The Power of Belief

There used to be a TV show called Fear Factor. At the beginning, the contestants would usually brag about how competitive they were. They seemed to believe that they could win just by believing harder than the rest.My reaction was (yelling at the TV), "But can you do anything?" Often the most "competitive" would answer my question by doing a face plant in the first few minutes.I'm a firm believer in setting goals that are difficult to achieve - but they do have to be attainable goals.

Individual self-confidence is one thing but some things can't be done alone. The two guys climbing the tree might both have gotten higher with a little cooperation.If you want to go to the moon, you have to inspire others to self-confidence and confidence in you. You have to be a Kennedy - or a Hitler.

That was my point. Hitler had to have an insane level of self-confidence to take on the world but people like that are a dime a dozen. You need the ability to infect others with self-confidence before you can achieve big things, good or bad. Charles Manson was a small-scale Hitler who would probably have been much less "successful" on his own. Kennedy was perhaps less megalomaniacal but no less infectious.Edited by ringo, : Speling.Edited by ringo, : Moe spelling.

That would be the power to infect others with confidence, again.

I'm becoming convinced that that's true of creationism. It's a club where they can feel superior without knowing anything. Some of them enjoy it when you try.

A propos to the topic, a major difference is testing. No matter how strongly you believe you can jump the Mississippi, you'd be well advised to test your ability on a smaller body of water first. Once you know you can jump twenty feet, you might be justified in believing you can jump thirty, and so on.If you believe God is a creationist, that's fine but if you think you know God is a creationist, you'd better have some test results to back you up. Only if you know the difference between knowledge and belief.

Snake handlers believe that God will protect them. If they survive, God did it. If they die, it's because their faith wasn't strong enough. That's hardly what I'd call a constructive belief.