Future of Christianity in US

[robvalue]

If you can't prove, or at least demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt why you believe something, then it's a feeling, or gut instinct. But that is still a reason to you, and is convincing enough for you to believe. It's just that this will never be enough on its own to convince someone else that they should believe the same thing. It's not always possible to articulate why we believe something though, we may not even fully understand it ourselves. I'm not in any way immune to all this.

If you believe something is true, that is a state of mind. You can't change your beliefs at will. (If there is someone who can do this, it's news to me and I would struggle to even label such a condition!) So you have a reason. You may not even be consciously aware what the reason is, or be able to describe it even if you are. Again, I'm not immune to this.

But then again, I think what people say they believe and what they actually believe are sometimes very different. It's your actions which show what you really believe. And very often actions directly contradict professed beliefs. You could argue you have two competing beliefs about the same issue; what appears to be your concious beliefs, and your "autopilot" (subconscious). These two may be at odds and compete to make you act one way or another. The belief that wins is the one most strongly held by your overall mind.

It's complicated and I'm probably not explaining what I mean particularly well. My point is that you may like to think you believe certain things, and maybe you really do think you believe them. But you may find you do not truly believe them when it comes to the crunch and your mind makes a decision based on your overall beliefs. I refer to myself as well, this is not a pointed argument