Why do some people find it hard to believe in God? Part 2

[notfluffyatall]

I don't think we've quite finished yet

TechnoDad, at what point have I dismissed science? I am contesting the viability of scientific materialism as a philosophy, but have no beef with science as such - I am deeply grateful for its fruits!

Are you trying to understand things from a religious POV, really? If so, what do you want to know? Am more than happy to share my experience with you, if you like, as I have done at great length on this thread already...I won't be back until later today though...

Ah, Grimma, your second question opens up the possibility that maybe religion and science aren't quite as different as you might think!

"If so, it follows that science is as much determined by humans as religion is, and is therefore 'subjective' as all human life is."

No it doesn't.

That's the thing about science - French scientists and Chinese scientists (if they are doing it right...) are describing the same reality. Microbiologists, archaeologists, nuclear physicists are all describing different (but not incoherent bits) of the same reality. It is not perfect but its not subjective.

Sure, beings from another dimension, or souls from the other side might be able to describe it completely differently - but since no one has ever met one of those there is nothing we can do about that but blindly speculate.

The Christian tradition(s), the Jewish Tradition, the Hindu Tradition are all describing different versions of reality that unless they are watered down to their most homeopathic versions are incompatible.

I do think McGurk effect is a good way of thinking about it. Everybody is looking at a different 'picture' of how the guy's mouth is moving so we all hear different things. The scientific methodology is the most powerful mechanism we have for stripping away the picture so we can see what he is really saying.

Holo - where do you think the fruits of science come from, if science is just one randomly subjective way of looking at things?

Why is it so good at producing results in the material world, if that material world is really subject to all kinds of mystical forces that science knows nothing of?

Ah, Grimma, your second question opens up the possibility that maybe religion and science aren't quite as different as you might think

No, not really. Most of the humanities, yes, including the study of religions, up to a point (unlike science, at some point most of them get to opinionated interpretation). Religion itself, no. Because religion is (in any real sense) missing the 'set of data'.

Holo

I don't agree with your statement that I can not take my atheist hat off. My being an atheist is an output of the fact that my conscious brain works based upon reasoned and logical arguments. If I were to be faced with some evidence that god exists, I would use this same process and, depending on the ability of the evidence to stand up to testing, I might conclude that god does exist ? but we aren?t there currently so I remain an atheist. If you were to state that I can not take my ?logical and evidence based? hat off, then you may have a very good point.

In terms of trying to understand things from a religious POV I suppose what I am really asking is: What is it about you as an individual (and any other person who believes in a god who is reading this) that can read the logical evidence based argument and then apply an equal weighting (or higher) to a philosophical argument that contradicts it? (where that philosophical argument is not supported by facts but a raw belief).

Along with this main question, I think there are some other important questions that go hand in hand:

1. Were you raised in a religious environment from a young age?
2. If the answer to question 1 is ?yes? then is there a possibility that being raised in this way might mean that you have been brain washed (I use the term ?brain washed? in a lazy way and not intending to cause offence).
3. If the answer to question 1 is ?No? then when you became religious, did it occur at a time in your life when you were emotionally low, vulnerable or lonely (or anything similar)?

In the interest of fairness, I will give answers myself:

Main question: I have a very scientific and logical brain (to a somewhat extreme level at times). I base most major decisions I make by doing some sort of (quick) risk assessment, but don?t always make my final decision based solely on logic. I also base it upon my passion to do something, or my desire to actively take a risk, but the logic and reason is always acting on what I do and as an individual I can?t escape from the way my own brain works.

Question 1: No, not really. I went to a CofE school and loved all the singing. I never really ?got it? and at the age of 8 I used to find it impossible to get to sleep because I couldn?t get the thought of eternal nothingness after death out of my head (it really distressed me)! I remember asking my parents if I could go to Sunday school and why were all the other kids allowed to go? They let me go and I thought it was nonsense so I stopped going very quickly.

Question 2: N/A

Question 3: I have had some hard times in my life (no more than the average person in a very well off western culture though). Much of which I used friends and family to get through where I could, some I just battled through it by myself. At no time did I ever even consider that the support of a religious community would help at any time (it just never crossed my mind, so it was never a consideration to decide upon).

P.S. Anyone who does answer the questions I have posed, please please do it honestly without any political agenda. I am genuinely trying to understand, to see things from another perspective and I think answers to these questions might help me.

Techno - I could answer those questions using what I remember of myself 30-odd years ago, though this might be unreliable. 1 & 2 would be yes and yes. On your main question - well, ultimately I couldn't give higher weighting to the non-factual position, but I think you've got the psychology of faith wrong. Its not really about weighing up philosophical arguments at all - I doubt it is even for a sophisticated thinker like HH. Its much more a matter of emotion - in your own head it's a relationship with God.

