Originally posted by chaney3I'm talking to Christians about their theology which is based on their claims about a revelation of God supposedly through ancient Hebrew texts and claims they make about the significance (and divinity) of Jesus.
Casting all known religions and gods aside, both you and Ghost cannot find anything in the universe, including earth and human existence which is NOT an accident? No wiggle room at all for a Creator of some kind?
To me all this has little or perhaps nothing to do with "the universe, including earth and human existence" other than it reflects that they just so happen to have settled for the ideological-dogma-mythology package propagated by one of the world's major retail religions.
Originally posted by chaney3I have answered variants of this question, posed directly to me by you, in posts I have addressed directly to you, and I have done so several times, and as far as I remember, you have simply ignored it every single time. I think on one occasion you started a whole thread to ask me the question and I answered it immediately and in full, and you just ignored it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
No wiggle room at all for a Creator of some kind?
24 Jul 16
Originally posted by FMFI don't remember. If I did, I would not have asked today.
I have answered variants of this question, posed directly to me by you, in posts I have addressed directly to you, and I have done so several times, and as far as I remember, you have simply ignored it every single time. I think on one occasion you started a whole thread to ask me the question and I answered it immediately and in full, and you just ignored it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
No big deal.
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24 Jul 16
Originally posted by chaney3As an atheist, I don't have my hands over my eyes or plugging my ears. I would actually rather like to believe that God exists and that he created everything. Currently however, the evidence doesn't support such a supposition. (I also don't believe 'everything' is an accident).
Casting all known religions and gods aside, both you and Ghost cannot find anything in the universe, including earth and human existence which is NOT an accident? No wiggle room at all for a Creator of some kind?
Am surprised to hear though that you are 'casting all known religions and gods aside."
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24 Jul 16
Originally posted by Ghost of a DukeIs there anything, to you, that science or your own reasoning cannot adequately expain?
As an atheist, I don't have my hands over my eyes or plugging my ears. I would actually rather like to believe that God exists and that he created everything. Currently however, the evidence doesn't support such a supposition. (I also don't believe 'everything' is an accident).
Am surprised to hear though that you are 'casting all known religions and gods aside."
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24 Jul 16
Originally posted by chaney3Of course. But that doesn't have me grasping for the supernatural.
Is there anything, to you, that science or your own reasoning cannot adequately expain?
For example, I can not adequately explain how the universe came into existence. But this gap in my knowledge doesn't have me try and plug it with someone else's fairy tale.
24 Jul 16
Originally posted by Ghost of a DukeThis is well and good, because we all know that faith is not based on "proof" and no one can fault you for not having faith if your prerequisite is "having proof". If you cannot believe without proof, then you are confining yourself to never believe. Perhaps one day, you'll "decide" that you don't really need proof in order to believe and so then your belief might be considered a matter of "choice".
I agree that 'people CAN "choose" to believe something that they did not previously believe.' However, for most people, myself among them, choosing to adopt a new belief is only possible if there is sufficient reason and evidence to underpin such a change of belief.
On this basis, I could choose to believe Ben Affleck was a good actor after all, i ...[text shortened]... in the existence of God, as I haven't been presented with anything that convinces me He exists.
I agree that choosing to believe is the end game of a long process of introspection and evaluation. But eventually, a choice is made. But this doesn't even mean your choice cannot be recalled and reformed later. Many people come to a crossroads in their faith due to life experience, but it all comes down to the choice to allow oneself to see change as a reformation and a renaissance and not a denial or a repudiation.
24 Jul 16
Originally posted by SuzianneThe ideology of immortality that I have heard you propagate is that all that one has to do to be "saved" - and thus go on to an "afterlife" - is to "decide" or "choose" to believe in Jesus.
My ideology "needs" nothing. It simply is what it is.
Perhaps stating that my ideology "needs" something is your ideology.
This is absolutely central to the notion of "salvation" that people like you, Grampy Bobby and sonship put forward here week in week out.
However, in reality, people come to believe such a thing or they don't. People will realize they believe it's true or they will realize that they don't believe it's true. It is not something they can "decide" or "choose".
Assertions that hold that they can, I think, are rooted in a bogus claim about the nature of belief and the reality of the process of arriving at beliefs, and yet they are central to your theory [that is to say your ideology] of "salvation".
Without this piece of ideology - i.e. the idea that being a Christian [and therefore "saved"] is simply a matter of "choice" - your claims about what a supernatural being, [who supposedly wants everyone to be "saved"] requires of humans, simply sounds like it does not really make any psychological or moral sense.
That's why I think your assertion that belief is a choice is driven by your ideology's need for it to be so and not by the actual nature of belief or how we arrive at belief or disbelief.