Why You Should Be A Skeptic
I’m a skeptic and you should be too….within reason.
I don’t mean that you should go around and be a negative skeptic who throws a wet blanket on everything. I have spent plenty of time in my life being that guy and you need to know something if you don’t already know it. He isn’t fun to be around. He can be a jerk and a host of other names that can’t probably be said in this family friendly setting.
What I mean is that you should always be questioning what you hear and what you see. You should be measuring it against the word of God. Not what your parents told you. Not what your Sunday school teacher taught you. Not what your preacher preached from the pulpit. Not what Ben Franklin wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanac.
The Bereans in Acts were reasonable skeptics. They received the word that Paul preached with eagerness. They searched the scriptures daily to see if what Paul was saying was true.
See what kind of skeptic we should be?
We should be skeptics who receive the proclaimed word of God with eagerness.
Then we should search the scriptures daily to see if what is proclaimed is true.
It kind of reminds me of what Ronald Reagan said when dealing with U.S. -Soviet relations: Trust, but verify.
We should trust those who come to us wanting to teach us. We should receive it as positively as possible. Then we should verify what they have to say with the word of God.
Are you a reasonable skeptic?
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I have often said from the pulpit: “Don’t take my word for it. never be afraid to test what i say against the Scripture.” Good advice Larry.
It blows my mind how many people take what the preacher says as Gospel.
Good post Larry. I too have always advised my listeners to search the scriptures and test what I say against them. We go one step further in the informality of our Quaker Meetings for Worship. I actually encourage questions and discussions DURING the message. It keeps me down-to-earth and more fully engages our congregation as they are participants, searching the scriptures with me, rather than just listeners.
Dialogue vs. Monologue in sermons would be interesting. Thanks David.
Larry, this healthy skepticism is one of the reasons why my wife and I are transitioning our family away from the church where we’ve been. Among other things, they had a guest who said–from the pulpit–”God is against sin because it hurts people.” No mention of His holiness, about Him being against because He can’t abide its presence.
What would you say to someone who applies a skeptical attitude to the proclamations made at their church and in their bible and then determines that the entire religion is false?
I would, first, calmly tell them that I disagree with them. Second, I would try to get at the heart of what it was that they were really skeptical of, because plenty of people take what the Bible says and make religion out of it. I would love them and, basically, not try to convince them of anything. That is the Holy Spirit’s job, not mine.
It sounds like you are assuming they are not “really” skeptical of the reliability of the bible or of Christianity. Why couldn’t it be that they have actually made a careful and reasoned analysis of the claims of the bible and found them lacking?
Secondly, I am puzzled by the portion of your comment which reads:
“…plenty of people take what the Bible says and make religion out of it.”
What else might they make out of the bible but religion? What do you make out of the bible if not a religion?
No, I’m not assuming they aren’t skeptical. I would just want to get at the heart of what made them that way. What was it in their life that led them to being skeptical?
If they searched and found it lacking, ok. I know people who searched what was in the Bible and the historical record surrounding it to be incredibly reliable. I think both people, actually, took what they found on faith. One has faith in it not being reliable and the other other does. It isn’t my job to convince them. If I believe in the Holy Spirit, and I do, then when He puts someone in front of me who asks questions, I will answer them and love them. If they don’t, then I will love them.
I grew up in an environment where we were very religious. The Pharisees in the Bible were religious. Jesus came to show that He was the Way. So I came to a point where I realized that faith in Christ could not be a religion or a set of rules. It was about having a relationship with the God of the Universe through His Son, who paid the penalty for my sins and gave me the gift of eternal life through faith in Christ. It wasn’t about me being in church every time the doors were open or any rule that anyone could lay on me. In Christ there is freedom. So, I don’t see that as religion.
So, Jamie, if you continue to engage me here on this blog, I will love you. I will pray for you. And I hope we can be friendly and blog friends.
You seem to be confused about the nature of evidence and what it means to accept a proposition through a process of reason. You said:
” I know people who searched what was in the Bible and the historical record surrounding it to be incredibly reliable. I think both people, actually, took what they found on faith. One has faith in it not being reliable and the other other does.”
