I don't understand what you're saying here. I guess your point is that people use the same thought process (i.e., what's best for me and my country) to arrive at diverging opinions of who should lead the nation.
That they feel their way to their political stances and that these political stances have an impact on the lives of other people. IOW much of the criticism of theists in this forum, for example, could be aimed at most of the posters in the Politics, World Events, etc. forums. But they tend not to be.
The point is that people use whatever internal compass they have to guide their decisions. 786, for example, equates the Trinity with polytheism (which is not right, but is his opinion). Because he sees the Christians as polytheists, and because he doesn't ``see'' polytheism in Nature, he is led to the conclusion that Christianity is wrong, or at least not for him. That's fine, but him following his internal compass has led him somewhere completely different that Sandy, who was following her internal compass.
As Dem and Republicans are led, for example.
My original point in entering this thread was not to nitpick about specific dogma, or to defend my own faith, but rather to point to the fact that we all have internal compasses. Those compasses are inherently biased by where we're born, the events that happen to us (how many children who have been sexually abused by a Catholic priest turn into Catholics as adults?), the people around us, and events which we have little control over.
So when I said that everyone used the same process to come to drastically different conclusions, I meant it in terms of this internal compass. Such conclusions are illogical by their very nature---which is ok, lacking some objective facts in the matter---and are deeply biased, again, by their nature.
Which would include decisions not to accept as real certain experiences and to cut them off and analyze them - often barely in consciousness - and make them unreal. to explain away them.
Lacking any scientific evidence one way or the other, in questions of faith, all answers are more or less equal.
the term 'faith' is used too often. Many people base their religious beliefs on their experiences and what works for them. (just like everyone else)-.
As it is impossible to be objective in such assessments, all conclusions are a priori subjective. The process of establishing subjective criteria, and then following that path to an ``answer'' is the same for everybody, whether it be you, or Sandy, or SAM, or 786. While your criteria are all different, as they should be, the process of elimination is the same. Because your (or SAM's or Sandy's, or ... ) criteria were all subjective,
Not necessarily. A group of poker players will have members who are incredibly skilled at reading opponents and others who cannot. The former may not even know how they do it, they may even pick up cues in their periperhal vision below conscious awareness. They are, however, in many instances objective. They are going on feel, because feelings often are the best way to arrive at conclusions when extremely large amounts of data are being thrown at us. Some people are terrible at this. Some are experts. Some are idiot savants, with strong skills in one area.
You cannot simply throw all of this out as merely subjective.
I understand why you as a non-experiencers or not having whatever skills in question are, be they poker skills or reading a defensive line in football or the ability to read the sea for coming weather - need not believe what others feel their way towards. But they may be right on the money.
Also you are taking Sandy, 786 etc. as contradicting each other. They may have found the best metaphors to arrive at a relationship that in the end is very similar. They may also be making the mistake that only their metaphors, for God in this case, are the correct ones. But that may be their only mistake.
The merits of an idea are judged first with objective criteria, and second with subjective criteria. Your comments apply to religion, but certainly not to Evolution, which may or may not have been implied.
But most of life must be judged on subjective criteria. We cannot go out and do all the empirical researsh ourselves. So we each develop intuitive methods - primarily - for which experts we trust and to what degrees and on what topics. We also make intuitive judgments about how much current interpretations of data, whether scientific or religious or whatever is being distorted by history and culture. From there we have vast areas of experience that there is no objective consensus on or no good ways of testing via scientific methodology (at present or perhaps ever) and here we must use the skills we have. And from there check in from time to time to see how well the beliefs formed are working.
Less beliefs is not necessarily better, even if that more beliefs includes beliefs that are not, currently, scientifically validated. Though this seems to be the underlying assumption of most rationalists and scientists, DESPITE the fact that they engage in politics and other areas of life where they must and do trust feeling their way towards things.
60 years ago, say, before we had cheap video and a decent amount of scientific research that could verify what great poker players were probably keying into, it would have been dead wrong to tell all pokers players not to trust their intuitions. For many players this admonition would have been a good one. They were fish who could not read other players. But for some this blanket generalization was misguided.
Reminds me of the short story Harrison Bergeron in some way.
Since we don't know who has good intuition on this issue, it is best to say no one has it.
Nah.
And then for some, they may have good insight into who they can trust - iow experts who will connect them to beliefs that will work for them - even though they have poor intuition when it comes to directly experiencing something religious or spiritual.
