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Why does a person believe in the Bible, even when they don't have an understanding of it, do you think?
I think people believe whatever appears to comport with their experience of reality. But what few people realize is that what appears to comport with their experience of reality is in large part being dictated by how they expect reality to appear. Thus, their preconceptions of reality greatly effect and bias their current perceptions of reality. It's a bias that is impossible for us to avoid, but that can at least be acknowledged, and accounted for. Though it almost never is.
What are your beliefs based on? What's reality to you, or how do you determine what is reality, in dealing with this subject?
This is a common error among creationists. You're confusing order with design. What we observe as order in the universe is just how energy/matter behaves according to the laws of physics.
I must say that the mere fact that we, considered as the human race, have thought about eternity for a lonnng time. Just got an old National Geographic talking about the ancient Egyptians and their thoughts (put into sometimes very sad practice) about eternal life. That thought in humans even if I don't agree with their ideas about what happens when we die, has long been around.
Sometimes I chase after an ant on my counter and smash it. It usually tries to run away. Do I actually believe it has forethoughts about dying? (No.) Do I think it cares? No, I do not. Going up to dogs and cats and sheep, etc., when they are put to death, yes, they have an instinct for survival which God put into them. But do I think God made man different in thought process from dogs, cats, chimpanzees, etc.? (You guessed it -- yes, I do.)
That's right, you cannot force God into existence by manipulative language. And I presume you don't believe what the Bible says. Right? I ask because it has recordings of miraculous occurrences, and instruction from God. But I'm centering in this conversation basically about miracles, particularly starting from Moses, who began writing the scrolls as we generally know them in the collection of books known as the Bible.
According to science, this will not happen. Forever is a long time. Here is the timeline of human evolution. See how many species have come and gone in the last 5 million years.
I know the difference between order and design. Thank you. I did not say order. Thank you.
It's ALL "reality". Including my errant preconception and my current perceptions of it. It's from that realization that I proceed to determine how to respond to it. I don't "believe in" any particular reality paradigm because I understand that our reality paradigms are bound not to be accurate in many ways. So the way to proceed, I think, is to keep that in mind and try to be ready to change and adapt to the unexpected results.
In other words, you won't be able to tell truth from error, but you may be forced to go with one or the other. Is that an accurate assessment?
Sort of. "Truth" and "error" are both manifestations of how the human brain cognates information. How relevant this is to the actual information is unknown. So there is 'truth' from our cognitive (relative) perspective, and there is 'what is' (absolute truth). We can grasp the former, but not the latter. We just don't have the capacity. So we have to live on the level of functionality, because we cannot live on the level of Truth. Understanding this, though, we can at least be aware of that level of truth, even if we can't comprehend it. And we can live somewhat more effectively and authentically as a result.
I do not "believe in" anything related to the "actual existence of God/gods". I am profoundly agnostic as I cannot possibly determine whether God exists or not, or in what manner. I can, however, choose to imagine the best version of God that could exist, and then choose to hope and trust in the idea that this God does exist, and to live according to that hope. Whether I am right or wrong is IRRELEVANT because I cannot possibly know either way. What IS RELEVANT are the results in my life of having made these choices. And I find that, for me, the results are far superior to those experienced before making the choice.
You are confused in that you still think there is a right and wrong answer to the question of God's nature and existence. For us (humans), there is none. And you are confusing the myths and images and ideologies that humans have invented to represent the great and divine mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is with the great and divine mystery, itself. The pictures, and the stories, and the proclamations of religion, and so on, are not God. They are just some of the multitude of ways in which we humans try to grapple with the incomprehensible.
Right, you used misleading words and definitions that you used to make a flawed and inaccurate conclusion. These kind of language tricks don't work. That creationists are motivated to use them shows the fraud in religious thinking.
Assuming the instructions actually came from a God, and not humans. Pay attention to many of those instructions that we modern folks would consider crimes against humanity and criminal. Kinda fishy that God would make those kinds of moral errors, don't you think?
Moses isn't thought to have been a real person. And the books attributed to this character aren't considered to be from one person, or a Moses. We need to examine all this from a more factual approach rather than from the various religious assumptions.
Because they were indoctrinated as children.