Try to remember if you can: what first caused you to believe? Was it a feeling or a thought?

Question

Was it a feeling you got when you listened to a preacher or read the bible? Was it a thought you had that you were always taught to believe? That first time you had a new revelation about belief/God/spirituality, etc -- was it a feeling or a thought? If it was a feeling, did it continue unabated, or go away after a while or wax/wane or what?

(Pagans, atheists, wiccans, FSM believers etc. welcome to answer, of course.)

Thank you Off. Uggh for your honesty: How many people agree that faith can't have a cognitive aspect, but must be strictly emotional?

Answer 1

Parents telling me that god exists. I was indoctrinated as a child. It wasn't until late high school or early college that I deconverted and became an atheist.

Answer 2

I used to believe quite passionately until logic got the better of me and all those unresolved questions kept popping back up. The more you think about it logically the less sense the whole thing makes,hence I can only summise belief is feeling based.

And I agree faith can't have a cognitive aspect, but must be strictly emotional - logic and thought processes lead you in the opposite direction.

Answer 3

First, I disagree that faith is not a cognitive function and is purely emotional. What little studying I've done of quantum physics has increased my faith using cognitive abilities.

I've used logic to increase my faith (i.e. assuming an infinite God, we can not also have a finite universe.).

I'm not saying my reasoning is perfect. :)

My belief has kind of seeped in over many years. Different things have strengthened it, others have challenged it.

My first encounter with Numinous was as a kid, stargazing. Then that grew to a respect and love of nature in general.

The feeling is most certainly fluid. I feel it more at different times. I try to be sensitive to it at all time, however.

Regards

Answer 4

I don't buy the idea "You need to believe first.". It is a thought first that cause me to believe something. I'll try to figure out an answer by myself when I have a question such as what is life? What is god? What happen after death (of a body)?...etc. Very often an answer or an idea will sudendly come to my mind in another time and another place when I am doing something else. Usually that answer or idea make sense to me. So, What I believe become MY believe not anybodyelse's believe. I may modify what I believe in the future. I don't deny other people's believe because I believe my believe is right and other people believe their believe is right too (to them at a certain time maybe, :-).

Answer 5

You go after the Christians for their belief but what about the others. You are telling me that a Pagan, an atheist, a Wiccan, or any of the others don't have faith in what they believe? You are asking only the Christians but you welcome the others to attack the Christian belief. To me this is a double standard. Point of fact what is your belief? I have told you many times my faith and I welcome debate. For without debate there is no knowledge!!! As for the groups you name only the Wiccan have something that may help mankind!!!

Answer 6

In my early years I had faith and believed in god because that is what my parents believed. As I matured I started seeing the impossibilities of what the preacher was saying. Then I started studying the bible and finally decided it was somewhat like a fairy tale in many places and, the central them of the whole text was one of contradiction.

When I approached adulthood, I started to realize that the church was actually preaching hate instead of love. That is the point at which I stopped attending church and believing in the bible. I consider myself an Agnostic now, not at atheist.

Answer 7

It was a feeling (of God's presence). If I am distracted it wanes, but I can feel it even now (the first time was 15 years ago).

It is not really the mind that decides anyway. Have you every heard the phrase "your heart just wasn't in it"? You may thinking you need to do something or you may think you know/believe something, but if your heart is otherwise...you won't be able to do it or you really don't believe.

Many believers are like that today, they think they should believe and they may even think they believe, but their hearts are not in it. If it is a thought only...it will fail if the heart (feeling) is otherwise.

~ Eric Putkonen

Answer 8

faith isn't always an emotion. It might be partly emotion but if it doesn't have some thought behind it, then it's nothing but the blind faith that the fundies talk about. I know you can't know everything about God but I don't think that is permission to say we can't know anyting and that we have to believe everything with blind faith. To me thats bad religion and awful theology.

I was raised baptist and always heard about feelings and emotions. I didnt believe they were always signs of faith. When I became a catholic, thats when I started to really believe because of the things I was taught. so I guess my first belief was a thought, not a feeling.

Answer 9

The things that I felt, emotionally, at church were usually much more amorphous than being moved by specific beliefs or things that were being said--music has usually been what could make me believe that there is something bigger than me, something I don't understand, but that I can feel the beauty of, and that I want to connect to somehow. As I've gotten older, being in nature and the experience of having children have done the same thing.

Answer 10

read Alan Watts

Its a good place for many sincere questions as yours

The word believe is an anglo saxon word which has to do with wish.>Why wish? Because we want to protect our skins and be on the side of the Big Kahuna.Most people who say they believe are wishful hoping thinkers but they dont think very clearly..Most all if not all ideas of God and dieties are eitther based in fear and the desire to get something.

Answer 11

When I was 6 years old, both of my parents converted
to Christianity (they were sort of agnostic/secular before).
At 6, they told me about God and Jesus.
I decided I did not want to accept Jesus as savior
at that time because I said to myself: "What if I want to do
something at some point that God did not want me to
do but it was something that would help me accomplish
something good that I wanted to do (end justifies
means idea)" - I wanted to always be able to choose
for myself what I would do, in other words - to be independent/self-sufficient and free. I also asked why there had to be sin and why God put the tree in the garden - why the test? So, I rejected God and Jesus at 6 years old.

Then, my parents started going to church and I sat in
church service and drew pictures while the pastor preached.
After about a year, when I turned 7 years old, the pastor
preached a very basic, clear message about salvation and
the creator. I listened closely to every word that day.
It is like my ears were unplugged (my spiritual ears),
and I understood more and more as the sermon went on -
one idea built upon another and it all made sense!
The impression on my heart/spirit was simply this:
"I need Jesus and can not do without Jesus in my life -
for my whole life"

My contentions with God were overidden/erased for just the
reason - WE NEED JESUS. It was clear. We need Jesus for
life, we need Jesus for death/eternity. That is all there is to it!

I was so very shy that I did not want to go to the alter to
pray with the pastor. I tugged on my mothers coat and
said that I wanted to go and asked if she would go with me.
My mother, knowing me well (and my stubborness)
actually denied my request! She told me I had to go
by myself (so I would never say that she made me go).
So, I ran very fast to the alter (because I was so shy).
It was on New Years Eve 1977.

So, it has now been almost 30 years - God has done
nothing but prove Himself to me over and over
again!

It is not emotional nor is it the imperfect "cognitive" we
have, it is spiritual. Emotions are result of a thought
or experience. What initiates it is not emotional,
but spiritual understanding.

The cognitive IS part of it as cognitive is part of
every relationship we have!