Infinity Lover

Good question schoonheid.

The kind of profound experience people who don't believe would demand (leaving nothing to doubt), the chance of that happening, the tendancy to asume a natural rather than a supernatural explaination when it does... it's a combination of factors.

Amie

Mar,
I agree the chance is relatively small...
and then as another member stated he would not believe in an angel if he were to see one and he only "might" believe in one only if it spent an hour with him and did some things, so that kind of sounds like it is a matter of rejecting whats in front of you. I don't believe in hell however if I was standing at the gates of hell I am inclined to say I would then believe.

braces_for_impact

Posted by Amie:

And that is where the problem lies...

So many people think theirs is the only way, and people do end up getting hurt. People believe blindly what they are told, read, etc. They do not examine the evidence, and often they don't want to know the truth because it makes them feel good.

Think about how much crap people believe, how much money is spent innappropriately because people don't bother to check out the facts. How many have died? How many have been hurt indirectly because of these things? From everything to fad products to faith healers to holy wars. This is why critical thinking is so important.

Faith to me is irrational.

Goliath

Infinity Lover,

This is true, but this has absolutely nothing to do with my first post in this thread. There is a universe of difference between believing that a gurglafvlruk doesn't exist, and not believing that a gurglafvlruk does exist.

Sincerely,

Goliath

Amie

seems a matter of semantics

Goliath

Amie,

Absolutely not! One statement involves a belief, the other does not. One statement involves stating a claim, and the other does not.

Sincerely,

Goliath

Amie

Hi Goliath
If I claim I do not believe in the existence of blue trolls that would be the same as saying I believe blue trolls do not exist. I really do not see a difference there. Please show me the difference. I am sincere.

Goliath

Amie,

There is a HUGE difference between saying "I don't believe that blue trolls exist," and saying "I believe that blue trolls do not exist."

The later statement invokes an assertion about the existence of blue trolls. The former statement makes no assertion about the existence of blue trolls.

I really don't know how to make this any simpler.

Sincerely,

Goliath

HelenM

Hi Amie,

I think it's like this: if you say "I believe it's not going to rain next Friday" then you have a definite belief about the weather next Friday.

If you say "I do not believe it's going to rain next Friday" you might mean the same as the first statement. But you might also mean you have no particular belief about Friday's weather.

If you mean it the second way then there is a difference in meaning between the first and second statements.

Helen

Infinity Lover

Though rationally speaking I'm inclined to say that you're mentioning problems that would simply prevail in different ways if religion didn't exist. (Btw. an unrealistic if, if you ask me.)

Besides the point of the tread, but I felt someone should point that out.

Perhaps the subject of faith could lead to a thread in itself, because you can also have faith in non-religious matters. Faith in yourself, in the people you love, faith in a better tomorrow, etc.