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An astronaut. On Apollo 15. Came back from the Moon convinced god was real. Not only that, but completely rejected science and adopted Creationism, in spite of having found "the Genesis rock" proving that Earth really was ~4.5 Billion years old. He wasted the rest of his life and all his net-worth trying to find Noah's Ark and prove Creationism was real, and nearly died trying to do that.
He died penniless, and alone, save for his daughter and son-in-law, and everything he worked for was destroyed.
I'm not exactly seeing the benefit of faith.
It is quite believable that he experienced God in a way that evoked certainty in him. His only error was in automatically assuming that the Biblical narrative accurately reflected what God wanted us to believe. It is his irrational and emotional response to the certainty about the existence of God that was at fault, NOT his certainty about God.
I'm assuming that you are asking me. I'm asking you why you think that something that is proven to be, probably the WORST possible way EVER of ascertaining whether or not something is true, should be held up as being something to strive for, something to be held in high regard, something worthy of respect, something valuable and good to have, something to be proud of.
When someone says to you...'There is no verifiable evidence for your god'.
You reply
'I know but I have faith'.
What is it about having 'faith' that makes you proud of effectively saying - 'I believe based on a 'something' that is proven to be extremely unreliable.
Yowza! You are making a lot of assumptions about what I believe, how I believe, why I believe. What we have here seems to be a failure to communicate. If someone said to me - there is no verifiable proof, etc. I'd say "yep, you are correct" and let it go at that. I am not PROUD of my faith. It simply is. I think we run into problems because you are looking for objective proof of a subjective experience. Let me give you an example...disclaimer, this never actually happened to me.
I'm walking down the road, alone, late at night. Suddenly, a bright light appears in the distance, which comes closer and closer. Holy crap....an alien space ship! ok, it tracks me down, aliens take me on board, run the standard examination, etc....finally drop me off back where they picked me up.
I am freaked out and very happy to see your car coming down the road...I frantically wave my arms and you pick me up. I am nearly hysterical, but tell you about what just happened to me. It really happened, I KNOW it happened....I have scoop marks on my skin and my butt still hurts from the probe. I show you the scoop marks...now you're thinking....Damn, why did I ever stop to pick up this lunatic, and how can I come up with a good excuse to dump them out somewhere ASAP? I KNOW what I just experienced, but there is NO WAY, I am going to make you believe me, if alien abduction is something you think is the raving of loonies. My experience was a real, subjective experience, but how do I show you objective proof? Even if I show you what little proof I have, you will write it off as something else...scoop marks, yeah, probably needle marks...junkie no less.
Yowza! You are making a lot of assumptions about what I believe, how I believe, why I believe. What we have here seems to be a failure to communicate. If someone said to me - there is no verifiable proof, etc. I'd say "yep, you are correct" and let it go at that. I am not PROUD of my faith. It simply is. I think we run into problems because you are looking for objective proof of a subjective experience. Let me give you an example...disclaimer, this never actually happened to me.
I'm walking down the road, alone, late at night. Suddenly, a bright light appears in the distance, which comes closer and closer. Holy crap....an alien space ship! ok, it tracks me down, aliens take me on board, run the standard examination, etc....finally drop me off back where they picked me up.
I am freaked out and very happy to see your car coming down the road...I frantically wave my arms and you pick me up. I am nearly hysterical, but tell you about what just happened to me. It really happened, I KNOW it happened....I have scoop marks on my skin and my butt still hurts from the probe. I show you the scoop marks...now you're thinking....Damn, why did I ever stop to pick up this lunatic, and how can I come up with a good excuse to dump them out somewhere ASAP? I KNOW what I just experienced, but there is NO WAY, I am going to make you believe me, if alien abduction is something you think is the raving of loonies. My experience was a real, subjective experience, but how do I show you objective proof? Even if I show you what little proof I have, you will write it off as something else...scoop marks, yeah, probably needle marks...junkie no less.
Do you see what I am trying to get at?
I'm sure everyone understands that. The problem, is that it isn't any kind of proof to anyone but yourself. For all we know, you could have had some kind of psychotic episode or hallucination or something. So, let me put it to you this way, and maybe you can see where a lot of us are coming from.
Say person A has an experience with what they think is God. They tell you all about the experience, and what happened, and all about how God is light and love. This God just wants us to love each other, and be the best we can be. Person B also has an experience with what they think is God. Person B's experience is VASTLY different than that of Person A. B doesn't see a God of light and love, and instead sees a God that is vengeful and terrifying, and is getting ready to rain hellfire down on mankind because of gay people and atheists. These are two polar opposite things, and can't be the same God. So we are left with a few possibilites.
1. Person A is correct, meaning B is incorrect. (or B is correct and A is incorrect)
2. They are both correct, meaning there are multiple gods at odds with one another.
3. Neither are correct.
See, they both KNOW they are right, but that simply isn't possible unless we have multiple deities. If one of them is correct, and the other incorrect, then we are left with the fact that personal subjective experiences are not reliable. It is the same thing with real people. You may KNOW you are right, but what about the BILLIONS of people that KNOW you are wrong? Who are we to believe, and why? Why is your subjective experience to be believed over all others? Why do you discount MY personal subjective experiences, while believing yours? (The "you" in this scenario is used in general, not just saying "you" specifically)
That is the problem that everyone who is a believer likes to ignore. You "know" you are right, but most of the world "knows" they are right too, and they are at odds with what you "know". Do you understand what I mean here?
