Do you feel it is important to share your views on faith or atheism? Part 2

[headinhands]

My goodness we like arguing don't we :)

heightened perception

To invisible yetis? I could just be mistaken? Or even embellishing the truth? Or hallucinating? But before you'd even consider these obvious possibilities you'd consider the fact that I had special powers that made me more perceptive of invisible yetis?

Give me an example of the sort of decision you'd make where you would make it using an entirely different thought process to me. (Go on caps you can do it, just give me a blasted example without going round the bleedin' houses for several posts trying to avoid the corner you've backed yourself into again) I bet there are very, very few. We're a lot more similar than you think.

Hallucinating, yes, but that just describes the physical phenomena of what is happening to your brain. There could be something that causes this, which could have a spiritual element, self destructive thoughts and paranoia for example, through an incorrect belief system, which has gone unchecked.

Embellishment of truth, being mistaken could all have a spiritual element as the motivator.

Anything which is not as it should be, or indeed is, could have a spiritual element to it, I believe. It is, IMO, the precursor to physical manifestation/occurrence.

I didn't say we don't have similarities we probably do. However I can only compare me with me.

I suppose I trust my 'gut feeling' on things, that are on the face if it uncertain, as I believe the Holy Ghost prompts me, I don't know whether we would do this in quite the same way. It makes me more decisive and I worry less than I was before I decided to pursue my Christian beliefs. I am also extremely careful, to be mindful concerning what I say about people. I believe our words are very powerful and do not want to detrimentally affect other people by my words. Again before I pursued my Christian beliefs further I was a lot less careful. Although I've still got a way to go in both these matters.

I don't know how you fare, head in terms of these two things, as I have said I can only compare me to me.

It has been good for me, the gut feeling aspect. I did used to be rather risk averse at one point. Sometimes you really do need to act, as inaction can be the most detrimental. Of course sometimes my gut reaction is to do nothing at that point in time though...I'm less anxious about stuff though.

And the decisions I have been making really have not turned out too be bad ones at all...

I'm quite cautious but it was ever thus faith and no faith.

And this is why we cannot compare head. Journeys of faith, even within the same religion, can be different from individual to individual.

Can I ask what aspect of your faith you found valuable, out of interest?

we cannot compare

Not individuals no but one would expect a definite trend in data when using a very large group. That's why scientists use large data pools and not one or two individuals. If Jesus meant what he said there should be a number of provably miraculous healings and resurrections among Christians and their families. Why isn't there? If The NT was true churches would be hospitals, we wouldn't have hospitals. (And at what point would you not bring someone back from the dead? )

aspect of your faith you found valuable

The same things I find valuable about my life in general now such as mutual support of friends. What's clear are that the elements that I thought made me a Christian are actually just the elements that make us all intelligent humans such as kindness and acceptance.

I find your position unliveable

I really doubt there is much difference. I really think that essentially we deal with RL the same way.

Religion always caused me more questions than it answered and you have to get good at ignoring and pretending you've answered them, that's how I see it now.

I still have those questions but now they're just unanswered rather than answered unsatisfactorily and that'll have to do but the trade off is that I don't need to work backwards and create ever more convoluted loopholes in my belief system.

If Jesus meant what he said there should be a number of provably miraculous healings and resurrections among Christians and their families. Why isn't there?

Because you cannot prove what is supernatural, it is beyond scientific understanding, it is outside of the laws of nature.

www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/supernatural?q=supernatural

If someone does not believe in the supernatural, the explanation they would give is that a physical manifestation is spontaneous or merely unexplained.

The same things I find valuable about my life in general now such as mutual support of friends. What's clear are that the elements that I thought made me a Christian are actually just the elements that make us all intelligent humans such as kindness and acceptance

Of course intelligent (and unintelligent, for that matter) human beings can be kind and accepting. I believe these are good qualities and according to my belief they come from God and anyone might possess them as we are made in His image. I don't attribute them to intelligence, although I believe it can be clever to be kind and accepting of others.

I think pursuing Christian belief gives additional opportunity to think about these qualities, in a systematic, but also organic way though. But again I don't believe you can compare - I am always very wary of statistics in the social sciences too and also quite cautious in terms of medical research. The one exception is still meaningful for that individual who is the exception.

Religion always caused me more questions than it answered and you have to get good at ignoring and pretending you've answered them, that's how I see it now.

I have always had questions. Questions are good. However there is balance, you still have to get on with life and make decisions in the face of uncertainty. Essentially my faith really helps here.

But I don't see how you'd be making any of the main decisions differently. If your at breaks down you take it to a garage, if you break a bone you go to hospital. You're not discernibly advantaged because of your link to god, wouldn't you expect to be? If I had a direct hotline to the a super intelligent being who created the universe I would expect my life to look a lot different, not just like everyone else's (although I swear there is a difference but it's not one you can measure.) No, I'd expect it to look awesome!

