Believers: Why do you believe?
December 2nd, 2006 by 
soulster
On the post Faith and the Bible, drunkentune asked one of our readers, ben, this question:
If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you two personal questions: 1. Why did you choose the particular form of theism you practice now over other forms of theism? 2. Why in the end did you choose faith? To me, that sounds like a false dichotomy. The choices seem to me to be instead of religion vs. atheism, it's more fitting to be all reigions vs. each other, vs. atheism.
To which ben answered:
Answering #2 first, I chose faith partly because atheism depressed the hell out of me and seemed unlikely, and as long as I was 50/50 on what the truth was, I might as well go with the one that seems real on an intuitive level. Not exactly up to the standards of science, but life moves fast and I needed to begin.
The answer to #1 was long and convoluted, but ultimately I am Catholic because after lots and lots of searching, I belive that, if ANY religion is true, then it is. Well, either that or mmmaybe Eastern Orthodoxy. But my parents are Catholic, so there ya go. I suppose, in the eyes of some atheists, that last sentence somehow totally invalidates any other reason I might have for believing in God. Oh well.
I'd like to open these questions up to any believers out there. I think that one of the best things we can do in such a dialogue is to get into the heart of why we believe. Your answer might be narrative or logical, but please make it as honest as possible, as we have nothing to fear from the truth. If it's going to be huge, you might consider posting in on your own blog or myspace as an article, creating a synopsis, and posting a link. I'm expecting a great variety of stories and reasons and look forward to the information. Please, invite your friends to comment on this post as well. I'm hoping for a broad spectrum (atheists, invite religious friends if you like). I'd like some non-Christian theist's answers too.
Maybe we could rephrase the questions as:
1. What are your reasons for faith? Where did your faith come from? What influenced it?
2. Why do you choose your particular faith system/tradition and, if applicable, particular sect of that system/tradition?
Also, I would like for skeptics, whether believer or not, to refrain from tearing apart any of these statements on this post in the interest of encouraging honest responses. I'm not just saying this to atheists because believers have a cetain reputation for "verbal deconstruction" of other believers (in other words, Protestants don't make back-handed remarks about Catholics, vice versa, etc.). Please be careful when explaining why you left a certain belief, if such occured in your story, to not demonized people, sects, and systems unneedfully. (I'm sure we'll have some posts later where we can go to town on the major themes that emerge, so if you could just hold back your witty and insightful critiques, we will get there eventually.)
Posted in belief, definitions and descriptions, why believers believe | 
December 3rd, 2006 at 12:29 am
“I’d like some non-Christian theist’s answers too.”
Yes, definitely.
December 3rd, 2006 at 3:35 am
My protestant middle class parents sent me to Sunday school as a child. When I was about 12 I demanded proof of the existence of god from my teacher, but did not get a satisfactory answer. After a few weeks of arguing I realised that I had been lied to all of these years. I was fairly bitter about it, and resolved not to believe what people, especially adults, told me.
I started to read philosophy, first Russell’s “History of Western Philosophy”, as I had seen a Russell lecture on TV (In the 60s, the ABC broadcast summer schools). I got to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason”, but was unable to understand it at all.
By the time I got to year ten I had figured out that you should live life, and if it got too painful you should kill yourself. I have suffered had depression most of my life, and this is fairly lethal in combination with this belief.
After a fairly miserable time at the end of high school, I decided to take up a religion. After I ended my brief dalliance with a Trotskyite faction, I began hanging around with some catholics and eventually converted.
The main reason was that it was based on love of your neighbour, putting yourself last and others first. I was also impressed by the continuity of Catholicism from the early church until now, and I was also influenced by the fact that the religion developed out of western European culture (I am not even sure now why I thought that was important, but I did think that being from a European background I would be happier with Christianity).
I figured that the worst thing that might happen to me is that I would have a lot of children (which I did, and which is great). I also promised myself never to allow religion to force me to harm anyone else. I see this last rule as like the Pope’s idea of religion being filtered through reason, or maybe like the primacy of conscience.
So, I believe because I think I have a better life this way. I know this sounds feeble minded, but there it is.
December 3rd, 2006 at 7:27 am
I can’t say why I believe, but I can say why I used to believe.
This is an interesting process for those of us who were once believers and are now non-believers.
I was brought up in a family where religioun wasn’t enforced, nor was it denied. I was encouraged to go to sunday school, mostly against my will I will add, as I found it quite boring.
(That was an unacceptable thing to say then, and probably an unacceptable thing to say in some parts of the world still.)
I went on to be confirmed and continued to go to church for a couple of years.
Even as a child, I was not one to accept something as being true just because someone told me it was true.
Especially if someone said, “you have to believe this.” Those words illicited a plethora of questions such as “why do I have to believe?” until, it was judged better not to use that excuse with me.
Though I did not go to church anymore, parts of my religious training stayed with me. One of these rituals was prayer. I found a comfort in prayer which meant I repeated the ritual.
