Oh man, culture has a much bigger influence than you think. I grew up in the Middle East, and I moved to the U.S. as a teenager. Some people stick to their own compatriots abroad, and never become truly multi-cultural. That is not the case with me. I consider myself Western since those are the cultural norms I find most productive and progressive. I do however understand a second culture profoundly and intimately.
Listen, people are people. Everywhere, people do the same things and aspire for similar things. The most genetically distinct groups of humans are closer to one another than chimps of different tribes in the same valley. But unlike other animals, genetics (nature) plays a much smaller role in human behavior than it does for other species. We have culture (nurture), and it wires and rewires our brains as it pleases. It controls not only our actions, but our thoughts and dreams. Culture gives no new capacities, but it dictates how existing capacities are used. We can all get jealous, but culture tells us what's worth getting jealous over. We all get hungry, but culture dictates what foods we crave. Culture is everything.
And culture is the reason mainstream religion is different than cult religions. It is not that one story is more plausible than the other. But one is more culturally accepted. Most people believe because their parents believed. Those who choose a different path, typically choose another culturally pervasive direction. Very few American Muslims become Hindu, and very few Utah Mormons become Muslims. That is why I'm interested in cult belief. People who are justifying their faith in this thread had faith to begin with. It was transmitted through culture, and the justifications came after the fact. But with cults, it is just faith. That is the concept I don't understand. I don't understand faith.
I'm glad spycam1 brought up the "spiritual confirmation". It is a physical reason I can begin to understand. I don't think it's truly spiritual or anything like that. After all, it is difficult to accept that when I know so many ex-Mormons and peoples of other religions who had that same confirmation as believers, and who clearly see it as a normal emotional response now that they're unbelievers. But is something. It is still somewhat hard to understand. The stuff about hope and fear of death is all true. But I am still confused as how that general spiritual confirmation becomes ties to a very specific set of rules and doctrines.
My closest friend is an ex-Mormon. I know his family very well, and we often get into discussions about religion. His father's main reason for believing is spycam1's spiritual confirmation. He believes it so strongly that he says no evidence can sway him. He claims that even if he was to go back in time, and see Joseph Smith making up the Book of Mormon in front of his very eyes, he would still believe. He thinks his confirmation transcends any worldly affairs and arguments. He thinks other people's (non Mormons) spiritual confirmation are only a phantom image of his own. Anyone who wants to know god or Christ or whatever will receive some sort of confirmation, he claims. But his is the true one.
I simply find that line of thinking incredible. How can anyone be so sure of anything?
