What makes you think you are right about belief?

An interesting thread. If someone chose to start a thread on "What makes you think everyone else is wrong about belief?" that would be interesting as well! I think many of the answers might be the same, but the context for giving them might have some interesting variations.
 
The idea of 'empty ritual' is a very real one.

Rites and Rituals do not work because one performs the outwards actions, but because one has a certain interior disposition, a certain training (where necessary) and a certain knowledge (where necessary).

One has focus.

An example is Reiki.

I came into contact with Reiki through my martial arts training. Reiki goes back a few hundred years. I pursued it, through to initiation.

'Modern Reiki' is, as is so often the case, largely an invention. A whole history has been fabricated to make it 'marketable' in America. Usui-sensei (the founder) was supposedly a Christian, or had Christian leanings. Rubbish, of course, but it made it all more palatable.

Another piece of nonsense: the conflation of 'Reiki Energy', 'Universal Energy' and the Christian 'Holy Spirit'. There's a tendency to see them all as one and the same thing. Another romantic fantasy.

Then there's the "it's impossible to harm anyone with reiki energy" dogma. What is actually meant is, you don't know enough, nor can you summon nor focus energy enough, to harm anyone.

But try that on with an exponent of the devastating 'reiki-no-ho' (spirit technique) of a traditional martial ryu, and see what happens ...

And Usui was a master swordsman of the Yagyu Ryu, a practitioner of Tendai Buddhist psychodynamic training techniques, and was attached to the Japanese consulate in China ... which tells me a lot about the man.

And, of course, the keystone of belief in the contemporary Western World is the self-serving: 'I believe it and it works for me', as if that's affirmation of anything other than the self-perpetuating self-mythologising of the ego.
 
Personally, I stopped thinking about religion as "right belief". I am Christian, because I feel as Christianity is a good answer for me. But I'd lie if I told you that I think Christianity is the only good answer. I believe in the connection among all the religions and spiritual paths because every faith teaches that we have to love each other. As long as I do that, I feel saved. This is my "right belief".
 
progettoecumene said:
Personally, I stopped thinking about religion as "right belief". I am Christian, because I feel as Christianity is a good answer for me. But I'd lie if I told you that I think Christianity is the only good answer. I believe in the connection among all the religions and spiritual paths because every faith teaches that we have to love each other. As long as I do that, I feel saved. This is my "right belief".
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This cannot be said of humans that they have to love each other. Love is an emotion and emotions cannot be dictated upon. Probably we ought to honor or respect each other but not to love.
 
There are things you can do to influence your emotions, but they can't be controlled in the sense that one's actions can be controlled.
 
I suppose I should have narrowed down my comment.

Yes, the thing which we call 'love' is largely sentimentality and emotion, but it can be many things, the desire to possess, the desire to power ... we can love anything from everything, to nothing, from the banal to the sublime.

And yes ... the human can be controlled. I believe the will to live is such that one cannot be hypnotised to put a bullet through one's head, but I might be wrong.

So as were in religion/faith/theology and belief/spirituality, perhaps I can be allowed to refine my comment.

Love as spoken of in Christianity, is not the same thing as society generally determines it to be.
 
Love as spoken of in Christianity, is not the same thing as society generally determines it to be.

Yes. That is the appropriate statement. There is a difference between secular and Christian definitions.
 
Dan said: There are things you can do to influence your emotions, but they can't be controlled in the sense that one's actions can be controlled.

Of course one can control one's emotions. Anyone telling you otherwise has something they want to sell you! We all have emotions and we all have willpower. Either can rule the other. Pretending one doesn't have a choice is fiction. A very popular fiction. But fiction never the less.
 
"We all have emotions and we all have willpower. Either can rule the other."

--> It's not that simple. My area of study is personality disorders. Two good examples of 'uncontrollable emotions' are when a person goes into a rage and when a person engages in compulsive behavior. Two more good examples are anxiety and depression (which we don't usually think of as emotions but they are.) Yes, these emotions can be eventually controlled, but it takes a lot more (and a quite different intervention strategy) than just trying to control them via willpower.

If anyone thinks they can control anxiety and depression mainly by using willpower is just kidding themself and they may be setting themselves up for a disaster. (And any friend or relative who tells the person to just 'snap out' of their depression and anxiety -- via the person's own willpower -- is doing more harm than good.)
 
Gordian Knot said:
Emotions cannot be dictated upon. What do you mean by that? Are you suggesting emotions cannot be controlled?
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Can you say to another person: I will love you tomorrow? Of course not! That's not how love works. No one can force you to love. Love happens when it happens.
 
Shibolet said:
Can you say to another person: I will love you tomorrow? Of course not!
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Of course you can.

Shibolet said:
That's not how love works. No one can force you to love. Love happens when it happens.
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When it happens it's called metanoia, 'a change of heart'. The first step in being an authentic Christian. It's an act of will.

I think the kind of love you're talking about is the love of those who love you. This is not the order of love Christ talks about.

"For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? Do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:46-48.)

He's talking about an act of will, the free gift of self to the other, a gratuitous gift, that is given without counting the cost, without demanding or waiting for the other to make the first move.
 
Thomas said:
I suppose I should have narrowed down my comment.

Yes, the thing which we call 'love' is largely sentimentality and emotion, but it can be many things, the desire to possess, the desire to power ... we can love anything from everything, to nothing, from the banal to the sublime.

And yes ... the human can be controlled. I believe the will to live is such that one cannot be hypnotised to put a bullet through one's head, but I might be wrong.

So as were in religion/faith/theology and belief/spirituality, perhaps I can be allowed to refine my comment.

Love as spoken of in Christianity, is not the same thing as society generally determines it to be.
Click to expand...

Religious "love" is somehow infected by the psychological bribe of rewards.
 
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