How can I choose to believe in a story that my brain tells me is false?

In the choice between ';heaven'; and ';hell';, Christians always tell me I have a choice. God gives me the chance to choose.





God's ';choice'; to us is to accept, without question, an absurdly unrealistic fairy-tale in which the results of repeatable experiments are false. Or to accept instead a body of overwhelming empirical evidence, from independent researchers from every nation on earth and including the brightest minds our species has yet produced.





Believe what is in front of your face, or believe what is implausible beyond your wildest imagining. Believe what the smartest, best-trained and most well-respected scientists repeatedly tell you, or believe what a handful of ethically-questionable clerics and their inbred, uneducated followers persistently cling to.





God has a funny way of giving me a choice, really. So, how do I choose ';heaven'; when my brain tells me it's false?How can I choose to believe in a story that my brain tells me is false?
It's easy! Knock yourself in the head with a bat about 6 or 7 times (or while you are still conscious, whichever comes first) so you too can devolve into a religious fanatic!





Dum da dum!





~~*In fits of nausea*~~:


I, I... did someone say that God created Jesus to save us from himself? That God was wrathful, jealous and barbaric, but somehow decided to sacrifice his only begotten son (one of a virgin, mind you) to ';save'; the humanity he created and yet so despises? *Knocks self in head*. Wow. That makes sense.





Oh...oh, no. Did someone mention that only Christians struggle and are good or honest, while the rest of us are simply hedonist jerks bound for hell? Because I think he did. And I can't pick up that darned bat. Someone, please, hit me again.How can I choose to believe in a story that my brain tells me is false?
Think with your heart. It all begins with a ';hope'; that it is true.
Stop listening to your brain! It is just another organ like your liver or spleen. Listen instead to your soul, which is seated in your heart but really covers your entire body and beyond. And remember that each of us have unique experiences that are linked to the Great Source. Heaven is what ever you believe it to be - for you! I believe that we are in Heaven now and see evidence for that everyday. It is a feeling in my soul that I express thru my actions. Please accept my Loving thoughts and blessing on your journey. Another person who believes in hell and the guilt that puts them there will experience that. Life is about choices and we make them whether we are aware of it or not. Start listening to what you say and talk about to others. Get to know yourself, life becomes so much easier then.
That's like saying you've never been wrong in your life about anything. Do you think that you know everything there is to know? (And I'm not meaning to be sarcastic in this question)? Of course you don't. Let's say you know half of everything there is to know (which none of us does...). What if the truth about God is in that half of things you don't know? And what if it is true that, if you reject Jesus Christ as savior, if you do not realize you have sinned and need salvation, that you will go to hell? Is that worth knowing?





God never turns away a person who honestly seeks. Start over again. Assume that there may be something in the gospel message that perhaps, right now, you are unaware of. It's no shame to find you've been mistaken. It would only be costly if you took this attitude to the grave with you.
Just let it be. Your path will come to you soon. So don't go crazy trying to figure out a medium between two opposite worlds.
funny thing about the brain is it will decieve you ... its easy to reason a belief out of anything ... truth comes from feeling it from the heart .. my opinion ...
No one truly seeks God, or his understanding. It doesn't fit into our box of what we believe.





Why would we want to have a God that is over all, knows all, created all? Would it be honorific to know that there is someone that knows ever bad or evil thought, action and deed that we have ever done and then hold us accountable.





Who has that right to judge us in such away?








Are you a good person? What a question, most of us believe that we are good people because we can look around and find someone that is far worse than we are. We can always point to the things that we think make us a good person.





But how good are we really? Dare we take this test and look at ourselves and see if we really are good? Hmmm.





If you are willing try this and see just how good a person you are.





The Good Person Test.





How will you do? Pass or fail?








Have you ever told a lie?


Doesn't matter how big or small, just a lie.


What does that make you? Before answering think about this, if I told you a lie what would you call me? A liar?





Have you ever stolen anything? Cost doesn't matter, a piece of gum, failed to give back an ink pen that you borrowed, anything.


What does that make you?





