I've been thinking...

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woah sign me up! or not.. i think its funny they dont let anyone into mecca unless they are islamic
thats one religion i wont be joining

The thing is i wonder whether i should try this again. I didn't carry on for very long, so i don't know what would have happened if i hadn't been put off by the increasing impression of unavoidable rules and high standards of behaviour, and the sense of an oppressively judgmental observer if i carried on believing in god .
Maybe it IS more interesting than the everlasting rationality of atheism. The reasonableness, and sensible and purely real universe of atheists. Maybe i am thirsty for such magnificent unreality. I don't know. It's just that it was a most unexpected experience.

So in that sense i understand, i think, what DejaQ means. The very unreality of god is maybe what's missing in modern life. Hence the popularity of MMORPGs etc. And the Lord of the Rings.

(Ancient egyptian religion believed in the real and unreal; they are equally important they taught.)

Maybe I won't be able to convince myself completely in the supernatural - I believe I'd still be agnostic in any case.

No one can know the truth - they can only draw conclusions based on what they are taught and what they have observed, because not everything can be seen. Some find truth in science, others in religion. What people believe is based on how they perceive the world.

I try to find beauty in the world around me, and it's sometimes discomforting to have it simplified as a bunch of formulas and principles, which is one reason why I want to find some sort of belief system that is relevant to me.

No. Always choose what you truly believe to be the truth, when given the choice between that and pleasant emotions. If you believe there is no god, do not change that belief purely for emotional reasons. Truth is your friend, and anything that pulls you away from the truth is your enemy.
And I'm saying this as a Christian with a firm, lifelong belief in a loving, all-powerful God.

You sound like you know this is the truth.

Interesting, that, if no one can know it.

Last edited by Ragtime on 28 Nov 2007, 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree, you should not just pick a religion to make yourself feel good. Being dishonest with yourself will not make you truly happy.

I don't necessarily know it, but I believe it well enough to state it as a fact. It's the conclusion I've drawn from my experience. There's an old quote: "Every generalization is false, including this one."



I used to be a Christian and I was adamant in my belief of God.

Over time, I began to question my faith, and eventually it faded away.

For years, I was an adamant atheist.

Recently, my faith in the absence of a god has begun to fade.

How do I know that this isn't the same process that drove me to atheism in the first place?

There is a book called The Question of God by Armand M Nicholi that profiles the beliefs and lives of Freud and C.S. Lewis, which I found to be very balanced. It would be an interesting read for someone in your position.

So, you won't mind if I disagree? That's all I was checking. Others on this site have not permitted me to disagree with your statement. They insist that no one can know the truth, and they insist that they know that is the truth.



I don't know. You may very well be on a pendulum.

I will say that, being raised as a converted Christian (conversion age: 4 yrs), I accepted belief in God more easily and implicitly than I would have if converted as an adult. But I often question my faith, and I often question God -- by that I don't mean defy, I mean ask genuine questions, to show Himself true or untrue. I don't believe in what I call "religious momentum", where you think, "Well, I was a Christian yesterday, and the day before that, so I might as well be a Christian today." Instead, I believe in thinking critically and actively at all times. Not letting any dubiousness fester into congealed doubt, but rather, get the truth out in the open, whatever it is, so that you can see it for what it is. So, whenever things are going smoothly in my life, and God isn't testing my faith, I test it. It's good exercise for the mind and the spirit, and keeps me sharp. I want every little belief I choose to adopt to be tested, proven, and believed in whole-heartedly. How else can I trust it enough to base my life on it?

Last edited by Ragtime on 28 Nov 2007, 4:57 pm, edited 10 times in total.

Aproximation, a more logical conclusion based on our limited perception, that no one can "never" know the truth. Although, it is best to never say never

As I said aproximation, that means, no black and white approach, you know.

I can conclude somehow that for the time being no one can actually know the "truth" as in a pure unquestionable absolute 'truth'.

My point is where that ever-so-human sense of certainty comes from. It comes from the fact that we instinctively feel that there are definite truths -- truths beyond all need to question. A small point, but an interesting one, and an important one.

i was wondering whether aspies have less solid and impermeable sense of self than NTs. Maybe personality looks like an illusion to many aspies because of the particular brain differences. Data/info/systems and individual acts and ideas have more relevance to some aspies than personality. Maybe there is a mental "space" which is filled up in NTs but unoccupied in aspies. Who they are. The big boss coordinating everything. So maybe aspies are interested in god because "it" feels like something that might act as the chief executive /centre of personality that NTs have. Whereas to NTs belief in god has more to do with following human rules and being part of a human community. Not exactly decoration but more like a symbol for the group. To aspies might have more fundamental function.

Also someone said shouldn't decide to believe something in order to feel happy. I'm not sure if there is anything wrong with choosing to believe something that makes you happy, if in fact can not know if is true or not. So long as does not harm anyone.

What is so sacred about reality? Why is there so much value given to the real in recent times?
Why is the pretence that the unreal does not exist so fashionable. Everything must have proof, evidence etc. As if the unreal did not have quite as much power over humans as the real.

Well, as a truth seeker, the fact that reality is true makes it very appealing to believe in. I like building my life on solid, logical foundations, rather than ever-shifting sands of dizzy wonderment. I hear architects are the same way.

As an artist, I'm all for dizzy wonderment, but I priortize having a logical lifestyle above it.

I think that unreality might actually have some very unshifting foundations, some strangely immutable laws.

And i don't think that it can be said to be a FACT that " reality is true". That only holds if you define the two, or even three, terms in very particular ways.

It occurs to me that Jung sort of posits that unreality is very consistent.

(The collective unconscious. Got to find a zappier name for it tho!! Can't go around saying "I believe in the collective unconscious" . )

Last edited by ouinon on 29 Nov 2007, 3:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

We can all disagree with each other all we want - let's just keep our minds open to each other's views and motivations and not descend into chaos.

I've been questioning my sense of reality for about a year now. When I was in biology class it didn't seem right to me that every single thought I've had is predetermined by a series of chemical reactions. Is that all my reality is? At times, it seems just too empty to accept.

I'm wondering now: is it wrong to try to seek a faith that conforms to one's perspective of the world? Should I try to seek a faith because that particular faith makes sense to me or should I accept one based on others' testimonies?

Mainly if it makes sense to you. But, logically, into that you can induct others' testimonies that make sense to you. So you can have multiple sources of information that make up your decision, as long as they all make sense to you.