Creativity of Belief: The question of belief is not what but why do we beleive as we do?

Mr. Ed

Mr. Ed

Be what you is not what you what you ain’t
Location
Central NY
Perhaps, beliefs are created from life experience. Where if at all does religion play a part in the lives of many? For people who do not believe in a Godlike figure I wonder why or perhaps more profoundly what happened to cause disbelief and possibly resentment?

Mysterious is life and the multiple variations of reasoning that describes us as individuals. As individuals everyone lives according the story they present and the story they disguise sometimes from themselves and from public view.

God is a form people create for themselves for whatever reasons. For some, God is good and God is not good and the consensus that God does not exist. God exists in everyone’s mind according to individual design.

There is no right or wrong way to understand God. Whatever God may be to you God is as you believe.
 

For me the more science revealed the more disbelief I have in a supernatural being billions of years old living somewhere outside the known universe watching everyone is possible. Evolution is a fact that has been demonstrated so that is where my belief lies.

For those that have a belief that supernatural being exists there is no reason to challenge that belief.
 
I was eight years old and in the third grade when my classmate & best friend Margaret shared with me that she was an atheist and what it meant. I was shocked! You mean, you don't have to believe in God? WOW, lightbulb moment. You are "allowed" to not believe? So glad she told me.
 

I think most of the resentment goes to people in leadership positions, who claim special gifts given them by God, only to show their gifts are a sham to control and manipulate others. After a while it becomes too apparent what is going on and the followers give up, not only on the leadership, but also on God.
 
I went to Catholic school and was indoctinated at an early age. Left church to be free. Went to college and was told by a career councilor I would make a good minister so I went to divinity school but I'm not good at pretending I have all the answers or at telling people what they should do. So I switched my major. I have had angel experiences but not like @Gaer. They never spoke to me. Just made me feel loved and protected and that God was with me. So now I'm just an ordinary person who tries to be an angel for others. When I can. 🤗
 
Many of us in the Western world have become far too busy with all manner of complexities, activities, especially career and leisure pursuits, to put much time into religion. Few people actually research why they should continue to be religious but rather rely on actions of others in the cultural herd to guide their course. Many people whether politics, religion, or whatever don't think much themselves but rather tend to float along like flotsam in a river with what they think is popular.

People may at some point opt out and then notice it doesn't seem to make any difference in their lives that grates against supposed benefits they have been preached to about. Especially the dogma that God is intimately involved in everyone's life with supposed benefit doing so. The Christian religion playbook over past centuries of all its denominations are no longer effective in this modern era of knowledge and science. Centuries of supposedly inspired dogma, labyrinths of rigid church bureaucracies, dominant demand for inerrancy, stifles ability of churches to change course.

Denominations have greatly reduced the value of eternal life as the main reason to seek God and instead talk about all manner of beneficial things one won't read in the New Testament. Death, non-existence is like sex, a difficult subject to discuss, especially when there is so little passed on about what that is. Some just imagine heavenly spirits floating about in clouds singing and strumming harps in continual praise forever to the Father. Others proclaim with total confidence it will be vastly more awesome than anything one can imagine. The old strategy of playing up the scare tactic of going to hell has fallen flat since it is at best vaguely supported in the New Testament.

No. Eternal life is what Jesus clearly preached. If one has not come to understand why that has value, one is not likely to have interest. Consider how immensely deeply sad your heart and mind felt when someone you loved greatly died. Read the New Testament yourself, especially John and Luke. Sin in this world against even the simple list of the Ten Commandments has much worldly advantages with pleasures many would rather choose since it is a sure thing while one lives. Besides many enjoy blurting out G!@ D!@# or F!@# for slightest reasons.
 

The Roots of Religion: Genevieve Von Petzinger at TEDxVictoria​

A PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Victoria, Genevieve Von Petzinger's main area of interest is understanding the geometric imagery of European Ice Age rock art and how we can use this type of behavior to identify cognitive and symbolic evolution in modern humans. Her work was featured on the cover of New Scientist in 2010 and Science Illustrated in 2011, and she has also appeared on the Discovery Channel's popular program Daily Planet.

​

 
True and I agree, death of myself or others does not concern me, except the for possibility of loss.

I enjoy discussing theology, afterlife, death, religion, mind control/persuasion, the unknown, views and speculations about anything that is no known and can be proven.
 
I really have no interest in religion other than its impact on society, and it has a huge impact on society — most of it bad. Kim Potter's attorney tried to get her released until sentencing because "she's a Catholic and wants to celebrate the holidays." Uh, boy.
 
I believe that there is some greater form that created us, but I absolutely do not believe in organized religion. I believe as I do because of the many years I had conservative religion shoved down my throat while seeing so many disingenuous people profess to be religious while they did harm to others.
 
Mr. Ed said:
the unknown, views and speculations about anything that is no known and can be proven.
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I will speculate that the "no" is "not". If something is unknown how is it possible to prove fill in the blank ? Maybe you have already reached "Enlightenment", and dualism is foreign to you?
 
Mr. Ed said:
Perhaps, beliefs are created from life experience. Where if at all does religion play a part in the lives of many? For people who do not believe in a Godlike figure I wonder why or perhaps more profoundly what happened to cause disbelief and possibly resentment?

