statements to be true) is ultimately the product of believing "in" (trusting in a person). The essence of faith is trust.
You are right. Believing "that" can't be achieved by an act of decision.
But believing "in" CAN be done by an act of decision. Then the rest begins to follow, and believing "in" covers any gaps.
If you ever genuinely wanted to know the Christian God, that would be a good place to begin.

I think there is some truth to the idea that our brains are hardwired to believe in God bigthink.com...
So, I think if you arent born with the right hardware, you may not be able to believe in traditional belief systems. This sums up how I personally feel about it:
I dont want it crammed down my throat either.