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.

interregnum, I doubt that Plantinga's version of the ontological argument does succeed. It would certainly be odd if it did, and the ont. argument I imagine is pretty much of historical interest only. But it is still of interest, still worth exploring, if only to work out exactly where it fails. So that is one reason why it is facile to just try and laugh religion out of court with rhetorical claims about David Icke and celestial teapots.

And in any case Plantiga has more to offer than just the modal ontological arg. An account of warranted belief associated with what I think is called reformed epistemology. Again, could well be wrong, but not something to laugh off without thought.

And as to quoting bits of the Koran (or the Bible) to show a lack of subtlty, well that would only work against a particular religious belief that such text were divine revalation, unmixed with cultural beliefs, etc. and wholly correct. No religious person has to defend that claim, even though some do.

And an atheist is committed to arguing against the most plausible version of a belief in god just like someone who disbelieves the theory of evolution would have to argue his or her case by responding to the best version of evolutionary theory (rather than for example -- noisily attacking a discredited Lamarckian account, or worse.)

A final post,as no one else has come on the thread.

The ontological argument may be as you say of
historical interest only(would St Anselm have ever thought of it if Su Doku had been invented). but although I have never seen any one claim to have been converted by it . I have seen people on forums claim it as a powerful reason for their belief.Furthermore
if it is so obsolete why did Pantinga try to revive it.

I don't think Bertrand Russell. Nobel Prize winner and arguably the most important British philosopher of the 20th Century has ever been called facile and rhetorical before.
He first coined the celestial teapot analogy
to make the crucial point that atheists don't need to disprove religion but that believers need to prove it. Hopefully this
leads on to one thinking about the broader philosophical points about knowledge. how we obtain it and the different kinds of knowledge we have(plantinga explored these areas as you say).
Atheists do not tend to bother too much with these philosophical musings,as they are seldom raised by believers.

This leads on to your last point indirectly
that "an atheist is committed to arguing against the most plausible version of a belief in god"

Well leaving aside what the most plausible
version of God is let me quote Dawkins:

"If only subtle nuanced religion predominated
the world would surely be a better place and I would have written a different book.The melancholy truth is that this kind of understated decent revisionist religion is
numerically negligible"

Talking of subtley nuanced religions you said
"And as to quoting bits of the Koran to show a lack of subtlty" etc/:

Moslems believe exactly that, the Q'uran was
given to Mohammed during his hallucinations
in the desert and is directly the word of God
That is why the Q'uran can never be subjected
to one of those upgrades that the Bible is subjected to from time to time to make it more relevant.It is also the reason why non arabic speaking Muslims learn to read and say
the Q'uran in the original arabic to hear God's word in the original form. This is a mandatory belief.

I might be totally wrong but on reading your other posts I sense thsat you want to believe
in God but your rationality is holding you back.

Try reading The DAWKINS DELUSION by Alistair Mc Grath,Professor of Theology at Kings College and described by the Archbishop of Canterbury thus "Alister McGrath invariably combines enormous scholarship with an accessible and engaging style"

You can't get more mainstream and liberal than that,
Good Luck

Only just seen this interregnum.

"I don't think Bertrand Russell. Nobel Prize winner and arguably the most important British philosopher of the 20th Century has ever been called facile and rhetorical before."

I never said he was. Whatever comments I made about the celestial teapot analogy were not in the least about Bertrand Russell, regardless of whether he coined the celestial teapot analogy! It's just that the repeated reliance on abuse (not a trait of Russell's!)is facile and rhetorical.

"...the crucial point that atheists don't need to disprove religion but that believers need to prove it. "

That crucial point might be made in several different ways. And actually I'm guessing that you mean "atheists don't need to disprove the existence of god", which also is a point which could be made in several ways. Perhaps you mean that the onus of proof is on a positive existential claim rather than a negative existential claim? That might be true. It is certainly broadly true for empirically based existential claims. But I'm not quite sure what the bearing of this point is (have forgotten most of thread now..

"Atheists do not tend to bother too much with these philosophical musings,as they are seldom raised by believers."

I have no reason to believe that atheists muse philosophically more than believers do. There are reflective and unreflective people in both camps.

"This leads on to your last point indirectly
that "an atheist is committed to arguing against the most plausible version of a belief in god"

...

"If only subtle nuanced religion predominated
the world would surely be a better place and I would have written a different book.The melancholy truth is that this kind of understated decent revisionist religion is
numerically negligible"'

There could be 6 000 000 stupid believers and no clever believers. Atheists are nonetheless committed to arguing against the most plausible version of religion if they seek to disprove its claims. I'm just not interested in debased and stupid or just superceded religion, any more than I am interested in debased and stupid or just superceded versions of Darwinism or any other scientific theory. Why should the rightness or wrongness of any claim be assessed on the grounds of the beliefs of those who have a poor grasp of it?

"I might be totally wrong but on reading your other posts I sense thsat you want to believe
in God but your rationality is holding you back."

Yes, you are wrong. I am undecided, though will probably reject religion. If I do it will be because, ultimately, I think there are sublte mistakes. It won't be because I believe religion (at its best) to be nonsensical or an abdication of reason.