Parroting religious commentaries as a expression of faith is matter of lazy economics—what would you do or think if nobody told you what you believe? “We believe” is the easy road well traveled.
Fostering the thoughts of other believers “we believe” in the attempt to justify the harmful outcomes of the gospel message, biblical immorality and contradictions of scripture is a cheap attachment to faith—the easy-economy of thought transfer to a faith that was inculcated by the same source that details what “we”, the group believes.
We believe what you truly know of faith can only come from your own observations, not lifting quotes and cleverly worded circuitism from the concept of religion from those that have a vested interest in your belief. The true measure of faith can only be viewed through a lens of unbelief—the third party observer. To an unbeliever it’s quite obvious the whole setup is a scam. Tis a fact. Not from the group mantra of “we believe”, but in–spite of your indoctrination can you openly measure the worth of an idea—and in spite of your groups stimulated dopaminergic machinations.
We believe one can’t simultaneously believe the wordy coercions of others and objectively evaluate who god is, or even who they really are. At that point we believe you have effectively allowed the persuasion of others to hijack the person you will now never come to know outside the influence of the herd. The same herd that will betray you the moment you desist believing the way they do.
What you or anyone else decides we believe, doesn’t change it into a truth. Mimicking popular sayings and catchy phrases should actually be a trigger warning your mind has been hijacked.
Challenging ones belief stimulates their fight or flight, solely for the arguments sake is belief defended. It has no substance but a hope. Challenging someone’s hope puts fear and adrenaline in overdrive.
Belief is not even that important to mankind, but it cannot be helped. Many hate the fact they are tied to it.
Even after the onset of unbelief the doctrine lingers against your will.
I attended seminary four years so someone could teach me what to believe—then I became the teacher, letting other young minds know what they believe.
They were all as I, in it to win it for the parents sake, for their lack of faith and their constant prayers that a child might believe what they believe. That weirdness all seems like a lifetime ago.
TheCommonAtheist 
This got me thinking about the way we use the term “belief”. There is sort of a built in implication of doubt and uncertainty in the word, I’ve always felt. Otherwise why not use the much more forceful and affirmative phrase “I know”? I don’t “believe” that 2+2=4, I *know* it is. But I would use the term when referring to something like string theory. I believe string theory is a crock of BS for a variety of reasons, but I don’t *know* that it is and readily admit I could be wrong. When catholics say the Apostles’ Creed “I believe in one god, the father … ” etc. right there it makes me think they’re not really sure and are looking for a way to weasel out of it if something blows up on them otherwise they would use the phrase “I know…”
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It’s a lame direction to focus our attention. As I’ve stated before, belief has become the gold standard of intellect and integrity. And for what? It doesn’t make it true or even more useful than simply living with a full awareness that you can do better in your own. Hell, any mom and pop or three person committee can do better than religion. And that is evident in those that break from the herd. Suddenly everyone is beautiful in their own way, without judgement and division.
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You are right about the difference between believe and know, but don’t ever tell a christian true-believer that. Their believe is a much stronger word than most believe, pun pun, because they know they believe, while others like us just believe we know. Meanwhile, the stronger they believe, the closer they are to having their belief upset. It’s like the calm before the storm: One blow and its gone.
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Poof! (Strong gust of wind from Jim’s keyboard) well the other side is I was never really a believer. I was a fake believer. Believe that!
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My head believed, but it was given no choice. Once I got involved I stopped believing too.
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Wow. You really went full Dark side there. A seminarian? What color was your light sabre?
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True blue baby!! It seems a lifetime ago. It’s a little embarrassing that someone as smart as me could be fooled so badly. Not that I’m smarter than the average Jo, Jo, but I bought in like my parents before me. I believed even in the face of overwhelming evidence—or did I? I tend to think my integrity finally developed.
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I was also a product of childhood indoctrination. Catholic convent school. Altar boy. Youth groups. Minister of the eucharist. Must best friend was a young catholic priest about the same age as me. I think that helped me towards my atheism though, because I got to see under the hood and take a good look at the mechanism underneath.
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But Jo, there’s excuses for those mechanisms! You didn’t buy the excuses either? Wow!! You also dodged some priestly boner bullets (I think) Good for you.
