True or false, what a person believes becomes their reality?

Question

In other words, if a person believes in ghosts, then ghosts exist for that person. If a person believes in God, the God exist for them. Etc, etc.. What is your opinion?

Answer 1

It may exist for that person, in their head, but not in the real world.

Answer 2

I am a realist, so I believe in things that are true and valid. Reality - is Reality, so what is the point you are trying to make? If I find out something I believe is wrong, then I throw it out, and adjust my reality to conform with reality, including science. How can people deny what science has proven to be true? (not talking about evolution which is a theory). Why do people deny the ice-ages, and the flood of water that covered the tops of the mountains? We must put new proven knowledge, with the old. The ice started to receed about 9 thousand years ago, during the last great warming period. Before that it had not been known to rain (the ice flows froze every particle of moisture, onto itself, so no rain fell. During the warming period, a water vapour started collecting, no longer being captured by the ice. When it got heavy enough, the flood of water fell to the earth. - How could ancient people describe that to future people? They were aware that this solid mass, turned into liquid surely. They described it like this, - They walked on solid water.

Answer 3

I was reading an article yesterday about famous April Fool's Day jokes. Supposedly some radio station on April Fool's Day announced that some strange phenomenon would occur that would cause everyone on Earth to experience zero gravity for a couple minutes. It was a joke, obviously, but many people believed it. And the radio station got hundreds of calls from people seriously claiming to experience strange effects. They expected it to happen, so in their minds, it happened.

There was another April Fool's joke I read about, where a team of engineers claimed that they had figured out how to transmit smells through people's television sets. One of the guys on this television program started preparing food and announced to his viewers that they should be able to smell it. Sure enough, they received many calls from people who were absolutely certain that they could indeed smell the food.

So, yeah, I agree with you. If you believe it enough, you have a good chance of experiencing it, too. It's amazing how the mind works like that.

Answer 4

Reality is a construct and so is the mind that apprehends it; it does not exist from its own side separate from the nominal designation of its collection of parts. You say tamato I say tomato! However...with regards to prime cognition, there are two types: inferential prime cognition and direct prime cognition. One can approximate all they want but through reason and analysis many variables - if you want to delve into the epistemological origins of various topics - can be eliminated, but it is not worth fighting about! They still taste great in the conventional sense. Tomatoes, I mean.

Answer 5

Some things exist whether you believe in them or not, however perception plays a huge part in how you "navigate" the world around you. We Buddhists believe in a concept called "valid perception" vs. "correct perception".

I'll use the example of a rainbow to try to help explain my POV: You're on one side of a town and you see a rainbow, and I'm on the other and I see it too... the way YOU perceive the rainbow is NOT the same way I perceive it. How you perceive it is "valid perception" for you, and the way I perceive it is "valid perception" for me, however if we both only perceive it as rain busting up the color spectrum, or however you want to "perceive" it, it's still "INCORRECT perception".

That rainbow is empty of inherent existence (not nihilism mind you), whether you believe it or not, but whatever you believe of it, is reality for YOU... Yes (in direct answer to your question), but it can lead you to react to it incorrectly, thereby generating karma you may or may not like the result of.

Just my take on it.

_()_

Answer 6

Acceptance of a certain belief without any proof is wrong. Most people believe in something because of something that has happen to them physically. I.E. A person sees something supernatural so they believe. They see a fly saucer so they believe. In worship usual someone will have something happen to them that they can only explain one way...through spirituality and God. I don't believe its necessarily what you believe but what has happened to you to make you believe.

Answer 7

Very possible. There is a branch of science call psychology. If you believe in unselfish behaviors, you will become unselfish. But if you believe in things that do not exist, then it is difficult to make you believe the opposite.

Answer 8

...I think this is one that many should think about and settle.
...Facts are facts, whether you want to believe them or not makes no difference, i.e., George Washington was the 1st US President - it is true; one only shows he is brainless or ignorant to deny this. He cannot by himself, change the fact that Washington was the 1st US President.
...To believe you create your own reality is bunk, and is based on Eastern religion, which is closely associated with pop psychology, which tries to deify the person (make that person God).
...The Bibly says there is no God besides Him.

Answer 9

I think to some extend this is true but i think what a person experience is their reality. Have you ever woken up from a dream and being confused for a second of what is real? When you were in your dream that was real for you. This is why i say experience=reality.

Answer 10

Not really.

If a person believes he can fly, and leaps into the air off of the Empire State Building, his reality will still be that he cannot fly.