Re: Why do I believe in what I believe?
Perhaps this is the best place for this one, since it's a question of epistemology.
This is something I've run across more in discussions of history than of religion, but it's perhaps even more prevalent in religion. I don't bring this up to say who's "right" and who's "wrong", but so that people can better understand those they disagree with.
I'll define conservatism (small-c intentional) as being cautious with respect to change. We may not understand the reasons behind our current structures, but they may have evolved into these forms because they function, and changing them may break something we don't fully understand.
The opposite of conservatism isn't liberalism, but progressivism. Progessivism believes in the "march of history", the betterment of society. It compares the new to the old on a blank slate and usually finds the old wanting, so discards it.
In history, conservatism is dominant. Established truths have primacy, and new ideas have to demolish old ones before they are accepted. It's even more extreme than Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions", because outdated ideas often outlive even the lifetimes of historians who hold them. Some progressives will complain about the unfairness of this, asking that their ideas get a "fair and neutral hearing" against old ideas (i.e. on a progressive blank slate). I personally, progressively lament the fact that the need for a low chronology of the bronze age was demonstrated over twenty years ago, but is still rejected by everyone in the mainstream.
In religious discussions, this usually gets expressed as the "burden of proof", a loaded phrase that I'm sure will harden people's views about what I'm saying here, but I'll use it anyway. I hope people can look outside themselves for a bit to consider both sides. A progressive may want to view any claim, such as "God exists" or "God does not exist" on a blank slate versus the null hypothesis, and place the burden of proof on the person making the claim. (Some go even further and distinguish between these two claims, saying one has a burden of proof and the other does not).
The conservative, on the other hand, places the burden of proof on someone who wants to change what's established, which usually means Christianity in the context of western religious discussions. To such a conservative, atomic beliefs regarding God, Scripture, and Christianity are held until proven false, and replaced with modified beliefs as necessary. (Some go even farther than conservatism, holding beliefs that have been proven false. They're often referred to as reactionaries or denialists, but I want to keep that distinct from conservatives for now.)
I'll end here by saying that neither side is right or wrong. We view things in different ways, and I know that personally I have a conservative epistemology on some things, and a progressive epistemology on others. If you examine your own views, you may find the same.
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On a side note, I really don't care for it when people try to break a post into single lines and reply to each with a one-line response. Doing so doesn't lead to anyone understanding the responder's viewpoint because it isn't expressed at length, and doesn't lead to comprehensible conversations as people chase each other down a rabbit hole that leads to semantics. I'll ask that people respond at length to this with their own counter-theses, trying to clearly spell out their own views. I tired long ago of responding to posts full of single lines.