How can unbelievers come to believe in God?

How can you possibly know that?

The nature of delusion is that the deluded person does not know that he is deluded.

 

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@wynn --

The bottom line is this, if your beliefs and/or what your holy text says differs from observed reality then it is your beliefs and/or your holy text that is wrong. Reality is never wrong.

 

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And you are speaking on behalf of reality?

 

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@wynn --

I'm speaking from the combined observation of all of human history. Whenever belief and reality have clashed, reality always wins out. Always.

 

Why would variety of religious expression be a shortcoming?

What do you mean?
How can a human judge you and determine what happens to you in the near and distant future?

Humans can certainly utter judgmental and judicious assessments, but it is not clear how they would have the power to actually affect something about a person, in the greater scheme of things.

If a Jehovah's Witness claims that you will burn in hell for all eternity because you did not convert - what reason is there to believe that this is indeed what will happen to you?

That seems to be the case only in artificially designed communes that people enter freely as adults.

For the purposes of furthering a discussion more quickly, a strategy of addressing the strongest version of the other person's argument is sometimes used. This may seem black and white, indeed. But it is intended to elicit a straighforward agreement, a straightforward disagreement, or a reformulation of the question and then answering that reformulated question.

IOW, one shouldn't simply feel pushed to answer with Yes, No, a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, a preposition, or a number.
If one doesn't think that the question posed can be answered with Yes, No, a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, a preposition, or a number, then one can use the opportunity to point out why one thinks this is the case, reformulate the question or comment, and reply to that.

The question is, though, What is it that God says? How do we know what God says? How can we be sure that what we suppose God said, was indeed said by God?

Believing in karma is quite different than believing in God.
One may, on principle, ask God to be guided or for answers. But one cannot ask karma to guide one or to give one answers. One can pray to God, but not to karma.

Both God and karma are indeed "higher powers," but there is a significant difference between them that is far more than just "hairsplitting."

Which doesn't mean that they also readily get answers.

Your whole reasoning so far seems to rest on the premise that theists easily and readily not only turn to God for answers, but that they also easily and readily receive those answers and are sure those answers are from God.

If all the Christian self-help and self-cultivation literature (and there is a lot of it) and all the Christian canonized texts are anything to go by, it is anything but easy to figure out what exactly it is that God wants one to do, in a particular situation.

Given that free will is inescapable, it is not clear how what you say is the case.

Being born into a theistic family doesn't remove one's free will, nor does it do away with all the cunundrums related to having free will.

How highly do you value religiously inspired morality? Do you consider it a standard that is to be aspired to?

 

For example?

 

Humans can't judge, humans aren't all-knowing, humans can only express opinions.

 

When it was common knowledge that the Earth was flat, reality disagreed. The Earth was never actually flat. Or we could go with the notion that people can come back from the dead. Every person who's ever died has stayed dead.

These are notions that disagree with reality and regardless of the number of people who believe these notions reality has never adhered to them. You see, this is the way things work, our beliefs must conform to fit reality because reality always refuses to conform to our beliefs.

 

Because:

* I make mistakes and have had reality and / or existing scientific knowledge correct my incorrect beliefs in the past.
* I am not omniscient.
* I am very aware of a key rule in quantum mechanics. What is not forbidden by reality will happen. In other words, reality does not forbid be from believing incorrect things; therefore, it will happen.

The nature of delusion is also that a deluded person can be confronted with corrective information and update their belief. Some deluded people may refuse to do so. Both scenarios are covered by the definitions of the word
"delusion".

 

Brace yourself, then, for a time when you'll say -

When it was common knowledge that the Earth was round, reality disagreed. The Earth was never actually round. Or we could go with the notion that people can come back from the dead. Every person who's ever died has not stayed dead.

You see, this is the way things work, our beliefs must conform to fit reality because reality always refuses to conform to our beliefs.

IOW, the problem is that you are making final judgments about reality, when the discovery of reality is an ongoing process.

 

Every person who has died has stayed dead.

