What are the pros and cons of being a Believer?

"For my own part, I know God exists because if he were merely a figment of my imagination then I cannot trust my imagination to tell me anything accurate about anything else..." -IanoOf course you can't trust your imagination. Your imagination is a creation, a transitional space. It is not objective. Lat night I had a very vivid dreamabout being one of a select few who we sensitive to divine beings who ahd sent a message from the far past. I woke up feeling so invigorated I woke my partner to describe it. Then I went back to sleep because your imagination is just that. Made up.

Insofar as he would experience all the cons and none of the existential pros I would agree with you.

What I meant was why do people of faith choose to practice that faith in spite of the awfull experiences people of another or no faith put them through.Not the rules of their faith being awfull etc, but the response they engender in others.

That sounds like a nice life. Could it be achieved without a unified belief system?Ed: SplellinkThis message has been edited by Larni, 02-27-2006 08:50 AM

I have a similar story: In my 20s I had a very bad stammer, since I could talk in fact. During my reading for a cognitive behavioural masters degree I cam across a quote from a woman with social anxiety who said (paraphrased) "I kept thinging that other people were thinking I was going to get discombobulated (have no words in ones head), when I finally believed this not to be the case I could talk".When I read that something clicked in my head. As I write this now I sort of relive that day; utterly fantastic. I rang all my friends and family to show off how I could now talk. It was the most intense experience I had ever had.All that changed was the belief I held in my head. I completely agree that belief is the key.

But I know my imagination (maybe imagination was a poor choice of word) supplies me with objective truths. At least I (and everyone else) makes the assumption that it does. That's what knowing something definitively is - as best as anyone can reckon: "I know" = I trust what appears to be objective reality to be objective reality.And if whatever inexplicable aspect of me which enables such a sense of being is wrong about Gods existance then it is wrong about everything else. I am as sure of Gods existance as I am of my own. If I am wrong then there is no such thing as an objective reality.That's all I mean by "I know"

If I may regarding my own case. Because I know God exists for all practical purposes (limited by the explanation in the post above) it is my duty to tell others about him. To talk about him, to attempt to describe him and what his message is. He tells such as me in his word to do so. In this post-modern world the mission of an apologist is to keep the Christian option as an intellectually viable one.I can either align myself with his love for everybody and desire that they would turn to him and be saved and take some relatively limited insult and ridicule in the process (the only thing being affected if I am affected is my pride so no harm there). Or stand by and watch folk stampede down the road that leads to destruction. Its a no-brainer for me. Occasionally one is rewarded when a person on an Alpha Course or something goes "Hey I think I get what that (which is impossible to get if God is not revealing it to them) means!"This message has been edited by iano, 27-Feb-2006 01:03 PM

Amen to that. I tried rigging my tv up to my stereo a few years back and blew the thing up. It got chucked and I hadn't time to get another one. One week stretched to two to three... to 3 yearsLife begins when you have no telly

Is that yours or is it lifted? What do YOU think the pros and cons are? From that incredibly long post I learn nothing about you.

How would does effect you? We know the effects historically, but what about you the individual?

I guess we won't know until someone shows us it can.

Short, OT response:

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Normal people can come uncomfortably close to this irrational realm when they are either half awake or half asleep, and experience either hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations. In these relatively common and normal experiences, a person may be temporarily unable to move, a state known as sleep paralysis, and may experience vivid hallucinations either when first falling asleep (hypnagogic hallucinations), or upon awakening (hypnopompic hallucinations) Reisner 2001

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Although not a science article, a pretty good coverage of the question.

Personally, my beliefs allow me to interpret the cardinality of moral dillemas. When I come across something that I need to decide on personally, it provides me with a basis. It allows me to reach a decision intuitively while the scientist in me allows me to reach it deductively. It provides with the comfort of knowing that as long as my actions are truly for the benefit of others, I will be fine. While my knowledge of science allows me to understand what happens around me in terms of physics, chemistry, and biology, my faith in God allows me to understand those things which can only be explained philosophically.
For example, when my father died a few years ago he was in excellent health. He was a bit overweight and smoked, but otherwise he was in very shape. He practiced tae kwon do, and ate a vegan diet. When he died suddenly in one afternoon his doctors couldn't really explain it with more then a vague statement about how our family has had a history of heart problems. I'm very good at biology, and knew they had no idea what caused his death. I believed that it was simply his time to go to god. He was only 48, but i knew that death is inescapable and that once we leave this world there is another. My belief explained to me what science could not. Why my father at a fairly young age and while in good health had died, while others who lived far unhealthier lives lived ( look at axle rose). It was his time to go, it wasn't theirs yet. Sorry for the extensiveness of this, I've never been all that succinct.

You seeem to be linking your sensory apparatus's ability to accurately sense your environment with your sense of god. To say you would have to be wrong about EVERY THING ELSE if you are wrong about god is in error. If you changed your belief, nothing in your perceptions would change. The meaning you attach to said perceptions would change, but that is all.

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Pros: It might stop you from murdering and stealing, assuming you don't already have the principles and morals in the first place.

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...and yet, the prisons are full of believers, and the ratio of unbelievers in prison is lower than in the general population.hmmmmm.