As I see it, Dan S de Merengue, your religious faith is due in no small measure to your family upbringing. There seems to have been no serious 'weighing of alternatives' outside the narrow spectrum of a generally Christian environment.

Weighing up the alternatives, Jesus versus not Jesus, and then, Bible stories factual versus Bible stories allegorical, does not sound to me much like a work of investigation. More a preference, really.

That is not a criticism, merely an observation. But what it does not do, for me at least, is explain how you came to a decision on, firstly, the existence of a God in the form in which you imagine him, and secondly, how you selected Christianity over any other form of deist worship.

I may lack imagination, or empathy, or something, but I simply cannot get my head around the thought processes that lead people to take such an impregnable-to-logic position on one, specific, tightly-constrained version of a belief system.

As opposed, that is, to the others.

Tell me, what am I missing here?

Dear Pericles,

<<I simply cannot get my head around the thought processes that lead people to take such an impregnable-to-logic position on one, specific, tightly-constrained version of a belief system.>>

Jesus said, "My Father's house has many doors".

All religious belief-systems are merely techniques or methods that help us to reach God.
As it makes no difference which door we come in, it makes sense for most people (though I would be an exception) to enter through the nearest door, the door one was born nearby.

That is only a response to half the question, Yuyutsu.

>>All religious belief-systems are merely techniques or methods that help us to reach God.<<

The part you overlook is how does one come to the conclusion that there is a God in the first place? That is after all a necessary prerequisite to selecting a belief system, is it not? There is little point in employing "techniques or methods that help us to reach God" if there isn't a presumption that you will find one.

Asking it in a different way: if you start out with the intention of determining for yourself whether to believe in a deity or not, how - and why - would you choose one of those techniques/methods over another?

Your assumption has always been that God exists. But that is what it will always remain. Just an assumption. Neither you, nor Dan S de Merengue, ever gets past that assumption to disclose the thought processes that preceded it/led to it.

With Dan, it sounds nothing more critical than an acceptance of family values. Fair enough. It does of course explain why different folk, brought up in households with different family belief systems, seem to be constantly at war with each other. Just an extension of tribal rivalries and existential struggles, in reality.

But - surely - if religious belief systems are all about "which door we come in", and the selection of that door causes so much strife, is it not reasonable to assume that the problem might after all be, what is supposed to be the other side of that door?

Dear Pericles,

There is value in making doors attractive - clean them, paint them, ornament them, sound soothing music near them, use perfume to make them smell nice, etc. But unless the doors are eventually crossed, they become a trap. People who exaggerate investing in decorating their door can even become jealous at others who decorate different doors; or they can become proud and possessive of their doors, forgetting their original utility.

Swami Vivekananda said: "it is good to be born in a church, but it is bad to die there."
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/H%20-%20World%20Religions%20and%20Poetry/World%20Religions/From%20the%20Indian%20Tradition/Teachers%20from%20the%20Indian%20Tradition/Swami%20Vivekananda/Straight%20Talk%20on%20Realization/Straight%20Talk.htm

Most people don't even have the discipline and circumstances to decide for themselves whether to believe in a deity, yet although God is not a deity, those who do so believe, tend to benefit from this practice, improve their character and expand their heart through their devotion to that [non-existent] deity, thus becoming more fit to eventually find God within. It's a wonderful technique!

As for the existence of God, I already wrote that it would be a logical contradiction, hence God does not exist. Those doors, however, lead us out of the bondage to the illusion of existence and the suffering that goes with it - on the other side we discover our true selves, which is indistinct from God. Before crossing we consider ourselves to be individuals, separate bodies and minds, but after crossing we realise that we were never ever separate from God or from each other, that there is nothing but us, nothing but God.

So no, neither is the existence of God a prerequisite for selecting a belief system, nor is a belief-system a prerequisite for realising God - there are people who reached God without even having a belief system or a slightest idea of God.

I hope this answers all your questions, otherwise please keep asking.

It is clearly pointless trying to squeeze sense (in the normal, conventional usage of the word) on a question of religion from someone who is simultaneously anti-deist and pro-God, since the two stances are - to me, at least - entirely contradictory.

>>As for the existence of God, I already wrote that it would be a logical contradiction, hence God does not exist.<<

followed by:

>>...there are people who reached God without even having a belief system or a slightest idea of God<<

The conventional - that is, the generally accepted - definition of God includes the synonym "deity", and a description involving the worship of a third party (i.e., not oneself).

If you insist on selecting a different definition, then there is little point in discussing the religious variants that cause people to choose the substantially different conventions that go along with them.

But if you like, you can explain how you personally arrived at your definition of God, and which "door" you chose to pass through to reach it.

Pericles,
I also have trouble following whatever it is Yuyutsu is saying about God. I'm not sure if she (or he, if I'm guessing wrong) even believes God exists or not.

Yet I wish to soundly contradict one thing that was said earlier. The citation given was factually in error. Jesus never said his 'father's house has many doors'. That makes it sound like all beliefs are equally valid. That's the same as saying that what you believe doesn't matter.

I would not wish to take a tram ride with someone who thinks all rides end in the same place.

In fact, that idea of 'many paths up the mountain' is quite foreign to Christianity. Jesus was exclusive and singular in his claims. John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me." Such a position could be described as 'tightly-constrained', but that appears to be the very thing Jesus was aiming at in his self-proclamation.