And it was a ritual, a learned behaviour from which I received gratification.
It felt good to wish others well in prayer, and to hope for the sorts of things that most people hope for in prayer. Such as peace, help for others, the end of suffering for those in pain etc etc.
There was an emotional and psychological payoff with prayer which I found beneficial and enjoyable. It made me feel that I was a “good person” and perhaps I was being looked at as a “good person” by the benevolent deity that I imagined was hearing my prayers.
So, to a certain extent, there was the hope of reward, if not in this life, then in one which may exist when I was dead.
This hope of reward wasn’t fully fledged in me though. My family was big on the concept that as an individual you should act as if there would be NO reward. That is, that altruism was a “more noble” position than the carrot and the stick.
Consequently, we were encouraged to think of others and to perform tasks which would not see us deriving any material benefit.
It is debatable whether or not any action can be truly altruistic, as there is always the emotional reward for having behaved in a fashion which is deemed worthy. Nonetheless, this behaviour was encouraged.
Prayer began to lose its edge. I began to consider the possibility that my prayers were more about my desire to see myself in a good light, rather than a real desire to enact change or to provide substantial help in anyone’s life.
I decided that even though prayer might make ME feel good, it probably wasn’t very effective at doing anything else.
I began to see prayer as being, in reality, a conversation that I had with my better self, or with my conscience.
And that if I really wanted to be helpful, my time would be better spent, and more effective, if I actually acted as a better person towards people, rather than praying for their well being.
Prayer is pretending you want to help, so you think about it. Helping is actually doing something about it.
Do I think I will be rewarded in an afterlife? No. It would be nice, and tempting to believe it, but I don’t.
I think that whatever happens here on earth stays here on earth, no eternal rewards, and no eternal punishments.
And contrary to some theistic opinion, being a non-believer hasn’t changed my behaviour to my fellow man as far as I can see.
I don’t run over little old ladies on the sidewalk with my car. I don’t vault the fence and bash up the neighbours and I don’t run around the world robbing banks.
I don’t do these things probably for the same reasons I didn’t do them when I was a believer.
December 3rd, 2006 at 10:52 pm
beepbeep: According to one American poll I heard about (not sure where), going to church ranked second in a list of "most boring things to do". It was beat only by watching golf. Sorry to all the golfers out there.
If it is impolite to say that church is usually boring, at least your voice is not alone. This is in no way commentary on your story (thanks for sharing), but I thought you might take interest that many are now admitting that they've shared your experience.
December 4th, 2006 at 8:06 am
RE soulster
Ahhhh. And I dislike golf as well. Doubly damned.
December 4th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Simply:
I was raised in a culture where belief in the existence of a God was assumed.
After encountering other cultures and chewing on the problem of evil, I began questioning this belief.
While I did become convinced that the traditional descriptions of God exhibit internal contradictions, neither the atheist nor the theist seemed to have any compelling arguments for or against my intuitive belief in some sort of God. Consequently, I began looking for descriptions of God that seemed more logically coherent and true to my experience.
Christian Panentheism is the most satisfying theology I’ve found so far, but I’m open to correction.
(Also, it might be helpful to add that I am a bit of a materialistic determinist, and with regard to “salvation”, I am a universalist. Basically, this means all the atheists can go on believing whatever they’re compelled to believe about gods without seeing any interference from me, just so long as they’re not too self-righteous about it. Self-righteousness makes me downright nasty.)
December 4th, 2006 at 11:16 am
Matthew:
Thanks for the honest response.
Would you explain Panentheism a little bit for our readers? There’s a pretty good explanation on wikipedia. Would you consider yourself with the Eastern Orthodox view or with one of the other Christian views? Also, when you say “satisfying theology” you mean aestheticly or logically satisfying?
December 5th, 2006 at 11:44 am
@soulster -
Thanks for asking.
I probably sit somewhere between the Eastern Orthodox view and the process theologians, but I’m relatively new to panentheism, and still trying to flesh out my opinions. In general, the orthodox folks are going to be a little more interested in preserving the biblical text than I, while the process theologians are going to be more bound to the western philosophical tradition.
(For example, free will plays a significant part in process theology, and dualism seems to as well, but I’m not willing to defend either of these.)
WRT “satisfying”, I mean both aesthetically and logically satisfying … if by “aesthetically” we mean that it resonates with the body of my beliefs, my feeling about how the world works. Certainly, atheism is very logically simple, but given my existing noetic structure, it just doesn’t feel right. Result: panentheism wins out 2-1.
December 6th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
“1. Why did you choose the particular form of theism you practice now over other forms of theism? 2. Why in the end did you choose faith?” (Soulster)
1. I choose to believe in God basically because I have no good reason not to. I am yet to find anything about God that I dis-like, about church tonnes, but God nothing. My faith is in God and in Christ.
