Hmm. I managed to get up to date on this topic right before I took a psych exam, and spent a bit of time trying to decide what the proper response might be, but in the interest of not letting this thread devolve into some sort of religion-inspired flame war, because I already know the fact of the matter is that a lot of people either a) have biases and misconceptions that spoil the concept of religion for them and b) a lot of people like to shoot down religion because they think it makes them look more intelligent for being individual and rising above the obviously stupid masses who actually have faith in a higher power, none of which (obviously) arrived at that conclusion by their own decisions or with any level of information about the world and how it might work.
I take minor offense at my suggestion being referred to as "the stupidest thing you've ever heard," especially because I'm presenting everything from a logical, psychological standpoint. So, I just thought I'd illustrate briefly that man is a logical creature, and the human brain is wholly responsible for conceptions and perceptions of what is and what is not real. To some, belief in God is an obvious fallacy--of course there's no God, there just isn't! But why arrive at that conclusion? There has to be some logical process or pathway that resulted in that decision. I'm not suggesting that disbelief in God is in error--I am suggesting that belief or disbelief in God/faith/whatever is something you have total control over. You can actively choose to follow a set of beliefs. In fact, you
do. Your beliefs are not genetic or inherent, but purely a product of environmental impact and internal processing. People convert from one religion to another all the time, deciding to become Jewish, or Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or to renounce their previous beliefs in favor of denial of all depictions of God, or to pick up a new religion just because it sounds neat and gives them a sense of belonging (cults, anyone?). This is a conscious, active decision. Of course you have control over whether or not you believe in God.
For those of you that say, "but how can I decide to believe in God arbitrarily and at whim without proof? I see no existence of God, but many people insist on His existence. Those people obviously cannot have proof, either. Why believe in God?" Let's consider the case of a schizophrenic. Schizophrenics believe a wide variety of things which cannot possibly be true--they might have delusions of grandeur, believing themselves to be (ironically enough) God, the devil, Jesus, Buddha, Abraham Lincoln, whatever. These people
insist that they are who they think they are, and will not be convinced to the contrary, regardless of evidence. In fact, if you put three people who all believe themselves to be God in the same room, instead of being convinced of their own errors, they will denounce the others as falsehoods. To the schizophrenic, these impressions of reality
are reality--their perceptions are skewed in a way that can never make sense to sane people. By my own argument, I suppose that all forms of faith could be considered some mass delusion, but the real point at hand is that something that is "obvious" to one person--the nonexistence (or existence, for that matter) of God may not be such a hard and fast truth to another.
Philosophically and logically, the comment has been made that there it is not only rational to believe in (for example) an afterlife, but it is the logically correct choice. Assuming an afterlife exists, whether or not you personally believe in it is likely wholly irrelevent. Therefore, what value is there in opting to not believe in one? When you die, if you're right, you don't even get the satisfaction of knowing it. On the other hand, what happens if you happen to be wrong? Now, I don't believe in hell, as I've stated many times in the past, but in any case, would you be disappointed to find out you were wrong? Would you be willing to
admit that you were wrong? I don't want this to turn preachy, so I'm just going to comment on the fact that there's no harm in deciding that an afterlife or higher power exists--the worst that can possibly happen is you're wrong, and if so, you won't be alive to know about it.
Finally, in conclusion--it was not my intent to turn this into a full-blown post of this length--it just sort of happened. This is just how I get when things like this come up, I suppose. I'm not trying to "convert" anyone, nor am I trying to shove my beliefs down anyone else's throat. I'm just asking people to consider things from a wholly logical point of view if at all possible, and furthermore to consider the idea that thought and constructions
are rational processes, which means that belief in something
is an active, decided thing. No one is born into a specific religion or faith--one may be instilled by surroundings after birth, but they are a product of environment and conditioning, and knowing this, it is possible to decide to believe (or not believe) in God/the afterlife. Also, just to attempt to clear an apparent minor misconception, the existence of an ultimate divine power does
not eliminate the possibility of free will--on the contrary, it can be considered to conclusively prove it, given that apparently, we have the option to choose to believe or not. If there were no such thing as freedom of choice, why would so many people disbelieve in the existence of God? Why would God create a race of people that refused His existence?
Just some things to think about, I suppose.
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at: 12/5/04 19:24
at: 12/8/04 10:31
at: 12/8/04 15:18
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