Is the process used by these people you know a reliable one? Did they consult with professionals in the relevant fields and weigh the evidence accordingly? Was the result of questions like these (and others) vetted with clarity, accuracy and logic?
These are just some of the questions that would need to be answered in order to produce a robust, reliable conclusion. I have never met a single individual who has accepted the supernatural claims of the bible based upon a such a process.
In the end, the only justification one can harness is faith. Unfortunately, faith proves nothing.
I appreciate you being concerned that I am confused.
What I am saying is that I know people who have examined the evidence and came to a separate conclusion than the one who are proposing. I have one particular friend who was a secular Jew. He examined the evidence and made the exact opposite decision to believe. So have others that I have heard and read about.
It absolutely comes down to a matter of faith. Someone who makes the reasoned choice that you propose takes in on faith that their evidence is correct. My friend took on faith that the evidence he examined was correct.
The fact that there is a God is absolutely unprovable. I’m not trying to prove anything. I don’t want to prove anything to you. I believe that God created this world. He created man. He created Israel. He became God in human form and was called Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect, sinless life. He died on the cross after a kangaroo court and paid the debt for my sins. He was resurrected three days later. He appeared to some women, Peter, the other disciples and a few hundred others. He ascended to heaven and waits to return.
I can’t prove that. I don’t care to. I believe it. I have faith in it.
Something I think is that most people who use this process of yours are already predisposed to not believe in any sort of supernatural. Therefore, they aren’t ever going to have enough evidence to prove what they want proven to them. They cannot get to the point of believing in any sort of supernatural being involved because it cannot be proven to them.
Me? I simply believe. I believe and have faith in what I cannot see. That is really what faith is. Hope in what cannot be seen. In what cannot be proven.
Like I said, I don’t care to even attempt to prove anything to you or anyone else. I only care to live a life of following Christ. I will screw that up. I will fail. And I will try to be better tomorrow. And I will love. If that doesn’t seem rational, that’s ok. I don’t mind.
This notion you have that faith is equivalent to evidence processed through a reliable chain of reason is quite strange. Suppose someone came to you and said the following:
“I have faith that if I fling myself from this rooftop, I will not hit the ground. I have faith that I will fly away into the clouds.”
It seems clear that this person has made a mistake. Are you saying that their belief has the same validity as a physicist who cautions them against such a foolhardy action?
In your comment, you said:
“Something I think is that most people who use this process of yours are already predisposed to not believe in any sort of supernatural. Therefore, they aren’t ever going to have enough evidence to prove what they want proven to them.”
I am fully prepared to accept the existence of god, angels, pixies, or whatever else can be demonstrated to actually exist through reason and evidence. If magic powers existed, they would have an effect on the world. This effect can be measured and/or argued. There is no such reliable evidence, and so I do not accept the existence of magic powers.
Of course, those who believe in god have a much worse problem than evidence. Before we even get to physical evidence, we must have a definition that makes sense for this being you call “god”. I have yet to hear a coherent definition from a Christian as to just what their god is.
Again, I am not trying to prove anything to you. What I am relating to you is that people I know have examined evidence and they choose to believe in God. Of course it takes faith for them to believe. I have not discounted the fact that it takes faith for them or anyone else to believe.
You and your side have examined the evidence and have chosen to believe what you believe. You have faith that all of the evidence is correct. You can’t see God or see evidence that Jesus performed miracles or was resurrected. So you have faith that it didn’t happen.
My next question is why would you even care if I believe the way I believe or nof? I have said that I cannot prove God. But if I do try to convince you, I do it because I love you and want you to experience the benefits if my faith, which are love, peace, joy, eternal life and a relationship with Christ. What does your belief offer me? What benefits does becoming someone who does not believe offer?
Help me out here. What is your agenda in engaging me?
I noticed that you asked several questions of me without answering any of mine. I try very hard to be a part of a balanced dialogue and I hope you intend the same. With that said, I will address some of your more recently stated concerns.
You said:
“You have faith that all of the evidence is correct. You can’t see God or see evidence that Jesus performed miracles or was resurrected. So you have faith that it didn’t happen.”
