Recent searches
Search options
Theists:
Why wouldn’t a god reveal himself clearly to everyone, instead of using the absurd method of individuals’ #revelations, which are merely hearsay to other people?
@tomcapuder yep that's what the agnostics are waiting for as well, empirical proof.
Faith is the antithesis of this, but it shouldn't just be a blind acceptance of all the dogma religions come up with. The trick is in discerning the good opinions (and they really are just opinions) from the lousy ones.
@tomcapuder apologies, I did not mean to trivialize your question.
I think faith is not a thing on its own. I think it only exists if there is someone who is faithful. So faith is not my reason for believing. It's the state I am in (faithfulness) because I believe.
But yes, the kindness all around us, the beauty of creation, all that soppy stuff, is a big part of why I believe.
@tomcapuder these things touch me inside. I want there to be more. To never end. The totality of that (incomplete notion, but you get what I mean) is, for me, close to my God.
Do you really just look at these good things without being moved by them?
Why would you think I’m unmoved by them? Of course I’m moved. To me the earth and universe are moving and awesome as they have naturally evolved, without my having to posit a divine cause. I appreciate the mind-boggling accomplishments of an unguided nature.
“I want there to be more. To never end.” The key word there is *want*. Is it good to make a belief out of your desire? If people have long believed a claim, and one was raised to believe it (I’m not saying you were), and all that belief was based more on desire than on evidence of its truth, should you require more to justify a belief in the claim?
My non-belief in an afterlife makes this life more, not less, precious to me.
@tomcapuder
Hi again. Had a full weekend and winding down only now. I'm glad these types of things do move you.
About wanting more of them - for me it's like, feeling how powerfully moved I am sometimes I can't believe I'm the only source of that. I feel they have a source that is outside of me and that source is my God.
@tomcapuder
You asked if it's good to raise a belief for something we want. I think we raise religious beliefs exactly because we don't have any scientific proof for what is moving us. So, yes, "belief" is necessarily a human construct without proof. But that's not the fault of what we feel, of what is moving us.
Hi. Thanks for replying.
Your reply returns me to the question of whether one should require more of a solid foundation for belief than just feelings and wishes. Especially about something as potentially important and life-changing as a god.
Of course, you can believe whatever you want. Where it becomes a problem is with believers who are more dogmatic than you, who are following other men's ideas of right and wrong. As long as you keep supernatural beliefs out of laws and public schools, I don't see a problem, except for holding yourself back intellectually by suspending critical thought to accept on faith that there's a cosmic string-puller or "source."
The time to believe a claim is when there's credible evidence to support it. "It feels right" isn't a good approach, IMO.