I understand that you don't see how it's a choice. Nevertheless, you can choose your truth. All you have to do is understand that truth is subjective and the criteria is whatever you decide it is. If you can't understand this, or you won't acknowledge it, then I guess you don't have a choice. But who's fault is that but your own?
If I go outside and look up and see a clear blue sky, I can not CHOOSE to believe it is overcast and raining.
I have no reason to assume anything either way ... about a great many things. I don't have to 'know' everything about everything all the time. In fact, the truth is that none of us know much of anything, much of the time. We just pretend we do, because it makes us feel safe, and 'in control'. And we call that pretense "belief". When we choose to pretend that we know this and that, we say we "believe" it to be so. But all "believing" really is, is our presuming that we're right about what we think is so. But there's no law that says we have to assume that we're right. We can think that "X = X" without assuming that it has to, because we (have to) be right. We don't have to be right, and we aren't a huge majority of the time. We're right enough to get by, but usually not enough to actually understand anything.
Somehow I doubt that you consider it a 50/50 chance that there's a mouse sitting in the middle of your kitchen or not.
We could, but we don't, because there's no need. If we really wanted or needed to believe it, we would find a way. You say you wouldn't, but you would. Because you're no different than the rest of us.
Go on, then. CHOOSE to believe that whenever no one is looking, there's a mouse sitting in the middle of your kitchen floor. CHOOSE to believe that just as strongly as you believe that you are a person.
these hypocritical writings are usually written insiders
for example, how it is already in order
the text is simply separated by characters (,)
however, it is even more complicated in the Bible and other books
1: 1,2,4
2: 3,5,7
3: 6,8,10
4: 9.11
5:, 12
there is not one verse
but a heap of verses and yet heaps of books and prophecies there hidden from the sight of men
If I go outside and look up and see a clear blue sky, I can not CHOOSE to believe it is overcast and raining.
Somehow I doubt that you consider it a 50/50 chance that there's a mouse sitting in the middle of your kitchen or not.
Go on, then. CHOOSE to believe that whenever no one is looking, there's a mouse sitting in the middle of your kitchen floor. CHOOSE to believe that just as strongly as you believe that you are a person.
There are lots of things you "believe in" that you have no way of actually knowing to be so. There are lots of things you "know" (have direct personal experience of) that you don't need to "believe in" because they're there. Stop over-simplifying this to make yourself look stupid. We are talking about "belief". Not direct knowledge.
Once you park your car and walk away from it, you no longer actually know that it's there. You "believe" it's there because in the past it's always been where you left it. But the truth is that it may not still be there this time. Understanding the limits of what you actually know, you could choose to believe that it won't be there, this time. Just as you are choosing, now, to believe that it is. You won't do this, because you don't want to. But you could, if you did want to.
My point is that you are ignoring the great many things that you don't actually know to be so. But that you believe to be so because you want to, because of habit, and because it makes sense to you that they would be so according to your past experiences. But once you realize that you don't actually know them to be so, you also realize that you could change your belief in them being so.
In the case of the existence of gods, you have never known, and will never know if any gods exist. So your "belief" that they don't, or that they do, was your choice. And is still your choice. There is no knowledge on your part that would stop you from believing otherwise, if you chose to do so.
There are lots of things you "believe in" that you have no way of actually knowing to be so. There are lots of things you "know" (have direct personal experience of) that you don't need to "believe in" because they're there. Stop over-simplifying this to make yourself look stupid. We are talking about "belief". Not direct knowledge.
Once you park your car and walk away from it, you no longer actually know that it's there. You "believe" it's there because in the past it's always been where you left it. But the truth is that it may not still be there this time. Understanding the limits of what you actually know, you could choose to believe that it won't be there, this time. Just as you are choosing, now, to believe that it is. You won't do this, because you don't want to. But you could, if you did want to.
My point is that you are ignoring the great many things that you don't actually know to be so. But that you believe to be so because you want to, because of habit, and because it makes sense to you that they would be so according to your past experiences. But once you realize that you don't actually know them to be so, you also realize that you could change your belief in them being so.
In the case of the existence of gods, you have never known, and will never know if any gods exist. So your "belief" that they don't, or that they do, was your choice. And is still your choice. There is no knowledge on your part that would stop you from believing otherwise, if you chose to do so.
Then why bother with them? All "belief" is, is your own internal assumption that you are right about something you don't know to be right. So why bother? Why not let what you can know stand on it's own, and let what you don't know be a mystery. What need is there to "believe" anything? Let alone to believe it without the ability to choose?
There are lots of things you "believe in" that you have no way of actually knowing to be so. There are lots of things you "know" (have direct personal experience of) that you don't need to "believe in" because they're there. Stop over-simplifying this to make yourself look stupid. We are talking about "belief". Not direct knowledge.
