Hi FHN,...I agree its not our duty to convince others to believe as we do, although many in religious circles do have that conviction.
Debate discussion, argument even Iis probably why we utilise this forum, by which we can gauge others views, beliefs and their reasons for such.
Thankyou for your reply.
Re inculcation, its my understanding that a young child comes to a belief in an idea or entity through repetition of the subject, the example being formal education.
Repetition is used(eg times tables)to inculcate the students mind.This then remains(hopefully) to benefit them in later life.
Likewise other ideas are repetitively fed to children, belief in santa, fairies, giants, ghosts, witches for example can be repeatedly
introduced to the young immature mind so that they do believe they are real. It is only as they grow older these notions are realised to be no more than stories, mainly
because they realise their older peer group do not believe these things. However in the case of god belief if that peer group continues to believe ,
Its more likely the young person will still hold that belief . Personally imo I fail to understand how they could come to a reasoned belief in god as truly real at such an early age.
Thats why I think most continue to believe, and of course a belief so deeply held is extremely difficult to give up, even with sound adult reasoning on the
possibility of such a being existing. That's why I come to the conclusion there has to be an adult reason for continuous belief in god.
Each will know what that reason is .I.m.o its all to do with a need within that individuals phsych which probably relates to inculcation from childhood.
In my humble opinion of course.