2. I never choose ‘faith’, faith choose me. How in the end am I to figure out the puzzle of human life without it? My birth is by mere chance (almost) - being one in a million sperm vying for the egg - yet I made it (no others with me) - to me that is simply miraculous. Life is lived on a scale of interactions with one another, all these interactions develop out of our core being, to ‘trust’. Death is so unknown that no one knows the day or hour of that event (some young, some old). Choosing faith is like asking for anyone to choose to be born - it just happens and there is no turning that back.
But as for what ‘faith’ I have chosen, it would be Christianity. I choose it because of it’s focus on love and concepts of helping the poor. I see such wisdom in wanting to help the down-trodden and that wisdom is so alive in the disciples writings. No people can come down on this faith, and they do with some good cause, but the words of Christ speak in such a way as to want to help, not hurt, and this is gravely mistaken in Christianity in general (making it a lawful religion of do’s and dont’s). I see nothing wrong with these teachings of Christ and it was a system of teachings that helped my life do a 180. Now should I knock something that gave me a better vision of life? Yes, at times with some of the things I see the church as a whole doing - I should speak against it. But no also, in that the purity of what I learned I didn’t learn from my community or city - it came from a book, not a law system or a single blood-line of mine, it came from knowing love can exist and someone out there still believes it can be a paradigm to live by.
December 8th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
1. Q: Why Christianity over other forms of theism?
A: The history of Christianity is awesome. It has very ancient roots in the first true monotheism, Judaism, yet the apostolic teachings take monotheism to a level of simplicity and complexity that is without compare. The historical development of Christian ideas, the early church fathers, the adaptation across cultures over time, the Reformation and modern adjustments in thinking among Christians is impressive. It is the most widespread monotheism in history and cultures. Other monotheisms are the product of single cultures (Islam/Arabic, Mormonism/19th Century American) and are not as flexible to a truth seeker. True, Christianity has sometimes been made into a truth denying religion, or worse, but it has, in my perspective, over time, offered the biggest tent for truth seekers and those who seek to do what is right. It also seems logical that the immense size and predictability of the universe implies that if a diety exists, it is one and possesses qualities which are beyond my full understanding. My understanding of Christianity: it is a constant struggle to understand and do as God would want us to do as both individuals and a Church. So, for me, Christian life is a life of personal growth and truth seeking.
2. Why did you chose faith?
I was agnostic until college age. At that time, I examined the big picture in terms of the existence of the supernatural. It seemed to me that the supernatural was more likely there than not. Evidence included: witnessed miracles, reports of near death experiencers, nearly universal belief in the supernatural across cultures and history, and my subjective experience of supernatural presence. So, I abandoned agnosticism, but I still think agnosticism has it over on any self-assured stagnant-growth belief system or self-assured stagnant-growth non-belief (atheism).
December 8th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
societyvs:
Interesting post. Especially the part about faith choosing you. Did you ever go through a time when you had to choose Christianity again, or more deeply, or has your belief been uninterupted?
Ed:
Thanks for the post. It seems like there is a strong stream of truth-seeking and humility going together in your thinking. I'm I hearing you correctly?
December 9th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Soulster, thanks for the recognition and here is my reply.
I am currently going through a period of coming back to the church - or attending again. I left for 6 years due to the structure being way too rigid and driving people away (in some senses). I left and did everything I wanted to (ex: sex, drugs, booze, education, etc). I found a freedom in not being defined by the rigid lines of Patoral and Church thought - I left the do’s and dont’s only to challenge them.
I had 6 years to examine this faith outside the church and my final result was this: I have faith whether in the movement or not - I am a person made of faith. I noticed faith never left me that whole time - I always believed and followed the ideas about loving my neighbor (even if I do it poorly). I realized God loves me no matter the situation and I recognized this within my 6 years of prodigal son-ness. Even if the church despised my actions, God did not - I guess I recognized their was still hope for the hopeless - after walking 2 miles in their shoes.
But now I am back in the church and I am trying to change the focus - in any way I can - if only to enlighten it to the hope within this faith. I am writing programs based on ‘helping the poor’ in our communities (as a church ministry - that has been vastly overlooked). I also am working on some First Nations (Indian) teachings for the church in my city - why? Well in my provice (Saskatchewan, Canada) the First Nations population is a founding culture which the church has never connected to. I want to help bridge that gap in some way.
Basically, my faith has changed to one of pure acceptance and not one of a works based ideology - which in the end condemns the one who lives in it (as Paul would say). I focus on something very simple, God loves all of us (whether Muslim, atheist, gay, bigot, etc) and there is room in the church for everyone (whether they change or not is up to them and has no bearing on my faith walk whatsoever - unless the bigot kills me or something). To me, the church is a (1) support system and (2) a program factory for helping the community within which we reside. This can only be accomplished by pure unity amongst the denominations - which is quite the challenge and one I have not ruled out yet. The church has a lot of power, if they so choose to accept their responsibility, but this era is one of righting the wrongs of the past. I am game for it!