Mysterious is life and the multiple variations of reasoning that describes us as individuals. As individuals everyone lives according the story they present and the story they disguise sometimes from themselves and from public view.

God is a form people create for themselves for whatever reasons. For some, God is good and God is not good and the consensus that God does not exist. God exists in everyone’s mind according to individual design.

There is no right or wrong way to understand God. Whatever God may be to you God is as you believe.
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fmri-scans-of-people-meditating.jpg
Image by Dr. Andrew Newberg

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322539#Different-religions-have-different-effects

the-nucleus-accumbens.jpg
Image by Dr. Jeff Anderson, PhD
"Devoutly religious participants showed increased activity in the brain’s nucleus accumbens"

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322539#Religion-is-like-sex,-drugs,-and-rock-n-roll

In my opinion, there is a right way to discern who God is, the Bible and prayer. Otherwise, there is no way to understand God, that is in Christianity.
The brain is where all the beliefs are centered and modified according to our individual experiences. To me, the importance is to whom we direct our prayers and thoughts to in consideration of our expectations.😇
 
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about prayer, prayer is merely a request to something called God. I cannot explain God, but in my opinion God is greater and grander than words can describe. Praying to God is praying to you, to me and everything of everything, God is..
 
Mr. Ed said:
about prayer, prayer is merely a request to something called God. I cannot explain God, but in my opinion God is greater and grander than words can describe. Praying to God is praying to you, to me and everything of everything, God is..
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Yes for sure I can agree that to be called 'Gd' pretty much means: To Be Everywhere in Everything and in Everything in Between Everything, otherwise not worthy of The Name.

I guess following upon That, praying to anything else would be pretty much useless. I just mean there is not as much power to do anything in things as compared to That.. which is not a thing like other things.

🌸✨❄️💛❄️✨🌸
 
People get hung up with term called "God" based on one's perception of God. However, on a similar note, someone opposed to God may see God in nature, life and the unexplained, but refuse to call these things God.

God is you, me and everything that is possible as well as the impossible by human standards. Many people use the Bible as proof of God's existence, however, I do not find reading the Bible necessary to be as One with God. The same is true with church attendance, God exists with or without these things. People who need to refresh their beliefs by attending and conducting religious rituals sometimes fail to understand there are those like myself are naturally in tune with God as One.
 
Mr. Ed said:
Perhaps, beliefs are created from life experience. Where if at all does religion play a part in the lives of many? For people who do not believe in a Godlike figure I wonder why or perhaps more profoundly what happened to cause disbelief and possibly resentment?...
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Mr. Ed, your opening post and questions are good ones. "Life's experiences", as well as genetics, environment, culture, peer pressure, media pressure, etc do shape us into who we become as we grow from infant through childhood...but there comes a time when we mature into adults to a point of making our own choices as to what is right or wrong, what is good or evil, what makes good sense and what doesn't...based on our own studies.

What I don't understand is why adults blame Christianity as a whole for those who are "wolves in sheeps clothing" who we are told to beware of, for those who are hypocrites claiming to be Christians but not. Those who do more harm than good over and over again are not Christians even if they say they are, even if they call themselves preachers. I find them easy to spot and avoid them. But I don't place blame on all of Christianity for their damaging hypocrisy. Unfortunately, they do cause disbelief and and resentment among the weak who really believe these hypocrites are real Christians.
 
Mr. Ed said:
about prayer, prayer is merely a request to something called God. I cannot explain God, but in my opinion God is greater and grander than words can describe. Praying to God is praying to you, to me and everything of everything, God is..
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Perhaps we can say its all about "awareness"...you are far ahead of the average 3rd dimensional mind when you can say that "God is greater and grander than words can describe". Becoming aware of "the greater goodness" is a 4th dimensional precept - and that is what we, as souls are seeking - enlightened consciusness.
 
Lara said:
Mr. Ed, your opening post and questions are good ones. "Life's experiences", as well as genetics, environment, culture, peer pressure, media pressure, etc do shape us into who we become as we grow from infant through childhood...but there comes a time when we mature into adults to a point of making our own choices as to what is right or wrong, what is good or evil, what makes good sense and what doesn't...based on our own studies.

What I don't understand is why adults blame Christianity as a whole for those who are "wolves in sheeps clothing" who we are told to beware of, for those who are hypocrites claiming to be Christians but not. Those who do more harm than good over and over again are not Christians even if they say they are, even if they call themselves preachers. I find them easy to spot and avoid them. But I don't place blame on all of Christianity for their damaging hypocrisy. Unfortunately, they do cause disbelief and and resentment among the weak who really believe these hypocrites are real Christians.
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Not meaning to go off topic, but re: your second paragraph- perhaps it is because those who are as you described (hypocrites, do more harm than good, etc.) somehow took over the word and too many people now believe that's the correct definition of a Christian.
 
I sometimes just shake my head when I hear people say .... after a natural disaster [like the recent Kentucky tornados] .......... I surely do thank God for spareing us ....... I always think to myself .... well then do you also thank him for killing the others ? .......... I mean isn't he in charge of / responsable for, it all.
 

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