Once you park your car and walk away from it, you no longer actually know that it's there. You "believe" it's there because in the past it's always been where you left it. But the truth is that it may not still be there this time. Understanding the limits of what you actually know, you could choose to believe that it won't be there, this time. Just as you are choosing, now, to believe that it is. You won't do this, because you don't want to. But you could, if you did want to.
My point is that you are ignoring the great many things that you don't actually know to be so. But that you believe to be so because you want to, because of habit, and because it makes sense to you that they would be so according to your past experiences. But once you realize that you don't actually know them to be so, you also realize that you could change your belief in them being so.
In the case of the existence of gods, you have never known, and will never know if any gods exist. So your "belief" that they don't, or that they do, was your choice. And is still your choice. There is no knowledge on your part that would stop you from believing otherwise, if you chose to do so.
It also spotlights and helps me recognize my own related biases:
I try to give everyone a level of respect and trust I would appreciate them to reciprocate to myself. "Respect is not given, it is earned!" is an idealistic admonishment that I find restrictive in societal growth.
A potentially dangerous and harmful practice, but it's my attempt to "Be the change you want to see."
Ooh! Oooh! I know this wasn't directed at me, I hope you don't mind my input:
1: I do believe in Atlantis. >>Or rather that humans or another Great Ape of similar natures was just as, if not more-so, advanced as we are today. There are academics who are now researching into the possibility that past cataclysms may have sent us back to the stone age, possibly more than once.
2: I do believe in flying saucers. >>Or rather that the US government and possibly other equally technologically advanced nation-states to be testing highly advanced "UAPs". (new acronym that replaced UFO, "Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon")
3: I do not believe in Sasquatch. >> It would seem more likely to me that the encounters of such things to be tribes of primitive people residing in these remote areas of deep forests. Or maybe not as 'primitive' as the results of a gene pool being too small, resulting in the affects of inbreeding. There's also the chance that it's just some luddites who employ fear tactics to maintain their anti-tech lifestyles. It would be amazing if it were full-blooded Neanderthal or another of our Great Ape cousins that have somehow avoided our detection, even if untrue it would still be a fun fiction to imagine.
Ooh! Oooh! I know this wasn't directed at me, I hope you don't mind my input:
1: I do believe in Atlantis. >>Or rather that humans or another Great Ape of similar natures was just as, if not more-so, advanced as we are today. There are academics who are now researching into the possibility that past cataclysms may have sent us back to the stone age, possibly more than once.
2: I do believe in flying saucers. >>Or rather that the US government and possibly other equally technologically advanced nation-states to be testing highly advanced "UAPs". (new acronym that replaced UFO, "Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon")
3: I do not believe in Sasquatch. >> It would seem more likely to me that the encounters of such things to be tribes of primitive people residing in these remote areas of deep forests. Or maybe not as 'primitive' as the results of a gene pool being too small, resulting in the affects of inbreeding. There's also the chance that it's just some luddites who employ fear tactics to maintain their anti-tech lifestyles. It would be amazing if it were full-blooded Neanderthal or another of our Great Ape cousins that have somehow avoided our detection, even if untrue it would still be a fun fiction to imagine.
Having some academic and practical
background in geology / paleontology,
i would say that the chance that any advanced
civilization developed and vanished, leaving no trace, is in the negative minus zero range.
While I have my own issues with the claim that "God is love."...
I would say there are possibly better demonstrations, as your proposal assumes that a deity requires an individual's belief or faith to be whatever it 'is', if it were anything at all.
"If that's the case your god is no more potent than the chemical hormone neuroscientists call Oxytocin. Is god Melatonin also, because some claims of theists sure are tired! Buh-dum-tsk!"
How's that one sound instead?
Other than the fairies of Peter Pan, I can't think of any creatures that cease to exist without believers. That's not to say there isn't a major religion with such a deity, I'm just unaware of them.
I do not have your credentials and cannot posit an appropriate argument, but others who do have such credentials would argue your opinion of #1.
Regarding #2, you should tell the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies to stop preaching 'woo woo', as they have confirmed a specific few of videos sweeping across the internet for the last 10 years to be "UAPs" and possibly extraterrestrial. Though I think they're lying that the UAPs are anything but our own (US) weapons of war. Just as the Roswell incident has been revealed to be the SR-71 project and the coverup of one that crashed in the desert.
I do not have your credentials and cannot posit an appropriate argument, but others who do have such credentials would argue your opinion of #1.
Regarding #2, you should tell the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies to stop preaching 'woo woo', as they have confirmed a specific few of videos sweeping across the internet for the last 10 years to be "UAPs" and possibly extraterrestrial. Though I think they're lying that the UAPs are anything but our own (US) weapons of war. Just as the Roswell incident has been revealed to be the SR-71 project and the coverup of one that crashed in the desert.
You're preaching to the choir, honey. I don't think they're extraterrestrial either. Although the UAPs are factually in existence, I am just unaware of their source. I've exposed my hypothesis previously (US weapons).