But I don't see how you'd be making any of the main decisions differently

This is where the belief bit comes in.

If you have to make a very quick decision people (amazingly) can do it. They do this by using all their instinctive knowledge, which includes all the things you have learnt and internalized, along with inherited instinct, so they often have a feel for an answer (without doing a load of probability sums in their heads). This is shown quite distinctly with people who are very good at calculus who can beat computers in their computations.

Now I believe the Holy Spirit prompts me in this way. The word, that is the Bible, is described as (Holy) spirit. Christ is described as the word made flesh and Christ describes His words as (Holy) spirit and life. As Christians study the Bible and Christ's life, they internalize it, the (Holy) spirit in it and revere this. So what I have learnt from studying the Bible gets internalized and begins to form into instinct. The revering is important because if I did not revere what I had learnt I would reject it and it would be forgotten and not internalized.

Of course other cultural beliefs can form into instinctive knowledge in the same way and it appears instincts can be inherited. The difference between someone who is Christian and a non-Christian is that the Christian begins to increasingly form Christian instincts through internalizing what they have learnt through studying and revering Christ. Of course the non Christian could hold the same beliefs through culture or inheritance however they could also reject them as they might also hold beliefs which conflict with them and override them (there is no reverence for Christian belief).

No, I'd expect it to look awesome!

And it is awesome for me. Before I pursued my Christian beliefs further I really could not trust in my instincts half as much. They were often wrong. So I began to really question them and over analyse everything. Now I find I have a lot more clarity in my decision making. This is my personal experience.

Of course other cultural beliefs can form into instinctive knowledge

I suppose, strictly speaking, I should have said 'forms into instinct,' here.

I mean awesome in the truest sense of the word. You'd be solving huge world problems and working with scientists as well as the whole raising the dead thing. I'm glad you are enjoying your life but it's comparable to those without faith.

I mean awesome in the truest sense of the word. You'd be solving huge world problems and working with scientists as well as the whole raising the dead thing. I'm glad you are enjoying your life but it's comparable to those without faith.

You'd be solving huge world problems and working with scientists as well as the whole raising the dead thing.

I mean awesome in the truest sense of the word. You'd be solving huge world problems and working with scientists as well as the whole raising the dead thing.

Give me chance, I have only started really more actively pursuing my Christian beliefs, relatively recently.

There are accounts of modern day miracles, but of course for them to be considered miracles there is belief involved.

Raising the dead is quite a daunting proposition actually....there has to be a dead person about that you know would want to receive this. I've not actually had much contact with the dead, never viewed a body in a morgue for example and the funerals I've attended had closed coffins which I never got close to - all involved pretty old people who I think were probably ready to go...I don't think raising the dead is always appropriate, you have to think of people's wishes. Maybe if I was an aid worker or something like that I might have some more dramatic experiences to tell you about.

As for solving huge world problems, again I don't move in the right circles. I have been actively engaged in solving some community problems. However I tend to think in terms of influencing a change of heart in people, which is more subtle - they have to grow and learn too.

Even Jesus could not do much when there was a lack of faith about...

a lack of faith about

I'm guessing Lazarus' faith was thin on the ground while he was dead. Didn't stop the miracle though did it?

I also think my DC's from having a Statement of Special Educational needs with quite a significant amount of funding to the Statement being ceased, due to progress regarding his level of SEN is pretty awesome. I am very thankful for this.

You might remember me speaking to you about this before head, you put it down to me being positive and encouraging and my DC's determination.

These two factors were quite clearly involved, if you know us, however I remember, equally clearly, I had to draw strength from somewhere and my faith was it. Lots of the other people weren't particularity encouraging, I had to convince them, draw their attention to the progress (helped by the new legislation). I could see quite easily how things could have gone the other way.

head

I'm guessing Lazarus' faith was thin on the ground while he was dead. Didn't stop the miracle though did it?

The people around him were showed some faith and you don't know that the dead cannot show faith. In the Bible there is a (spiritual) consciousness there after death.

maybe if I was an aid worker

There's plenty of people dying prematurely in the UK though. What's stopping you going round a cemetery and praying over some fresh graves. Or old ones for that matter, is there a limit? Jesus doesn't say '3 days max guys, any longer and its just weird'.

What's stopping you going round a cemetery and praying over some fresh graves. Or old ones for that matter, is there a limit? Jesus doesn't say '3 days max guys, any longer and its just weird'.

What? People would be terrified. They'd think it was some kind of uprising Zombie apocalypse. Not to mention the effect it could have on those people's families...