The problem with Pascal’s Wager is that it’s not reasonable unless one presupposes the false dichotomy as true. Given that there’s as much objective evidence for Yahweh/Jehovah as for Cthulhu, Kali, or, heck, Boccob, the false dichotomy is exactly that. Reason only informs belief in the JCI god if those who try to use it for that purpose set the parameters in such a way as to bolster their faith.
Just to clarify my own position, I’m agnostic. I have seen no convincing evidence either for or against the concept of the existence of a god, whether Yahweh/Jehovah, Hermes, Pan, Vishnu, or Coyote. However, I’m more than happy to not hinder the believer who does not try to hinder me. Live and let live.
dreamer, I respect your position, and I appreciate your answering my question. However, I think you are wrong, with regard to me, anyway.
I could want to believe in God with all my heart, indeed, I desperately want to believe that when we die, some part of us lives on (other than some sort of energy which is re-introduced into the world upon the breakdown of our bodies), but I just cannot make myself believe something that I know (yes, know) not to be reality.
I want to believe that all the world’s people will someday understand that war and killing each other over property and ideas is a very foolish thing, and all weapons will be destroyed and made into plowshares, and there are no more wars; I desperately want to believe this, but I don’t think it’s true, and I can’t fool myself into believing it’s going to happen.
Obviously some people can willingly fool themselves into believing something just because it makes them feel good, but not this person.
I was raised in a Jewish family(though a not very religious one). Throughout my high-school and young adult life I investigated the Catholic religion as well as serious Judaism. I went through a period where I was deeply involved in witchcraft. I did some soul searching through meditation type things as well as metaphysical. I did my share of mind-altering drugs, hoping that would open my mind up to different things. I spent time wandering though a local monastery trying to meditate and “find my way.”
It took a long time after my first Christian church experience to actually believe that any of it was true. I was interested though, which is why I continued to go. I felt at peace there, and I saw and met others who felt that same way, though I thought they were a bit wierd at first :). It wasn’t easy proclaiming to my all Jewish family that I made the decision to accept Jesus as my Savior. Though they aern’t extremely religious, they are deeply traditional about family and keeping Judaism in the family. My Grandmother was especially difficult to deal with and I love her dearly. Many of my friends who I had partied with, didn’t understand why I was “changing”, and a few parted ways with me for that. A few also began to wonder what I was up too and decided to check it out and are now beileveing Christians as well.
Never in all my childhood did I think I would become “one of those Jesus people”. But I am and I’m not the least bit ashamed of it. Hope that answers your questions :).
The thing is though, there have been times in my life where I did truly and honestly want to believe in him. I read the Bible with an honest willingness to have him in my life. I surrounded myself with believers so that I could learn more. I prayed as hard as I could that he would come into my life and bring me some inner peace. I was as receptive as I knew how to be.
Yet, at the end of the day (actually weeks and months), I felt no closer to knowing that he existed than when I had started. I would like to believe that all of my sincere effort would have somehow allowed me to to see the light, so to speak. It unfortunately did not. The only time in my life where I have experienced any sort of inner peace is when I decided to believe in myself. Once I did that, my life changed.
dreamer, we go back a long way. We have been friends long before the straight dope. I see every time that we are together that this works for you and mr. dreamer. I know the joy that it brings to your life and would never want to diminish that or try to convince you otherwise. And hopefully you realize how much I appreciate that you have never judged me or tried to change me. In my past experiences though, you are in the minority. Many Christians have turned their back to me once they found out that I didn’t share their belief system. They don’t even realize that they did more to push me away from Christianity than to help me find God. I applaude you for your efforts here and the way you lead your life.
Knowledge is defined in several ways. But what you have is a belief with no facts at all to back it up.
Faith, which includes the definition of ‘firm belief, especially without logical proof’ is what you possess.
It’s like my example of dowsing. We know that there has never been a successful demonstration of dowsing.
We also know there has never been any evidence of any God.
So you believe in God, but that is not knowledge.
Next you say you believe in the God of the Christian Bible. There is a problem with that as a definition, because there are many such sects who believe different versions.
Are you Catholic or Protestant?
Do you accept the Mormon teachings?
Are you a Christian Scientist?
I’m not trying to irritate you. But when people tell me they believe in a Christian God (without proof), they usually also tell me that the other people (who believe just as passionately in a different sect) are wrong.
How do you know you’re right?
First musicguy, let me say thank you for your kind words. I’d like to ask you one question though. Why did you stop reading the bible, praying, and hanging out with other believers? Is is that there is a time limit in which God must reveal himself?
One more question while I’m at it. Did you attend church? What was your experience like if you did?
I don’t want to sound rude or anything but the truth is God isn’t going to come down and stand in front of you and tell you to believe in him. It’s a choice. It’s not a choice your mind can make up either. It’s a spiritual choice, not an intellectual one. Faith is believing without seeing. I wish I could explain why I see and you don’t.
We go back a long way musicguy, and I care dearly for you as my friend. I’ll never judge you for who you are or turn your back on you, you know that. Thanks for responding here and I hope you don’t mind if I keep you in my prayers :).
Dreamer, do you also believe the the Earth is only about 5,000-6,000 years old? Do you believe that faith only began with Christianity and that modern man’s predecesors never believed in anything? We have loads of evidence that shows the Earth (and the solar system) are billions of years old, yet most Christians “choose” to ignore the facts.
Personally, I’m with the school of thought that says you don’t “choose” to be a believer. You can choose to follow a religion, but the belief, if it is true, is not a choice. If it were, you could “choose” not to believe and then you would understand where the non-believers are coming from , eliminating the need for this thread.
