I no longer believe in Santa Claus, at one time I believed wholeheartedly in him. I don't feel that I have suffered for my belief in him. Rather, I feel that some of the best "magic of childhood" is wrapped up in belief of fictional characters.
I'm a Christian. I believe in God, I believe that God's child, Jesus, was born and lived on Earth as an example to us all. I believe that Jesus died for our sins. I believe that there is a Heaven and a Hell. I believe that someone who strives to live a good life and when that person sins, is repentant of those sins, will go to Heaven.
I don't have irrefutable proof that there is a God. I believe because I can't LOGICALLY find reasons for people having a soul. If there is no God to animate us, we should be vegetables. That spark that makes us human isn't some chemical reaction that occurs in out brains, it has to come from something larger than us.
You believe in God because you don't understand how muscle works? If it's God giving us the ability to move, then why can I take a dead pig, cut it's leg off, apply voltage to the muscle and it contracts and as I release the voltage it relaxes again, just like when the pig's brain sent the same signals to it when it was alive?
Why can I probe my own muscle and with an osscilloscope WATCH my own signal to fire any muscle on my body as I command that muscle to move with my brain? Why can I SEE that voltage signal go up
perfectly proportionate to the voltage signal it's receiving, that I'm viewing on the scope??? Is it a miracle that the muscle burns glucose and oxygen to produce the voltages required to power itself? Is it a miracle that our digestive track produces that fuel by removing nutrients from the foods we eat?
For something so miraculous, it sure is easy to replicate.
Otherwise feel free to stop eating for a year and tell me how that whole "soul power" thing works out for you. Or, just severe the connections at the base of the brain and get back to me on how "animated" you are without any wiring to connect the signals produced in the brain to the muscle you think moves by the miracle of God...
The basis for finding wonderment in things you describe above lies in the requirement that you not UNDERSTAND how these things
actually work. If you did, the miracle is gone, and you're right back to the nitty-gritty of the world as it
actually is.
These are the specific reasons why you get to choose to "believe" in what you described above and I don't. Since I actually know how muscle tissue works I can't share your bliss... Neither can the OP, or anyone with a medical degree, or understanding of the human body.
Faith is defined as "belief that is not based on proof". I don't need physical proof that there is a God. I don't have to be able to hold it or see it or read it to believe. I believe because something inside of me, something intrinsic to me tells me that there is a higher power at work in all out lives.
Right now I can just as easily tell you that no matter what you say, and without ANY proof, that I honestly
believe that 2 + 2 = 5. How can you argue with that? You can't. I can believe whatever I choose. Now does that have ANY effect on the
actual sum of 2 and 2? Absolutely not. It was 4 before I believed it was 5 and it will continue to be 4 long after I'm dead.
Secondly, I'm not arguing for or against God. I'm arguing against falsehoods. Anything that is not true. The stories man has written about God are largely erroneous, and childish in nature. They mar the ability of people to
truly understand their world, and in so doing also detract from people's abilities to raise their own standards of living based on ideas gained through a true understanding of their surroundings, and their inner-workings. Not on fairy tale stories about their surroundings.
Lastly,
"belief that is not based on proof"
That is literally insane. And even worse is the fact that you not only believe in something with no supporting evidence, but also in the face of
contradictory evidence!
That is not rational. That is not logical.
Luckily for you, an irrational and illogical thought process is the main pre-req to being religious. So I guess you're all set. In ways that Ponder and myself are excluded from.
If I get to the end of my life and find that there is nothing for us but to be worm food, what has my faith cost me?
Potentially, quite a few things...
If you practice your faith in the wrong setting, prepare to be killed by others who also share your lack of rationality and logic and who might kill you for not believing in their faith of choice. Or are you oblivious to the fact that religion is the single greatest source of murder on the face of the planet, and it always has been? Missed that one? Or chose to ignore it, because it conflicted with the warm and fuzzies?
Secondly....
People working under false information will often times make poor decisions based on that bad intel.
Lets say for argument's sake that someone actually thought women had one less rib than men, because they read the story of Adam and Eve and took it to heart. Would we expect this of say, a surgeon? How would you feel if your doctor was feeling along your ribs and thought he had found the root of your stomach pains when he noticed you had an extra rib that only men should have, and that in your female body that extra rib was probably intruding on your internal organs and must be surgically removed???
I mean are you serious? Oh, oh, oh, or is this one of those times where the bible isn't to be taken literally???
:doh:
I get warm fuzzies when I pray, I believe that striving to be a good person will allow me into Heaven, I have a friend in God, to talk to when I feel like I can't talk to any of my tangible friends. None of that is taking anything away from me, in fact, in my opinion, it improves the quality of my life.
Well if the conversation involves dialogue from both parties I've got some bad news.... it's Schizophrenia, and it's not treatable. If however the conversation is one way, then why not just sort these things out on your own? After all, in
reality every conversation you've ever had was manufactured in YOUR BRAIN.... You realize that
everything you see, smell, touch, taste and do in your dreams is ALL produced from YOUR BRAIN right? So if you can have such detail and think you're actually doing those things when you're actually unconscious and dreaming, what on earth would make a conversation in your head even make your brain break a sweat? That's a small time task for the brain. Everyone reasons through things internally. Only some of us give a name to our conscience and pretend it's someone else though.
On the other hand, if I refuse to believe because I can't hold some kind of definite proof in my hands, and we get to the end and discover "oh HOLY ****, there is a God, I denied him, and now I'm spending eternity in hell" that's gonna suck alot.
I love the fact that your "better safe than sorry" philosophy doesn't apply to ANY of the zillion OTHER religions that ALSO say to not believe is to spend eternity in the worst imaginable place, yada, yada, yada....
I suppose the other lebbentybillion people believing full and well that because you don't pray to Mecca, and take Allah to be your one true God that you're burning in hell for all of eternity are all just full of sh*t???
You this much better than them???
They have a book too. Just as cool as yours. Maybe even thicker.....
Divine word of Allah no less.
All that just a bunch of bull? YOUR religion is the "right" one???
If you've got even a SHRED of intelligence you can PLAINLY see how PAINFULLY ARROGANT that is.......
:smirk:
