Strict Calvinism is pretty unpopular these days (except in Qadgop the Mercotan’s neighborhood, where it seems to be quite the hot doctrine according to several of his posts), but a strict Calvinist would have no problem with what you wrote. He would say that God created you in that way so that your damnation may demonstrate God’s infinite justice. You should rest assured that your insidious perfidy and eventual punishment will edify the Elect and bring glory to God. Of course you won’t rest assured, because if you were the sort of person who found such thoughts reassuring, you likely wouldn’t be bound for hell, would you? But you should, and the fact that you won’t only further proves that you are worthy of damnation and that God is truly righteous and just.
Of course, all of the above is moot if you are, in fact, one of the Elect. If this is the case, then God will at the appropriate time reach down and rewire your brain so that you will believe and thereby demonstrate his infinite mercy and compassion in plucking you, as it were, from the very mouth of the furnace.
From what I hear, I think that you can alter your beliefs, through a long and arduous process of modifying your input to limit yourself to things that will increase your belief in the thing, possibly while also putting yourself in a state that will increase your succeptibility to any belief at hand. (That is to say, indoctrinating and/or brainwashing yourself.) Given sufficient time and sufficiently relentless indoctrination, you will indeed achieve belief, though we may have to break your will first. (It may be necessary to periodically reinforce the indoctrination thereafter to maintain the mental distortion.)
[QUOTE=Alan Smithee]
He would say that God created you in that way so that your damnation may demonstrate God’s infinite justice. You should rest assured that your insidious perfidy and eventual punishment will edify the Elect and bring glory to God.
[/QUOTE]
I know that you are not personally promoting these beliefs, but I don’t think it should go unsaid that any set of beliefs that celebrates human misery deserves as much scorn as we can heap upon it.
[QUOTE=Stoid]
This has come up for me in some recent discussions with people knocking on my door on weekend mornings.
It seems extremely obvious to me that if God exists in a form anything like he’s presented in the Bible, (omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent is how it’s been explained to me), then it must be perfectly ok with him that I don’t believe, because he’s completely aware that I am not capable of it. He can see inside my mind and he understands that my brain is simply not wired to believe in him any more than it is wired to believe in leprechauns, and that the most I could ever acheive would be to pretend that I believed. Which would be both a lie and pointless, since he would know it was a lie, not to mention the fact that pretending such a thing would have no benefit for me, seeing as how I don’t believe and all.
So this insistence that I just have faith makes absolutely no sense.
And I offer it here in case anyone can or wants to try and make it make sense.
[/QUOTE]
Calling upon a consenses of several thousand people who have had spiritual experiences God would not be concerned whether or not you believe in Him. He would love you unconditionally not matter what you believe, do, or think. There is nothing wired about humans to believe or not believe. However, it would be beneficial if you believed in yourself.
God knows that you will eventually make contact with your spiritual self and understand all the things that seem so foreign to you now. The “Kingdom of God is within you.”
[QUOTE=athelas]
I’m highly skeptical about someone who says they’re “physically incapable” of doing something that doesn’t violate the laws of physics. Given how many people have performed feats - both religious and nonreligious - that most would consider impossible, I’m more inclined to think that you simply don’t want to enough. So might a kid complain that it’s physically impossible to finish his homework, or I (sound of body though slightly out of shape) protest that I could never possibly climb Mt. Everest.
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Well, that’s interesting. But what does it have to do with what I said? (read it again)
[QUOTE=jjimm]
If a dude with a white beard calling himself “God” appeared out of nothing in front of you, engendred an emotional reaction that filled you with oneness, total peace, and love, and turned water into a nice Châteauneuf du Pape, then led you to meet his family, Mary, Jeez with the holes in his hand, and the Holy Ghost (“the Spook” as they all call him), all with incorporeal glowing halos above their heads, could you then believe?
