But from the scientific perspective
It's like consciousness is not something we understand of
I don't think we understand it at all
With something we can't get a handle on with our fundamental materialistic philosophy
Today, I want to talk a little bit about faith
But before that, in this video
I'm thinking of speaking casually this time
I feel like I spoke quite
cold in the previous videos
I was able to realize
So, it seems like it was like that
But I felt like, why bother doing that?
It's not like this is public broadcasting or anything
This is just my personal YouTube channel, and for those who will watch this video
I thought I could let my guard down and establish a closer bond
I was thinking of talking just like that
So in this content, I'm trying to speak informally for once
Speaking this way
Allows me to be more genuine in my stories
And express myself more freely
Today's topic
So today, we're going to talk about faith
What I mean to say is
How I came to have
faith and why
is what I want to talk about
I want to talk about this because it has always been a big question for me
How can someone sincerely believe in the existence
of God?
Without lying
How can someone truly believe in the existence of God?
That has always been a big question for me
But through some experiences in my late twenties
I ultimately came to have faith
And since I wasn't born into the faith or anything like that
I can explain the process into words
In the past, I was interested in faith, but
I didn't know how to have it
I was really curious about this explanation
So I also asked friends who had faiths
How can one have faith?
I even asked one to evangelize me
To the friend with deep faith
Because it was a matter that made me very curious
Now that I've reached a point where I can explain it
I thought I'd share my story so for people
who could also be curious like me
First: Pain
From what I've experienced, the process of coming to believe in God can be divided into
two main parts
Firstly, if there's an experience
that's painfully hard to endure
it seems like the first condition is met
It was like that for me
It plays several roles
Firstly, it seems to serves as a foundation for letting go of
my belief in my own rationality and reason
Because it's bearable before experiencing intense pain
My problem-solving ability
I can overcome this with such abilities
I had this belief
When I approach them that way, they tend to get resolved
and life proceeds smoothly that it didn't really gave me a reason
to step outside my comfort zone
But when a person is in too much pain
they tend to ask questions
like 'can it truely be this agonizing?'
In doing so, I feel like I start searching for the real meaning behind that pain
Or maybe looking for a way to endure it
At that moment, I step beyond what I comfortably believe
I put down my pride and stubbornness
And I started to think that maybe there's something beyond my wildest imagination
That causes such pain to occur
is one of the realization I came to
A political scientist I know once mentioned
during conversation
That even though you don't follow a religion
you understand why people do
And also said
it's an acknowledgment of the limitations
humans possess
That expression really resonated with me
I think I was ready to humbly acknowledge the limitations I possess
through enduring unbearable pain
Second: Explanation
The second thing that helped me
So, it was finally up to the point
I realized it's painful
But even in the next step
I think having an explanation was crucial for me
An explanation on how faith is possible
Before this, I had always thought of it as irrational
I needed something to bridge that gap
But that explanation
I was able to get it from watching a lecture on YouTube
Want to watch it together?
Then from the neurobiological perspective
Or from a scientific perspective
It's like consciousness is not something we understand
I don't think we understand it at all
With something we can't get a handle on with our fundamental materialistic philosophy
I don't know why that is
It's quite frustrating if you are a scientist
But it isn't clear to mean that we meet any progress what so ever in understanding conciousness
Even though what we've been trying to understand it for hundreds of years
and even though psychologists and neurobiologists and so forth have really
Put a lot of efforts in to understand in conciousness
From a scientific perspective
In the last 50 years
What says in the Old Testament somewhere that
Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom
But I think this is a keen to that
If you know that you are not in control of yourself thoroughly
And that there are other factors behind the scene
Like the Greeks thought
Human beings were the playthings of the God
That's the way that they conceptualize the world
They sort of meant the same thing
They meant that there are these great forces that move us
That we don't create, that we're subordinate to in some sense
Not entirely
But we can be subordinated and they move our destinies
That was the Greek view
It teaches you humility to understand that
There's hell of lot more going on behind the scene
(Metaphorically speaking) you are the driver of the very complex vehicle
But you don't understand the vehicle very well
And it's got its own motivations and methods
Something you think it's doing something, and it's doing something completely different
In this lecture, it seems to explain how the religious and spiritual concept of the existence of God
With our scientific worldview, our materialistic explanations, and so one
how can it be coexist with these
So, within the current knowledge disclosed by science
It points out the empty spaces, where those spaces are
Thereby showing that these spiritual and religious domains
Actually can coexist with our scientific worldview
It made me realize that
After watching it
Oh
It's not that science has proven religion
to be logically flawed
Rather, as science advances
It provides an explanation of where religious belief can be situated
This made me see that with this lecture
Prayer now makes more sense to me
If we see it as a conversation between God and me
When I truly pray
It feels like I can receive a response
From somewhere deep within my heart
When it comes to conciousness, it is not scientifically understood
Since it couldn't be precisely identified
In fact, no matter what name you give to it
You can't really prove that it's wrong, can you?
