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Unlike many, I don't have an inherent problem with necro-threads like this one. Going back to the OP, that was a classic case of someone who WANTS to believe but can't quite pull it off. The very fact that someone needs to ask how you "know you believe" anything means that they are trying and not quite succeeding to believe in that thing.
I agree with Nozferatu's post (where, oh where IS my favorite poster these days?): it is actually asking the wrong question because belief is the natural effect of knowing what you know, or not knowing what you don't know. It isn't really voluntary.
The correct question is "how do you foster religious faith" (where "religious faith" is the blind acceptance of asserted truth without requiring that it be substantiated). And the answer to that is, you decide in advance what you want to claim is true, and practice uncritically giving yourself and your thinking over to that until it becomes second nature. You embrace only supporting evidence and disparage evidence against your chosen belief. You sow fear of terrible consequences for simply questioning dogma or considering possible alternatives.
Which is why Raifus is correct. You cannot think logically and rationally while fostering belief in invisible beings and realms, which are inherently unfalsifiable.
for me it was the periodic table. So the simple fact is we are part of a system that is better described as "alive" than any other single word.
of course I am one that just thinks some religious people are misunderstanding their connections to the surroundings. partly because they lack the understanding of the surroundings.
And unlike the milli/fundy think above me, that makes up convoluted bowl of ships to self justify some statement of belief over knowledge claims, I just take what the universe shows me through the PT. The milli/fundy think above, exposed by claiming "they can't think logically but I can", lacks understanding of the pt and interaction around them.
besides "we know and they can't know" sounds exactly like any literal religious person would sound. No matter what their belief statement is. "my god", "no anything", or "religion is so dangerous I am justified in denying more reasonable science in favor of a selling my belief.' where milli/fund think types fall short is that one cannot think logically, nor rationally, when all they are out for is anti-religion for revenge purposes. Like all adolescent brains, it can't take responsibility for itself, seeing only "something else' as the boogeyman that caused it's life to be as it is.
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