Upbringing, education and circumstance

The defining factors of any belief system?

Originally posted by Trev33
The defining factors of any belief system?

Yep.
Circumstance encompasses upbring and education.

Perhaps Upbringing, education, location. ?
All 3 could be backed up by stats.

Originally posted by Trev33
The defining factors of any belief system?

Yes, any belief system created by man.

Originally posted by josephw
Yes, any belief system created by man.

Mankind's belief systems are all, by definition, created by man ~ they do involve, after all, the things that he has come to believe. This includes your beliefs, of course. If you were my neighbour, you'd almost certainly have a different take on the Abrahamic God than the one you just so happen to currently have.

Originally posted by FMF
Mankind's belief systems are all, by definition, created by man ~ they do involve, after all, the things that he has come to believe. This includes your beliefs, of course. If you were my neighbour, you'd almost certainly have a different take on the Abrahamic God than the one you just so happen to currently have.

I disagree. There is that belief system revealed by God and is accepted universally by all Bible believing Christains. It matters little where one lives.

That isn't to say that all Christians agree about everything. Some aren't really Christians at all because they fail to believe God at His Word. They deny the basic fundamentals of the faith that God has revealed, and instead twist the scriptures to fit their own paradigm.

Originally posted by josephw
I disagree. There is that belief system revealed by God and is accepted universally by all Bible believing Christains. It matters little where one lives.

Of course it matters where one lives, how one is brought up, and what the circumstances are. The distribution and density of Christian populations around the world is uneven. If "It matters little where one lives", then this would not be the case.

Originally posted by josephw
That isn't to say that all Christians agree about everything. Some aren't really Christians at all because they fail to believe God at His Word. They deny the basic fundamentals of the faith that God has revealed, and instead twist the scriptures to fit their own paradigm.

Are these disagreements rooted in differences of upbringing, education, circumstance and location too?

Originally posted by Trev33
The defining factors of any belief system?

Influencing, perhaps.
Defining, absolutely not.
No matter what the wanna-be statisticians herein attempt to prove with their unfounded analysis of the information they spout, there are far too many 'exceptions to the rule,' as it were, which render such iron-clad proclamations null and void.
An American atheist, a Chinese Christian, an Arab Buddhist, a Jewish Flying-Spaghetti-Monsterist... all proof positive that no one is bound by upbringing, education or circumstance, but rather, their own conscience.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
An American atheist, a Chinese Christian, an Arab Buddhist, a Jewish Flying-Spaghetti-Monsterist... all proof positive that no one is bound by upbringing, education or circumstance, but rather, their own conscience.

I don't think anyone would claim that people are "bound" by upbringing, education, location or circumstance (indeed I know numerous Christians here who converted from Islam, and also Muslims who converted from Christianity), but the very uneven distribution of what religions and beliefs are founded on people's own consciences quite clearly is largely determined by culture, geography, history etc.

I was raised as a Christian in a predominantly Christian country by Christian parents who sent me to a Christian school. If I had been born in the house (and family) next to the one I live in nowadays (far away from Christian Britain), I would most likely have been raised as a Muslim in this predominantly Muslim country by Muslim parents who might even have sent me to an Islamic school.

Things work out in this way far, far more often than they don't. This makes it pretty clear that upbringing, education, location or circumstance are dominating influences on the beliefs and religious faiths that people end up professing.

It results in countries, societies, cultures, communities being ~ quite justifiably and understandably ~ defined and identified as being Christian, or Muslim, or Hindu etc.

Originally posted by josephw
That isn't to say that all Christians agree about everything. Some aren't really Christians at all because they fail to believe God at His Word. They deny the basic fundamentals of the faith that God has revealed, and instead twist the scriptures to fit their own paradigm.

An interesting point which i would like to discuss elsewhere.

Originally posted by Trev33
The defining factors of any belief system?

Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV)

Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Originally posted by josephw
I disagree. There is that belief system revealed by God and is accepted universally by all Bible believing Christains. It matters little where one lives.

.

If location did not matter religions would be spread homogeneously across the planet.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Influencing, perhaps.
Defining, absolutely not.
No matter what the wanna-be statisticians herein attempt to prove with their unfounded analysis of the information they spout, there are far too many 'exceptions to the rule,' as it were, which render such iron-clad proclamations null and void.
An American atheist, a Chinese Christian, an Arab Buddhist, a ...[text shortened]... that no one is bound by upbringing, education or circumstance, but rather, their own conscience.

"... all proof positive that no one is bound by upbringing, education or circumstance, but rather, their own conscience .."

NO

You need to study statistics.

Originally posted by josephw
I disagree. There is that belief system revealed by God and is accepted universally by all Bible believing Christains. It matters little where one lives.

That isn't to say that all Christians agree about everything. Some aren't really Christians at all because they fail to believe God at His Word. They deny the basic fundamentals of the faith that God has revealed, and instead twist the scriptures to fit their own paradigm.

"It matters little where one lives".

Consider a person raised Muslim, who grew up to live in a Muslim society, was taught there there is only one god whose name is Allah, and eventually dies in that society....does that person's upbringing matter "little" to thier beliefs?

Originally posted by josephw
Yes, any belief system created by man.

If we can show there is a correlation between Christianity and upbringing, education and circumstance, then will you then accept that Christianity is a belief system created by man?

On that note, I am willing to bet that your parents were not Muslim.