How do you suddenly believe in something you didn't previously believe?

[AliceTheCamelHasGotTheHump]

I have recently though how nice it must be to have a faith and a religion. It must be nice to believe that there's a god or some sort of power in charge. I really like all the gubbins that goes along with religion too, the songs, the traditions, the pretty buildings. It must be nice to be in the gang.

However, I can never and will never be any religion because I don't believe in any god.

This got me thinking - how do people who have never previously believed in a particular religion's beliefs suddenly decide they do believe in it all? How does an adult decide that actually there probably is an omnipotent power in the sky and he's almost certainly called [insert deity of choice] and [Judaism / Islam / Christianity / Other Religion] is definitely the right way to go about worshipping him.

I'm genuinely interested. I realise my terminology may be a bit dodgy in places but I hope this doesn't become a discussion on semantics. I want to know how you go about believing in something you previously didn't believe to be true.

I have never believed that my fridge has a secret personality and likes to get dressed up and go out clubbing while we're all asleep in bed. I will never believe that. Likewise I will never believe in some Other Power or Force or something in the factual detail contained in most religions.

I feel a bit sad sometimes that religion of any sort will never be an option for me. I'm going to press post now and I really hope I've not been grossly offensive.

If it's simply about making people feel better wouldn't it be better to sit down and work out a belief that made everyone happy.

We could design one that was easy to follow. One that didn't have complex rules and that wasn't exclusive.

Some christians already do believe in an 'everyone wins' scenario where even serial killers get forgiven and go to heaven, but many religions are exclusive. The believer gets the reward and the non believer (or someone who believes in the wrong religion) doesn't.

If it's arbitary anyway then I think we could do a much better job.

Is anyone claiming that it's arbitrary or about making people feel better? . If you want to make up a set of "rules for life", feel free to do so. But the thing about "belief" is that people actually believe it, not that they got together to agree a set of rules.

Actually the arbitary part of that was based by what you said a few posts back though others have said the same.

"Faith" is a feeling/belief that there is "something" outside of ourselves" etc

"religion" is a human way of responding to that faith - religions have sets of rules and attitudes, and an agreed(ish) set of characteristics" etc

So the religion part is arbitary and could be adjusted to match the other religions and to match what people want it to be.

As for the 'making people feel good' that was covered further back when it was suggested that people often find faith when they have problems that are getting them down and faith makes them feel better.

That is paraphrased, but variations on that pop up all the time.

No the religion part is not arbitrary - it develops out of people's faith and the way they interpret that. A religion is a group of people who all share a similar interpretation of their experience of faith. Not arbitrary to them, even if it may look that way to you.

Most people who have no belief and then suddenly believe usually do so because they have seen/experienced something miraculous/supernatural in their life.

A lot of people who do develop a faith in adulthood, you will probably find it is not that sudden and they have been exploring, asking questions and interested for a while.

If you have lots of questions The Alpha course may help.

OK, people say there is no evidence that there is a God; but likewise, there is no evidence that there isn't.

There is a difference between believing in Hogwarts and believing in God (for adults at any rate).

trappings of all religions include so much utter nastiness (the misogyny, homophobia, racism etc)..

MrsSB, you need to look in the other big thread about this. (Or, indeed, the approximately sixteen threads on this there have been in the past two years since I have been here.) There is no evidence that there isn't an Easter Bunny, a Loch Ness Monster or an Invisible Pink Unicorn, and yet sensible adults achieve a common consensus that, well, the evidence tends to suggest there probably isn't. Same applies to gods.

I quite like the idea that Jesus Christ, if he were around today, would not have a lot of time for the stuff which calls itself religion - nor indeed a great many of its followers.

MrsSB: of course pelnty of people hae their imaginary friends and all that cack without actually being racist misogynist mentalists. If people want to believe in a big blue flying fairy and use that belief to encourage themselves to be kind, fair, tolerant, helpful, generous and secure in themselves then that's great. I have quite a few religious friends: I regard their beliefs in gods in the same way that I would regard a belief that Coldplay are profound or Tolkien is enjoyable reading ie I don't agree but you go ahead and enjoy it. There are lots and lots of perfectly lovely people who happen to be religious, but unfortunately there are lots of people who want to control, dehumanize and destroy others and pick an imaginary friend who they will claim justifies their horrible behaviour. So I reserve the right to be 'gratuitously offensive' about people's superstitions because it is so fundamentally important not to allow any individual or group a privileged status to be immune from mockery or criticism, because that would then entitle them to harm others on the grounds that their imaginary friend says they can.

MrsSB - sorry, I realise the middle bit above seems a bit garbled.

The key point I should have made is: there may well be no hard evidence for or against the existence of a phenomenon. But it's impossible to demonstrate a non-ness - it's the positive which needs to be demonstrated. In other words, if you are the person making the positive assertion, you need to show evidence.

