I know some VERY BRILLIANT PEOPLE who believe in GOD and some VERY BRILLIANT PEOPLE who do not. Intelligence is not a factor here. What is?

This is the part of you that I love so dearly.  You are of more than sound mind, you are of sound heart.

Oh my GOD.  I am so honored someone actually read this.  I wish someone else had said it, so I could them how great that was.

Seriously, I don't think my brain wrote that.  My heart did.  And the fact that it connected with YOU?  AWESOME SAUCE.  (kill me now)

I have pondered about this for years Sharon. I have felt the condescension in those who do not believe. I don't think it is intentional though it may well be. When you believe you are superior to someone it bleeds through to them. It is as if they are telling me if I were more intelligent I would KNOW there is no such thing as GOD. No one ever told me that verbatim but it is always underlying certain conversations. I am not a genius and I don't pretend to be superduper smart. But I CAN RECOGNIZE THOSE WHO ARE GENIUSES. That does not take being a genius to recognize when you are engaging with one. And I wonder two things. Why those who don't believe are supercilious and condescending toward those who believe? And why I can't shake pondering about it? I mean it's hopeless but here I am trying once again to understand and I don't. If religious folks as a group had IQ's below 100 I'd say okay there you are that's the reason. We aren't very bright. BUT that is so opposite of true so I can't figger it out. Why some are so contemptuous of those who believe in what we cannot see feel or touch but despite all that we KNOW? I don't know. I keep reminding myself that my brain was given to me. I did not earn it or work hard for it or anything. I was born with it. Whatever is going on inside my head is not my doing. The question keeps coming back to nag at me. Maybe someone out there sometime can answer it for me so I can rest. Until then? We jes keep rollin' along! Thank you for your thoughtful reply! :) This post was edited by RosieG at February 7, 2020 1:47 PM MST

I cannot possibly answer my own question Shuhak but it is something about which I have pondered for a very long time. I agree it is faith. BUT WHERE DID IT COME FROM? Is faith embedded in our DNA? My family was not particularly religious. I'm the most religious one in the bunch. My mom, sis and I went to church every Sunday when I was growing up. My dad would go with us for "special" occasions. But at home there was no talk of God. I don't know if my mom wanted us to be exposed to church because she believed it was her duty. She and my dad were very good people...very simple in the ways of the world. They did right by us but what was it that caused me to be as I am given the same parents as my sister? What caused me to take it to heart and be a Sunday School teacher when I was 12? What caused me to chat with God daily as long as I can remember? I don't think anyone else in the family does that. I've never mentioned it to them. So I'm puzzled at how that strain showed up me so definitely and was very low key in everyone else. SIGH. There may be no answer to my question. Thank you for your reply m'dear. Maybe one day we'll figger it out! Maybe not! :)

This is very hard to explain. 
No, faith isn't in our DNA, rather its embedded in our soul.  

What many want to skip over is the fact that we are made in the image of God.  That doesn't necessarily mean our bodies look like Him, rather that we have (are) a spirit just as He is.  (Our spirit (soul), however, is inside a physical body).  Like God, we have certain "powers", or abilities (no, we are not gods).   One of these "powers" is the ability to take in information, sort it out, and then draw a conclusion.   God didn't make us robots; a being that can only do what it's programmed to (follow a set of predefined instructions).  He made us with the ability to choose; to decide; to reason (just like Himself).  

Now, one might define 'Belief' as 'weighing data and then drawing a conclusion'.   The conclusion is ours alone.  We can tell others our conclusion, but we cannot make it theirs.     Each person must form their own conclusion from the data they have.


In the case of your example...

You took in data (visual, oral, written or whatever).  Then you ran it through your “mental sieve” (formed from things you gained from observations, teachings, interactions, (and such) from the time you were born up to that point), and formed a conclusion - a belief.   Your sister did the same thing.  She took in the data, ran it through her mental "sieve" (things she observed or heard, read, interactions, etc.) and formed her own conclusion.  How each of you chose to act upon that conclusion sent you down your individual paths.  (Some paths are similar, while others are vastly different.) 

Thank you for your very thoughtful explanation Shuhak. That may be as close as anyone will ever come to defining the why. It's as if we are cut from the same cloth but the weave is very different. Something indefinable that separates us one from the other. I don't look down on those who don't believe as I do. But I think they look down on me. I cannot explain that "why"? Just as we are wired differently intellectually so to we are wired differently emotionally physically spiritually. I can't fault people for being whom they are. That's above my pay grade as it were. I do fault people for supporting evil. I will never be "to each his own" about that. Bottom line I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam. I shall have to live with it! Thank you for your reply and Happy Saturday! Oh did you read my question about the a**backward March 3 election data distribution?. FIRST we get our OFFICIAL BALLOTS. Then a few days later our Voter's Guide. LAST OF ALL we get our sample ballots. What is going on? Did you get all of your stuff finally? I wonder if every state is having similar wackadoodle receipt? This post was edited by RosieG at February 8, 2020 9:17 AM MST

I received my voes guide last month.  My sample ballot and official ballot came the day before yesterday.

I don't know if it's the county, state or post office that's at "fault".  This county's bad, but the mail service here is beyond atrocious.  It comes well after dark (8 pm), it's delivered to the wrong houses (including packages), and much of it isn't delivered at all.
I ordered something from ebay through the mail (USPS), but it never arrived.  After checking it out, the post office said they delivered it to a house up the road.  They admitted that it was delivered to the wrong address (the address numbers weren't anywhere close to mine... let alone the street, so reversing the numbers wasn't the fault).  They then told me if  I wanted the package then I should go and talk to those people.  (seriously!)  Of course those people denied having received my package.

I think the BIG SH** is involved with it. Somehow someway he is destroying everything we ever counted on. Some thinks it 's swell as he**. What he does is swell as he** according to them. I wonder what happens to them if they ever have a WAKE UP moment? Thank you for your thoughtful reply and I wish I knew what's going on but I don't. Weird prevails. Queer and peculiar own the day every day all the way. :(