Do you wish there's a god?

[pocaracas]

I have no barrier that prevents me from belief.

I am able to believe anything that is supported by: demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, reasoned argument, and valid and sound logic.

If your version of a god was able to meet the above criteria, I would be compelled (by my intellectual honesty) to believe it exists. But please note, just because I would then believe it exists (if the case for its existence met the above criteria), does not mean I would be compelled to worship it.

Of course you have barriers to beliefs, after all you’re not a robot, but a biological human being, in which our beliefs shape who we are and how we interact and relate to the world.

And how do you suppose you come to hold a belief?
What is the mental mechanism that leads to a particular belief?

I wrote something about this a while back ago.... something like: I believe in that which I find to be plausible and I disbelief in that which I find not to be plausible.
What makes me consider something as plausible or not? I'd say that is connected with my perception of the world (notice that it seems like I'm moving backwards relative to your view).

How is that perception of the world formed, or impressed, upon a mind?
It starts with feeling gravity and the mother's womb's limits. Followed by biological needs, supplied by a trustworthy guardian (typically parents) alongside psychological needs - how does this work, how did this happen, how far back can we trace all the events we see unfold nowadays?
Some things are easily answered, others are not.
Those that take more legwork or that are completely unanswerable lead to speculation. Unfalsifiable speculation can lead to acceptance of this speculation as something as close to truth as possible.
If this speculation makes into my perception of the world, then I will find plausible anything that aligns with it. The feedback mechanism of belief takes over and who knows where it might end...

So, when forming my perception of the world, I desire to know where all (realistically, as many as possible) the information comes from, in order to be clear about what is speculation and what is factual... and, ideally, add into my perception only those things that are factual.
Sadly, most people are conditioned to ignore this and are made to form their own perceptions as including some religious speculation or another. And the result is what we see... religions fighting it out, each claiming to be right, each claiming to be the one truth... each unable to see that all others are just an expression of the same very human speculative capacity.

But here’s a question do you want to believe?

If so I think it’s pretty easy to believe that we’re a part of a created order, that life has a narrative arc, possessing a moral order, in which we recognize right and wrong, that the sheer beauty and excessiveness, complexity and depth of life, our desire for meaning, truth, goodness, a sense of something more, provide an adequate enough basis for anyone looking to believe to believe.

It’s only not sufficient for those who desire not to believe.

There are those difficult to answer questions...
Some are quite easy, but we don't really like the easy answers to them...

Why is it important to you to be part of a created order? What if there's no order?
Why is it important to you to have a life with a narrative arc? Time does flow forward, and that's enough. The end comes to us all, each at our time.
Why is it important to you to have a moral order, and recognize right from wrong? Perhaps because you live in a society and such a trait has been bred into you by "evolution"?

Some will not see life as something beautiful, nor excessive.... some will find it very simple and lacking in any depth... You are lucky to have all that, due to the society in which you have been born.
Our desire for meaning can just be another societal advantage. We yearn to be recognized by our peers... to think that we'll somehow be remembered after we're gone... that something of us remains.

Truth and goodness are, again, societal traits. Only meaningful when the individual practicing them in embedded in a society. Again, they are evolved traits that most of us share, although most of us are also capable of bending these... hinting at them being relatively recent in the evolutionary chain.

The sense of something more brings back the speculation, the desire to know the unknown... and provide answers to questions, even if we haven't performed the required research.


Finally, why would I want to believe, when I know that the mechanism that leads to belief can be easily hijacked and cause me to accept speculation as truth?