steve@zinfandel.UUCP (12/15/84)
I'm not sure this got out the first time I tried to send it; in any case my question hasn't been answered so I'll ask it again and again until it has: > > [Steve Nelson] (me) > > I have a simple, perhaps naive, but utterly fundamental question: > > > > What is it that leads a person from any other state of mind > > to the state of believing that the Bible is totally true > > and inspired by the God described therein? > > > > Answers from those in either state of mind will be appreciated, thank you. > > [Paul DuBois] > Not "what", "who". God. By "God", can I take it that you mean the God described in the Bible? Can I also take it that you are describing a general process: given several totally independent holy books, each describing a distinct deity, that which leads a person to believe in any and only one of these books and its divine origins is the deity described in that book? Regardless of the particular holy book and its deity, one can observe similar behavior of the deity->book->deity cycle believer: I believe in this book, this book describes a deity which wrote the book, therefore I must believe in this book, therefore I believe in the deity who wrote it, therefore other books with similar claims are wrong. So my questions are: 1. Given similar behavior among believers in different books/deities, is or isn't this behavior a manifestation of the same natural belief-formation process occuring within each believer? 2. If any one of the belief-formation processes can be attributed to divine intervention, then what process explains belief-formation in any other book/deity, and why is the outward behavior so similar? 3. How can somebody from the outside of the process (not yet predisposed toward any one book/deity) make the choice of any one book/deity, without that choice being arbitrary? In other words, from state 0 I can enter (and get caught up in) any of the cycles of belief in any book/deity... so what should lead me to any one of them? Thanks for answers, zehntel!zinfandel!steve nelson /* ---------- */