Otherwise people could just go round making the most ludicrous assertions and not having them challenged.

I could say "I've got magical powers" and when people said "prove it", I could say, "ahh, but prove I haven't."

Or: it's like if your car was vandalised and you know it was Ryan Bloggs from no.14 wot dun it. But Ryan Bloggs doesn't need to prove he was elsewhere at the time or get thrown in the slammer. The police need to find evidence that he did do it or they don't have a case - it's not incumbent upon Ryan to talk himself out of it.

Live and let live I say. If it makes me, or anyone else, a better or happier person, as SGB said, then it can only be a good thing.

Unquietdad: 'In other words, if you are the person making the positive assertion, you need to show evidence.' You are right - a good point.

All I can say is that, to use that all important abbreviation "IME", my life has been turned around in a remarkable way, and that is evidence enough for me. Going back to the OP, I hope that it goes some way towards explaining what is a very difficult concept to explain, or indeed prove.

One other question, for UnquietDad really. Do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ existed then? (You mentioned liking the thought that he might not approve of 'religion' as it is today.)

I have always sort of had faith. I ws brought up Catholic, had a period of atheism/agnosticism and eventually came back to the religion of my childhood

DH was an atheist from a very young age (parents had been catholic but stopped practising shortly after dh was born and have been atheists and very anti chirch since then)

Dh had a sudden conversion about 10 years ago. The way he describes it is that he was walking down the road thinking about God/religion after a conversation he had had and that he started the wall an atheist and ended the walk knowing that God exists.

I have never managed to understand it any better than that. Dh is normally a most rational person (he is a lawyer) and very unemotional.

He doesn't practise any sort of religion though and calls himself a non-denominational theist. I think he is drawn to Christianity but doesn't actively practice the religion. he is more devout than I am in many ways and prays much more than I do.

I can understand suddenly believing in something when previously you didn't. I think I can understand Lazycow's dh suddenly deciding that he truly believes there is something to believe in.

I absolutely cannot understand how an adult who previously wasn't a Christian, turns around and decides that they believe in the specifics of the Christian faith. That Jesus was the son of the virgin, that heaven is real, that on the 4th day he rose again, that he died for our sins, that sort of thing. Even ignorning the water in to wine, 40 day fast sort of things that no rational adult can really believe happened in real life - there are some big things you need to believe in or you're not really that religion.

We've already had the point that not all versions of religions are that prescriptive, but surely joining a religion means believing in some of it.

I don't mean to pick on Christianity by the way. In fact it was thoughts about Islam that inspired my OP, but I know more about Christianity so it is easier for me to use it in examples.

Again, because it's easy to be misconstrued in written words (the irony!) I'll repeat that I'm gently and genuinely interested. I'm mulling things over a lot and asking myself some questions. I am not on an anti-religion warpath, or intending to offend.

Hi, Alice. What an interesting question.

My DH converted to the RC faith 23 years ago. He was agnostic before, and had never had any real beliefs.

for him it came form one attendance at Good friday mass. He just understood it and felt completely at home. A Catholic would say this is grace. You might say it was a fiction/aesthetic that appealed to him - and in a way I don't mind that, I think bells and prettiness and ceremony and kneeling and candles are what humans need to make sense of the universe and there's no shame in them. I like my religion and some others that acknowledge this and don't think religion is just an intellectual process. Some might say what you BELIEVE really matters much less than what you DO.

After that moment at mass, it took a loooong time for individual beliefs to be decided upon and reasoned through. He spent ages on every aspect of doctrine, and with no pressure involved. The RC church imposes a logn period of thought and teaching before any declaration is made, typically 2 years (and Orthodox Judaism even more, typically 7 years). So the older rleigions do know the problem you describe. It's okay for everything to be slow. And he rejected lots of teachings at first. That's fine at first too.

This is a very interesting thread!

I don't think belief is something that suddenly comes to you (as previous posters have commented). I think there comes a point in life where most people make a decision about whether they want to believe in something or not. For me, I find it makes more sense that there is some kind of order to our universe than if it is all just random chaos.

If you choose that you want to believe, it then takes a lot of hard work - questionning, debating with others and yourself, reading and learning...You need to look at different religions and see which one you think makes the most sense. Faith in a particular religion is (I think) the acceptance that we'll never know all the answers for sure and we need to trust in something greater, that the answers there are the right ones.

Alicehasgotthehump - I think believing in all the different elements of Christianity comes very gradually, it might be better to start by looking at the more believable things, eg. studying the Beatitudes and seeing if you agree with them (that alone may take a good ten years ) and developing on gradually from there (i've always found that looking at one thing leads to another then another...)

I really do believe it is a choice that you make rather than a thunderbolt that comes down from the sky and turns you into 'a believer'

Regarding the previous posts about EVIDENCE of God - I see it all the time, in all the amazing things that happen and especially in my children (yes - feel free to go and be sick )

I know you could also say that bad things show evidence that there isn't a God... but like I said before, that is a choice that you make!

