Why do I have to believe in....

@philokalia said
I think that everyone has persistent anxiety about death, and so I believe some part of them wishes to avoid hell and attain heaven, even if it is something though they may put up a very confident facade that they completely reject the existence of both.

I do not believe there is any "hell". The non-credible threats of stupendous vengeful violence that religions like yours make cannot coerce me into believing the "hell" you believe in exists.

@philokalia said
You can also look toward the miracles of Saints and the Church as credible institutions, and, of course, your own prayer life can potentially lead you to these conclusions. You are not looking at this very closely or trying to account for all the possibilities.

If your faith is the result of you [1] looking "very closely" at "the miracles of Saints and the Church as credible institutions" and [2] having tried "to account for all the possibilities", then good for you.

I hope your religious faith has soothed your "persistent anxiety about death" and served whatever other purposes in your life that you need it to.

@philokalia said
It's just a terrible position that completely hinges on narrow atheist epistemology.

I don't think your use of the words "terrible" and "narrow" affects the clarity and common sense of what I am saying.

@fmf said
I don't think your use of the words "terrible" and "narrow" affects the clarity and common sense of what I am saying.

Furthermore, I find it somewhat amusing that someone like you, Philokalia, who appears to be saying my beliefs ought to hinge upon me to looking very closely at the miracles of Saints and the Orthodox Catholic Church has the brass balls to tell me my perspective is "narrow".

@fmf said
People can choose to expose themselves to religious literature but I don't believe they can choose to believe the claims about the supernatural that such literature makes.

I think the converse is true as well. I think once people realize that they DO believe the supernatural claims their religions make, I don't believe they can simply choose to not believe.

I am not able ...[text shortened]... nd, rational people do not find credible, and instead threatens to punish them for not believing it.

Is it possible to change your epistemological and metaphysical beliefs?

@fmf said
I do not believe there is any "hell". The non-credible threats of stupendous vengeful violence that religions like yours make cannot coerce me into believing the "hell" you believe in exists.

Sure, but I suggest that you may not be as confident in this as you say you are.

@philokalia said
Is it possible to change your epistemological and metaphysical beliefs?

Of course it's possible for beliefs in the supernatural to change. Mine did, for example. Yours did too; you went from not-a-Christian to a believer in the teaching of the Orthodox Catholic Church. Of course there can be change.

But I think belief in supernatural beings and phenomena involves a realization that they have taken root in your mind and cannot be consciously adopted, especially while they are still non-credible, as the result of a calculated 'decision to believe'.

Having experienced faith and having lost it, and having known people who became believers and others who became non-believers, I don't think any theories about conscious or calculated 'decisions to believe' in supernatural things rings true psychologically speaking.

Another thing that does not ring true psychologically speaking, to may way of thinking, is the notion that someone in whose mind belief in supernatural things has taken root can simply make a calculated 'decision to not believe'.

In both cases, I think it is a process, more often than not a gradual one, of realization at the end of which, one eventually self-identifies as a believer [or a non-believer].

@philokalia said
Sure, but I suggest that you may not be as confident in this as you say you are.

Thank you for your point of view but you are, after all, a very poor judge of character. I think your suggestion about how "confident" I am has absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with you signalling your own certainty about your own belief.

@philokalia said
I think that everyone has persistent anxiety about death, and so I believe some part of them wishes to avoid hell and attain heaven, even if it is something though they may put up a very confident facade that they completely reject the existence of both.

I think that everyone has persistent anxiety about death

Maybe this was one of the psychological pressures that contributed to the process you underwent prior to realizing that the teachings of the Orthodox Catholic Church seemed credible to you and, therefore, dealt with that "persistent anxiety about death".

@fmf said
Of course it's possible for beliefs in the supernatural to change. Mine did, for example. Yours did too; you went from not-a-Christian to a believer in the teaching of the Orthodox Catholic Church. Of course there can be change.

But I think belief in supernatural beings and phenomena involves a realization that they have taken root in your mind and cannot be consciously adopte ...[text shortened]... f realization at the end of which, one eventually self-identifies as a believer [or a non-believer].

We have control over our minds and thought processes, right..?

We can also control what we find to be credible?

There are outliers, of course - how could I come to believe that spiderman, and only spiderman, is actual & real, except it's not Peter Parker -- it's my father!

How could I come to reject that people travel by boat..? It would just be absurd to suggest that boats are not a thing, and people cannot travel on man-made objects moving in the water...

But, generally speaking, man is capable of believing in what he chooses to believe in. What we believe is the one thing we have near 100% control over.

@fmf said
I think that everyone has persistent anxiety about death

Maybe this was one of the psychological pressures that contributed to the process you underwent prior to realizing that the teachings of the Orthodox Catholic Church seemed credible to you and, therefore, dealt with that "persistent anxiety about death".

So what amount of people do you think have zero anxiety over their own death?

@philokalia said
We have control over our minds and thought processes, right..? We can also control what we find to be credible?

I believe we can mostly control our exposure to information about claims made regarding supernatural things and that this can initiate a process.

Having said that, these questions suggest you didn't read or didn't understand my post which started with "Of course it's possible for beliefs in the supernatural to change."

I do not think that post needs to be repeated or reiterated. The answer to your question is there. Refer to it.

@philokalia said
So what amount of people do you think have zero anxiety over their own death?

I have no idea. As for me, I don't feel an anxiety over my own inevitable death that is pushing me towards a religious creed that purports to promise me a "reward" of immortality.

@philokalia said
How could I come to reject that people travel by boat..? It would just be absurd to suggest that boats are not a thing, and people cannot travel on man-made objects moving in the water...

This analogy is fatuous. One might question your understanding of religious belief and a lack of religious belief with you proposing an analogy as tortured as this.

@philokalia said
But, generally speaking, man is capable of believing in what he chooses to believe in. What we believe is the one thing we have near 100% control over.

I disagree. I can choose to believe my son when he tells me why he came home last night [although doubts may linger]. I have control over that kind of thing.

But I don't think people's belief in supernatural things is something they have control over. A Christian who believes that Christ rose from the dead cannot simply choose not to believe it. They do not control their belief in that way.