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.

Onager is that because your belief that Christianity is unevidenced leads yyou to feel that cHristians have no grounds to regard their beliefs as more credibel/respectable than scientologists', Icke's, etc?

There are two relevant sorts of respect -- one is the respect we have for any individual, which leads us not to trash their cherished beliefs as long as they are doing no harm. The other is the respect we have for a cogent, intellectually rigorous, etc. set of ideas.

Regardless of whether or not you are a Christian it is fairly easy to see that there is a great deal more intellectual respectability for Christianity, Islam, etc than for Icke's ideas and so on.

Message withdrawn

"Regardless of whether or not you are a Christian it is fairly easy to see that there is a great deal more intellectual respectability for Christianity, Islam, etc than for Icke's ideas and so on"

My point exactly. We should accept that your god is true, but you need not accept scientology because it's obviously made up rubbish.

Can you really not turn that around and see how it looks for us? or for the scientologists for that matter?

He's not my God, onager. I am an atheist. Just not a close-minded one.

And the constant assertion of intellectual superiority on the part of one or two atheists on here pisses me off mightily.

Well I asked what christians thought about it so you can hardly be offended that I assume you are answering as a christian.

Perhaps you'd care to expand on your position. Did you mean christianity does get more respect or should get more respect?

As for your problems with posters that's your affair and something you will have to learn to deal with if you are going to post in debates.

But it is at least the second time in this thread that you have done the same thing -- assuming that anyone not scathing about God is a believer.

And I have no problems with posters in general. I'm not new to the site.

I mean that Christianity and the other major faiths both do and should get more respect, from anyone who cares to look and their complex set of beliefs. There is immense theological and philosophical discussion between atheists and believers. Christianity (and I assume Islam) is sublte and evolved. It may well be wrong, ultimately. I don't know for sure. But I do know it is as worth discussing spiritual questions with open-minded believers as with open-minded atheists.

There are many ways of asserting the existence of God other than the simple 'I feel his presence', and many of them involve thought-provoking anti-realist positions in philosophy that don't in the least deserve ridicule, and that don't require assertions about God (or indeed any assertions) to conmform to a fairly primitive view of the nature of evidence.

I don't know very much about any of these things. But it is infuriating when people just assume the ridiculousness of a set of beliefs persisting for centuries and historically informed by the very best minds.

Personally, I have respect for the beliefs of the individual, whatever those are, and so long as I believe they are positive and helpful, rather than bigoted or harmful. However in the case of belief systems which seem to have appeared fully-formed from one person in a very short space of time, I sometimes have doubts about the leader's motives and honesty.

I think that religions which have developed over time, and been influenced by the beliefs of many different believers, particularly where the leaders of the religion encourage individuals to question and be involved in the decision-making process, are more deserving of respect than those which are very much the work of one individual who discourages questioning.

Obviously in either case that respect would also be affected by the teachings of the religion - one individual teaching a religion of love and tolerance trumps a large religion which teaches hatred and bigotry.

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Oh yes they are different. I know that. I don't expect you to take that stuff seriously. It's an invented fairy tale. Amazing that anyone could possibly fall for that isn't it.

However I've been hearing on here for some time that all religions are valid and refer to the same god under another name.

Now I hear that they are not all the same so I can say what some of us have been saying for ages. That if there is one religion/god you do not believe in then you are atheists too and that the only difference between us is that I disbelieve in more gods than you do.

If you admit that it's possible for some gods to be false even though many believe in them then you demolish any reason to believe in yours.

Trying to come up with reasons now why one counts and one doesn't won't really wash as who will decide? They could just as easily say that yours is the daft one.

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Losingthethreadabit, sorry I didn't mean to ignore you.

"it is infuriating when people just assume the ridiculousness of a set of beliefs persisting for centuries and historically informed by the very best minds"

"persisting for centuries"?

People believed the world was flat for a time and then they learned the truth. They thought that the lightning was sent by god and then they learned the truth. Being wrong for a very long time did not make them right.

I think you probably assume that believing in the easter bunny is real is ridiculous so I guess we are both the same in that respect.

