As I kid, my elder cousin use to tell me that there is a ghost in the basement of their house, and they have locked it in a room there. He use to show me the keys, and challenge me that if I could open that room,I will be rewarded. I was like 5 years then, and I always believed that he was true, and could never gather courage to open the door. This belief of ghost that I got from him was obviously broken when I grew up. However, there are many beliefs that one gets out of instincts, they may be influenced by the environment and the upbringing that one had, but somewhere within, a natural instinct or urge is always present for that believe. Like those grandpa's teaching of being good,and honest,and his stories from his life and other experiences to conclude that honesty is the best policy to follow,and that at the end good always win over evil. However, in a country in which I live, its not always practical to be honest. At times you have to bribe the officials,to get your work done.At first,I used to argue with them,and complain them to higher officials, because I always expected things to be done in a neat way. Sometimes, it used to work, and sometimes,it made situation even worse,and I had some bitter experience. That was the time of my late teens,and early manhood, I felt like being a revolutionary then, but as I reached my earning age, I slowly realized that its very unpractical to be in a minority, and now I do the things as most of the people do. So, I have learned that you got to adapt and compromise with life, sometimes even unethically. However, that does not shakes my believe in honesty; that is something to do with instincts. I would like to know, if you ever believed in something, which you later thought is wrong, and if yes, then what was your reaction? Were you shocked ,or you were able to accept that situation? This can be anything from a religious believe to fantasy, or even something very orthodox ...
Well, there is always the childhood fantasies, like Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, etc. When you are young you aren't really capable of distinguishing what is real and what is fiction. One thing that was taught to me at an early age was religion, and that if you didn't believe in a specific faith you would be doomed for eternity, etc. After I was mature enough to reason and understand things more, I would consider myself more of a "Deist" than being a member of some organized religion. I believe that if you look at the message conveyed by any religious text, be it the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, the Buddhist scriptures, etc, you will find the same messages, of love and kindness towards others. I now no longer see any religion as "the only truth" or "superior to others". As far as bribery, the issue is more in the environment that you are living in. Corruption and bribery exists everywhere, not just in less developped countries. In some countries, corruption is just more prevalent than others. Take trying to bribe your way past a border guard for example. Doing this in the United States would likely get you into huge trouble, but the same would be considered pretty much the norm in some African countries.
And for me, "One thing that was taught to me at an early age was" JESUS CHRIST; would you like to know the difference. . .according to as "It is Written..."?
no thanks. The thing about ghosts is they, apparently, only ever appear in the dark. What this little mind trick does it take advantage of a mammalian instinct, typically the mammalian reaction to the dark. as mammals we are predisposed to have heightened perception in the dark. As we have fairly poor eye sight in the dark our brain makes us perceive tiny sounds in a far more significant way than we would have in the light, which is handy if you are a monkey trying to keep out of a tigers mouth. Out mind also fills in the blanks visually because evolutionary speaking it better to think there is a tiger when there isn't than to think there isn't when there is. All we need now is the suggestion that dead people can come back and bingo, we have people claiming to have seen them.
Ok, so what are you trying to say? That believing in Jesus Christ does not make you part of the "Christianity" religion? According to It is Written? Written in what? Some holy scriptures? Which again would imply a religion.