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How would you deal with the realization that your religious beliefs were false?

Lark

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I remember coming to a realisation that the buddhist religion was not as perfect or innoxious as most secular fellow travellers or sympathisers make out. That was a bit of a development. Although its not likely to be something that there is likely to be any agreement on, especially among non-theists.
 

Noon

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If the above is in reference to me, I am not a buddhist.

If not, my apologies.
 

OrangeAppled

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The OPs question presupposes some knowledge of the afterlife, while not everyone accepts that there even is one. This makes it hard to answer the question independently. By contrast, in my current earthly life I have already come to see many of my earlier spiritual beliefs as false. My response was to abandon them, and to determine new beliefs through research and reflection.

This would be similar to my response. I would discard my current beliefs that don't make sense, but continue to pursue truth.

It would be hard to fully uproot what I believe simply though, because I did not form my beliefs lightly. I never blindly accepted anything, and essentially play devil's advocate with myself when examining something I believe. I try and argue against it, and if I cannot, then I begin to accept it as reasonable truth.

I don't jump to conclusions when I come across info that seems to contradict my beliefs either. I just wait, and time provides clarity in either my thinking or in finding additional info, so that I can reconcile the seemingly contradictory info with my beliefs. More often than not, I refine my understanding of what I believe, remove & add nuances, adjust my perspective; I don't toss it entirely aside. Just as I didn't blindly accept my beliefs, I don't blindly accept new info as true; so called facts & logical lines of reasoning often turn out to be questionable & flawed later.

It's like building a house & discovering the roof is flawed. You don't tear the whole house down, you just replace the roof. However, if you discover the whole thing is infested with termites, and that nothing is salvageable, then you may start from scratch. Do I lose faith in my ability to build a house & become a vagrant? No, but I may inspect my next house more carefully & use my past knowledge to build a better one.
 

Such Irony

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I'm not religious but I don't think I could stand it if I found that life's inherently meaningless.
 
G

Ginkgo

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Despite of what you may or not believe in, how would you react upon dying and discovering that what you believed in on earth was a fallacy? Let's say your God turned out to be an arrogant, self-righteous, racist chicken. Obviously you'd likely be startled by the news but then what would you do? Bow to the chicken? Rebel against him. Start an uprising. Continue praising your original source of belief? Curious.

I would open a Chic-Fil-a
 
T

ThatGirl

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Depends on what the new power would expect of me. I think whether or not my beliefs are off or on, I couldn't deny the effect on the world that exists because of it. I may not bend over backwards for some tyrant entity that promoted eternal suffering though.
 

Elfboy

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I would look at the rest of the world's major religions and look at which one was most likely to be true. better safe than sorry I always say :yes:
 

Octarine

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I would look at the rest of the world's major religions and look at which one was most likely to be true. better safe than sorry I always say :yes:

So out of an infinite number of religions, you chose only one? That doesn't sound like a safe choice.

Pascal's wager has a logical flaw, it assumes that the set of possible religions is bounded.
 

Lark

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Someone has asked me what I think is wrong with buddhism in a rep, they dont have a visitor wall for comments so I'll answer here.

Its traits I think are shared by all the doctrines, so far as I'm aware of them. I've done some reading about the distinctions but I'll be honest I know more about Christianity than I do about buddhism and my knowledge of Christianity is probably incomplete.

My critical appraisals of buddhism correspond mainly to what are my considerations of the judeo-Christian belief systems validity, both judahism and Christianity cultivate an active and forward looking approach to life, they also require change, of self and society to conform to hopes of either Jesus or God's prescence or spirit returning to the community, these things are considered desirable and that desire is the impetus for change or sustaining change which has taken place, each generation will transmit that belief and experience to the next and hopefully it will be built upon.

In contrast buddhism as I understand it seeks the termination of desires, does not look forward or back but seeks only the present moment.

The buddhist cycle of death and rebirth, which I'm not actually challenging the validity off because I dont think that can be known, seems like a kind of damnation to me, its closest approximation in my own system of thinking is purgatory. Now I know that this cycle is undesirable to buddhists also and they practice to be released from it and experience nirvana. However, the state of nirvana, which does not involve the survival of the self or a deity, seems like a perpetuation of the purgatorial state into that of a hellish state.

So that understanding of it means that it teaches the best way to adapt to being seperate from God for all eternity, seperate also from your ancestors or the communion of saints, and losing your self, which as I understand it is a gift from God vital/treasured by not just to the individual but also to God.

Like I say, I know that this requires some acceptance of judeo-Christian beliefs in the first place, and most people will suggest that there is no objective, material harm created in the world by buddhism in contrast to Christianity, I believe that's mistaken but I dont have a catalogue of historical evidence on hand to refer to and I am not that encouraged to evidence it in that way since even if there were no clear, material, temporal harm it is not entirely my point.
 

Qlip

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OT: I've done this in a way. I believed pretty strongly. What ended up happening is that I did a lot of exploring, being careful not to completely vilify my old faith. I've seen some people get unhinged when they decide they've been fooled, and devote as much as their life against the religion as they did for it when they belonged. And there's wisdom to be had from about any source, if not only learning what not to do.

After trying on Buddhism, Paganism, Athiesm, Xtianity, and more, I've decided that I'm cool with not being very religious. By that I mean having services to attend, a physical space to learn a specific system of outlook.

In a way I do believe in a God.. and if he could be pinned down to something that I would object to, then by my own definition he would not actually be God.
 
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