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Posted By: jondo1976 your beliefs and why - 08/12/09 08:31 PM
Im curious to know what makes a person decide to, or decide not to believe in God?I would like for everyone to tell who or what they believe in and why!Please respond maturely.
Posted By: Revlgking Re: your beliefs and why - 08/12/09 09:55 PM
Originally Posted By: jondo1976
Im curious to know what makes a person decide to, or decide not to believe in God?I would like for everyone to tell who or what they believe in and why!Please respond maturely.
I, too, am curious, Jondo 1976. Welcome! It is always good to have a newbie. We all began as newbies, agreed? smile

BTW, tell us a little bit about who you are; what makes you so curious, and what do you hope to accomplish in this forum?

Interestingly, in the 1950's I did a postgraduate degree at Boston University. It was on: The History of Beliefs. It was a lot of fun. I am still using some of what I learned there.

I notice that there is zero information, about you, in your profile. How come?

Care to tell us who you are? Feel free to check my profile. Feel free to ask me any question about who I am and my opinion on subjects of interest to you.

Feel free to check out my story, in this forum, at:

http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=17975&page=9
Posted By: jondo1976 Re: your beliefs and why - 08/12/09 11:08 PM
well to be honest I don't know what got my mind to wonder so much.In high school i could have cared less about anything, so theres a lot I don't know!But now days when I look at professors or scientist who are out to benefit the world in some way I want to be a part of that, and when I look at discoverers and adventurist I think to myself, now this is what life's about.
I guess I just want to be a part of something greater than myself somehow.I'm only 24 and im about to go back to school for computer technology, not really a big interest of mine but where im at there are not a lot of options.I was raised in a baptist church and I went as long as my mom made me go, but when I got old enough to speak for myself I stopped going.Also, I just recently read the Bible all the way through for the 1st time and I see why everybody has something different to say about it.Its because it is too mysterious and no one person can fully understand it, so instead of people admitting to that fact alot of people make up there own rules and say "its in the Bible".I don't limit myself to just the Bible though, i am starting on the q'uran now to see what its about.I believe in one God but i also believe every religion has its own purpous.But I am interested in much more than religion, I often wonder a lot about space and time, as well as what is yet to be explored.Sometimes I just look up at the sky and wonder....
Posted By: Ellis Re: your beliefs and why - 08/12/09 11:45 PM
jondo- Do you believe that the bible is the word of god? If so, who do you believe wrote the bible?
Posted By: jondo1976 Re: your beliefs and why - 08/13/09 12:06 AM
It could be some of the words of God, i dont know. I always wondered who wrote it or who controls what to put in it and what to leave out, or where it came from.I agree with certain parts of it and certain parts I dont agree.I know it's not the original way it should be simply because too much time has passed and everything changes with time, so it must have been switched up a lot.To tell you the truth I dont know what to think of it, but regardless if its all made up or real it doesn't change my belief in God because I dont think human life(or any life) is coincidence...even if there never was a bible I would still believe in God.Infact a lot of people did believe in a God or Gods way before the bible even showed up.Take the native americans for example, who called God the Great Spirit.They didnt know anything about a bible before the settlers came, but they knew there was a higher force.So that being said,the bible could be more of a way of life than the words of God.
Posted By: Ellis Re: your beliefs and why - 08/13/09 12:25 AM
Well said jondo. It is unarguable that many people feel that there must be 'something' that has organised 'everything'. And that is usually a god or gods.

However another way to rationalise our existence is to accept we (intelligent life) have evolved on this planet (and possibly others) as a chance happy result of the environmental conditions here. No divine intervention, no after-life, just us and our own rules to govern our lives

