I've had this philosophy for some time now; explaining words with words is a paradox. To use words to explain words is circular in essence, because in the end we'll use a word that we used to explain a certain word to explain that word, but nevertheless it works so we do it. I only raise this issue because I believe that words do not correlate to actual words in our minds, but to what I could only describe as feelings and these feelings are what give meaning to the word itself.
Now, I'm going out on a limb here, because I have no material studies to support this notion; only an understanding of how my own mind works, regardless of how true or false that understanding maybe. So take my words very loosely.
These feelings correspond to memories of how that word was used or what it was used in reference to and thus the meaning of the word in your mind is born. The exact feeling that each word inspires will likely vary from person to person, but as long as they correspond to similar memories we will be able to communicate. The actual meaning of the word isn't defined in our mind by a set of other words, but by a feeling that we can conveniently use other feelings/words to express. This is why we can sometimes know the meaning of a word without being able to articulate what that meaning is. This isn't the point of my message however, the real point is that these feelings and memories make up a belief. The more meaning that these memories have, the stronger the feeling we experience and thus the stronger the belief.
As you can see here, I'm touching on beliefs, in this case it is something we would have insignificant memories about, like the meaning of a word, which we can differ about, but not significantly (usually), but if we extend this logic to all beliefs you should be able to encompass the feelings present and correlations of memories with something as significant as God.
God is a memory virus. It can easily infect other memories with its presence due to its mysterious nature and unspecified plan. References to it would invoke an ocean of correlating memories and thereby extremely powerful feelings which you could class as a kind of emotion. The problem arises when you consider that most of the memories our beliefs reference (of words or of the cosmos) appear to be subconscious, but the feelings we experience are very very conscious. (Not to mention that it also preys on instinctual emotions like love and fear)
However, we must remember that memories can be reconstructed and even created at any time within our minds and with god's ambiguous nature, you'll see how even a former atheist can develop powerful feelings by supplanting the logic of god's presence into his previous memories.
On the negative side removing god from all of your previous memories will unlink them and would deprive you of a powerful compelling emotion and (bad) logic, which I believe MUST be the result of a conflicting emotion. Maybe your emotion for the pursuit of truth conflicted too strongly with the emotion for the existence of god, in the end they're both feelings. One had to go.... it is a painful deprivation. On the other hand, perhaps your memories weren't infected with the god virus like mine were and many others I know are, perhaps I'm wrong and there was no emotion or feelings involved in you leaving your religion at all, maybe there is another explanation for your doxastic logic. I'd like to hear your responses on this.
But I reason that doxastic logic is primarily emotional. Using logical arguments in the form of words (feelings) to combat the bigger feelings/emotions leads no where. What I'm saying is, Faith isn't driven by emotion, Faith is emotion. This leads me to my conclusion and something I'd really like to hear from all of you on.
If we see the belief in god as something akin to an emotion or sexual pleasure. How would you reason with someone to stop feeling that way?
How do you reason logically with someone to stop having sex? (Assuming that sex didn't exist) (HYPOTHETICALLY!)
And furthermore, if someone proved without a shadow of doubt that sex was immoral and wrong, would you accept their reasoning or would you rather lean on finding ANY flimsy excuse to continue your pursuit of it?
Now, I'm going out on a limb here, because I have no material studies to support this notion; only an understanding of how my own mind works, regardless of how true or false that understanding maybe. So take my words very loosely.
These feelings correspond to memories of how that word was used or what it was used in reference to and thus the meaning of the word in your mind is born. The exact feeling that each word inspires will likely vary from person to person, but as long as they correspond to similar memories we will be able to communicate. The actual meaning of the word isn't defined in our mind by a set of other words, but by a feeling that we can conveniently use other feelings/words to express. This is why we can sometimes know the meaning of a word without being able to articulate what that meaning is. This isn't the point of my message however, the real point is that these feelings and memories make up a belief. The more meaning that these memories have, the stronger the feeling we experience and thus the stronger the belief.
As you can see here, I'm touching on beliefs, in this case it is something we would have insignificant memories about, like the meaning of a word, which we can differ about, but not significantly (usually), but if we extend this logic to all beliefs you should be able to encompass the feelings present and correlations of memories with something as significant as God.
God is a memory virus. It can easily infect other memories with its presence due to its mysterious nature and unspecified plan. References to it would invoke an ocean of correlating memories and thereby extremely powerful feelings which you could class as a kind of emotion. The problem arises when you consider that most of the memories our beliefs reference (of words or of the cosmos) appear to be subconscious, but the feelings we experience are very very conscious. (Not to mention that it also preys on instinctual emotions like love and fear)
However, we must remember that memories can be reconstructed and even created at any time within our minds and with god's ambiguous nature, you'll see how even a former atheist can develop powerful feelings by supplanting the logic of god's presence into his previous memories.
On the negative side removing god from all of your previous memories will unlink them and would deprive you of a powerful compelling emotion and (bad) logic, which I believe MUST be the result of a conflicting emotion. Maybe your emotion for the pursuit of truth conflicted too strongly with the emotion for the existence of god, in the end they're both feelings. One had to go.... it is a painful deprivation. On the other hand, perhaps your memories weren't infected with the god virus like mine were and many others I know are, perhaps I'm wrong and there was no emotion or feelings involved in you leaving your religion at all, maybe there is another explanation for your doxastic logic. I'd like to hear your responses on this.
But I reason that doxastic logic is primarily emotional. Using logical arguments in the form of words (feelings) to combat the bigger feelings/emotions leads no where. What I'm saying is, Faith isn't driven by emotion, Faith is emotion. This leads me to my conclusion and something I'd really like to hear from all of you on.
If we see the belief in god as something akin to an emotion or sexual pleasure. How would you reason with someone to stop feeling that way?
How do you reason logically with someone to stop having sex? (Assuming that sex didn't exist) (HYPOTHETICALLY!)
And furthermore, if someone proved without a shadow of doubt that sex was immoral and wrong, would you accept their reasoning or would you rather lean on finding ANY flimsy excuse to continue your pursuit of it?