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Ha ha. I wasn’t cute enough. The priest where I was an altar boy had a ‘housekeeper’ that lived with him, so he wasn’t really interested in getting any elsewhere. But when he retired and left that particular parish the priest that replaced him was an import from Germany and he was arrested and charged with child molestation about a year later. He was one of those priests the Catholic church just moved around from Parish to Parish when his ‘proclivities’ came to light. I’d already left the church by then… so I don’t know what happened to him.
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They should have put them all inside Nitro Dame cathedral last week As a preboarding thrill for hell.
That was a close call for you although he probably need med some grooming time to get established.
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Jo, we got one of “those” priests too when I was about, oh, five or six years old. Never met him myself. He was only at our parish for a year or so before he got moved out. He turned out to be one of the most notorious bastards they had in Wisconsin back then. He was shuffled around from church to church rather quickly for decades. I don’t think he molested any kids in our parish, but I’m not sure. That was back in, oh, 1959 or so, and that kind of thing was kept very, very quiet back then.
But years later when I was in my 20s a priest I knew at a parish where I was working doing building maintenance right before I got married was trying to get me to move into his house. MrsGF and I were getting married in a short time, and we were both still living with our respective parents because we were going to be moving out of the area as soon as we got married, so there was no point in going through the expense and hassle of getting our own place. But he kept telling me that it didn’t look right that a young man like me was living with his parents and that I should move in with him. I was very naive and, of course, the whole sex scandal thing becoming public was decades away. But even back then him pressuring me to move in with him seemed very odd and more than a little creepy.
Side note: Speaking of creepy — The future MrsGF and I had to interview with the priest who was going to be doing the marriage ceremony. That weirdo kept asking *very* intimate questions about my ability to function sexually. He insisted on knowing if I could — well, [ahem] perform, so to speak, that I could get an erection, physically perform the act of sexual intercourse, that I could ejaculate, etc. I was told that if I didn’t answer his questions and assure him I could actually [ahem] function, so to speak, he wouldn’t marry us. I overrode my inclination to punch him in the nose because the future MrsGF would probably have been very irritated if I messed things up. Today I suspect I would have far less patience with that kind of nonsense.
It didn’t strike me until later that according to Catholic teachings I shouldn’t have known if I could function sexually or not. One is supposed to remain a virgin until marriage, and masturbation is a sin so I shouldn’t have known if I could do it or not.
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Damn. That is quite a story! The rot is so deep. I almost feel no one has come away completely unscathed.
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My first thought after reading “Even after the onset of unbelief the doctrine lingers against your will” was ‘Yeah, it takes a while to get rid of that shit, doesn’t it?’ XD
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Thinking it will probably never go away completely, but at least it’s dismissible now as the old and gullible Jim. Excuses for religion could be like jokes at the bar…here’s in for ya! Heh.
Get that reminds me— A Priest and a rabbi were watching this young boy skateboard at the park. Priest finally says “man I’d sure like to screw him”. Rabbi says “outta what”?
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Man, you were in the seminary and then saw the light! You should write a book
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I remember this guy Loy who ran up the comment section here for a while. He said my test of faith, was so my faith could “mature”. But it seems like my integrity is what matured. One gets used to making excuses and forgets who they are, if they ever knew in the first place with all the indoctrination and decoys.
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So in Loy’s view, you failed the test of faith
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I didn’t allow my faith to mature through the doubt. Investigating the doubt is the downfall. I was supposed to only continue in belief and let my faith iron out. That is called cowardice, I believe, or is in spineless?
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Spineless. When your faith is tested, you should ask for more faith not leave religion
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Thank you. Lol. I did ask for more faith but it wasn’t granted. Losing faith what it’s all you knew for so long is tricky. Who can you tell or who will support and socialize you when you quit going? I guess I was never chosen although I wanted to be at the time. Ya know, be a big believer?
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I know. I have been there. Asking for more faith
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Faith is a decision you make when you’re vulnerable
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It’s easy to be in a crowd.
Gives you a feeling of being secure and a sense of belonging.
