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Interesting way to look at it.
Indoctrination plays a huge role in the widespread belief in "God". Without childhood indoctrination, there'd be very few people who believed in "God".
I don't really believe that personally. I think looking for something greater than ourselves or searching for what makes the world tick is in our DNA, with or without parents/authorities, etc..
I believe in God, i just don't like him. He just lets so much bad stuff happen and puts all kinds of restrictive rules on people. I definitely BELIEVE that a God exists, but i think he's sitting up there on a power trip just messing with our heads. I don't think he's as benevolent as people make him out to be.
Have you ever looked through a large telescope at the night sky? Have you ever looked through a microscope and observed the huge numbers of infinitely small creatures in a drop of water? Either one of these experiences SHOULD convince you that there is an intelligence far beyond mere mortal man at work in the Universe. That is NOT a religious statement, just a logical conclusion. The next step in the process is to give the creator of all that a name. That is GOD.
Isn't this subject exactly what that book The Belief Instinct is about? The psychology of why people possibly belief in a diety or dieties? (I only read the opening sample chapters, but the gist is that the author, an atheist, thinks that belief was an evolutionary tool).
Anyway, I do believe because of certain experiences, as someone else mentioned, but I have tried NOT to believe. I think life is easier if you can NOT believe.
Interesting way to look at it.
Indoctrination plays a huge role in the widespread belief in "God". Without childhood indoctrination, there'd be very few people who believed in "God".
How so? Then where did it start? And why does it persist even after adulthood, even after one has questioned the existance of God as an intelligent adult and still finds reason to believe. Yes, yes, I know the general rhetoric about people inventing gods to explain natural phenomena. Understood, 101, skip past the basics please. What about that indescribable "thing", that connection with something greater that some of us feel? Where does that come from? It is beyond childhood indoctrination.
What you CAN do is to attribute the revelation of that philosophy to a god. Thereby meeting the litmus test of a Religion.
By the way, here, to me, is where the reason breaks down.. When people tell me that Jesus loves me and I should love Him, an agreed-upon definition of Love is implicit in that adoration. But then they tell me that God is all loving and is the cause of all things, and I look around and say "Whoa". So I set Christianity on the back burner until somebody clarifies this Love conflict for me, and gives me a working definition.
ok, if you were raised in a religious family you may find the idea of God harder to shake off, but how about the fundamental feeling that there is something 'out there'.
some of us believed in fairies, imaginary friends and little green creatures at the bottom of the garden - but most people grow out of these phases as they grow up.
but for some, don't the little green men turn into God, Jesus, Krishna, Earth Goddess instead?
and how about those for whom the fairies just turn into cold 'reality' - ie: atheism.
Is it all to do with brain structure and psychology in the end?
I agree, that it all has to do with inner processes and inner wiring of each individual (brain wiring, genetics, environment, teachings, experience/feeback, trial and error AND EMOTIONS)
I think that sometimes when we get hurt by a lack of response (from a God for example) we can force ourselves to believe that he is not real (I think this is a "denying reality" as we know it, phenomenon which works in other areas of our life, so why not in this one) Sometimes our brain tells us that reality is this, but our emotions tell us something different
some people believe that people in commercials speak the truth and run and buy the stuff
and others are forevermore skeptics of these commercials
why some believe and some don't? could it be experience? but surely the believers have experienced that not all products they bought worked good, so what kept them believing?
I see us (humans) as computers (in one sense). Our computers have a program (a script, a step by step instructions). This script has blank pages which parents write on when they raise a child. This script tells us what is true and what is not. We live by this script. But this script can get modified by some factors, so people change their views, belief from unbelief, unbelief to belief...
We are mostly unaware of what instructions are written on our inner script. But we can observe them by what we end up doing or end up believing or not believing.
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