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[QUOTE=begbert2]
One day I learned that the phrase “I know X” means “I have 100% certainty about X”, and has only an incidental relationship to the actual truth of X. Once I realized this, I stopped having a problem with people’s usage of the word, and was able to move on to other, more productive avanues of thought and discussion. (Though I still sigh over “I don’t believe, I know”; such people are merely proving that they too misunderstand the word “know”, like I once did.)
[/QUOTE]
Well, I would say that the word “know” has different meanings in different contexts; in some contexts, it’s a factive verb (such that one’s knowing X implies the truth of X), while in other contexts, like you say, it has more to do with justification or simple certainty, with truth not being a relevant condition. Similarly, “believe” would have different connotations in different contexts.
It seems ordinary language is shot through with these little bits of ambiguity, but I’m alright with that. Teasing out the particular meaning and connotations of usages in a particular context is just one of those things humans are supposed to be proficient, if not perfect, at.
I have no doubt that God knows and loves Stoid, knows her better than she knows herself, is fully aware of her capabilities and limitations, and loves her unconditionally.
.
[/QUOTE]
I love you, Poly. Missed ya. (And you too, Boris my luff. Always.)
[QUOTE=storyteller0910]
And no matter how hard I try, I will never believe that Jessica is here. I can not choose to do so. Can you?
[/QUOTE]
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that a person cannot simply choose to believe something (at least not without some kind of mental breakdown occurring).
So OK (and this is an earnest question, not an argument) does it not follow then that a believer cannot reasonably choose simply not to believe?
[QUOTE=ITR champion]
To say that belief cannot change change as a result of people deciding to change what they believe is flatly wrong, because it often does change exactly that way. For instance, just consider how many Republicans once believed that Saddam Hussein was a nice guy worthy of our support and rapdly switched to believing that he was an evil tyrant who must be overthrown. Now, surely this wasn’t because their brains were rewired or because something fundamental in Saddam’s nature changed, so it must be because they chose to change beliefs.
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First one would have to believe that this is truly a matter of belief, vs. convenient lip service, and I have a problem believing that.
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
Well, I would say that the word “know” has different meanings in different contexts; in some contexts, it’s a factive verb (such that one’s knowing X implies the truth of X), while in other contexts, like you say, it has more to do with justification or simple certainty, with truth not being a relevant condition. Similarly, “believe” would have different connotations in different contexts.
It seems ordinary language is shot through with these little bits of ambiguity, but I’m alright with that. Teasing out the particular meaning and connotations of usages in a particular context is just one of those things humans are supposed to be proficient, if not perfect, at.
[/QUOTE]
The truth of the manner is that when a person uses the factive form, even though the person intends to convey something about truth, they are in fact still using the word to refer to their certainty in the truth. Their desire for their certainty to be forced onto their audience is worthy of note but largely irrelevent to the reality of the situation; the phrase “I know X” is at all times, in all places, a statement of belief, not one of actual truth.
I know this to be the case, and I also know that recognizing this is an excellent way to avoid hairy semantic battles.
Oh, they never believed he was a splendid fellow, they regarded him as useful. Like a Pinochet, or a Trujillo, pretty much the same thing except he didn’t speak Spanish.
[QUOTE=Stoid]
First one would have to believe that this is truly a matter of belief, vs. convenient lip service, and I have a problem believing that.
[/QUOTE]
Actually the flaw with this is where it concludes they “chose” to change their beliefs. People can honestly have their beliefs changed by the addition of additional information to their knowledge base. (The only ‘choice’ in the matter would be their decision to grant credibility to the new knowledge or not, though; once they accept a fact, it cannot help but effect their beliefs accordingly.)
[QUOTE=marshmallow]
God loves you very much and feels your confusion. He wishes you could join him in the light, to partake in his wonderful gifts. That’s why you must burn in a lake of fire, forever.
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[QUOTE=begbert2]
The truth of the manner is that when a person uses the factive form, even though the person intends to convey something about truth, they are in fact still using the word to refer to their certainty in the truth. Their desire for their certainty to be forced onto their audience is worthy of note but largely irrelevent to the reality of the situation; the phrase “I know X” is at all times, in all places, a statement of belief, not one of actual truth.