You continue to show a misunderstanding about the nature of evidence and the burden of proof. I’ll repeat my previous question here. Suppose someone says this to you:
“I have faith that if I fling myself from this rooftop, I will not hit the ground. I have faith that I will fly away into the clouds.”
Are you saying that their belief has the same validity as a physicist who cautions them against such a foolhardy action?
This question really goes to the heart of the issue we have here. Please address this question and we can try to narrow down how your views on reason and evidence are actually used.
You continue:
” What does your belief offer me? What benefits does becoming someone who does not believe offer?”
This issue isn’t about what you will get out of it. This issue is about what is an accurate portrayal of reality and what isn’t. What you might like to believe has zero bearing on what actually is true.
Imagine someone telling you they believed there was a mountain of gold waiting for them in the the Gobi desert. You then tell them you haven’t seen any evidence that there is such a mountain. Their response is then to ask you “what do I get out of accepting your viewpoint? What benefit will it grant me?”
Do you see how this person has missed the point? Yes, it is rather less exciting to not believe a mountain of gold awaits you somewhere….but believing there is a mountain of gold awaiting you when there is no evidence to prove it is an unreliable process for making decisions about how the world actually works.
To sum up:
Do you think the belief that you can defy gravity after throwing yourself off of a rooftop has the same validity as the view that you will actually fall? Are they really the same, Larry? Why?
No. I believe that if someone flings themself off a roof they will fall. Believing you will not fall will not make you fly. But let me ask you this. Have you ever seen gravity? Or have you only seen the effects of gravity? How about the wind? I believe wind exists, but I have never actually seen the wind. I have seen the effects of wind.
I have never seen the God I profess to believe in. But I have seen the effects of Him in peoples lives. I can’t show you God or Christ. The proof that He exists is that I will love you even if you won’t believe in Him. If you need me, I will be there. If you curse me, I will still love you. If you strike me, I will forgive you. If you are naked, I will clothe you. If you are hungry, I will feed you. Daily I will pray for you.
All of that seems a bit irrational to me. And I hope to continue practicing irrational acts as often as possible.
I don’t think you understand how conclusions are reached in science. The fact that you think gravity and wind are somehow analogous to someone’s subjective emotional state shows me that you have very little experience with the process of drawing conclusions from experimental data.
Gravitation is the sum of the effects that you are talking about. Scientists don’t witness an effect and then invent a “thing” to explain it and then attach other “beliefs” onto that “thing”. That is not how a robust, acceptable scientific framework is established.
Scientists witness an effect, measure the effect in order to establish an objective criteria for its existence, repeat experimentation from many different vantage points to further establish the objective existence of the previously witnessed effect, and all the while tweaking variables until slowly, a framework comes out of the experimentation.
On the occasion when a scientist come up with a mechanism for the witnessed effect they actually try to prove themselves wrong. This is vital. Using a double-blinded, peer-reviewed process combined with mathematical tools for minimizing error and presenting their work to people who probably don’t agree with them, the scientist’s ideas go through a trial by fire (and the vast majority of the time, they wind up having to start from scratch after being proven wrong).
The core of science is this self-correcting method of testing one’s own conclusions.
I don’t doubt that you and many others have experienced profound and meaningful states during prayer, meditation, worship and at other times. I have no doubt that you FEEL some amazing things.
But all of these feelings do not, as you imagine, point to anything other than the fact that you FEEL THINGS. You have dreamed up a mechanism for your feelings that you call “god” but you have failed to go through anything like the process I describe above.
Even worse, you have yet to come up with a coherent definition for your mechanism.
The short version is this: Just because you feel something, doesn’t mean it exists outside of your brain. To establish this, you need a reliable process of examination and extrapolation performed through reason.
“I feel things” isn’t going to get you there.
I wasn’t aware that I had ever said that God could be proven by science.
Do you believe in love? Prove it.
Do you believe in beauty? Prove it.
Do you believe in joy? Happiness?
But let me follow what seems to be the logical conclusion of your rationalism. If, through rationalism, I determine that God cannot be proven and, therefore, there is no God, then I have approximately 30 to 40 years of life left barring an tragedy. There is nothing beyond this world. This is it. No hope for anything else. I will simply be worm food when they bury me.
