MY BELIEFS AS I HAVE LEARNT LIFE TO BE

Beliefs are supposed to be true, you cannot say, "I believe fairies exist, but I do not think it is true that fairies exist." As religious people apparently believe various things, which other people do not believe.

However, it is not actually obvious that religion is a matter of truth, or those religious states of mind to be assessed in terms of truth and falsity. Perhaps religion is not a matter of beliefs, and these states of mind are not belief. Accepting religion, maybe more like enjoying a poem, or following the football. It might be a matter of immersion in a set of practices. Perhaps the practices have only an emotional point or social point; perhaps the religious rituals only serve necessary psychological social ends. The rituals of birth, coming of age, or funerals do this. It is silly to ask whether a marriage ceremony is true or false. People do not go to a funeral service to here something true, but too mourn, and within time, begin to stop mourning, or to meditate on a departed life. Keats ode to the Grecian Urn whether it is said to be true and successful or not in quite a dimension, and so is Charles Cathedral or a state of Buddha.

So if someone says, "God exists, it is not like saying the "Abominable Snowman Exists", it is more like expressing joy, or expressing fear. Because of this what is said, is immune from criticism as true or false.

While admitting the emotional side and social side people have taken them to making definite claims about the world-literally true claims, for which there is argument, and evidence. On this, view religious belief is like other belief: an attempt to depict what the world is like, what things it contains, and what explains the events in it. On this view, a funeral service and not true or false, but some of the things said in it are, such as we shall rise again from the dead. With this view, people sincerely saying that they will be resurrected are not choosing a metaphorical, or poetical, or emotionally way of saying something else, or of putting a certain color on the ordinary world. They are announcing something they expect as literally as they might expect to take a journey or expect the appearance of a friend. Perhaps religious faith is well supported by the occurrence of miraculous events. A prophet may establish divine credentials by foreseeing the future, or by miraculous healing, or appearance after death, or such signs.

Most of us are not privileged to see

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