It is perfectly possible to believe that all religions refer to the same god under a different name (is that what you mean by 'all religions are "valid"?), but also to accept that some religions are a bit daft and others more sophisticated.

After all, both creationism and Darwinian evolution refer to the sameobject of explanation (biological phenomena), but the former is daft and the latter not.

There are good and bad accounts of God.

(It might be that something like Icke's beliefs don't even count as a religion because they don't amount to a systematic and consistent set, but I wouldn't at all want to rely on that possibility.)

And it is perfectly possible to say that "Zeus does not exist" and mean that the collection of properties ascribed to Zeus were never in fact instantiated in a single entity, because the believers in Zeus mixed in many false beliefs about their God together with the true insights they had about God.

I don't think I've ever said that all religions are valid - all anyone would have to do to disprove that would be to make up a Flying Spaghetti Monster religion. Oh wait, they already did that...

What I keep saying is that all genuine belief is belief in the same God, no matter what the name.

So if someone follows the teachings of Scientology as the route through which they encounter God, then their belief has validity, whatever I think of the origins of Scientology.

If someone could find a way to prove to me that Christianity is completely made up and bogus, I would still believe in God. I believe in God, I do not believe in Christianity.

You just don't get anywhere by ridiculing religion -- comparing it to the belief in the easter bunny or a flat earth. Religion simply isn't ridiculous. Think of scientists like Polkinghorne, or thinkers like Plantinga. They don't think religion is ridiculous.

bloss, keep going please! You are arguing for me and against most modern christians by suggesting that you can judge a religion by rational examination.

Go for it! tell them that it's possible to look at a religion and say "hang on. That's a load of rubbish!"

Modern christians count other religions as support for their own position because if so many 'believe' it can't be wrong and brush aside differences such as how man gods they worship as irrelvent.

If some religions are wrong that wrecks everything.

Of course you can say that a religion is a load of rubbish! You're just twisting words. There is a big difference between belief in the existence of God, and choosing a religion which you think has a reasonable depiction of God and suggests a set of ways of relating to God.

Falsifying one (ie some religions are wrong, some are just daft) does not falsify the other.

Losingthethreadabit, you're still doing it. Saying that beliefs can be ridiculous if they are not the ones you approve of. If so then ones I don't approve of are ridiculous.

I've reached my limit for tonight cos the new look mumsnet with it's tiny fonts makes my eyes burn, but do carry on the debate between you and have fun and don't worry too much.

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Believers don't deny the possibility of a rational assessment of religion.

And I called your beliefs ridiculous because they are ridiculous. There are many religious beliefs that are ridiculous too (I'm sure believers are entirely happy to accept that). But it is not true that the whole body of religious belief is ridiculous just in virtue of beig religious belief.

Bloss:Arguing that rationality or intelligence or critical thinking is the dividing line between believers and non-believers ignores the basic empirical fact that believers are equally - and probably over - represented amongst the highly educated and academically-oriented. .

Wrong:Read God Delusion pages123-130,I dont
think the results of the studies he cites have been seriously challenged, if you can point to any refutations I would be interested.

Losingthethreadabit:I mean that Christianity and the other major faiths both do and should get more respect, from anyone who cares to look and their complex set of beliefs. There is immense theological and philosophical discussion between atheists and believers. Christianity (and I assume Islam) is sublte and evolved.

Being as you mention Plantinga, perhaps you can explain how his version of the ontological argument advances the original
or whether playing about with words is ever
going to convince anyone believer or sceptic
alike of the existence of God.

Islam subtle, don't make me laugh.

QURAN 67:5 PICKTHAL: And verily We have beautified the world's heaven with lamps, and We have made them missiles for the devils, and for them We have prepared the doom of flame.(Allah is going to take the stars as missiles to hurl at devils)

18:86PICKTHAL: Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring,( self explanatory)

And don't even get me started on the treatment of women.

Perhaps you have to be in a plane that lands on the Hudson River!

Talking of that just heard the black box on the news. How cool was that pilot?! I'd believe in loving my life whatever comes next if I'd been on that plane.

my friend is a pilot and she said that captain is one of the very few people who could have done what he did because he is a trainer in "disaster" landings, or somesuch.

Lucky he was in charge!