We’re all scared of being alone, aren’t we?(as a species)
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I can’t read any of your pieces without thinking of my JW brother, of course. But I don’t feel it’s my place to try to change the course he’s chosen, as illogical as it is. He seems happy enough. I just wish he didn’t try to impose his beliefs on other people. To me that is fundamentally wrong.
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I just wonder what the root of all that is. Why is it important for people to have others believe as they do, when that belief itself is just a hopeful guess with no definitive substance. A way of thinking about the supernatural is all it is.
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I don’t understand it at all.
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What is interesting about belief is that it provides a foundation for interpreting everything that comes after. People will challenge that which doesn’t fit the belief.
I had a back and forth with someone over Christian Martyrs. I wrote about how Christians forced conversion of Polytheists – die or convert. Charlemagne was the Great because of how many he killed or forced to convert. On the flip side, there were killings of Christians by Romans, but not in the numbers, and with many seeking martyrdom. Yes, Nero blamed Christians for the fire of Rome. So yes, there were martyrs. But this person kept harping on how Christians never forced conversion on any one, and that martyrs were numerous. Anyway, we just stopped, and let it stand. I believe that it is a shock to the system when someone challenges a belief.
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The conversion of Europe and Latin America and North America is virtually unimaginable without the sword. It’s well documented for those who care not to look for excuses.
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I think there is more than one type of person who continues to believe.
1. Of course there are many true believers obviously. Slaves to the feel good fuzzies.
2. You also have the Pascals Wager types in there (I have met several.)
3. You have some with lingering doubts as to the veracity of the claims but are too damn lazy to really put it all under a microscope.
4. You have those with more serious doubts, who are pretty sure it’s all BS, but are afraid to leave because of the shun factor, so they continue living the lie forever locked within their own mental prison.
5. You have people who develop serious doubts that lead to non belief, who discover they are pretty pissed knowing they have been had all of this time, and they leave saying “screw the consequences.”
6. …and you also have the perpetrators of the scam, knowing full well it’s a warm and fuzzy security blanket. The longest running afterlife insurance policy scam ever.
This could even be an outline of the roadmap to exiting relgion. Most never make it… Few would admit they were anything but true believers, no matter where they were personally with their belief.
The word belief should be separated into many levels. I’m quite often saying that there are as many gods as there are believers. The only thing they are sure of is they believe something, but the intricate details can be different. But they all exist within the plane of the word belief, somewhere. I am sure there are people who exist within categories I haven’t thought of as well, this all is a broad generalization of my personal observations. I admit there is much I’d have missed. I’ll also admit I have probably given this too much thought this morning, when I certainly have better things to do.
I left out one area of believer, the one who would be a thief, murderer, rapist, drug addict, alcoholic, or whatever sort of lowlife scumbag imaginable (president?) without religion. For the life of me I can’t figure out any situation at all where religion is the answer. If I ever get even a minute understanding of that, I’ll get back to you. 😉 My initial assumption is they feel like they need to exist within some sort of peer pressure vacuum to stay on whatever straight and narrow path they feel they need to choose for themselves. So religion is a tool for them in some sense to deal with their own personal inadequecies. If I’m anywhere near the ballpark of being close to correct in this case, we may have actually found some purpose for religion. Whether that alone is just cause for the case of belief, is another can of worms.
I’m sorry my comment turned into a post Jim! Once the old thinker gets put into gear you’re never quite sure where it might end up. Well maybe you are, but it’s an issue of some sort for me apparently 😉
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Fabulous comment!
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It’s hard to fully let go of something ingrained in you since childhood or by society. ..
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Bingo!
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It’s interesting looking back while teaching Sunday school and other classes when a question came up we’d say “well, we believe this or that”. Indoctrination by the group affirmation is what the group believed. Crazy really.
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It is, and it’s not just limited to religion either. Confirmation bias is widespread these days, and apophenia (i.e. the misperception of patterns or connections in random data) is inherent in human cognition. We tend to see what we want to see.
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“We believe in God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and all that is seen and unseen.” I used to be able to recite the whole thing. After claiming atheist I was asked, “I know what you do not believe, but what do you believe.” Everything I did before, minus all the god stuff. 🙂
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