The most important thing in the world, then, is….me. Nothing else matters. No one else matters. My wife does not matter. My children do no matter. The only thing that is important is what makes me happy and benefits me.
It doesn’t matter who I step on or hurt in the process of making me happy. The only reason that I am kind or love is because it will benefit me. Loving someone then is not what my current definition of love is, which is wanting the best for someone else over my own. The definition then becomes is wanting the best for someone else as long as I gain the benefit from it. In other words, it cancels each other out.
It would be illogical to be kind unless it will simply help me succeed.
Rational thought would lead me to a survival of the fittest type of lifestyle. We should not help the poor. They are a drain on society. We should not help the disabled. They are using up our resources. We should not help the aged. They are going to die anyway. We should abort babies if they will be born with a defect. We should limit the reproduction of those who are irrational. They will simply produce more irrational people.
That is the logical conclusion of holding to rational thought and doing away with God. In His place, we make ourselves God.
But what do I know?
I am a steward of the irrational.
Here is one other thing.
If I am wrong and you are right, so what? I will simply die and go off into nothingness.
I I am right and you are wrong, I will live eternally with the God who sent His Son to save me.
If you are right and I am wrong, you will die and go off into nothingness.
If you are wrong and I am right, you will suffer the wages of death and condemnation and eternal separation from God.
So, if I chose your way, I live with the prospect of dying and that’s it. Nothing else. That is pretty bleak. Sad. Just a few more years. Something to fear.
But, if I choose my way, I will life with hope, joy, peace, happiness, love and much more.
I’ll stick with my way.
You said:
“I wasn’t aware that I had ever said that God could be proven by science.”
You didn’t. What you DID claim is that me and “my side” do not believe in god based on faith. I refuted that assertion by providing my example of someone claiming they could fly away into the clouds. The point here is that evidence matters and anyone claiming that everyone’s beliefs are based on faith really doesn’t understand the process of science or logical analysis.
Moving on, you then attempt to equivocate between two different forms of “feelings”. You said:
“Do you believe in love? Prove it.”
I know that love exists because love is an emotion that I feel. Are you claiming that your god is nothing more than an emotion that you feel? Of course you aren’t.
When I say, “I know that love exists because I feel it” I don’t need any external proof because love is just an emotion. I wonderful and moving emotion…but nothing more. I am not claiming that it exists somehow outside of my own sensation of it.
If you were claiming that your god was just an emotion, then that would be all the proof you would need for its existence. What you are doing is quite a bit different, however. You are claiming that because you FEEL an emotion, then that is proof that something other than that emotion exists and is causing it.
These two are not at all analogous. To illustrate this, imagine someone said to you, “I know that love exists because I feel it.” No problem there. But what if this same person said, “I know that unicorns exist because I feel their their love.” Do you see how the second sentence is entirely different that the first?
You continue with a startling line of thinking:
“But let me follow what seems to be the logical conclusion of your rationalism…….The most important thing in the world, then, is….me. Nothing else matters. No one else matters. My
wife does not matter. My children do no matter. The only thing that is important is what makes me happy and benefits me.”
I can’t fathom how you came to this conclusion. This isn’t at all a rational conclusion from the premise of using evidence and reason to decide which claims to accept.
You go on to reiterate this kind of thinking:
“It would be illogical to be kind unless it will simply help me succeed.”
Why do you think this? I can’t imagine how you have reached the conclusion that if god doesn’t exist, then it doesn’t matter whether or not you hurt people.
In your second post, you make a horrendous miscalculation. Your entire point in that post is based on the assumption that there are only two choices – believing in your god or not believing in any god.
The problem here is that there are untold numbers of gods and religions which claim to be the one, true god. By believing in your god you are also not accepting Zeus, Jupiter, Shiva, Allah, Dagon, Baal, Cheng San-Kung, and thousands upon thousands of others. Each of these might send you to their own hell for not believing in them.
So you see, your odds of guessing right become much, much smaller than you imagine. If you pick the wrong “god” you will be denied heaven and sent instead to hell.
It’s not so simple now, is it?
