Believing Vs Claiming to Believe

[Godscreated]

[Bad Wolf]

Hey GC do you believe in bigfoot?
I'm gunna keep asking until I get an actual answer. See the answer you gave that you haven't looked for him, doesn't answer the question. Its irrelevant what I want the answer to be because there are only two choices, yes or no.
This is what this situation is like:
Guy: Hey buddy, you got the time?
Me: Potato
Guy: That doesn't make sense
Me: I answered your question now leave me alone. Just because I gave you an answer you didn't want doesn't mean its wrong.

[Brakeman]

Hey GC do you believe in bigfoot?

Maybe GC had a "personal relationship" with bigfoot that involved a lot of time on his knees, and he don't want to talk about it anymore since moving on to another guy named Jesus.

[Bad Wolf]

Maybe GC had a "personal relationship" with bigfoot that involved a lot of time on his knees, and he don't want to talk about it anymore since moving on to another guy named Jesus.

Maybe he gave him up because of all the carpet burns

[freedomfromforum]

Back on topic...

I'm not entirely sure I actually believed what I claimed to believe when I was a Christian. The entire time I identified myself as a Christian I sensed a nagging dissonance between what I had 'faith' in, and what I knew to be legitimate and tangible. I was very passionate about my beliefs, just as I am now passionate about my disbelief, and I am not immune to needing to have some semblance of understanding as to why I exist. It's just that now, the understanding I seek is not found in the heavens, but within the human experience. Looking back, I can say that it was a continual balancing/juggling act, where I had to parse what I knew was real, with what I hoped was true. I can see how Christians (and other religious people) would want to cling to hope that feels good while living in a world of real pain, for I once identified with their plight. The difference is, now I don't need the fairy tales to exist.

[Neo-Scholastic]

FFF, I felt the same way until I started to understand Swedenborg. YMMV

[Tonus]

The more I talk to self proclaimed Christians (outside of AF), the more I get the feeling that most of them pretend to believe. When pressed to give a description of their belief, they either can't provide one and would rather not talk about it, or chalk it up to the way they were raised, and humbly admit they don't know very much about it.

I think that there is a genuine belief, especially for those who (like me) were raised religious. You take for granted that god exists and because that belief is absolute, you don't worry that much when a tough question comes along. Almost any explanation or rationalization will do because it conforms with that deeply-held belief.

I can remember that even the earliest questions that I had problems answering (I think the first ones were about Judas) did not make my belief in god waver. There were probably other questions and doubts that attacked that core belief that wound up leading me away from religion. I cannot recall any of them offhand, just the few uncomfortable questions that did not seem to shake my belief. But as long as that absolute belief in god existed, tested or not, I was pretty safe.

But because so much of the difficult stuff was anchored to that one assumption, it crumbled pretty easily once I gave up that belief. Until then, though, my belief in god and my ability to rationalize religious belief in the face of even overwhelming evidence was not really threatened. That is the essence of blind faith, and why I think it is so damaging to a person (and why it can make otherwise 'good' people very dangerous).