Jesus said, ';You know the saying of old, you shall not commit adultery but I say that if look at someone to lust after them you have committed adultery in your heart.


Have you ever lusted?





Jesus said that hate is equal to murder.


Have you ever hated anyone?





See one day we all are going to stand before a Holy God on Judgment Day and he is going to judge us based on His Holy Law, the Ten Commandments. These are just 4 of them and how did you do? Guilty? I have broken all of these and more, what about you? How well will you do on Judgment Day?





If we break just one point of God's Law we are guilty of breaking all the law and Gods Wrath abides upon us all. Based on God's Law we are all guilty and all are deserving of punishment. But there is an out for us.





Jesus paid the price for each one of us, took on himself God's Wrath so we wouldn't have to face it on our own. Jesus was beaten, battered, bleed and died so we wouldn't have to face God's Wrath. He rose again so that we would life in his presence. Our crimes, His payment.





The real question is where will you stand on Judgment Day. Pay yourself or have it paid for you. Think about it.
You either believe in your brain or your knowingness (heart)





When your brain or intellect is no longer taking you to where you want to go for happiness( heaven) then you will start looking elsewhere.
Sheer wilful ignorance, presumably...
cause you dont believe w/your brain, u believ w/ur heart, and soul.
';Think with your heart';? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Don't you people know that the heart is simply the organ that pumps blood through your body? It cannot think, feel or reason. What are kids being taught in biology these days, anyway??





And Marky, I agree with you on having to abandon reason in order to believe in God. Who in their right mind could accept that there is an invisible genie/father figure/Santa Claus type of being living in the sky? Only a child, or an adult with the mind of a child, could entertain such notions in all seriousness.
Listen up! Do you want to be a slave for some make believe things? Do you really want to miss out on all pleasure in life such as sleeping with any hot chicks, drinking a good strong alchol, fight a good fight, advance to the top even if it mean backstabbing someone, and many more?





Look around you. Look at all those who are successful in life. Do you honestly think they're a honest people? look at all those people who have a lot of fun and are happy, do you think they follow a fake make believe stuff?





Wouldn't you like to have a huge nice house by beachside with 10 sport cars, have more than one hot girlfriends, and have huge amount of power?





Look at those who follow the way of christian, what do you see? They usually are always struggling with something. That's because they allows it to happen, not because they're trying to be on the top and the best of the best.





In end the choice is up to you, but I strongly suggest you to look around and see who is on the top and who is suffering.
You know - there are a lot of very intelligent Christians out there. And yes - they even exist in other faith groups.





Believing in something doesn't mean you turn off the logic. Although I think you would like to believe that. It makes you a lot more comfortable in your little world. An explaination why belief in general is so wide spread.





I have yet to see science actually disprove the Divine. In fact - the theory that everything was just chance is getting more and more far fetched because we are discovering how intricate everything truly is.





No one ever said you have to suspend logic. Which is what you are doing to believe what you do about those who have faith.
what if we changed the worldy definition of ';heaven'; to something more realistic? ';heaven is here'; or ';heaven is a state of mind'; or ';we create our own hell'; or as shakespeare put it ';nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.';
Why is everyone saying you need to ';think with your heart';? The heart is incapable of thinking. What they're saying is meaningless and they're trying to get emotional about it.
It's like this: The mind is a camera that looks out upon the whole world/universe/reality. Now turn that camera around and look at yourself.





Maybe you see yourself, your body, your past or memories, but the point is, study enough meditation, read some philosophy and spirituality, and you start to see yourself now as a light. A great, glowing light. As in ';hey, I've seen the light!'; kind of light.





Now let me ask you something, Mr. Empirical. Is this evidence that something beyond your wildest imagination is possible? That we are not actual human beings in our true form, but a product of intelligence, using our bodies, rationally thinking, operating on a very human and corporeal level, but like a video game, our bodies are in the game, we are the ones controlling our characters.





And if you experience this moment of insight, then ask yourself, what correlation does this light have with the thought or mythology of God? Were ancient humans seeing this light, and mistaking this light, which was them, as God? So now we have something interesting on our hands.