Beyond all of that, you seem to be claiming that your god will reward people for believing in him just to get into heaven. If this is why you believe, then YOU are the one calculating your moves based simply on what benefits you.
You know that love exists because you feel this emotion. Prove it scientifically and rationally.
Did you read what I wrote? Emotion is a self-referential state. When you say, “I feel love.” You are saying, “I am experiencing a subjective sensation which is commonly described as love.”
Read the above again: Subjective emotion. Not objective. If you FEEL love…then you FEEL love. End of story.
What you are claiming is entirely different. You are claiming that “I FEEL love…therefore god exists and is the one loving me.” These are two entirely different things.
I’ll say it again:
“I feel love…therefore I know that the emotion of love exists.” No problem there.
“I feel love…therefore unicorns exist and they are giving me that love.” Totally different and without rational foundation.
You are confusing the experience of emotion with an external construct.
This whole question is nonsense as Descartes demonstrated a long time ago with his famous “cogito ergo sum” argument. You might just as well ask: “If you are having an experience, how do you know you are having an experience?” I know because I am having the experience.
The only reason this question seems to make sense to you is because you have confused a subjective emotional state with an external objective reality.
I am a steward of the irrational according to your website.
I am not confused.
You cannot prove God exists any more than I can prove He does.
The bottom line is this entire exercise is pointless. You can’t change my mind because I am irrational and confused. Ignorant to the truth of rational proof that my superstitious beliefs are simply illogical and false.
You are blind to the truth of God. Just as everyone else is unless the Holy Spirit enables them to see.
We can do this everyday, but what will really happen. You will continue to write things I don’t buy. I will continue to write things you won’t buy.
You will go onto my prayer list. I will pray that the Lord will send someone else into your life to do through them what I cannot: help you see that He created this world, sent His Son to pay the debt of your sins on the cross with his death and blood, and eagerly awaits you to believe and have faith in Him.
For by grace you have been saved, through faith; and that’s not of yourselves, it is the gift of God
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosover believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
Okay, then. I thought we were doing well enough but your last comment (#22) seemed to be rather snarky.
Obviously, if you don’t wish to explain why you “don’t buy” my arguments, then that is your choice and I can’t (nor would I) force you to explain any further. I have explained my views carefully enough, and that is all that I can do.
I you ever wish to continue this you obviously know where to find me (you can even come visit us over there or at our Freethought Oasis facebook page.)
I certainly did not mean for anything to be snarky.
Why would not not buy your argument? Because you can’t prove to me that God does not exist. I already believe, but everything you could show me would come to the point where I would say, “If I didn’t believe in God, I would believe you.’
But let go back to your original question:
What would you say to someone who applies a skeptical attitude to the proclamations made at their church and in their bible and then determines that the entire religion is false?
I would wonder what presupposition they went into their examination of looking at their church and their bible. (Because I don’t believe that anyone goes into anything without a presupposition.) So, if I go into this exercise with the presupposition that I will find that what the church says and the Bible says is false, then I will not be swayed.
So, if the church and the Bible say that God created the world, and I am skeptical of this, then I will look at the scientific evidence and agree with scientists that there was a big bang. But if I look at it with the presupposition that there is a God and I am not skeptical, then I will say, sure there was a big bang, but there was a Big Banger than kicked it off.
We both agree that something happened, that creation happened, that the world and the universe began, one of us just happens to believe there is this Agent of Creation that began it. That Agent cannot be scientifically proven.
However, I don’t think that science and faith have to be mutually exclusive. Certainly men like Newton and Pascal didn’t think so either.
So, someone examines things scientifically and they say there was the big bang and evolution happened. I don’t believe in evolution. or at least not the way that someone who believes it does. I believe that God created the world, said Let there be light, and did all of that through six days. Am I concerned whether that was literally six straight days or if it was the gap theory where those days happened over a long period of time? Not for this argument. I will prefer to let those on our side fight that battle within our debates.
So, the person who is skeptical looks at all of this and they can only see what is directly before them. Faith does not make sense to the skeptic who wants all of this to be proven to them. Why? It simply cannot be proven. It is irrational to them.
