Interesting article: "Why we believe"

[TXlib]

http://www.exmormon.org/boards/honestboard/messages/5154.html

[TXlib]

1. kick!

[Az]

2. Belief in gods comes naturally to humans

Our minds develop an identity. This comes to be the means by which we experience the universe around us. We observe others in the world similar to ourselves and eventually conclude that they too are experiencing this notion of identity. Though we cannot experience their identity we can project our own sense of identity onto them. It is in this way that we create internal models of those around us and label these learned projections as their individual identities.

It doesn't end there though. As we grow and develop our ability to project and thus come to understand others, we sometimes project identity onto things which have none. A stuffed animal, an invisible friend, a tree, all these we can project identities onto. And from this arises identities projected onto the nature of the universe.

Gods arise from our ability to project identity onto the world around us. However left on its own these identities would fade without confirmation. Over time belief systems have developed that codefy some of the more common projections. This experential nature of projection combined with the dogmatic structure of belief systems lend emotional strength to the beliefs and thus they become strengthened.

Since our brains measure the universe based on emotional weighting this becomes the primary criteria through which we see the universe. Our beliefs and precepts of the universe are made from the struggle in our mind to balance the emotional weighting of our life's experiences. Which ever experiences carry the greatest weight determines what we see as the truth. Thus our minds defend what they have accumulated over time and do not let go easily of strong beliefs.

[TXlib]

3. kick.

I thought this would have inspired more discussion...