Belief, Probably a cliched topic, but oh well

I know this is a lot like the "Worship God?" topic, but my version is more general. Close it if it's not unique enough for you.

Anyway, do you think that, presented with evidence that the things one believes in were real, people would begin to doubt their existence?
For example, (taking from Pyramids by Terry Pratchett here) believers that the Sun was a massive ball of dung being pushed around the world by a dung beetle could doubt its truth if they saw it manifest before them.

I think they would, because it would seem like the manifestation would be more down-to-earth, as opposed to it being considered a celestial, wondrous thing.

I don't really know what you mean. I'm leaning towards agnosticism or even atheism, but if I saw God appear to me I know I sure as heck would start believing.

This question is very poorly put, but i know what you are trying to say. And I would definitely hope so.

The only way to know the truth is through experience. Stop all of this talk about belief. Never use that word again. Beliefs are only masking your ignorance. What does belief mean? I means you don't know. You either know it or you don't know. So say that you don't know!

Experience is the highest authority there is. So if you saw the sun being pushed around by a bunch of dung beetles you have every reason to doubt all that you thought you knew about the sun. Of course, this is an absurd and irrational example, but it functions fine hypothetically. Furthermore, until you see that happen you know with certainty that the sun is actually where you experience it today.

This can be expanded to the concept of God as well.

Really, how do you know then that the sun is the center of the solar system? Have you personally experienced going for a ride in a space shuttle to the center of the solar system? For that matter how do you know that you are not right now plugged into "the matrix" can you prove, experientially that you are not?

Experience is definitely one of the best ways to the truth, but that truth is often subjective as it is an individuals experience and they make sense of it on their own and without the normative discussion with other people. For that matter some people would argue experiential knowledge of God, does that lend credence to his/her existence or merely bring into question the validity of their experience. For that matter are all experiences equally valid? They'd have to be I think for your argument to have weight.

First of all, the word solar system implies that a sun being at its center. So, as long as it is a "solar" system, there will always be a sun at its center. Otherwise,-- why call it a solar? Then it is just a "system", without Sol, without a sun.

What leads you to believe that we are in "the matrix"? My experience is quite to the contrary. It is purely the imagination. An illusion. There is no reason to believe we are in "the matrix" or anything like that.

I will not speak for these people. From my own experience, they are simply mad. Insane madmen. They are hallucinating, I see nothing like God anywhere. Unless they can explain to me this God, there is no reason to believe in it. It is simply an absurd preposition.

What is the other choice? That my experience is more authentic than your's? That is ridiculous. That is not even possible. That means that I am more important than you, that what i see is more alive than you, more real than you. We are all the same. I say, people are equal. How can experiences be equal? Experiences are different. They cannot be compared. They are each unique. How can you compare the validity of me seeing apples, and you seeing a river? You cannot. That's obvious.

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You would have the be a fool to say that someone's experience is less important than yours. Even if it is a hallucination, it is still important. It is still true, true as a hallucination. They are a part of life too. They just not should be mistaken for the rest of reality. If you mistake a hallucination of a unicorn for a real unicorn, you are insane. If you really see a real unicorn and other people see it too, you will be famous. There are such things as mass hallucinations, and that is forcing yourself to see it. Repeatedly thinking of it day in and day out, then it will manifest itself. That is a mind trick, that is a illusion. If it were real, there would be no reason to force it into existence-- it would already be there!

My argument here is more are there anythings you haven't personally experienced (for example, let's say that Mercury is the closest planet to our sun?) that you hold as true? Most scientific facts are held as true and yet are not directly proved to the mass populous. Holding personal experience as the only path to wisdom is limiting, there's no ability to pass on knowledge, everything must be experienced for yourself.

I don't believe that we are in "the matrix" my point is this is something you can't prove or disprove with experience. Can you trully prove that you are not drugged and linked into a computer broadcasting everything your senses are experiencing currently? It's the old Descartian dilemma.

I agree that everyone's experience is equally valid, and each one is the master of their own experience. However, how do you reconcile it when two peoples experiences contradict one another?

One, or both, must be a hallucination. Many religious people have been hallucinating God, how do I know that it is a hallucination? Because a Hindu never sees Allah and a Muslim never sees Brahma. They only see what they project into their imagination, you cannot project Allah and see Brahma, that is impossible. Neither one is true, the truth does not need to be forced in anyway, only lies do. If both deities existed, then both deities would appear, not just one. If neither deity existed, it would be necessary to create them, hence the mass hallucination of Allah. Christians have never seen anything like Allah anywhere, they don't even look, they only look for Yahweh, and then Yahweh appears. Atheists will look for no-God, and then no-God appears. If you want truth, do not look at all, just see. If Yahweh exists, it will appear. Then you will have evidence, then you can reconcile your experience versus someone else's.