I guess we agree to disagree here, but I don’t believe I have ever seen anything, including the belief you or other followers have, that gives me even the slightest bit of evidence that a god exists. He may, but if so, he has already chosen to exclude me from the club.
With all due respect, knowledge is something that has showable evidence behind it; faith is something that has no evidence but which the faithful believes to be true.
The story of Jesus in the New Testament can clearly be shown to be cobbled together from a variety of European and Middle Eastern religions, from Adonis to Mithras to the Sumerian god-kings who were buried with golden saws because three days after their burial they were to saw their way into heaven.
You were Jewish and are now Christian. You say you were ‘into witchcraft’–do you mean Wicca or some other path or just teen-age dabbling? Are you saying, in essence, that you never strayed far from the Judeo-Christian belief system?
For me, Nature is the only diety–and man and science are part of nature.
I’m a Messianic Jew and I attend a non-denominational church. I read the King James, NIV, and Living Bible.
The evidence of God is all around you
I feel an evolution debate comin’ on
Your not irritating me. I believe I answered this somewhere in this thread already though, but I’m not here to tell anyone they are wrong. I will say again that I believe my religion is right for me and that I’ve made the right choice for my life. There’s really not much more I can say on this subject.
dreamer, without quoting scriptures from John, Paul or even Ringo for that matter, how could you possibly know this?
For twenty years I was “truly and honestly” devoted to my Catholic faith. Yet I never found anything, let alone ‘him’ during this period in my life. I think that twenty years is plenty of time to put me in the “interested even the slightest little bit” category, don’t ya think?
Did I pray wrong? Was I not an altar boy long enough? Were my contributions to charities not monetarily sufficient?
Couldn’t it be that you actually don’t know God is at the door for others, but your personal experiences in life leads you to believe that only through “blind faith” this can be possible?
I don’t want this to sound like an attack, because it certainly is not intended to be. I just would like your opinion on this.
Dreamer, a Jew who has converted to Christianity is a Christian, not a “Messianic Jew”. At least be honest with your terminology.
Would you call a former Christian who converts to Judeism a “Talmudic Christian”?
Faith is part of your inner thoughts, and as such it is one of the only things you can be fairly certain is real.
External reality cannot be proven to even exist.
Therefore it is reasonable to follow your faith, rather than only relying on external evidence which may not even exist. Especially if your particular faith does not contradict any of the external evidence.
As far as I can tell, the best solution is to have as much faith as you can in the best possible scenario you can think of.
Uh-huh. So if I have faith that I’m really 5’10", weigh 120 pounds, and am eternally 29–that’s reasonable, even though I only come up to my boyfriend’s shoulder, the label printed on my jeans says ‘36-32’, and I’m going through perimenopause?
Boy, I’d better sit down and believe really, really, really hard! Maybe all my cavities will go away, too!
So are the Roman Catholics wrong to claim the Pope is appointed by God?
Did the founder of the Mormon religion not meet an angel?
Are Christian Scientists correct in their beliefs?
These Christians disagree with you. So, for that matter, does Judaism. I repeat, how do you know that you are right and they are all wrong?
In particular, presumably you believed completely in Judaism. Now you don’t. Could you stop believing in your current religion?
(I could also ask, since I’ve read the Bible too; why is there such a difference in the actions of God between the Old and New Testament?)
Are you going to tell me that events like World War 2 were caused by Satan, or mankind having sinned?
How about natural disasters, which have killed millions?
What will happen to all the people who died before Jesus was born? Are they going to burn in Hell forever?
The Bible gives family trees which show that the world is approximately 4,000 years old.
Do you believe this?
If the Bible is not literal on this point, how do we know when it is literal?
That’s fine and I’m happy for you. But you seem to think there is some evidence you can share with the rest of us.
What is it?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by dreamer *
First musicguy, let me say thank you for your kind words. I’d like to ask you one question though. Why did you stop reading the bible, praying, and hanging out with other believers? Is is that there is a time limit in which God must reveal himself?
A time limit? No, I don’t think so. To be truthful, I stopped because I realized that I was to analytical to be content with just believing because others told me it was true.
[disclaimer: this is just my experience]
I went to church for about a year and a half. At first, I found it interesting. I especially liked the message about treating others well. After a while though, I noticed that every sermon somehow started focusing on how the church needed more money to do its good deeds. Was the money helping homeless kids or starving people? No, it turns out it was because the church was planning on doing a multi-million dollar expansion of their facilities. One might argue that this new facility would allow them to reach so many other people, but it seems to me that the money would have been so much better spent on directly helping people that needed it, not on an audio-visual library that could teach the bible with nifty new gadgets or a more impressive looking building. The people that attended this church already believed. How was any of this really helping the people that truly needed help. It turned me off in a big way.
But I didn’t ask God to come to me, I went to him in every way I knew how. I really wanted to be closer to him and let him know that in no uncertain terms. And even though my post implies that I only did this for a couple of months, the fact is that I spent quite a lot of time trying to increase my faith and understanding. At the end though, I really felt like I was talking to noone.
Not at all And your friendship is one thing that I don’t doubt exists.
But you can’t judge your experience on all churches by your one experience there. glee
How did my answering this question turn into your post?
~sigh~ Listen, I don’t know how many times I must say this but there is evidence to me, in my heart, in my soul, in me. I cannot prove it to you. I don’t have all the answers. I admit that! Anything I say here is going to be argued with and that’s okay, that’s why we’re here. I don’t know what I can say that would make that any more clear.
Can someone tell me how they know that what they believe is right? And prove to me that it is?
Let me just add that I have company coming into town for a week starting tomorrow and I will do my best to respond to all of you. Maybe not as quickly as I have been, but I will do my best to keep up :).
