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Indeed, and if we learn anything either way, we should have learned what a significant influence inculcation has had in establishing and promoting the predominant religions in all the different parts of the word where they are dominant. Mexico - Christian. Islamic - Indonesia. Most Hindu - India. Buddhists - China, etc. What does this tell us about the truth these religions represent where they are inculcated along to the next generation? Generation after generation.
Yet another reason some people see black where others see white...
What's the difference between inculcate and teach?
I agree. I have never suggested what you're saying.
Yes it would. Divine Truth is not contingent on geography or on my own individual perspective.
You are right that the truth, our universal truth, is not dependent on geography. What you define as "Divine Truth" (as best I can understand your meaning) IS most certainly dependent on geography. Clearly this is the case IF you understand the facts of these matters as I provided them in my prior comment (#60).
You are right that the truth, our universal truth, is not dependent on geography. What you define as "Divine Truth" (as best I can understand your meaning) IS most certainly dependent on geography. Clearly this is the case IF you understand the facts of these matters as I provided them in my prior comment.
A big IF in your case, or so it seems...
The acceptance of Divine Truth does have a geographic correlation, or has historically. But that has no bearing on whether it is in fact true or not.
Miracles occur quite often in our lives, we just might not see them as being miracles. If you are anti-religious (not just an agnostic with an open mind), no amount of being told of miracles, and even seeing some yourself will convince you that they are not just happy coincidences. There is ALWAYS an "alternative" way to explain a miracle as something that had a natural explanation.
Even the example of a miracle OP cites -- rising from the dead -- could be explained as the person not really being dead, etc.
In my life there were many major and minor miracles, you just need to grasp what really happened. One example: years ago I was visiting Philly and was crossing the street at a busy intersection. I looked this way and that and did not see any traffic, so I went. Suddenly, out or a corner of my eye, I saw a truck rushing toward me from a side street I haven't noticed. The time slowed down, and I saw people in front of me gasping. Somehow I sprinted forward, and the truck whizzed by. I was quite shaken but alive. I call it a miracle; you can call it a lucky break.
That's the difference between the believers and the atheists.
You are right of course...
People have a very different way of "processing" what is going on around them. A very different way of recognizing or attributing cause and effect. We probably all know people who think something that happened to them is a miracle. My experience with people like that usually involves a belief that more than one life event has been a miracle far as they are concerned. Then too, there are people who see a miracle in just about everything going on around them. Others process the same sort of events very differently. They see or know of no good reason to think any one event is a miracle let alone more than one event.
Reminds me of the comparison I made between religious thinking and gambling. Some people will think that rolling just the right numbers on the dice at just the right time is some sort of miraculous divinely assisted occasion. Others know that although that roll is a very rare one, it still happens just like all the other rolls.
Ultimately it's impossible to reconcile the one way of "processing" what is going on according to some people with others who simply don't interpret these events in the same way.
I have no problem with the definitions of "faith" found in the dictionary. It all depends on in what sense the word is being used.
I was speaking of faith in the sense of its meaning as a theological virtue and not necessarily in its most generic definitions.
The definition in both respects is clearly provided in just about all dictionaries. Along with others. The fact remains that none of them refer to what is fact as opposed to what is hope, or prayer, or a "strong belief in something for which there is no proof."
Faith as a result of a strong belief (such is yours) is faith. This is true, and most religious people will readily admit such faith is based on other than evidence. Empirical evidence or the sort of evidence generally accepted as sound. We can all accept these common definitions for what they are. Your effort to twist your definition of faith into something other than faith as we all generally understand the term is pointless.
Pointless other than from the standpoint that you want your personal belief to be viewed as something better justified by facts, reason and logic. Most people know better than to go there...
I'm of the mind that if someone doesn't hold to a personal belief as "fact", then why are they holding to that belief in the first place?
Really? You can only believe in something that is a pure, unadulterated fact? I hate to tell you this that much of what is in the bible has not and cannot be proven.
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