How does one "choose" a Belief System?

[GeoFee]

And that would equate to your belief system.
People aren't given a choice about believing in god, they were either born into it, (Indoctrinated.) Or they are pressured and coerced via peer and fear, (Inculcated).

No other options?

 

[Luce NDs]

Fault'z nous ... enough cord to tempt a politician to put a nose there to see if the chez attracts?

Some of this is just enough for entanglement ... some in practice and other in profound though (as what the "LL " is wrong with those populations?). Maybe paradigmatic ... in all pragmatism! Not useful to those on high right now ... they too will come down ...

Meddle 'n states as psyche just won't do ... (anti-praxis)! The Poles will get you so they must be put down too --- National Social Democrats? NAT Sae, or nas Tae?

Is that not transparent and transcendent to the in-stunned by public opinion? In-stance of sting!

 

[dreamerman]

God chose me. He predestined me for Glory before he created the world. At just the right time, he saved me. Since that time, he has built within me intellectual assent to the faith he gave me in Christ. He continues to strengthen my faith through his word and through Communion.

What an ego. If you are god/s favorite then who is his second?

 

[Pavlos Maros]

Sometimes people go through a really rough time, that becomes some sort of existential crisis about the meaning of life, and they seek out faith and explore different belief systems themselves. It may be more rare but it happens.

Could you say that those people had zero knowledge of god/gods, prior to this miraculous event?
Do you think those people have a strong need to belong?
And do you believe that those two things, do not put pressure on the individual?

Do you think a person who critques everything would feel pressured to take the same route? Or a person who doesn't?

Oh I don't think you can generalize like this.

Show me where it is a generalization and I would agree. It is a fact. See above reply to Kimmio

Some of us were exposed to faith communities as children and encouraged to make up our own minds. Truly.

A person who has been brainwashed cannot see anything wrong with that which they were brainwashed to believe. Else it would be piss poor brainwashing. And as such you would be predisposed to please your peers? That is human nature. We as a species like to be around others that think like us. Humans follow simply to be within the fold.

Also if you had decided to leave the faith altogether would you have recieved the same encouragement? I very much doubt it because you wouldn't only be saying you lack belief in god, you would be saying there claim of a gods existence is false.

 

[Luce NDs]

Are morals and ethics to be excluded in the eye's of great powers set to destroy middle 'n the public opinion poles?

Have you notice the middle man in extreme aspirations went out with the expulsion from the land of imagination ... and thus in dis-belief we stand as Black Swans ... kind aout there ... deposed?

 

[Jaebius]

What an ego. If you are god/s favorite then who is his second?

I am not the one and only favorite of God. I am not God's one and only elect.

 

[Luce NDs]

Could you say that those people had zero knowledge of god/gods, prior to this miraculous event?
Do you think those people have a strong need to belong?
And do you believe that those two things, do not put pressure on the individual?

Do you think a person who critques everything would feel pressured to take the same route? Or a person who doesn't?
Show me where it is a generalization and I would agree. It is a fact. See above reply to Kimmio A person who has been brainwashed cannot see anything wrong with that which they were brainwashed to believe. Esle it would be piss poor brainwashing. And as such you would be predisposed to please your peers? That is human nature. We as a species like to be around others that think like us. Humans follow simply to be within the fold.

Also if you had decided to leave the faith altogether would you have recieved the same encouragement? I very much doubt it because you wouldn't only be saying you lack belief in god, you would be saying there claim of a gods existence is false.

Thus the importance of urea and sunlight in the bleaching ... a different Cathar Cis ... defying the washout?

A crank of literature as warped out ... the stuff found between lines and fibers ...

 

[paradox3]

Show me where it is a generalization and I would agree. It is a fact.

I don't think it is a fact at all. It is an opinion and you are certainly entitled to hold the opinion that all religion is equal to brainwashing.

See above reply to Kimmio A person who has been brainwashed cannot see anything wrong with that which they were brainwashed to believe. Else it would be piss poor brainwashing. And as such you would be predisposed to please your peers? That is human nature. We as a species like to be around others that think like us. Humans follow simply to be within the fold.

Also if you had decided to leave the faith altogether would you have recieved the same encouragement? I very much doubt it because you wouldn't only be saying you lack belief in god, you would be saying there claim of a gods existence is false.

Again, I do not consider myself to have been brainwashed. If I had decided to leave the faith altogether my family would have had no problem with that decision. In fact I think my atheist father is sometimes a bit flummoxed by the choice I eventually made. I drifted away from faith in my teenage years and returned when I was in my late thirties.

 

[Pavlos Maros]

No other options?

No.

Show me where it is a generalization and I would agree. It's a fact.

I don't think it is a fact at all. It is an opinion and you are certainly entitled to hold the opinion that all religion is equal to brainwashing.

Sorry that doesn't do it, show where it's a generalization.

If a person came to you from a world wide religion, that believed that magic space monkeys created the universe.
And as soon as they could walk and talk it was constantly reinforced into them by all their friends, family and their community. Would you not think that they had been brainwashed.
And remember there is no verified religion in the world at all. And there never has been. Every religion ever is the equivilent to magic space monkeys creating the universe.

Again, I do not consider myself to have been brainwashed.