Another interesting piece from Julian Baggini: Can religion survive being stripped of its superstitions?.

exe - yes, that is interesting. My DH has done some of that sort of exploration of Buddhism - discounting the superstition and ritual, but finding some of the philosophy (attachment as the root of suffering, compassion+wisdom, mindfulness...) and the practices (meditation) to be of value.

I quite like the term Goddie. I will begin using it with abandon.

I don't mean this flippantly but "Its not really about weighing up philosophical arguments at all - I doubt it is even for a sophisticated thinker like HH. Its much more a matter of emotion - in your own head it's a relationship with God" does sort of sound like a conversation with an imaginary friend.

I guess it might come down to to the fact that some people just "believe" and they can't (and don't see the need to) justify it to anyone else. Essentially that is what a leap of faith is at the day.

Which makes me ask the question "why" - and I hope my questions above might give a clue.

Techno no and no.

My parents believe in God and we were baptized as infants, but we never prayed or went to church. I had one book about the Nativity story as a young child, but there was never discussion of God or Jesus as such. My brother is an atheist.

I did not come to believe at a low point; I always have believed. I hve alway known and been close to the Infinite, to the bafflement of my parents. I asked to attend religion class when I was 9 and after some discussion they said I could choose any but Baptist. I chose Lutheran. I have experimented and read about as many religions as I could over the years since. :)

In response to TechnoDad's questions,

1. I wasn't brought up in a religious environment - my family didn't go to church, I wasn't at a church school. I went to about 3 church services as a cub scout, which were tedious. As a teenager I would describe myself as an atheist or agnostic, depending on how "edgy" I wanted to appear.

2. n/a. Incidentally, I wouldn't say that someone who has a similar outlook to the one they were raised in was "brainwashed". If you don't have religious parents and are not religious yourself does that make you brainwashed? We all start off within a particular worldview, the important thing is to examine it, compare it with others and be prepared to change if there are more credible alternatives around.

3. I decided to explore Christianity when I was 18 for several reasons. First, I was aware that a lot of the big questions of life, e.g. is there any purpose to life, why does the world exist (rather than not exist), do we have any moral obligations to others, are ethics subjective or objective in nature, etc. were tackled in lots of different paradigms. I found that they made more sense to me in a theistic context than any other. In this sense my shift from the assumed atheism/agnosticism of my upbringing to Christianity was based on very logical, philosophical and rational principles. Secondly, in the circle of people that I knew at that time (around 6th Form, 1st year university), the ones who seemed more together in themselves, generally at peace with the world and genuinely caring tended to be those with an active faith. It wasn't an absolute either/or - there were some Christians who were as small minded and petty as the next, and some non-religious who were very kind people, but I did see that some very close friends with an active faith had an extra-dimension to how they lived and this seemed to make them more grounded than the average. When comparing different ways to live I empirically looked at the evidence in the lives of friends and felt that several of the Christians I knew had something extra going on that I wished to investigate further.

Finally, as a good science undergrad, I viewed trying Christianity as an experiment - I went into it with an open mind and was prepared to see what happened, including being prepared to jack it in if it didn't work for me. I can say that faith really begins to make sense as a lived experience, again an empirical experience. Reading about it, working through arguments, talking to friends got me so far, but for me it was trying it as a way of life that helped me to see the benefits of living as a Christian. I felt (and still feel) a lot more at peace with myself, open to others and able to take the hard knocks of life in my stride with the faith dimension as part of my outlook.

I can't say that I was low, vulnerable or lonely at the time. This assertion in question 3 implies that you think that people only come to faith at times of weakness, perhaps even when they are susceptible to manipulation. Certainly when people have trying times in life they are open to different ways of doing things - when we are content we tend to keep things as they are. But in my case, and in the case of others I have met, it has been as a result of asking questions, trying out living in faith and then finding something worthwhile.

Best wishes,

Basmati1.

Thanks for those two really good answers.

Question 3 is only a question for gathering data (admittidly in an unscientific poll). I don't intend it to cause offence and hope it hasn't.

There's a question 3? Hold on.

Oh. No. :)

And I have always gone to secular schools, of course. I believe in faith schools, as a religious person, but I don't think they should be paid for out of tax-payer's money.

Good evening!

Okay - my answers . It's really fascinating hearing other people's stories.

1. I was raised in a vaguely religious household. We went to church every week but didn't pray at home or say grace before meals - God was never mentioned in our house, tbh. the church we went to was very gentle and fun (vicras dressing up as pantomime dames, that kind of thing) - if my parents were brainwashing, they either did a very bad or a very, very cunningly good job (depending on your POV!).

1. My faith really kicked in properly when I was a teenager, when my critical faculties kicked in - I was the one asking all those tricky questions at school / church / home! My Mum is a journalist and encouraged vigorous debate at home I went through a phase of being a biblical literalist, which led to no end of vigorous debate around the dinner table Some of my family were believing Christians, others not, so there was no pressure on me to believe. At the same time as all this hefty thinking and debating, I reached the point of realising that I wanted to believe, so I remember praying, and really meaning it, 'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief', and without wanting to gild the lilly, feeling overwhemled with a sense of peace and of being known and loved by God, a sense that felt as though it came from beyond me and was bigger and more real than anything I could muster or had ever known before, a sense that has more or less stayed with me ever since then.