 

The notion that the earth is flat is apparently for ignorant people as always has been it's a baseless assertion that people made without any evidence because actually it was not known that the earth was flat like it is actually known the earth is round from countless observations.

 

How do you know that your beliefs that you currently hold to be correct, are not going to be shown to be incorrect some time later?

If this has already happened before, why couldn't it happen again, and over and over again?

Simply because an information is new, doesn't necessarily mean it is correct.

In fact, the argument from novelty is a logical fallacy.

 

Early medieval and still earlier conceptions (along with those from some other cultures) of that which we currently generally call "planet Earth" seem incommensurable.

When they thought that the "Earth was flat," by "Earth" and "flatness" they didn't seem to mean the same things we do today.

So to think that they were wrong or that their beliefs were in discord with reality, and that we are right and in accord with reality, is misleading.


It would be instructive to start a thread in which to discuss early notions of Earth and notions of Earth from other cultures, to see what exactly they mean by "Earth" and "flat" and how their notions compare to modern Western ones.

 

@wynn --

I would, but you'll never get a chance to say that, so I'm really not worried about it.

When did I say anything about my judgments being final? Oh that's right, I never said anything of the sort. The very fact that I was once religious and now am not shows quite clearly that I am not only capable of changing my judgments about reality, but am willing to when the evidence demands it.

Just because all of your judgments are final doesn't mean that mine are.

Ah, the "argument from semantics" that you so seem to love. Sorry but I have more pleasurable things I can do than arguing definitions with you, things like gouging my eyes out with rusty spoons.

And yet it's still factually accurate because what they believed wasn't in accordance with reality.

If you want another example we can always throw in the earth centric view of the universe. That was wholly in discord with reality.

 

A way you frequently use for dealing with an issue is to take for granted the very thing that is under discussion.

I guess that readily gives you the illusion of being victorious.

Let me remind you of your own words:

 

@wynn --

I'll change my tune the moment the evidence indicates(with equal or better strength) that I'm wrong. I always have, it's how my parents raised me.

 

Some of my beliefs have been validated by reality and are completely correct. Some of my beliefs have not been validated by reality and might not be correct. Some of my beliefs have partially been validated by reality and might not be correct.

It can and likely will.

I am not sure what you are arguing against here. I never made an assertion that new information is correct.

 

Variety within a specific religion means there is disagreement. That means one or many or all parties are misinterpreting.

This is my point. We were talking about whether other humans can be as effective at judging and enforcing as a God can. They can't.

Well, it's the case in any society that has laws. If you choose to be part of a given society (by living within it), you accept their rules. But no one has to live within a given society they can choose to leave it. Thus, they can choose to not be judged by it.

No so with God. (Granting the premise that he exists and created Mankind) no human can choose not to be judged by Him.

For the purpose of distinguishing theism from atheism, they are the same. A theist certainly may see a distinction in the particular flavour of Higher Power, but that is indeed hair-splitting when compared to atheism.

Actually, I have to change my argument. Theism literally means believing in some form of god. And, as you correctly point out, karma doesn't subscribe to a god. So, I'm dividing this along the wrong line.

I should be talking about 'people who believe a higher power has a hand in their life' versus 'people who do not believe higher power has a hand in their life'.

Nope. Never suggested it was easy. Simply saying that, however hard it is, it's easier to hear it from someone else than to to invent it for yourself.

Don't recall suggesting otherwise.

Like atheism, there are good religious people and there are selfish religious people and there are evil religious people.

I think that anything that teaches morality is good. I think that religion is good at heart (but has gotten a bad rap from some evil people over history).

(This is another way I see myself as different from other atheists. Most atheists I encounter are active, aggressive haters of anything spiritual.)

 

The argument from novelty is all you have got going here.

If you agree that you are 1. subject to delusion, and that 2. you suppose that a continual reassessment and correction of your beliefs can and does take place,
the the only thing that stops you from falling into the abyss of paranoid skepticism and debilitating insecurity,
is precisely your conviction that that which is newer, is also truer and better.