Why Do You or Did You Believe?

[Mystic]

It being built in your gut says nothing about whether you should acknowledge it or value it. Also empathy being natural says nothing about whether it's wrong to ignore more then to act upon it.

Also whether it comes from both biological and cultural evolution, says nothing about whether we should acknowledge it or have faith in it.

So at the end, this doesn't answer the question.

Hmmm. It's a little like asking why I believe in pain, or love, or fear. I feel them. It's visceral. It's why lie detectors work to the extent that the do.

Why I act on it is different. Morality is necessary to make society work at all. Without it, the human world would be a dark and dangerous place. Fortunately, everyone by psychopaths feels it at some level. That's the biological level. Societies that have taught morality that fosters peaceful cooperative inter-human morality tend to do better.

Well it exists in one sense, but it can be false in another sense. Personally, I think belief in morals and soul/spirituality/god(s) came together at some point in our evolution, and that's why it's hard to see any way moral realism can be true without spirituality and soul.

I think at the end, the honest answer, is that morality is a complex phenomenon that makes us feel we know it exists, has different ranks, gives different ranks, is related to all sorts of issues, that may not come down to empathy. At the end our belief in it cannot be justified by words or an explanation. It has to be experienced for ourselves and the reason is an unseen feeling.

In the same way, an unseen connection and feeling towards God to me is why I believe he exist.