Mercury is the name for that planet that is closest to our sun. If it weren't the closest it would be given a different name, it is a property of the planet Mercury to be the closest.

It is my experience, and everyone's around me, that when astrologists report a new discovery, it is confirmed--- or rejected-- by other sources, and then published as fact. Perhaps there is a wild conspiracy that astrologists are publishing lies to us, or some people may be paranoid that nothing man thinks is true is actually true. Mercury not being the closest planet to the Sun would be a very stupid prank for scientists to pull.

I have been through metal detectors without any link being found, unless it is plastic. I have been to doctors and they have not reported anything like that to me, either. Unless you mean that there is a different body of mine that is unconcious and that everything my senses are experiencing is just the work of this matrix, that this body, mind, conciousness is just fake and artificial. That everything in this world is fake, artificial. That means humans that I see are nothing more than things, they are not beings. It is the same result as if God made the world, everything loses responsibility, freedom and beinghood. I am not a being, I would be just be a thing. And certainly they could unplug me from the matrix at anytime, there would be no point to living. That would also mean that all of the sages and mystics are lieing about knowing the plane of death, how could they if they aren't even alive? We do not even know how large this universe is, but if we are in the matrix is must be finite. There must be some end point , or maybe it wraps around itself. There must not be any evolution, it was all pre-planned and we are only puppets. In this matrix were their dinosaurs, or did this matrix exist the day I was born. It was created then and will end maybe at my death? In that case there is no human history, that is all the work of super geniuses who designed this. Is their no energy or conciousness, computers that we use today can only make cyberspace, not real matter or energy, let alone conciousness.

If we are in a matrix, there would be little point to being alive. There would also be little point in putting any thought into it because the only ones who have these answers are in some other dimension. It doesn't seem any more useful than the preposition of an omniscient God. Remember that using logic will put man into all sorts of miserable situations, Life is illogical, love is illogical. We can not discover how life works by using logic everytime. If life was like the matrix than everything would be logical, because computers are logical, robots are logical, the mind is logical-- conciousness is illogical. This preposition is just an attempt by logic to explain the universe. Logic cannot stand that Life is so mysterious, it wants life to be in a fixed program. Hence, these wild ideas of a super-computer dictator. But, authentic experience will say the oposite, and it will be illogical. Accept that. It is something mathematics will never reach, mathematics will never understand that when you give love it does not diminish, that 1-1 is actually larger than 1. That is why I say experience is the highest authority we have, because it is beyond logic and beyond thinking, it just just pure experience, pure sight.

Time to throw in a couple of pennies...

We can not simply stop believing. We have to believe in higher ideas, higher beings and or the seeking of perfection. Everyone has to live their daily lives on the premise that we are in the right for doing what we do. Yes, there are those that know they are doing something that might hurt others or is against the law(s). Everyone that gets into an automobile has to believe they know how to drive well enough not to destroy themselves, those in the car with them and their fellow drivers. Fighter jocks in armed aircraft have to believe they are the best in order to compete against others, to fight well in stressful combat and to "believe" they will come back home after using their skills honed from training.

We have to believe in the facts that are proven, that certain things are without doubt (such as our gender or sexuality) and that people are basically good and bad. It is up to others to decide if they want to believe in God, Allah, Brahma, Buddha, Confucius or Satan. We have to believe in our system of government or the type of economy present. There are things we will observe that we must put faith into it happening regularly in order to take further action in improving our selves or our finances.

Sure, we should doubt many things in our lives that we take for granted. Like that the sun will be there tomorrow morning or that we will have fresh water or enough food for the day. That the person waking up next to us loves us or that our children will do what they are told when it is something really important.

I can't stop believing in God even though religion seems to be evermore a self-serving device for those within whatever denomination/type/sect. Historically, many uneducated people believed many things were controlled by "the gods" until discoveries were made which explained the "phenomena" completely. The human race tends to create myths to help explain what we ordinarily can not. That is simply trying to fill in the gaps so we can address those aspects which require our attention.

I don't believe in aliens, but do believe it is possible that life exists somewhere outside of our solar system. Heck, maybe even on Mars. Maybe it is blind prideful ignorance which makes it seem like our peoples are the most advanced technological civiliation which can use higher thinking skills. Maybe there isn't any kind of god and maybe we are descendants/orphans of a more advanced race or some kind of unrelated cave-folk in comparison. I do believe in ghosts, but not so much in hauntings. Do believe in other forces outside of that which can be measured by horsepower. Might even believe there is a possibility that there are 40 levels of "Hell" .

But the main belief is that a person's value isn't measured by how powerful, wealthy or smart they are.... but more about how they try to help when the time(s) come when they are truly needed... and that I believe I can do helpful things to justify my existence. How do others justify theirs when they actually stop and think along those lines? How do they measure their successes and failures... their amount of goodness or what is right? If you had the power of a "God", what would you change for the betterment of humankind?