1. Ummm...the other question was to do with being vulnerable etc, wasn't it? Yes, I have had some low times, esp. physically - as I said earlier, I have a long term illness and can't lay claim to any miraculous healing. During one very bad time of illness, I realised that every time I have prayed, I have always felt the overwhelming sense of God's presence - even though I'm still ill, I feel very 'healed' iyswim. I also love being part of a Christian community and so often, answers to prayer have come in the form of people one way or another. I don't think I could be a Christian if it weren't for the church. Part of the reason that I can't 'dismiss science' is because of all the good that medicine has done me - I'd be dead by now if I lived in the two-thirds world, or had lived at any time pretty much until about the mid 20th c. Maybe that's why I feel so strongly that life is a gift.

So that's me, that's what my faith looks like from the inside...

Have a good Friday evening!

Oh yes, I've had low times of course, and relied on God, but that wasn't when I started believing.

I went through a terrible, terrible depression when I was pregnant. It was so beyond awful. I didn't want to die, necessarily, but I wanted to sleep and sleep without waking or dreams. Every morning I woke up and thought, oh this again, and cried. It was horrible. And I didn't feel God at all, as I always had. The only thing that helped was praying/meditating/screaming "WHERE ARE YOU? HELP ME!" and then I would have little peace. (I sound mad. Mayhaps I am :o) And it was that peace that pulled me through, the hope of more and longer pockets of peace and joy. And they did get more and longer, and I felt that a Great Something was listening, and I got better. And named my son Samuel, because it loosely means "God has heard" or "asked of God."

Thanks to everyone for the frank and honest answers. I won't say that I understand it (you all sound as mad as a box of frogs to me , but it sounds like a great comfort and it kind of makes me a little jelous. However I still don't "get it" and never will - but that doesn't necessarily matter at the end of the day as long as you are not forcing it on people who are vulnerable in any way.

Don't get too worried about the term "brainwashed", like I say, I was using it in a lazy sense because I couldn't think of a more PC way to characterise it.

In terms of growing up with faith, why would any child pick and choose what part of their parents guidance is proven fact and which is less-so? Don't run across the road you will get hurt, eat your greens, go to church. It is just a child's brain acting like a sponge for information.

It was only when I was an adult (last Christmas in fact over Christma dinner) when I asked my parents - "so are you religious?". Until then, I didn't even know. As a kid I asked to read the bible and thru gave me one, they never told me that they were atheists until 2010! So I would say that I am definitely not brain-washed either way. I would say that my own kids are definitely taught with a strong scientific agenda, but only because I see their school as pushing an unbalanced religious environment which I strongly disagree with.

If you wonder why I celebrate Christmas, then google "Tim Minchin white wine in the sun" and watch his song on YouTube - it explains what I think in a nut shell.

"google "Tim Minchin white wine in the sun"

Definitely one of my favourites:)

I do talk to DS about God, but I try to always say "I believe" or "mommy thinks X, but other people think..." I can't tell him anything else, though, because it would be a lie. I do believe in God, I do believe that something in us goes on after death... so to me it is not brainwashing him, it's just a matter of not lying to my kid. :)

Interesting question. Maybe because they can't find Him on those people search sites? Seriously guys. Discussion about religion in 21st century?

Another one for the Tim Minchin song. This is what Christmas is about.

It warms the cockles of my heart

Why wouldn't we discuss religion Rasidan? Actually people seem to be far more religious these days; I mean, I know a lot of people who are religious, at least nominally, and I didn't seem to when I was a kid.

Chicken I am religious but still love that song. :) I think people just need to stop worrying about what other people are doing. I celebrate Christmas mainly as the birth of Christ, but also as a celebration of winter and family, etc. I know some people who don't do the Yule trappings at all; for them it is only about Jesus, and I know people for whom it is all about Santa and family, and Jesus doesn't enter into the equation at all. Why would I care? The way they choose to celebrate doesn't take away from my choices at all, nor mine theirs. (Does that make sense? My grammar has deserted me.)

Although I was brought up in a Christian household, my brother and sister are both firm atheists so no brainwashing obviously went on there! As i grew up, I did a lot of questioning and studying, and ,like Basmati, felt the theist approach made much more sense to me personally.
I am very fortunate to have lots of very good friends, atheist, agnostic, and Christian, all equally lovely people, but I feel a special connection with my Christian friends, and they are the ones I turn to in difficult times.
However, as CY says, people shouldn t worry too much about what other people are doing. We can analyse words and theories to death, but ultimately the important thing is that we are all happy in ourseves whether that be with or without a faith.