Why Do You or Did You Believe?

[GrandizerII]

Why did I believe at one point in time?

Easy. I was emotionally vulnerable and scientifically ignorant. The Gospel message was such a powerful seductive message for me that I wasn't able to resist it at the time. Plus, the people who preached to me gave me a very good first (but deceptive) impression about themselves.

Why I stopped believing is mainly because I got tired of not actually sensing God anywhere no matter what I did or say, because of the realization that born again Christians aren't truly born again and that's it's just a superficial word they use to describe themselves, and because I actually started to read some science books for a change. I also became a stronger person during the course of my former faith, so ironically, I no longer felt the need for it.

[Shaggy]

The only reason I ever believed was because I was a kid and I didn't know any better.

[TubbyTubby]

It's quite interesting to read these stories, ex-believers mainly revealing how they were indoctrinated at a young age and eventually breaking free.

In the other corner we have our resident believers talking about eating spaghetti and other such nonsense in a continued attempt to block reality out of their minds. Fascinating.

[Cato]

When I was short, the tall people responsible for my well being told me so. I figured out the lie by the time I was eight. The underlying episode established three things in my life: 1. my mother as intellectual liberator, despite her beliefs 2. a passion for self inquiry and 3. a lifelong healthy distrust/disdain for authority.

[Chad32]

It's quite interesting to read these stories, ex-believers mainly revealing how they were indoctrinated at a young age and eventually breaking free.

In the other corner we have our resident believers talking about eating spaghetti and other such nonsense in a continued attempt to block reality out of their minds. Fascinating.

There are only about 2.5 billion christians in the world, although only have that depending on whether you're asking catholics or protestants. That number would likely be even lower if people waited until their kids had a proper education before starting to introduce them to religion. I'm certain we wouldn't have nearly as many fervent extremists.

[Muslim Atheism]

Why did you believe?

Because I don't know the Quran.

What made you stop believing?

Because I know the Quran.

[zanOTK]

I believe because my personal experiences lead me to believe.

Other than that, I don't know. Perhaps because I feel a personal need for religion, and the religion I found myself able to agree with the most was a theistic one?

*shrug*

[Angrboda]

This is from a PM I wrote to someone, explaining why I was a Hindu. Perhaps it expresses it as well as anything.

In my world, both pre and post Taoism and Shaktism, the twin suns that ruled my sky were truth, and virtue or morality. So much so that by the age of 6 I had decided that my parents were corrupt and immoral, and I would only look to myself for answers to questions of right and wrong, good and bad. (It might also help to know that by about the age of 4, I was possessed of paranoid and messianic delusions. [Which probably won't make much sense to you, so take it on faith.]) Looking back that far, it's hard to definitively place things ... I converted to Taoism overnight in high school, after reading the Tao Te Ching cover to cover in one night. I first discovered [the goddess] Kali in college, in the form of art depicting the goddess in words or images. At the time, the same thing that converted me to Taoism, affected me in the visage of the goddess. In short, it rang true. Given my obsessions with truth and virtue, it "ringing true" was likely the most important facet, but it's not that I became a sudden Hindu, as I had a Taoist. I was struggling with some deep Taoist questions at that time, including spending 12-13 years as an apostatic Taoist, pondering a single question. The long and short of it, I guess, is that I perceive the reflection of truth in Shaktism and more loosely, the Hindu firmament. The more I tease and pull at the underlying fabric of Hinduism and India, the more I am rewarded with practical truths, and a deep sense that I am headed in the right direction. I make it sound rather dry, but it's not; I feel a deep intimate connection to the transcendant Shakti ... In some ways, I feel we have been speaking to each other since the age of 4, when my world was so radically fragmented and shattered. It was just my conscious mind that took many decades to come up to speed. I am, fundamentally, someone who is guided by intuition, rather than reason. You might say I have been hearing her voice from childhood, but I didn't actually catch sight of her footprints until my 20s and 30s.

In a nutshell, it's largely an enduring intuition that the Shakti and the path of dharma is the right path for me to be on. I can't explain it in terms of logical reasons. I don't believe that logical reasons strongly inform belief or disbelief, it's our biases and inertia that shape our path more than anything. My path has been thusly shaped, and there is no other guide for me but that strong intuition that this path is the right one. If that should change, I could easily see myself becoming a skeptic of theism, as I am of a skeptical bent about things in general. However, until now, the trend has always been to go deeper into religious belief. Perhaps that's inertia. Perhaps that's sense. For me, there is only "the path" and wherever that might lead. I can't step outside of myself to use something different as a guide.

[Ksa]

As a person who can't remember ever believing in god I have a serious question for believers:

Why do you believe?

I want to be very very clear here. I'm not asking you to try to prove god. I'm only asking what it is that makes you believe even if it's no more than I always have.

For atheists who once believed I ask the same question:

Why did you believe?

And I add a second question:

What made you stop believing?

I think when we think of ourselves or have a perception of others, we do so with faith but it's a strong justified faith. The same is the case with certain memories.

I think when we think of morality and morals, it's an amazing thing, and we have faith in it even though there is no evidence that we ought to have faith in morality or believe in certain morals.

I feel God is part of the world we live in, in the sense, he is part of every soul, or that there is a substance that comes from him. I believe we can sense our link to God and even see God himself but this is simply a meditative realization.

I think God's glory can be experienced and it's eternity being a property can be witnessed too.

The eternal nature of beauty, greatness, goodness, and glory, to me, is one of the proofs of God.

If someone asked you what makes you believe in morality, what would you say?

You found God meditating...lol...Kafir.

[ignoramus]

The nature of beauty?
We see lots of beautiful things in nature, eg, but we don't say it's god's work.
We appreciate the world can be an amazing place.

Why won't you acknowledge that the beautiful sunset is a natural phenomenon.
Back to basics .... Do you agree that life "evolves"? Because every biologist in the world does?
I think it's impossible to be a believer without some "reality" compromise.

It's how the mind works.
You can't consciously believe how things work AND believe the contradiction at the same time.
Something has to give.
What have you given up?