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ope:
I get your point, but I'm afraid you are wrong. Man can voluntarily decide to buy Insurance, but he can not voluntarily decide to have faith. You either believe or you don't. Something might happen to change your beliefs but you cannot decide to change them by yourself.
Of course it's possible to act like you believe if you actually don't, but I guess this is not what will save you if there is a God.
I'm a strict atheist. I'd very much like to believe in God because it would make my life easier in many respects, but I don't, and acting otherwise serves no purpose in my opinion.
Faith is like exercise -- first you have to want it and then you have to "just do it." Faith is like a muscle -- the more you work it, the stronger it becomes. Visualization techniques are somewhat related -- practice makes perfect. It's like anything in life, really.
If you weren't raised in an environment of faith, the biggest obstacle you're probably experiencing is personal ego and pride -- and I don't mean that in a demeaning way.
The human ego is very, very powerful and yet also extremely fragile. Too often, an individual isn't able to break down their ego barrier until tragedy strikes, which is unfortunate.
I believe that every human being, including the most staunch atheist, has a spiritual breaking point whereby they will emotionally break down and weep crying out to God. I believe this. Yet as we get older and more mature, our emotional breaking point becomes even tougher to penetrate.
Jesus taught us to pray as a child which admittedly is a practice the rational adult mind finds difficult to embrace.
Someone once said that if a lawyer had written the line of the Lord's Prayer which says, "Give us this day our daily bread," it would read something like "We respectfully petition, request, and entreat that due and adequate provision be made, this date and date first above inscribed, for satisfying of petitioner’s nutritional requirements and for the organizing of such methods of allocation and distribution as may be deemed necessary and proper to assure the reception by and for said petitioners of such quantity of cereal amounts (hereinafter called `bread’) as shall, in judgment of the above, constitute sufficient amount."
Whereas "Give us our daily bread" is a child's prayer -- simple. In other words, it is very difficult to turn off our 'rational' educated minds and come to God as a vulnerable child, because everything we have been taught tells us the exact opposite.
Strict rational thought is overrated. The fact is, not everything can be explained using our five senses. Indeed some of the most fulfilling and meaningful things such as love cannot be broken down scientifically in a laboratory.
Humans are spiritual beings. Wandering through life aimlessly without tapping your inner spiritual dimension is like focusing exclusively on the lyrics of a song while completely ignoring the beautiful melody that accompanies it. It's like buying the best computer -- without hooking it up to the world wide web.
Learning to have faith is not so much learning a new skill, rather it's about exercising a natural skill you already have. This means unlearning some of the bad habits you may have picked up in an environment where faith was frowned upon and never part of a daily ritual.
Preussen, I have seen some of the toughest, most stubborn minds open their hearts up to God and it's a beautiful thing to witness.
Faith is a very personal experience. It is journey you travel through at your own pace.
Just remember not to over complicate things.
Joe, I'm most certainly not getting into another futile discussion with you. But you are always good for a laugh (Faith can be trained like a muscle? - eh, sure), and I'm always impressed how little it takes for you to go off on an (at least partly off-topic) rant/lecture.
Believe whatever you want to believe (or choose to profess to believe in this forum), I know that you, like most of the people in this forum, are perfectly unwilling/incapable to even consider changing their minds no matter what the respective other side says, and while I myself try to always keep an open mind and think about what other people say, you have so far singularly failed in convincing me that you can in any way be taken seriously, so where's the point in debating? Have fun!
Believe whatever you want to believe (or choose to profess to believe in this forum), I know that you, like most of the people in this forum, are perfectly unwilling/incapable to even consider changing their minds no matter what the respective other side says, and while I myself try to always keep an open mind and think about what other people say, you have so far singularly failed in convincing me that you can in any way be taken seriously, so where's the point in debating? Have fun!
People who have "faith" in God to save their souls don't have true faith. What they have is fear.
This scenario is called "Pascal's Wager". There are several fallacies with it including the assumption that you are having faith in the correct god. It also assumes that the true god rewards faith. It also assumes that god doesn't give additional chances in other lives.
I find it awfully arrogant that a lowly creature such as humans have the full grasp of what God is. Most people making these assertions are going by what they hear in church and not what is written in their scriptures or the writings of other religions.
I like your style. I haven't seen you post in here before. Do you know Joe C's backstory? The one where he lied at first pretending to be a Canadian, then kept forgetting to stay in character? Or the fact that he's the first one to pass judgement on someone else but then shows up at the Bash drunk off his ass? There is also strong evidence to support the fact that he mongers whores all the while sternly maintaining a holier than thou attitude?
I've come to the conclusion that there is no way he believes half the shit he posts and that he is most likely either mentally imbalanced or the most brilliant troll on the internet. Or both. Yet, despite this he has a small gaggle of groupies who drop to their knees every time he cuts and pastes something and clicks submit.
Joe C is good for a laugh, but it gets old really quick. I enjoy this forum much more with him on ignore. I see all I want to see of him when someone else quotes him.
I have been posting in this forum some months ago, a large part of it in discussions with JoeC. I don't really care whether he really is what he claims to be, but at some point I couldn't fail to notice that it's absolutely no use debating with him as he will never acknowledge that he might be wrong, no matter how obvious it becomes, and he has a habit of making false assertions and, when asked to back them up, simply making unfounded personal attacks to cloud the issue.
When I realised that most of the people in this forum, no matter what side they are on, are not very different, making serious and meaningful discussions almost impossible, I stopped posting in here.
I currently have a little time on my hands but I will still limit my postings as lots of newer threads show that nothing has changed in the last months.
You may want to work on your text comprehension. Quantum obviously was speaking about those people who only have "faith" in order to save their souls, and I think he is absolutely right when he says those people don't have true faith.
How great this forum could be if people only posted in here after properly reading and understanding the posts they are replying to...
I never stated in my response that all faith is based on Pascal's Wager. That was your assumption. I invite you to point out where I stated this. My response was in respect to this specific scenario, not all faith. I believe faith in God is valid, just not this scenario.
You are the one making the generalization which is quite a basic error as you point out.
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