Lol. People who have been brainwashed don't know they've been brainwashed else it would be piss poor brainwashing wouldn't it.

If I had decided to leave the faith altogether my family would have had no problem with that decision. In fact I think my atheist father is sometimes a bit flummoxed by the choice I eventually made.

Yet you stayed within the faith of your "childhood." I wonder why that is?

I drifted away from faith in my teenage years and returned when I was in my late thirties.

You may have drifted away, but you didn't say you didn't believe in a god. So your point being. What?

 

[Pinga]

An older sister of a friend from my youth would sometimes cross paths and sometimes even work together on faith related projects..

She was brought up in Christian church, think United Church of canada.

In her adult life, her and her spouse decided to sell and give away their worldly possessions to become Buddhist monks.

She lived in an ashram.

After a year or two, it finally hit home what the teacher was saying.

Why was she there. Not, why was she becoming a monk, but why Buddhist

She did not have the cultural context to understand. All stories were new.

Once she truly heard the question, she left

 

[Luce NDs]

An older sister of a friend from my youth would sometimes cross paths and sometimes even work together on faith related projects..

She was brought up in Christian church, think United Church of canada.

In her adult life, her and her spouse decided to sell and give away their worldly possessions to become Buddhist monks.

She lived in an ashram.

After a year or two, it finally hit home what the teacher was saying.

Why was she there. Not, why was she becoming a monk, but why Buddhist

She did not have the cultural context to understand. All stories were new.

Once she truly heard the question, she left

So many don't question "nothing" (as double negative that's a positive; isn't that something) although it is not biblical on the topic of nothing. Yet so much can occur with nothing ... especially in adolescent years without a clue of how nothing can hit you. As in the beginning we are told it is initiated with nothing (dark formless absence ... abstract) ... a meta form to sub conscience running parallel and possibly hyperbolic to human naïveté ... or the goal of being stripped of all physical contemplations ... thus that ancient kohl immersion!

Pure negation as in the hoo' man death wish or to get into entanglement relations ... quantum change with in finite thought?

As finite it will not go far ... compared to eternal .. and yet the physical Gods tell us not to do comparisons ... especially over the great void ...

 

[Pinga]

@Luce NDs , I do wish I could understand your posts. I don't.

 

[KayTheCurler]

What an ego. If you are god/s favorite then who is his second?

As a friend said "Jesus loves you - but I'm his favourite".

 

[KayTheCurler]

I understand that my thinking skills may not be operating properly but -

why does a personal Belief System so often throw some concept of God into the mix? Why do others find it so hard to understand that someone's Belief System may not include a recognisable version of a God.
A Belief System may be formed around ideas about right, wrong, justice, legality, generosity, selfishness, and a zillion other things that force a thinking person to make choices for the 'best' response or words according to your Belief system at the time.
Can a Belief system change? I think it must or there would be no new things learned and incorporated into a more mature or reasoned Belief System.
For some the concept of a God just provides another authority figure that can be cited to permit any type of kindness or atrocity, which they reject. Many believe that a valid Belief System can't be enforced from outside.

 

[Mendalla]

why does a personal Belief System so often throw some concept of God into the mix?

Because, that's what many of us are raised with and it's a concept that is widely found in our culture and others.

Why do others find it so hard to understand that someone's Belief System may not include a recognisable version of a God.

Familiarity, perhaps. We are used to thinking there is a personal deity so we are thrown off by someone who does not believe in one.

Can a Belief system change?

As I have already discussed, mine changed quite a bit. Had it not, I would not have my church issue because I would still be UCCan.

 

[paradox3]

@Pavlos Maros

You are most welcome to continue believing I have been brainwashed if you like.

If you are taking the stance that all religion is brainwashing (which is what I understand you to be saying) I don't know how you expect me to demonstrate that you are generalizing. That particular stance meets the definition of generalizing as I understand it. Perhaps you have a different working definition of the term.

As to why I stayed with the religion of my childhood, there are a variety of reasons. I have touched on some of them already on this thread.

If I had been raised as a Muslim I expect I would still be a Muslim. I wonder where (if anywhere) I might have gone seeking had I been raised without religious faith.

 

[Jaebius]

As a friend said "Jesus loves you - but I'm his favourite".

I never said as much Kay. You're of course free to make that your faith statement.

 

[paradox3]

I never said as much Kay. You're of course free to make that your faith statement.

No, you never said you were Jesus' favourite.

You did, however, tell us you were predestined for Glory before the creation of the world. Some might consider this a tad pompous. . . just saying.

As Snoopy's buddy Linus once said, "The theological implications alone are staggering." He was responding to his sister Lucy who told him she wished he had never been born.

 

[paradox3]

Wondering now how those with secular worldviews would say their belief systems developed. I expect they might emphasize logic but I would be interested to hear from any such individuals.

 

[Jaebius]

No, you never said you were Jesus' favourite.

You did, however, tell us you were predestined for Glory before the creation of the world. Some might consider this a tad pompous. . . just saying.

I was so predestined. Things I did NOT say...

- I was alone in being predestined.
- I was predestined because of some kind of special merit or worth in me.

I see no pomposity, no arrogance. All the credit and glory is God's.