What is lost by choosing to believe that there is a greater power?

What is lost by choosing to believe that there is a greater power?

Good point mersman!

I just found something which resonates with what I was trying to say earlier about my personal experience:

'God has so miraculously saved us and changed our lives that we cannot help but to acknowledge and praise His existence. None of these arguments in and of themselves can persuade anyone who refuses to acknowledge what is so plainly clear. In the end, God?s existence must be accepted by faith. Faith in God is not a blind leap into the dark; it is safe step into a well-lit room where 90% of people are already standing.'

There's more here which attempts to answer the question 'Does God Exist'.

For me it was never a sudden realisation. More a gradual change in my understanding until it reached a threshold point where I had to acknowledge it.

mersman

Absolutely. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Alice- your right about those BIG things in Christianity- believing in the Virgin birth, that Jesus died and rose again etc. Jesus, the cross and redemption are central to Christianity.

Here is why you find it so hard to believe that any of those things and other stuff 'really' could have happened- you don't believe in God. To believe means to have faith in what we cannot see. It is also very easy to believe that God can do anything so if you have faith it is not difficult to accept these things.

If God does not exist here are some questions that I would like answered.

How WAS the world/universe created- exactly?
How did a random accident result in creating the most perfect conditions/place for life to thrive.
How could such beauty and the complexity of nature exist?
How do you explain miraculous healings, visions and other life changing events?
Do you believe in evil/witches/the occult/or any other kind of spirit?

Sorry, but that's such a circular argument. Personally I do believe in God, and largely in the teachings of Christianity. But you will never argue anyone into it by saying "the world doesn't make sense without God", because in all honesty it does make sense just fine without God. In some ways far better sense than claiming that the existence of God explains anything, because you then push the problem into "well, how did God come into existence?".

If the OP doesn't feel the existence of God in her life, and doesn't particularly want it, then she's better off just getting on with her life as she thinks right. If she's looking for some of the "peripheral" things which religion might give her - community, morality, sense of purpose, lovely music - then there are non-religious ways of getting all of that.

I think your posts are really interesting, Alice. Your first post is particularly striking in that it suggests that you see the question in terms of absolute certainties.

I think that the experience of sacredness in all its manifestations is just a part of human experience, much like love or our response to art/music etc. If you find yourself in the position of wanting to acknowledge the sacred - as an experience with its own intrinsic value rather than as a sort of quirky by-product of evolution - you might also find yourself drawn to other people's experience of the same, which might lead you towards communal religion of whatever kind resonates with your own culture and experience. From there you might start reading around the subject and question how this religion achieved its current form over time in order to discover what elements make sense to you and what you disagree with, which might bring you to a kind of faith.

Or you might not of course. After all there are lots of pretty buildings and nice music which are entirely secular, and plenty of gangs you can be part of that have nothing whatsoever to do with religion. But I don't think it has to be a either/or question - of having no access to religion on the one hand, and on the other, of believing that a particular religion lays out all the answers like an instruction manual.

Hi, OP - just wanted to add that I myself don't believe in God because I think the world is perfect and because of flowers and cute woolly lambs etc. I can believe in flowers (and also notice many an imperfection) without it having any impact on my faith. Which means for me God is suprarational, not subrational and not entirely rational either.

As a historian I don't find the Virgin Birth (say) particuarly difficult to accept, or the Resurrection either. So many improbable and unlikely and beautiful and dreadful things happen all the time to people, many of them deeply hard to accept. Dunno.. the Permian extinction,t eh Black Death, the discovery of the south Pacific by Europeans... every baby born... For me this is part of the extreme otherness of God. He's like us, but not very much like us, and he doesn't do things the way we might expect. My tuppence, and not meant to be anyone else's.

Amuminscotland - I agree that there are non religious ways of getting those 'peripheral' things that you mention, but (for me anyway - can't speak for anyone else!) there is sometimes a gap in my life that only God or religion can fill.
I believe that God made us all for a specific purpose and the aim of my life should be to fulfill that purpose, and to live life to the full. Only by living my life in that way I can achieve true happiness - everything else is shallow and superficial at the end of the day!
If I didn't have God I'd either be living to please myself or to please other people - neither of which I would find very satisfying in the long term!
So for me the world really doesn't make sense without God!

Sorry, my post must have come across differently from how I meant it.

I didn't intend to try to argue anybody into anything. I genuinely wondered what other people choose to attribute these things to.

I also didn't mention anything about the world being perfect. When I mention perfect conditions for life to thrive I meant the science bit i.e. distance from sun, atmosphere (air) and all the other things that go into it.

For me, my faith is absolute and simple.

As Mersman said, God made us for a specific purpose...and to live life to the full.

The only way I can live life to the full is with God at the centre of everything I do and everything I am.