You'll have to convince the highest officials in the US governing body if you don't want it publicly announced as a likelihood of reality.
I have no reason to assume anything either way ... about a great many things. I don't have to 'know' everything about everything all the time. In fact, the truth is that none of us know much of anything, much of the time. We just pretend we do, because it makes us feel safe, and 'in control'. And we call that pretense "belief". When we choose to pretend that we know this and that, we say we "believe" it to be so. But all "believing" really is, is our presuming that we're right about what we think is so. But there's no law that says we have to assume that we're right. We can think that "X = X" without assuming that it has to, because we (have to) be right. We don't have to be right, and we aren't a huge majority of the time. We're right enough to get by, but usually not enough to actually understand anything.
Look at these two comments of yours together. First, you tell the world that truth is whatever one decides it is, and then you tell us your truth about how we all think. Of course, you use words like truth, subjective, belief, and knowledge differently than I do, and seem to come to conclusions that I would reject and as I have said before, find to be needlessly vague. I still don't really know what you mean by truth, for example, or subjective truth.
If one has a strictly empirical epistemology, they all fall into place neatly. Truth, belief, and knowledge are all defined in terms of repeatable experience, including so-called subjective truth. One rejects concepts like spiritual truth or religious truth, calling them not truth, but unjustified belief, which you know is also my definition of faith. The sine qua non of faith is that it is not empirical knowledge, that is, not grounded in reason applied to the fruit of the senses. If one learns to exclude that kind of thinking, then one holds no unjustified beliefs, and those beliefs he holds, being justified empirically, can be called correct beliefs and added to the collection of justified beliefs called knowledge.
You don't seem to acknowledge the possibility that people can avoid the mistakes you cite, so you describe them as all pretending at knowledge, deceiving themselves. But think about it: make it your habit of thought to not not accept any idea as correct unless it can be demonstrated to be correct, that belief be tied to the quality and quantity of relevant evidence, semiquantitative (believed as likely, would be surprised to learn it's untrue), and that it be tentative (amenable to revision up or down the likelihood scale depending on new evidence). One simply stops admitting insufficiently supported ideas into the personal belief set, and in so doing, acquires a set of reliable and tested beliefs. This is nothing like what you describe for all others.
Some people experience an unpleasant, soapy taste when they eat cilantro: "for those cilantro-haters for whom the plant tastes like soap, the issue is genetic. These people have a variation in a group of olfactory-receptor genes that allows them to strongly perceive the soapy-flavored aldehydes in cilantro leaves." The experience of cilantro is subjective, but reproducible in each subject. Or maybe from where you're standing, a car is emitting a glare not seen by others looking from different perspectives. You squint but nobody else does. You're all having subjective but reproducible experiences, all subjective truth for those looking over their shoulders in the same direction.
In the case of the existence of gods, you have never known, and will never know if any gods exist. So your "belief" that they don't, or that they do, was your choice. And is still your choice. There is no knowledge on your part that would stop you from believing otherwise, if you chose to do so.
This doesn't apply to the strict empiricist, who will not make a "choice" regarding the existence of gods. This is exactly how this kind of analysis minimizes false belief. We have no test, equation, experiment, or algorithm to decide the matter. If one guesses, he may guess wrong. That's how one acquires wrong ideas.
Furthermore, when you say that there is no knowledge that would change one's belief, you're describing faith - nothing can penetrate its confirmation biases. The critical thinker is open-minded, that is, can be convinced with compelling evidence as described above, and in this:
The moderator in a debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, "What would change your minds?" Science educator Bill Nye answered, "Evidence." Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, "Nothing. I'm a Christian." Elsewhere, Ham added, "By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record." Isn't Ham what you just described? He doesn't represent al minds, just the closed ones that believe by faith.
I happen to believe that I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier. This is an idea I generated empirically learning the layout of my neighborhood. Using it, I can reliably get to the pier from my front door every time. I don't know what you mean by "assumption that you are right about something you don't know to be right." Maybe you're referring to some brain-in-a-box or last Thursdayism form of radical skepticism.
You're preaching to the choir, honey. I don't think they're extraterrestrial either. Although the UAPs are factually in existence, I am just unaware of their source. I've exposed my hypothesis previously (US weapons).
You'll have to convince the highest officials in the US governing body if you don't want it publicly announced as a likelihood of reality.
There are videos, perhaps not evidence of what the objects' origins nor their purpose for being in US airspace. But it is evidence that things can defy physics (or how we understand it) none-the-less.
It's interesting, you should check it out. Look up the 'Sphere' 'Acorn' and 'Metallic Blimp' UAP videos that were leaked by U.S. Naval and Airforce pilots.
They were confirmed real footage of what was (quoting the Pentagon report) "unknown origins" and by a former member of the team investigating the phenomena, "Off-world vehicles not made on this Earth".
