Seattle,
I don't care about the things I don't believe in, and would never go as far as to express anything I don't believe in, without provocation, to make a point. I leave that to you guys.
However if I found myself constantly expressing something I didn't believe in, it would make me wonder if my un-belief was genuine.
I don't find this to be a sincere position on your part. Creationism is being taught in some schools, science is being curtailed by religion and I'm not supposed to have an opinion just because I don't believe in the supernatural? The final comment further proves the insincerity. If I don't agree with you and I express myself (the whole point of this forum and thread) then I must secretly be doubting my position! I think you can do better than that.
Creationism being taught in a science class is a provocation.
However that is not what I mean when I say ''...constantly expressing something I didn't believe in, it would make me wonder if my un-belief was genuine.''
It depends on how you understand God. Unfortunately, your worldview situation phrohibits you from open-mindedly studying scriptures to see if there is any validity in the concept of God. This not much different to the evangelical Christian groups who forbid their members from looking at other scriptures to increase their understanding of God, in case it shows up there own lack of understanding. Christian dogma, and atheist dogma, is very similar. One day I may even start a thread on that.
This is also a curious argument. You are implying that the religious mindset is more open than someone who doesn't believe in the supernatural but who is open to evidence where ever it may lead. This isn't the case of course.
There is a consensus that religion is a negative force in today's society, that it should be relegated to a lower status (some want it abolished). That the scriptures were written either to explain things that were not properly understood, or by scrupulous people in a bid to control the masses. There is a conensous that there is no evidence for the existence of God, God does not exist, or if God does exist He is an evil tyrant who let's people suffer.
With this kind of mindset, how can you be open to the possibility that God is merciful. That maybe it is due to our ignorance of the bigger picture that prevents us from seeing this.
And what exactly, is a ''religious mindset''?
Trying to increase ones understanding of God is not necessarily a ''religious mindset'' pastime.
Again I ask; With such an unwillingness to take the pursuit of understand God, seriously, at least to the point where if one is still atheist, one has a good reason and explanation as to why he is so, how can you be open-minded to scriptures.
To obtain ''knowledge'', not just information, from any external source, requires some level of surrender, trying to obtain ''evidence'' for something that requires direct experience in order to obtain the truth does nothing to enhance knowledge.
Once you know something, there is no more need to learn how to obtain knowledge of it (obviously).
This is the heart of the matter and the problem between religion and science..."once you know something, there is no more need to learn how to obtain knowledge of it".
Once we learned the world was flat there was no more need to learn how to obtain knowledge of it. This is why evolution is such a problem for many.
That's not what I mean by ''knowledge''. The world's round, so what? Now we know that, does it increase our awareness of our understanding of ourselves. What is our ''selves''? Are we the body and mind, or are we more than that. We can observe our bodies and mind so who is observing? What happens when we die, is it just nothingness? What is nothingness? No space, no time, no energy/matter? How could such a scenario exist? Can we even imagine it? These questions are the search for knowledge, IMO.
If I believe in it, why would I want to test it?
If you want to test it then go ahead, but why waste good money on that, when scientists can be put to better use?
This is about as anti-knowledge as one could get. I'll let those comments speak for themselves.
This is about as anti-knowledge as one could get. I'll let those comments speak for themselves.
What's the point in testing to see if God answers prayers? How's that going to benefit you or society?
How are you going to ''know'' if God does or doesn't answer prayers? What kind of tests can you perform that gives this result? If the test is an statistical approximation, how does that prove that God doesn't answer prayers?
When a person sincerely prays to God, their position is one of surrender, they surrender to the Divine Will, He knows what is best for me. I put my self in your hands.
The rest is just silly and more of the same.
I didn't say I would "accept" anything but I'd be well on my way. You ask how would I know that the man in the clouds was God? I'm willing to call any man in the cloud God. Or at least consider it. If your God is the man in another cloud then we just have different religions (and Gods).
Okay. I'll leave you with that.
jan.
