[Bogy Benda]

The earlier a concept is introduced into one's life and the longer it goes unchallenged then the more likely one is to accept it as the absolute truth.Even if it is infact a 'false truth'.

This may not apply everywhere, to everyone, everytime..but I like to think its the basis upon which religion is built upon.

any thoughts?

[Zelda]

i think that what you've described is indeed how "belief" or "truth" works, or at least a part of it. the first concepts that a person is introduced to are the foundation upon which his/her understanding of the world is built.

but i also think that every single idea that a human is exposed to in their lifetime lodges in their brain and that the brain, which really has no way of discriminating the true from the false, views every single one of them as valid. that's why it's possible for us to have so many contradictory beliefs and to switch between them easily when the situation calls for it.

[supermann]

" how many of you have taken time to study the koran and the torah?

how many have read the hadiths and the talmud?

how many have ventured beyond the box?

then how the hell do you know you are on the right track and not lost?and dont gimme that crap of "faith".coz you are walking blind cuz you are follwing a doctrin handed down to you the moment you were born?

if a toddler waz born to devil worshipping parents or buddhist or jehovars witness' parents,they would so firmly believe in their faith that they would call you lost just like you'd call them.thus the ignorant muslim who knowz not of christianity,the ignorant christian who know not of islam and the ignorant budhist who knowz not of jewish doctrin are all fools.

listen,learn before you judge and conclude christainity or islam or judaism iz the right way!


"MY PEOPLE ARE BEING DESTROYED BY LACK OF KNOWLEDGE"


http://www.mashada.com/forums/index/...9925/index.php

[Bogy Benda]

@Zelda
yup, you're right on point..belief(faith) is what religion asks of you and ultimate truth is what religion promises in return.

>but i also think that every single idea that a human is
>exposed to in their lifetime lodges in their brain and that
>the brain, which really has no way of discriminating the true
>from the false, views every single one of them as valid.
>that's why it's possible for us to have so many contradictory
>beliefs and to switch between them easily when the situation
>calls for it.

ummmmm....well, I wouldnt say 'every single idea'..because by default, your beliefs help your mind differentiate between right and wrong, true or false etc...hence the relative nature of such things as truth and righteousness...

so in essence you can only switch between ideologies if your entire (or a huge part) base belief system changes/shifts...

[Bogy Benda]

I already saw your post..please elaborate your point..

[supermann]

the ancient egyptians believed the pharaoh was a demi sun god.they believed it so much no one could bear the thot of looking at him on the face.

the current japanese emperor iz the first to reveal hiz face out in public.as much as the japanese are enlightened,the strongly believe the ruler of the worlds oldest monachy iza god.

if a concept was drummed into my psychic throughout my life from birth,i stand to believe it as the sole and absolute truth.galileo galilei was ex communicated by the roman church in the renaissance period because he dared challenge the notion the earth was flat and the sun rotate around us.he sed the earth was round and we rotated around the sun.he was punished for that and ostracised because the medieval demography had been born into the concept of the former.thus believed in it fervertly.

soviets believed that stalin was a genuis.that the soviet system was the best.they were born into an active marxist propaganda machine that made them worship the figure of stalin and lenin.even now in russia,the older generation refuse to accept the tirant committed worse attrocites than hitler himself.because they were born and introduced into a system in which they ended up believing it waz the absolute and unchalllenged truth.

the same applies for religion as i vaguely stated above.

hope thats clear enuff.

[Bogy Benda]

>
>the same applies for religion as i vaguely stated above.
>

Have to say I agree...but damnnn, you really did pick up some brains!!!!!...haha

aight aight, I take back the cheap shot...lets keep this a decent convo

About Galileo: He was persecuted NOT because he helped refute the Ptolemy thoery but because he was part of a bigger problem...If anything all Galileo did was provide observational evidence of a theory that Copernicus had already developed...

See, after the Protestant reformation in the 16th century and the emergence of logical scientific methods to explain nature's laws, many people started questioning the importance of the Roman Catholic Church...fewer events were now assigned 'super-natural status' because they could be easily explained..

In short, Galileo's case was a sub-plot...it was a war against science

[Zelda]

>ummmmm....well, I wouldnt say 'every single idea'..because by
>default, your beliefs help your mind differentiate between
>right and wrong, true or false etc...hence the relative nature
>of such things as truth and righteousness...
>so in essence you can only switch between ideologies if your
>entire (or a huge part) base belief system changes/shifts...

heheh! haven't you met individuals who have "ideological shifts" long enough to "give in to their natural instincts" and then quickly switch back to ideologist mode?

right and wrong are so relative to the position of the sun in the sky, au siyo?

[Coach]

I think it is much simpler...there are knowledgable people one one hand (religious scholars, scientists, innovators of political ideologies etc.) and the average person. The former does the work and the latter have the duty of either accepting or rejecting the ideas (if they have the power to choose/influence that is).

People are under the illusion that life in the west today is totally free and different but it is not. The information age has proven to be the age where people are very easily duped, naturally depending on who controls the media and the "gun". A couple of years ago, many a people were duped to believe that Saddam possessed WMD's and could launch an attack within 45 minutes (this was spectacularly explained using graphics and rhetoric by Colin Powell at the UN). During the same time, over 2/3 of Americans also believed that Saddam was somehow behind 9/11 and that he had connections with Al Qaeda. All of the above were proven to be false but Bush keeps drumming on about Al Qaeda and terrorists (not the ones he wanted to get rid off through the invasion but the ones that he created by invading Iraq).

Opinions and ideologies might have been formed by emperors, monarchies, amirs, cardinals, priests, mullahs etc but the same thing is hapenning in the western civilisation, this role is played by the media. The media tells the people what to eat, what to wear, what to look like (in terms of weight - skinny models with big boobs on every magazine cover, bilboards, runaways, ads), what norms to adopt etc. And just like in the past, a good majority comply.

[Jibril Cessay]

I was raised as a Protestant. Over the years, I have been drifting, feeling an urge to discover Judaism. I'm reading some of the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer who writes alot abt Jews. He writes abt some of Jewish practices such as saying Kaddish prayers for the dead..I have been observing Shabbat/ sabbath for 4 years. Today I learned abt Havdalah which marks the end of the Sabbath.