Quote:But do we even have a handle on what a "belief" is? Consider the research on cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance refers to the anxiety created by a psychological inconsistency: e.g. "Smoking causes cancer, but I smoke."
Sounds like my experience with Christianity. For me, all three of these premises are simultaneously true:
1. Christianity teaches that God helps Christians.
2. My life has become much worse since I became a Christian.
3. I choose to be a Christian because I believe this is the true faith, despite my own personal experience.
As you can see, I have a lot of cognitive dissonance about my religious beliefs.
Quote:But most importantly, the believers who thought the papyrus was genuine now demonstrated that they held their Christian beliefs even more strongly than before! In my view, the 3rd group were no longer believers; they seemed to believe even more strongly only because of the pain of denial combined with wishful thinking.
I also consider myself a stronger Christian than before my misfortunes, despite the fact that many of my personal experiences as a Christian seem to point to the conclusion that Christianity is false. I have chosen to stubbornly resist the temptation to reject Christ for personal experiential reasons, instead turning to
objective evidence for belief in Christ such as the authenticity of the Gospels, the miraculous scientifically-supported Shroud of Turin, etc.
Does that mean I am no longer a believer, because my personal experiences do not validate belief? I don't think so.
Quote:It had taken a series of disconfirmations over a period of 18 months to shake their beliefs.
But in my view, many of the" true believers" actually became unbelievers after the first or 2nd disconfirmation. They created more converts not as an expression of belief, but as a combination of denial combined with wishful thinking.
My own personal disconfirmations of Christianity have driven me to focus more on the confirmations that transcend personal experience, recognizing that we cannot make legitimate judgments about reality from personal experience alone. One might argue that I primarily remain a Christian because of denial and wishful thinking. I would argue that my own Christian belief is based on objective evidence and the choice to hope, in the face of personal experiential pressures that would push me away from faith in Christ.
Perhaps this brief explanation of my own faith experience will help some people here to understand why I am so adamant about rejecting the idea that our own beliefs and experiences create reality.
They do not. There even are hellish NDE stories from strong Christians who expected to go to heaven when they die -- proving that our beliefs do not even create our reality in the afterlife, let alone on earth. If these people are able to remain Christian and continue to hope for heaven regardless of their extraordinary supernatural disconfirmation, then surely I can do the same and ignore my own disconfirmations. It is a big challenge to force oneself to believe things that produce cognitive dissonance, but when objective evidence contradicts personal experience, we have to go with objectivity every time if it's truth we seek. The objective evidence for Christ is overwhelming.
Quote:Most Christians insist that prayer works miracles, but can't be bothered to show up for special prayer meetings. In my view, if they really believed in the power of prayer, many more of them would show up. There is such a thing as suppressed unbelief or being deluded about one's beliefs.
I see your point. But remember, many Christians simply have never experienced prayer work for them or their loved ones, despite their efforts at prayer. They claim to believe it works because of other people's amazing experiences and the miracle stories in the Gospels. They choose to remain Christian
despite their negative personal experience, because they have other reasoning supporting their religious belief. I don't think that makes them phony believers.
I have a neighbor who used to be a strong Christian, but then her mother died a long lingering death of cancer despite her own fervent prayers and those of her church. This personal experience caused her to become angry and bitter, which led her to reject Christ and become an atheist. I think she made the wrong decision. She should have forced herself, through sheer stubborn willpower, to continue professing faith in God and Christ -- because the truth is, They don't need to prove anything to us to earn our belief. The historical resurrection of Jesus was good enough.
Freebird
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