That way we are responsible for our own lives and that of our species. No gods to rescue us when thing go pear-shaped- and no god who planned the universe permeating everything ever made or imagined. Just us ( and the possible others like us). And if you think that then you will want to find out everything you can about the world and the whole universe to find out how it works.
Posted By: jondo1976 Re: your beliefs and why - 08/13/09 01:16 AM
I see what you are getting at Ellis, and we both could be right or wrong.But I find that for me, believing in God is easier than not believing, for the simple fact that when in deep trouble or face to face with death It is God who I pray to.We could be alone here on earth but I would hate to know it considering how hatefull this world can be.Some people are just more comfortable believing someone is watching over them.I think that God or no God we are still responsible for our own lives.On the other hand if we are just a result of random natureness, then where do we end up?If we went from chimps to humans, then what will we be next?As of now man is the dominating species.Do you think it is possible that another species could evolve as we did? and if so do you think we would even give them the chance to?
Posted By: Tutor Turtle Re: your beliefs and why - 08/13/09 01:34 AM
It always comes down to what one wants to have others believe or see in them because one wishes to establish an identity, or some means of self evaluation that is valuable to ones self and others.
Posted By: jondo1976 Re: your beliefs and why - 08/13/09 01:37 AM
good point tutor turtle,without some insight on a right way to live there is only chaos.
Posted By: Tutor Turtle Re: your beliefs and why - 08/13/09 02:17 AM
Originally Posted By: jondo1976
good point tutor turtle,without some insight on a right way to live there is only chaos.
The right way creates chaos only because what is right evolves as human awareness evolves in recognition of reality or the reflection of it. I was referring to self referral when the discussion comes down to comparisons of what I believe and what you believe etc. etc.
There is an absolute but then everyone wants to own it as their absolute reducing it to personal opinions and values generated from the attachments to idealisms which reduce God to an image.
If you look at a hair on your arm and only see that, then try to imagine the extent of what it is connected to then you can imagine the extent or limitation of imagination when you try to reduce something that is more than can be contained in any imagination.
When everything is reduced to imagination rather than the unlimited, intuition fades and is replaced with conservatism.
Posted By: jondo1976 Re: your beliefs and why - 08/13/09 02:22 AM
imagination is the unlimited
Posted By: jondo1976 Re: your beliefs and why - 08/13/09 02:25 AM
furthermore there is no right way or wrong way because evil cannot exist without good, nor good without evil..without them both then both are pointless
Posted By: Tutor Turtle Re: your beliefs and why - 08/13/09 03:56 AM
Originally Posted By: jondo1976
imagination is the unlimited
The thought of the unlimited is limited, and imagination pasted to the limited concept of the unlimited is limited....
Posted By: jenny1980 Re: your beliefs and why - 08/21/09 02:59 PM
Hi there,

Here's my 2 cents. You asked what makes each of us believe in what we believe in...and well, I was a part of organized religion for over 30 years. The mind control, the guilt, fear, anger, expectations of perfection. I finally broke free from it, and now feel closer to God than I ever have in my life. I feel that the Bible is a tremendous source of wisdom for our lives, but that organized religion distorts the Bible. Man has found a way to control people and take their money through organized religion.

I read the Bible, and follow its principles to the best of my ability as an imperfect human being. By doing that, my conscience is clear and my sleep is sweet!

Posted By: redewenur Re: your beliefs and why - 08/21/09 04:55 PM
Originally Posted By: jondo1976
Im curious to know what makes a person decide to, or decide not to believe in God?

Does genuine belief have anything to do with choice? Is belief not an assumption based on evidence? For example, I believe that looking at a rock will not cause it to disappear, because I have ample evidence that such things don't happen. Yet there are genuine beliefs - that are still not a matter of choice - the basis of which is evidence that's not communicable to others by means of such experiments. Such beliefs are based solely upon the evidence in possession of the individual, not upon evidence purportedly required for the satisfaction of others, nor upon a popular mythology for which evidence is absent.

Posted By: entropic42 Re: your beliefs and why - 09/14/09 09:57 PM
Ok my beliefs and why. I guess I would say that I feel like i've got things worked out for myself. I've gone through a lot of different belief systems in my life. I was raised as a christian my whole life, everyone in my family is fairly religious. Then my high school humanities class happened, and our teacher impressed upon us the importance of thinking for oneself. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I had never made the choice to be christian on my own, my parents made the choice for me. I'm not saying I was ungrateful, but I wanted to figure out if that was really how I felt. After looking at the history of the Bible and how things really began in the christian religion I found myself slipping away from it more and more. Gradually I realized that I don't believe in the christian God or the Bible. Now i'm a Cognitive Neuroscience major and i'm trying to figure out if I really believe that we as humans have souls...or a purpose. I do have buddhist tendancies, but I don't like to ascribe myself to any one religion. I believe that everyone should have their own unique set of beliefs and that conforming to different groups isn't really necessary. Like it or not everyone's perceptions of a particular religion are going to be slightly different anyway.
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