Whatever you believe, most of the world disagrees with you. When it comes to religion, everything is a minority position. There's no consensus in religion like there is in science, because there's no way to show that any belief is false (or true).
In general, believers find it easy to dismiss all other beliefs - "how can people be so gullible?" - while clinging desperately to their own. But other people believe for the same reasons you do, even though they might believe something entirely different.
Well, like you, they've been taught since infancy that their belief was correct. They've been surrounded by their particular culture, their family believes it, their friends believe it, so all this makes it very easy to believe in what, after all, they really, really want to believe.
Chances are, that describes you, too. But it's always easy to see where other people are wrong, isn't it? It's always easy to see how other people gullibly believe what they've been taught, how other people believe in obvious foolishness, how ridiculous it is for other people to "believe in their heart" that their beliefs are true. But then, you don't have an emotional investment in their religion.
An internet acquaintance claims that, as a young adult, he objectively investigated all the major religions of the world and determined by logic and reason that only one really made any sense. Surprise, surprise, that religion turned out to be the one he was raised in. What a coincidence, huh? (And no, it wasn't Christianity.)
I don't understand any of it, and I never have. It's all seemed like gullibility to me. But if you do believe, ask yourself why you've picked that particular religion. Why aren't you a Muslim or a Hindu? Why don't you worship Zeus, Thor, or Quetzalcoatl? If the circumstances of your birth had been slightly different, you probably would. And you'd be just as firm in your belief as you are now.
No comments:
Post a Comment