The Bible is full of things that aren’t rational. It isn’t rational for a guy named Abram to go to a land that God would show him. It isn’t rational for a man named Paul, who was on the fast track to be one of the chief Pharisees in the Jewish religion, to switch sides because Jesus appeared to him on the Damascus road. It certainly isn’t rational to believe that a man was born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit, live a sinless life, put up no resistance when He is put on trial, die on a cross, come back to life and ascend to heaven and wait to come back at some undetermined time in the future.
None of that will be rational to the rationalist or skeptic who has determined that there is no God or that they cannot know if there is a God.
Faith simply isn’t rational in that sense.
So, we don’t have to have any scientific proof. We believe it. We believe that there is a supernatural element that enabled us to believe all of this. It’s unexplainable other than to say there comes this moment that you see everything differently and believe everything differently. And for whatever reason that we don’t know, that hasn’t happened to the skeptic. Paul writes in Romans that some are created to be vessels of mercy and some are created to be vessels of wrath. Perhaps that’s the reason. I don’t get too wrapped up in that. All I know is that I believe and no one can prove to me that God doesn’t exist or that Christ wasn’t God
Most of your argument seems to rest on what you said here:
“Why would not not buy your argument? Because you can’t prove to me that God does not exist.”
This is one of the most important problems with your position as laid out here. If I could pick two concepts every human being could understand which would improve their thinking, this would be one of them: The burden of proof rests with those who believe, not not those who don’t believe..
Let me explain: If someone says, “I believe that pixies actually exist.” They must show proof that pixies exist. I do not have to prove that pixies DON’T exist.
Why? Well, think about how that would work in real life. Anyone in the world could claim, for instance, that there is an invisible pixie who flies around in the sky and helps the forests grow with magic. If those who do NOT accept this view have the burden of proof, then there is essentially no way to make a case that an invisible pixie is not there.
You could say, “We don’t see a pixie” and Pixie-Believer would say, “Well, of course not! It’s invisible.” Then you could say, “Well, we have used infrared, x-ray, electromagnetic imaging, and many other things that CAN detect objects which are not visible to the naked eye and we still didn’t find the pixie.” Pixie-Believer then says, “Well, of course not! Pixie is magic! Pixie can make itself completely undetectable, fly faster than light, use magic to make things happen without anybody understanding how it works and doesn’t want to be found with the tools you are using.”
Then the scientists ask Pixie-Believer, “Then how do we find the Pixie?” Pixie-Believer says, “You just have to call out for the Pixie’s love and you will feel it. When you FEEL it, that is proof that pixies exist.”
Do you see how this system of exploring the world leads to nonsense? This is an unreliable process for making conclusions about the world. That is why the burden of proof rests with the believer. All of the pixie nonsense in the above paragraphs would stop pretty quickly if the scientists had said, “Well, where is your evidence to prove that pixies DO exist?” No response. Or even worse, something like this, “Well, I can’t prove it, but I believe it anyway.”
This person would rightly be thought confused about how to reason effectively.
The second point I would like to make here is that you began this blog post touting the importance of skepticism. You urged people to investigate, discover for themselves and don’t take the pastor’s or the author’s words at face value. You asked them to be a skeptic…..and now you’re saying something like, “Well, don’t be a skeptic about this!”
You seem to want people to be skeptical but some things are off-limits, so to speak. This is a recipe for forming nonsense beliefs. What you seem to be saying is, “Skepticism is great, but don’t be skeptical about belief X. For belief X, it’s okay to be irrational and just “have faith” without applying skepticism to whether or not the belief is actually true.
You admit that your beliefs are irrational. You admit that the bible is irrational. You urge others to use skepticism….except when it comes to god and the bible. This is a perfect recipe for shutting down honest investigation and critical inquiry.
But again, I have never claimed that I cared to prove God. If I had approached you on your site to engage you, then I would think that I should have to prove my point to you. Since you approached me, I would say again, that I cannot present you enough evidence to cause you to believe.
My original post was written to encourage other people who believeI as I do to check what our pastors proclaim against what our scriptures say. In other words, carry your Bible to church or use your Smart Phone app and measure what he says against what the scripture says.