Because it could be considered as the guidance of fate or the voice from a God
So, after these two conditions are met, to summarize, these two conditions are
so painful that I can let go of myself
able to let go of my ego, stubbornness, and such
It is to develop a humble attitude
The second condition is
There are some areas that we haven't scientifically uncovered yet
And it is to find out what they are
Once those two conditions are in place
I felt like I could have a belief in religion
The thought and feeling just came to my mind
Third: Deciding to believe
From the next stage onwards, that's when miraculous things start happening
When I was an undergraduate student, I took a course on Modern Culture and Christianity
In that class, our professor talked about something
that left a really strong impression on me
What that was
The professor said that humans are inherently religious beings
What it means is that
All humans,
regardless of who they are
have the ability to think in a religious
manner
If I were to explain this in the way I understood it
So, we don't
always just accept something as truth or facts
based solely on logical
connections or reasoning
But instead, we have the ability to believe
that something is true even if there are logical gaps
What the professor gave as an example was related to jinxes
When ever we board a flight
You lick the plane!
Have we crashed even once?
So, whether someone has a religion or not
We tend to find patterns or connections in life
We find that and we believe it
For example, when we are taking a test
Some might have a routine of bringing a certain pencil case
If one starts to think that he did well on exams because of that
He might have a belief that he would do well on exams
as long as he took that pencil case with him every time
Or an athlete might often
create routines or patterns to prepare beforehand
People need to do what makes them feel comfortable
By doing this, they believe they could do well
The formation of these things
If you think about jinx
It has no logical basis
We just have the ability to believe in it
So now after you have prepared yourself to have religious faith
Try participating in a religious ceremony
Whether it be a cathedral or a church. When I experienced that was
I went to a cathedral after I was ready with the two things I mentioned earlier
I attended a Mass
And I went to a youth Bible study group at school
Where I tried praying in a prayer meeting they held
While doing that, there was one very memorable moment
During the prayer meeting, we each had to take turns praying out loud
Everyone else did it
They put their hands together and called out to God
They all closed their eyes and did it
There I was supposed to say 'God'
But I just couldn't say it
Because I didn't have faith
Saying it without actually believing it felt fake
So when it was my turn to pray
I couldn't say for a while
But everyone else waited patiently without saying anything
They just kept waiting for me
I couldn't say I can't do it
I didn't want to do that either
So barely managed to find courage to open my tight lips
I called out God and prayed
You know what I prayed for?
I said God I don't know much about you yet
I don't even know how to pray
So I prayed, asking Him to please teach me
That was my first
Experience of praying to the God
As in the divine existence presented in Christianity
But after doing that,
I felt like I had taken a step forward
It felt like faith was starting to grow in me
This was a truly astonishing experience for me
Because I'm a very rational person
I am a person who has a strong belief in rationality about myself
Well I used to be
But seeing how I was starting to believe such things
Was surprising
After that, I became interested in explaining about the world
With a view of a religious person
I was drawn to those explanations and started reading books
also attending lectures and gatherings
I think that is what I did
So that's what I wanted to talk about today
How I came about to have faith
I'm thinking about making this into a series in the future
What kind of series?
Actually, I'm not really a person
Who would be considered a holy religious person
not at all
But still, I think
Having faith and living a life of faith seem amazing
But for someone like me who has never been deeply religious
from the beginning
to develop faith like this
And to be able to put my experiences into words
I thought it'd be good to share that with people
And it made me think I'm sure there are people out there
who are curious about this
So I want to talk about religion in a slightly non-religious way
to help people who are not faithful
but are interested in religion to satisfy their curiosity
I want to try making contents
Where I explain that kind of stuff as far as I know
I hope many people will be interested
It would be great if you could leave some comments if you have any questions
Then I'll see you in the next video