Again, it is not a question of right or wrong, for me personally.....we each have our own personal experiences. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, and I'm beginning to regret ever coming on here to post! If you are an atheist, an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Taoist, whatever, I don't care! I try to follow the pagan/Wiccan philosophy, "as you harm none, do as you may"....Now I think I will sign off as this seems to just be a never ending debate that neither side will ever actually win!
Yowza! You are making a lot of assumptions about what I believe, how I believe, why I believe. What we have here seems to be a failure to communicate. If someone said to me - there is no verifiable proof, etc. I'd say "yep, you are correct" and let it go at that. I am not PROUD of my faith. It simply is. I think we run into problems because you are looking for objective proof of a subjective experience. Let me give you an example...disclaimer, this never actually happened to me.
I'm walking down the road, alone, late at night. Suddenly, a bright light appears in the distance, which comes closer and closer. Holy crap....an alien space ship! ok, it tracks me down, aliens take me on board, run the standard examination, etc....finally drop me off back where they picked me up.
I am freaked out and very happy to see your car coming down the road...I frantically wave my arms and you pick me up. I am nearly hysterical, but tell you about what just happened to me. It really happened, I KNOW it happened....I have scoop marks on my skin and my butt still hurts from the probe. I show you the scoop marks...now you're thinking....Damn, why did I ever stop to pick up this lunatic, and how can I come up with a good excuse to dump them out somewhere ASAP? I KNOW what I just experienced, but there is NO WAY, I am going to make you believe me, if alien abduction is something you think is the raving of loonies. My experience was a real, subjective experience, but how do I show you objective proof? Even if I show you what little proof I have, you will write it off as something else...scoop marks, yeah, probably needle marks...junkie no less.
Do you see what I am trying to get at?
That's a lot of waffle for me simply asking you why you think 'faith' is a good thing to have.
Again, it is not a question of right or wrong, for me personally.....we each have our own personal experiences. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, and I'm beginning to regret ever coming on here to post! If you are an atheist, an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Taoist, whatever, I don't care! I try to follow the pagan/Wiccan philosophy, "as you harm none, do as you may"....Now I think I will sign off as this seems to just be a never ending debate that neither side will ever actually win!
I am explaining from others POV's, not questioning your experiences or trying to convince you of anything. The fact that you can't even read and respond to it tells me what I need to know though, which is you DO indeed care, whether you claim to or not. Otherwise, why so salty Unicorn?
So maybe read it again, and try to respond without the hysterics?
Again, it is not a question of right or wrong, for me personally.....we each have our own personal experiences. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, and I'm beginning to regret ever coming on here to post! If you are an atheist, an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Taoist, whatever, I don't care! I try to follow the pagan/Wiccan philosophy, "as you harm none, do as you may"....Now I think I will sign off as this seems to just never-ending debate that neither side will ever actually win!
The bold seems to be the goal of some posters on the atheist side. They want to dominate the forum.
The bold seems to be the goal of some posters on the atheist side. They want to dominate the forum.
And running away when questioned seems to be the goal of many religious/spiritual posters. All myself or Raf has done, is ask Unicorn a question, and provide an example of what some people think. How is that "dominating" the forum? How is that running people off? Skin that thin?
Yowza! You are making a lot of assumptions about what I believe, how I believe, why I believe. What we have here seems to be a failure to communicate. If someone said to me - there is no verifiable proof, etc. I'd say "yep, you are correct" and let it go at that. I am not PROUD of my faith. It simply is. I think we run into problems because you are looking for objective proof of a subjective experience. Let me give you an example...disclaimer, this never actually happened to me.
I'm walking down the road, alone, late at night. Suddenly, a bright light appears in the distance, which comes closer and closer. Holy crap....an alien space ship! ok, it tracks me down, aliens take me on board, run the standard examination, etc....finally drop me off back where they picked me up.
I am freaked out and very happy to see your car coming down the road...I frantically wave my arms and you pick me up. I am nearly hysterical, but tell you about what just happened to me. It really happened, I KNOW it happened....I have scoop marks on my skin and my butt still hurts from the probe. I show you the scoop marks...now you're thinking....Damn, why did I ever stop to pick up this lunatic, and how can I come up with a good excuse to dump them out somewhere ASAP? I KNOW what I just experienced, but there is NO WAY, I am going to make you believe me, if alien abduction is something you think is the raving of loonies. My experience was a real, subjective experience, but how do I show you objective proof? Even if I show you what little proof I have, you will write it off as something else...scoop marks, yeah, probably needle marks...junkie no less.
Do you see what I am trying to get at?
Good analogy - but the point is, you would still not be believed (as so many more possibilities exist as to why you feel you experienced what you did). That said, the reason for what you believe (in regard to why we exist) does not have to be ‘proven’; it is simply your belief/thoughts - but it is not provable (no matter how you look at it). It’s important to distinguish fact from philosophical thought (pertaining to religion).
Last edited by CorporateCowboy; 04-02-2019 at 04:38 PM..
And running away when questioned seems to be the goal of many religious/spiritual posters. All myself or Raf has done, is ask Unicorn a question, and provide an example of what some people think. How is that "dominating" the forum? How is that running people off? Skin that thin?
yeah, it seems to be the tactic of people holding less valid claims. run away or cry victim.
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