In no way way was I encouraging anyone to have any sort of skepticism regarding our faith. Simply make sure what he says matches what we claim to believe.
Now you feel I need to prove to you that God exists to justify why I believe this. I cannot simply believe. I mean I could reference the historical record of Josephus that he existed.
I could say that there were 11 guys who were scared to death and feared for their lives. Something happened to them to cause them to become bold and proclaim the Gospel despite them being traitors to their faith.
I could say that Paul was a murderous Pharisee who was in hot pursuit of early Christians and then suddenly switched sides and went to jail and suffered for the Lord who he was previously against.
But I don’t believe you would believe that.
I could say that I was just going along in life, minding my own business being your normal church going person not doing much of anything. Then suddenly one day it became clear to me that what I had heard all of my life was truer than any other truth and that Christ must the central figure in my life.
I could say that it became clear to me one day that I must move my family to another city, go to school, work three jobs just because I was supposed to. And then move back a year later.
I could say that my mind was darkened in its understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that was in me and because of the hardness of my heart.
I could say that that I was dead in my trespasses and sins, but that Christ has made me alive.
I could say that I am now in Christ. The old things have passed away and the new has come.
I could say that I walk by faith, not sight.
I could say that I am no longer conformed to this world, but I am transformed by the renewing of my mind.
I could say that I was blind, but now I see.
I could say I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
I could say that this Gospel is the same one that Paul preached and by which I am saved: Christ died, He was buried, He was raised on the third day. He appeared to Peter and then the twelve. Then he appeared to 500 others. Then to James and the other apostles. And finally to Paul.
And people believed their testimony. And believed and believed for the past two thousand years.
And obviously I believe. So I don’t need to go examine any rational scientific evidence.
So if that seems irrational to atheists and agnostics and rational thinkers, then ok. I’m cool with that. If they and you think that is equivalent to believing in pixies, then ok.
I’ll let guys like Lee Strobel fight those battles. That isn’t what I am called to do. I am called to proclaim the good news and encourage my fellow believers. I will pray for those who don’t believe that, like me, they will have their lives changes.
But prove God??? Nah, He’s never required me or anyone else to prove Him.
We “believe” in evolution, actually I hate to use that term because it is more about acceptance than belief, we accept evolution because there is a plethora of evidence that proves it, clear down to our genes. Did a Deity of some sort cause the start of evolution by some kind of event? Possibly. However, we have studies on abiogensis and how it can happen naturally under the right conditions. Whether some “being” caused those conditions is undetermined. That is the whole point that people need to understand when it comes to the proof of any Gods existence; There is a extreme lack of evidence of anything supernatural and personal experience can be explained through psychological phenomena, so until there is evidence that is in favor with God or the supernatural its existence has to be undetermined. To believe that something like that exists and make claims about it that are mostly contradicted by the books used to represent that God(i.e. God is loving, all powerful, supremely moral vs. biblical accounts of Gods actions show God to be a monster).
Faith in a religious sense is a self delusion to believe something that has very low probability of existing. Just because you believe something doesn’t mean it is true or it exists at all. In order to progress as a species we need the majority of humans to have a basic understanding of logic and critical thinking as well as a database of ideas, and/or “beliefs” that are based on fact. We need our beliefs based on fact because our beliefs guide our actions and if our beliefs are wrong or based on fallacy then bad things can happen.(mother drowns children because she thought God told her to, etc) The thing about most Atheists is that if you show us proof of a God we will believe that God exists, doesn’t mean we will worship it, it just means that we will acknowledge its existence.
Too many people fall into this trap of ignorance where they a spiritually or religiously persuaded(by themselves or others) to ignore reality in favor of their chosen religion. It is one thing to deny reality yourself and keep that to yourself but it is quite another thing when you or a group of “reality deniers”(is me being nice when naming them) try to enforce your ignorance onto others by trying to creep religious ideas into science classes at schools or having people who deny science but play politician to get themselves elected into the governments science division, then show him publicly denying the existence of well established theories and using religious references to describe them. That is when people like me and the other Atheists need to speak out and make these arguments over and over until people see reality and take the initiative to learn something through science.
Ok