Belief

[Valyza1]

Desperate religion I was part of went as far as stated that "It means nothing if you believe in the existence of God, what matters is you willingness to follow the bitter but positive God's will".

Since religions don't talk, I assume that was either an interpretation of scripture or some person or persons' personal viewpoint. It sounds like "nothing" is being used as a hyperbole, and not an absolute. Obviously, your willingness to do something is diminished considerably if you don't believe in the very thing for which you're doing it. But yes, I agree in the sense that ultimately, if your faith doesn't help you to do good, it's useless. Doesn't mean you can get rid of it.

the problem starts when the happy "marketing" phase of religious experience ends and you are offered a bitter idea of "bitter service to the God's will or potential torture in afterlife". All those positive newbie ideas which were designed to attract you are replaced with the world view where you are a "hostage" of God, where he can bring you endless nightmare for sins.

Yeah, but that's like any other commitment. Consider how positive the dating experience is compared to the problems that come during the actual marriage. It isn't necessarily some person or group trying to trap us, it's just the simple fact that commitment always puts us through hell. Learning how to persevere through that kind of hell is what strengthens and defines us.

Given convincing and testable evidence I would have to change my beliefs, that's what convincing means.

Likewise. I've never seen any convincing and testable evidence that there's no source of everything (one of my beliefs), nor can I even conceive of anything that could qualify.

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I'm willing make this proposition: I believe in a central source of all things. I will grant that this belief may or may not be true. If someone can posit even an imaginary situation that would count as evidence against the truth of this belief and I can't reasonably conclude that it wouldn't actually count as such evidence, I will admit that I have a problem. Otherwise, I see no issue with believing what I believe.