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Quite frankly "believing" has a lot to do with your surroundings. Depending on your location and those adult surrounding you as a child who drive home that "this" or "that" is how it is and you'll be safer, happier and healthier if you succumb is all this is. We as humans are protective, and one of our tools for this is fitting in with the heard. Those who stick out often become a target. This happens more in certain areas of the world, as well as certain areas of each country.
So, believing like others is the key not really what you believe in. You'll see fewer religious people for instance in countries that don't complain as much about different beliefs. In strict religious countries, you will see less. This can trickle down to just small family circles where the majority of the family believes one thing. It's dangerous or unsettling to stray. Some do, but, the majority stay within their comfort zone.
Now, once you've given in to the thought you do as humans do and justify it to yourself and others. I mean, what else can you do at that point. Unless some outsider introduces a new package, relationship + new belief system, then you stay. It's interesting to look at religious maps and see the groupings.
Those devout Christians for example in America would just as likely be devout Muslims in another.
PoppySead: You make some good points. Let me follow up your last sentence.
'Believing' is as universal as breathing, but the 'content' of beliefs is variable.
You seem to be stuck in a dimension that you can't communicate about but keep asking questions that you have no answers for, someone always needs to give answers to you and then you decide if you can use them.
I get more verbal feedback from my cat.
Am I going to regret feeding the OP? (I.e. beating a dead horse)
You reminded me of classic Twilight Zone episode, "Little Girl Lost". Remember the pet dog helps rescue her! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little..._Twilight_Zone)
The late James H Campbell, who worked in his youth with Thomas A Edison, said that once, when a difficult problem was being discussed, Edison said it was too difficult for any specialist. It would be necessary for some amateur to solve it.
Another to contemplate:
Mental exercise is good, mental masturbation is not.
Rope/snake syndrome: one can "look" at a piece of rope and "see" a snake. The snake they "see" is a image in their mind.
By reacting to their image, they don't recognize what they are doing.
So far the people who reply to this thread, "look" at what I write about, but they "see" and reply to the images in their minds.
Once they recognize what they are,(automatically) doing, we can move on constructively.
Which of them will be the first to "see" what they "look" at?
Rope/snake syndrome: one can "look" at a piece of rope and "see" a snake. The snake they "see" is a image in their mind.
By reacting to their image, they don't recognize what they are doing.
So far the people who reply to this thread, "look" at what I write about, but they "see" and reply to the images in their minds.
Once they recognize what they are,(automatically) doing, we can move on constructively.
Which of them will be the first to "see" what they "look" at?
I can't see you so I'm left with the mental images that are formed by my thoughts about you from the words that you post.
I recognize those images that I'm left with because that's all I've got to work with.
If you would care to reveal yourself with other words that you deem appropriate and accurate, this thread can move forward in a positive direction.
Until then, it seems like it's all smoke and mirrors.
You see and experience what you believe. Yes it's "your" smoke and mirrors you see and experience, you just moved a bit in a positive direction.
You judge it to be positive. You have your own smoke and mirrors too, it is part of the human condition that we can overcome or fall victim to minute by minute.
It is this haughty attitude of who gets it vs who does not IN YOUR EYES that stops all your repetitive threads from going anywhere. You are too caught up in seeing the snake to realize this. Humility is a welcome ally...i dont think it serves one well to constantly judge another's understanding...or lack thereof...of the human condition.
The difference is those who recognize their conditioning and those who don't; 'are victims' of their own beliefs/assumptions. If you are toilet trained you can regulate your sphincters even though they are automatic , you can decide when and where you let them do what they do involuntarily. You can regulate your amygdalae if you choose to learn how; and it does not take as long as toilet training does/did.
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