Why believe in facts? You know facts. You believe in the untruth, believe in lies. You can know all of the truth, believing is not necessary. If the truth could not be known, then it wouldn't be the truth. Truth is that which is known. That which is believed is fiction, imagination. Belief has no end: You believe in facts, you must believe that you believe in facts, and you must believe that too. If you cannot know anything, everything must be believed. You will live in a crazy, unsure world where everything is assumed. If you have to believe in facts that are proven, you can't know anything. All of existence will be simply a doubt. What is the point?

Why? Higher ideas seems to imply that ideas exist morally. That some ideas are lower and others higher, some better and some worse. It is all relative. There are not any higher ideas. I must be misinterpreting what you meant, it is nonsense.

Higher beings? Why do you need higher beings? Are we really too insecure to feel a wholeness with life? Why do we insist on the existence of higher beings, of higher forces. It makes man seem inferior. If there are higher beings than man, than man is a lower being. It is disempowering us. Makes everything seem divided. Man is a part of existence. Existence is whole. All of life is one. There is not beings, and then higher beings. There are not lower beings either. There are intelligent beings, large beings, faster beings, stronger beings, but I have never seen a higher being. Do not believe in that.

The seeking of perfection? This too is a misunderstanding. We are born perfect. Everything we need is inside of us, all of heaven. All of bliss, ecstacy, joy and glee. It is all there. Life is perfect, existence is perfection. There is nothing to seek. What else do you want? I'll tell you why you might feel this way. The mind can never be satiated. The mind is creating discontentment. It sees things all around that other people have and it gets jealous, it wants more and more. So we earn more and more money and buy luxurious commodities, but it never helps. Hope still exists. Hope exists for the future, it lingers right in front of your face and entices you. So you hope for this and hope for that, hope for perfection. But it is never attained. It is more like a cancer. You must destroy hope and cut out the diseased flesh around it-- the mind. The mind is unnatural, it cannot be perfect. But conciousness is perfect. There is no such thing as the seeking of perfection, it is the imagination. Perfection is already there, buried beneath the mind.

True religion is a self-serving device, true spirituality does just that. But the self is not the ego, it is not the mind or body. Organized religions such as Christianity have been mind-serving, ego-serving. It is very empowering to be following someone as great as Jesus, it is very empowering to the ego to think your master is beyond other humans; that he can walk on water and was born from a virgin, that he could ressurect the dead. Buddhism is not different, Buddha was born when his mother was standing up, he fell on his feet and then took 7 steps. It may have been Mahavira, whom Jains follow, who never urinated, defecated, or sweat. This must be the religion you are talking about. The self is conciousness, it is that which observes thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. The mind is nothing but a bundle of dusty thoughts, and conciousness is the mirror beneath. True religion reveals the mirror and reflects each moment as it is. Organized religion is just a group mind, it deprives the individual of individuality, it tries to mold each into a copy of Jesus into a copy of Buddha. When you are concerned with what Jesus would do, you are not allowed to follow your own intelligence. That is programming, that is not religion. That is a priest-serving device, that is not a self-serving device, maybe a Judaism serving device or a Jainism serving device, but it only hinders the growth of self.

Don't doubt yourself here. You do not have to believe in the possibility, you know the possibility. The possibility certainly exists. It may not manifest itself into reality, but do not believe in the possibility, know the possibility. The difference is paramount. If you believe in it, it must not be there. It is that simple, you have to believe in a pig with wings because you have no seen it. Once you see it, it becomes knowledge.

Belief is a weak word. You know you can do helpful things. If you belief you must respond with "maybe"-- "maybe you can justify your existence". That will not help you, if it is not even possible, why worry about it? If it is a maybe, find out. If you cannot, stop believing.

Only if you live with that kind of morality. Many people do not live their daily lives worrying about if they are right in what they do. If you do, you must be mad. You must be paranoid if you are worried if you are always doing the right thing. Maybe you believe someone is watching you and you will suffer eternally if you don't obey them. Then you are paranoid, insane. Do not worry if it is right, just be aware. Who says what is right anyway? The truth is always changing, what is right one moment, may be wrong the next. Thousands of phrases have been written as containing the truth for ethical and good behavior in Buddhism. That is idiotic. The truth will not stay the same. Conciousness always acts "good", if you are aware you cannot act "bad". Think too hard and you will lose this goodness. That is why wise men say to act on the gut. The gut was developed in the womb, the mind was fabricated from society, it is a giant condition. Instincts will reflect conciousness more than the mind. Do not act out of fear, if you live each moment on the premise that you are right, you are afraid. What is there to be afraid of? If you do something bad don't worry about it. It is over. Don't worry in the first place, worry will only make you nervous and create tension, increase the possibility of a mistake. Live on the premise that everything is divine, live conciously.