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Belief in God; Did You Choose, or Did it just Happen?

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Choice, Something Just Happened, or Upbringing?
I chose, and I still believe in free will 21%  21%  [ 11 ]
I chose, but no longer believe in free will 4%  4%  [ 2 ]
Something just happened and I believe in free will 13%  13%  [ 7 ]
Something just happened and I don't believe in free will 6%  6%  [ 3 ]
Upbringing, I believe in free will 12%  12%  [ 6 ]
Upbringing, I don't believe in free will 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Just want to look at the results 44%  44%  [ 23 ]
Total votes : 52

ruveyn
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05 Apr 2009, 8:19 pm

Beliefs don't "just happen". They are either learned or chosen.

ruveyn



Hector
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05 Apr 2009, 8:59 pm

Chibi_Neko wrote:
No one has ever chose to believe in god.
When we are young, we are totally dependent on our parents or athority figure, we are programed to learn or believe what is told to us, when you are that young, you are not going to question it. when we get older the belief gets serious, and the fact that other adults also believe it too will help it along.

There are two things this interpretation fails to account for: what of people raised without religion who become religious later on in life (yes, they exist, Moby being one "celebrity example"), and how did people start believing in God or whatnot?



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10 Apr 2009, 6:10 am

alba wrote:
In this thread, ouinon brings up the idea that Jesus [prior to crucifixion] represents our belief in the illusion of freewill ... maybe Christianity is saying the same thing as the Eastern religions, but it got mucked up along the historical way...Maybe ouinon's theory is mending the rift between East and West---in their spiritual traditions ... Belief in freewill [and the separate self] is the father/mother of all suffering and illusion, or sin. Christians believe they are giving their life and will to Jesus, in order to have God's will take control in their life. This is another way of saying they have given up belief in freewill ... The problem is that they haven't.

Pretty ironic isn't it. :? It was Augustine who really messed things up by writing about the gospels as if they were about real people, each of them with free will. He, along with most of the romans of the day, took the story too literally.

I agree with you that Christianity, ( the first couple of centuries of it anyway, and the gospel(s) itself ), was probably profoundly influenced by/linked with Eastern spiritual perspectives, especially buddhism.

But unfortunately the myth was taken literally, and, together with Islam, western religion took a step backwards/sideways, to more "efficient" empire-building-beliefs.

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