Nonsense. I do not believe this. I do not believe it either when an atheist says they followed logic and reason and that is what led them to reject religion. No. That is what it may "seem", if we ignore emotional motivations. However logically, let's' examine this.
I agree that my “becoming a Baha’i” was based upon emotion as well as logic and reason but the purpose of my OP was not to describe my own experience. I think emotion was more involved when I joined the Baha’i Faith than it is now. As you might recall from past conversations, , I have some “issues” with loving God and being close to God, so being emotional about God is difficult for me. When I became a Baha’i I was emotional about the teachings, not about God, since God was the furthest thing from my mind. I joined not knowing anything about God because I was not raised in a religious home. Even after I joined I had little interest in God and for all the years I was in 12 step programs, I could not even relate to a higher power.
Then about 17 years ago I went through about a 10 year period when I hated God. It was only about seven years ago that I finally decided I had better get my act together and do something about my feelings towards God and that was when I decided to start talking to Baha’is again and went to the Planet Baha’i forum. That helped me a lot but what really helped me most was reading Gleanings and coming to understand who and what God was, what little we can know. It was after that sunk in that I started to take all this God stuff very seriously and I even started my own forum which was very active for a while, went inactive when I left to post on another forum, but now it is a little more active again even though there is only an handful of posters.
If people are satisfied with their current beliefs, if they are bringing fulfillment and the sense of security that belief systems offer, then they are not going to deliberately choose to critically examine them and seek out flaws. That would introduce tension and conflict, which results in emotional distress.
That is probably true about most people but we are all different depending upon our personality type and life experiences. I do not have a religious belief for fulfillment and a sense of security although I admit I feel more secure now that I have
some connection to God, even if only mostly in my head, only because I believe in my head that God is watching over me. However, conflict still exists because I often wish God did not even exist. Indeed, it is difficult for me to believe all of what Baha’u’llah wrote about the “loving and compassionate God” because of all the suffering I see in the world, including what I have endured. I know there is a
reason for suffering but that is not always helpful. I only wish we could have a better glimpse into the spiritual world because I know that is the recompense.
Aside from a masochist who seeks out to inflict pain and displeasure for some sort of exciting stimulus, most everyone else seeks to avoid conflict and emotional pain. Challenging one's belief systems, is very much an emotionally disruptive experience. Losing one's faith, is a painful, and frightening thing to experience.
I wish you could come to my forum and explain some of this to a certain atheist poster who does not understand why the Baha’i Faith is not larger and thinks it has nothing to do with humans and their decision to stay in the religions they already have.
Here's what I see really happens. Everything they believe is "true" so long as it works for them in their situation. It's only when it is failing to do so, only when the emotional stress of that failure is sufficiently strong enough that it will lead them to "examine" the belief, in order to try to resolve it. They need to find a better system, that where they are at as a person can find a new ground of reality to "believe in".
That is kind of what happened to me. It had to get really bad for me before I made the decision to give God another chance. Maybe that is what it takes for people to turn to God and that could also apply to atheists. I mean as long as they are happy and getting along
without God why would they be motivated to believe in God?
So no, logic and reason do not guide us into truth. It's emotions at the base that call upon them to help resolve an emotional conflict. Emotions are at the base of all of it. People do not question beliefs when they are happy with them.
Again, that would also apply to non-beliefs so as long as atheists are happy I see no reason why they would search for God, and this is indeed what they have told me.
Surely, you have some emotional reward for believing what you are. If not, then why bother?
In short, the reason I bother is because I believe that the Baha’i Faith is the Truth from God and I cannot shirk my duty to God. Even though I am not getting much for myself that is okay because I believe that the greatest prison is the prison of self, so I want to be as selfless as I can be.
There is some emotional reward in feeling “good” about what I am doing and in the hope for a better life after this one draws to a close, but there is also emotional pain, mostly because of all the sacrifices I have to make as a Baha’i. If I was a Christian and believed I did not have to do anything but believe in Jesus it would be a whole lot easier. Also, I spend all my time on forums and of course much of that time I am meeting with negativity and resistance to what I believe, and even if I am not bringing it up myself people ask me and I am compelled to answer. In many ways I think I would be happier as an atheist because then I would not have all this responsibility to God and the Baha’i Faith. It is not all Baha’is who relate to it that way but that is just my personality. I am overly responsible and feel guilty if I am not working all the time. That causes some resentment, especially towards my husband who does a lot less that I do, but since I understand myself I can deal with it.
By following their heart. And to make it clear, it is figuring out what it truth for them. There is no "true religion" objectively outside subjective emotional truth. To me, your religion fails to meet the need, so it is not "true" for me, or any others it doesn't speak truth to. It speaks truth to you in some way. From a purely logical argument, it does not stand the test of a dispassionate examination. No religion does. Nor does atheism either.
I do not think the way you do but I see no reason to argue over it. I believe there is a true religion but not everyone will discover it. Meanwhile everyone has to follow their own heart and what makes sense to them. It only makes sense to me that there is a true religion and it is the religion that has been revealed by Messengers of God throughout human history,
the eternal religion of God. The Baha’i Faith just happens to be the latest chapter in the book, but there will be more chapters revealed in the future, throughout all time. The older chapters have all the same spiritual truths and those are just as valid as they ever were, but the social teachings and laws and the message from God for this age of human history is now different than in the past; it is that
God is one, religion is one and mankind is one. This makes logical sense to me but it also appeals to me on an emotional level because it means that nobody is really wrong as long as they worship the one true God through a true religion or even without a religion, such as yourself and other believers I know. Everyone is okay as long as they do not believe in some false prophet like David Koresh.
If they are aware enough about the nature of truth and relativism. If they are, then they don't need to figure out which one is "right", because such criteria is an illusion to begin with.
I tend to agree with that because I believe all true religions are right, and people who follow those teachings even without a religion are also right. It is all about the way we live our lives, that we love God and our neighbor. Jesus was right about those two commandments. The Baha’i Faith has a higher standard than Christianity because we are enjoined to love our brother more than ourselves.
Which then begs the question, why did you join a religion? I think there are things about yourself you may not really be in touch with if you think you were not motivated by some need to believe in God. Unless, you're just in it purely for the aesthetics, and are effectively an atheist?
As I said above, I did not become a Baha’i because of God
. I think why I joined in the first place is that I was taken with the teachings and the idea of having a religion, something to belong to. I was not searching for God or a religion; it was the furthest thing from my mind. I just stumbled upon it and believed it was the Truth. I really believe that God led me to it, that I was guided, but it has not been easy road to travel. I know I have been tested.
I am an intuitive feeling INFJ personality type which is rare, only 1% of the population. We tend to know what we want when we see it and after we find it we will do anything to work for a Cause. Unfortunately I was sidetracked shortly after I became a Baha’i because I had to deal with emotional issues from childhood that had been repressed, and I did not feel fit to be a Baha’i until I worked out those issues. During that time and after that I got married and I spent about 15 years in college and that was more important to me than God or religion. I have only been doing this Baha’i stuff for about seven years, mostly on forums, and I cannot even remember what my old life was like anymore.