[/QUOTE]
Sure. But if I understand correctly what you’re saying, the same happens with the phrase “___ is true”, as well (and with bare assertions “X”, for that matter, which are presumably equivalent to “‘X’ is true”). No matter how strongly I say “It is true that the capital of China is Beijing”, I can’t make this statement convey anything more to you than my own strong belief in the matter. All declarations are declarations of belief.
I was just saying before, though, that one can use the word “know” in several ways, some of which have to satisfy the conditions for use of “___ is true” and some of which don’t. In some contexts, I can say “My cousin knows that Santa Claus exists, even though I know he doesn’t” without problem, but in others, this is incoherent.
[QUOTE=Stoid]
This has come up for me in some recent discussions with people knocking on my door on weekend mornings.
It seems extremely obvious to me that if God exists in a form anything like he’s presented in the Bible, (omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent is how it’s been explained to me), then it must be perfectly ok with him that I don’t believe, because he’s completely aware that I am not capable of it. He can see inside my mind and he understands that my brain is simply not wired to believe in him any more than it is wired to believe in leprechauns, and that the most I could ever acheive would be to pretend that I believed. Which would be both a lie and pointless, since he would know it was a lie, not to mention the fact that pretending such a thing would have no benefit for me, seeing as how I don’t believe and all.
So this insistence that I just have faith makes absolutely no sense.
And I offer it here in case anyone can or wants to try and make it make sense.
[/QUOTE]
really, if God made you, and you don’t believe in Him, why would you care what He thinks? Why would you even wonder?
I recall reading in a scientific journal that we are all hardwired to believe in God… that there is some type of direct connection with God… I think it was discovered in a section of the brain… I just don’t recall the details. Anyway, you’re wondering about what God thinks, so you must be somewhat curious about Him.
Besides, from what I understand, faith is a gift from God… something you would have to ask for. So if you asked God to let you know him better, he wouldn’t refuse. You know, the old “knock and the door will be open” kind of thing…
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
Sure. But if I understand correctly what you’re saying, the same happens with the phrase “___ is true”, as well (and with bare assertions “X”, for that matter, which are presumably equivalent to “‘X’ is true”). No matter how strongly I say “It is true that the capital of China is Beijing”, I can’t make this statement convey anything more to you than my own strong belief in the matter. All declarations are declarations of belief.
I was just saying before, though, that one can use the word “know” in several ways, some of which have to satisfy the conditions for use of “___ is true” and some of which don’t. In some contexts, I can say “My cousin knows that Santa Claus exists, even though I know he doesn’t” without problem, but in others, this is incoherent.
[/QUOTE]
The difference is, a person can say “I know X is true”, and they are explicity talking about their own mental processes, and generally defend the mental processes when the truth is attacked. When they say “X is true”, or “X”, they are talking about the truth value of X, and then you can discuss that directly.
In all situations when people defend the term “know” as being about truth, and not belief, they are inevitably just pretending that their “knowing” something enforces their belief on reality. This is not what the word means, and we should abandon defending any misdefinition that implies that truth is associated with a notion just because somebody knows it.
[QUOTE=athelas]
I’m highly skeptical about someone who says they’re “physically incapable” of doing something that doesn’t violate the laws of physics. Given how many people have performed feats - both religious and nonreligious - that most would consider impossible, I’m more inclined to think that you simply don’t want to enough. So might a kid complain that it’s physically impossible to finish his homework, or I (sound of body though slightly out of shape) protest that I could never possibly climb Mt. Everest.
[/QUOTE]
It’s kind of like someone trying to sell you a car you don’t like. All the sales pressure in the world isn’t going to make you like it.
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
Besides, from what I understand, faith is a **gift ** from God… something you would have to ask for. So if you asked God to let you know him better, he wouldn’t refuse. You know, the old “knock and the door will be open” kind of thing…
[/QUOTE]
