Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

Much of religion is based on tradition and belief. Strictly speaking, there is no evidence that can be objectively replicable. You know this. Why do you keep insisting that churches become scientists rather than believers? Besides, much of the evidence is controversial. The empty tomb arguments surrounding Jesus, for example. There is no clear nor concise explanation. Only different cases for or against.

An explanation is only necessary when it's been demonstrated that someone called Jesus was executed and put in there dead and that the story of the empty tomb is true.We do not have to provide an explanation of why leprechauns don't wear green coats.

And you are fully responsible for your belief. Using the excuse of lack of evidence wont get you off the hook.

And you are fully responsible for your belief. Using the excuse of lack of evidence wont get you off the hook.

I don't have a belief. What hook?

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And you are fully responsible for your belief. Using the excuse of lack of evidence wont get you off the hook.

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That’s a weird thing to say. Are you saying that there is some moral duty to be credulous ? And that a rational skepticism is just an excuse to evade that duty ?There are good reasons to doubt the Empty Tomb story. It may well be a complete fiction. And the story is the only evidence we have of those supposed events. There is nothing worthy of blame in accepting that.

No. I'm saying that there is no reason to resist believing. It's a bit of Occam's Razor. IF God desired that we take a leap of Faith, what harm is there in so doing? At worst it is a harmless belief. At best it shows allowance of trust. Nobody is saying that one should trust religion or any religious human or institution. All I am saying is that it is allowing oneself to be open to an omnipotent Creator who would hypothetically have the power to make you believe anyway. It's making the first move. There are good reasons to question everything written. There are no good reasons to doubt that trusting God...even hypothetically...is somehow harmful. I look at purposeful unbelief as a way of holding on to ones trust in their own ability and in human potential asd an expression of faith in oneself at the expense of denying God...even if one sees Him as a hypothetical and irrational belief. It is allowing yourself to believe in and trust ultimate good expressed through a character apart from ourselves. Scripture states that signs and wonders follow those who believe. The evidence will never manifest before the belief is professed. Perhaps not. But what harm can it do? Why a reluctance to go out on a limb? Why a reluctance to take a leap of faith? (even if it can be reasoned as being irrational)

You don't have evidence either. If you can honestly live with that no matter what reality turns out to become, you have done all that you can do. What I am saying is that you can't use evidence or lack of evidence to excuse your free choice not to have belief. The one that caught that tasty fat fish you are frying.

leprechauns never mess with our social order. They can wear whatever coat they want. Artists usually portray them as green. By the same token, Jesus can be any color we imagine. His character, however, is undeniable, based on the writings...which are all we have ever had, even according to you.We can dismiss Him as fiction, but we cant deny the character described.Leprechauns are not so concise nor absolute.Once I encountered the writing of a character named tangle, even if I could hypothetically imagine him as fictional, I cannot redefine the character as impressed upon my mind and heart through the writing which I read off of the internet.

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No. I'm saying that there is no reason to resist believing.

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By which you mean that there is no reason not to be credulous?

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IF God desired that we take a leap of Faith, what harm is there in so doing? At worst it is a harmless belief. At best it shows allowance of trust.

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Credulity is not just a belief, though, and it isn’t always harmless. There is fraud, there are conspiracy theorists - and belief in conspiracy theories was a big factor in the persecution of Jews - up to and including the Holocaust. Trust can be misplaced, you know.Then again, how can we know that God wants us to make leaps of faith rather than make our best efforts to find the truth ? Wouldn’t deciding that in itself take a leap of faith ?And even if we accept that God wants us to make leaps of faith, there is a big difference between making any leap of faith and making particular leaps of faith. Which is it God wants ? And if it is only particular leaps of faith how do we tell the right ones from the wrong ones ?

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Nobody is saying that one should trust religion or any religious human or institution. All I am saying is that it is allowing oneself to be open to an omnipotent Creator who would hypothetically have the power to make you believe anyway. It's making the first move.

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Believing the Empty Tomb story would come under trusting religion - the only sources that mention it were written to promote a particular religion.

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There are good reasons to question everything written.

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But there are degrees. The Empty Tomb story is less trustworthy than many things that are written.

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There are no good reasons to doubt that trusting God...even hypothetically...is somehow harmful.

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Which is very, very different from trusting the Empty Tomb story. (And then again I have to ask what “trusting God” really means - I’m not so sure that it is always harmless.)

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Scripture states that signs and wonders follow those who believe. The evidence will never manifest before the belief is professed.

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Signs and wonders could be perceived by non-believers.
As for the latter the way I’ve always heard it, if you don’t find evidence it’s because you didn’t believe enough. It really, really looks more like prejudice leading to delusion. And why would anyone want that ?

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Perhaps not. But what harm can it do? Why a reluctance to go out on a limb? Why a reluctance to take a leap of faith? (even if it can be reasoned as being irrational)

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Let’s turn it around: what’s the harm in not doing that ? Why should anyone be blamed for not taking a leap of faith ? And what if you took the wrong leap of faith ?

Why do I need evidence for not having a belief??? I don't need an excuse for not believing in what you believe.Unless and until you make an attempt to understand how atheists think about this stuff you'll never get any understanding of how dumb these things sound to me.

Many people believe just that. His character is the character that the novelists gave him. In the book. By unknown authors. That never met him. Written decades after his death. Which, as you say, is all you have. We can describe the character as written in the book. Just like we can describe the character of Bilbo Baggins as written in the book.

I've already watched the four horsemen. I know how atheists (some of them anyway) think. I also realize that much of what I say sounds bizarre. dumb, even. take it with a grain of salt....you should be used to my wild speculations by now.

I don't. I just wish you'd stop pretending that your dogmas "make sense". We have an explanation, the same explanation that we have for Gollum's Ring.

And what if He didn't want you to jump off a bridge? You can't just embrace one side of an "if" and ignore the other. What if there's a special place in hell for people who believe? Sure there are. He could be conning you. Or more likely, the shamans are conning you.