One of the first questions I had to answer for myself, is my choice of jobs really what I want to do with my life? The answer was yes, I like repairing things and I am very good at it.
The second question was, am I living in the part of the world I want to. There seemed to be a large number of folks around me that had never been much more than barely having crossed the state line. They said “Yep, Arkansas is God’s country”, I had to wonder, how do these people know? They have never been even three states away from it.
I have been sort of well traveled and I thought about the places I had been to and I decided that, yes I am happy in Arkansas. I am not sure I will remain here through out my retirement years, but it is likely I will.
The third question I pondered is why I vote as I do. When we are young we tend to be idealist, as we grow older we slant more toward the realist side of the equation.
I had voted mostly the republican ticket verses the democrat ticket. As I grew older I came to realize that both parties had feet of clay. Now days I tend to want to vote the 3rd party ticket, except I know that vote would mostly be meaningless. Now days I can say honestly that I am an independent voter. I am no longer a sheep.
The fourth question was, what do I believe about God or do I even believe in God. I tried to take the same logical approach to that question as I do to almost everything else in my life.
The first conclusion I came to is that for the non-believer there is no way to “prove” God one way or the other. That left me with judging the “probability” of God.
When I tried to come up with a criteria for judging the correct answer to this question I first turned to science. Science does not seek to prove or disprove God so it was of small help. The one aspect of the question that did seem helpful was that, many atheists seemed to try and use scientific findings to suggest that God doesn’t exist.
These folks seemed to be the most objective people of all, so I gave a lot of weight to what ever they had to say. Most of them seemed to be well read, objective people.
(I hope to continue this aspect of my thoughts on a later thread).
There was a time when that question 4 came to my mind often, in regards to people of faith.
The first group of them seemed to be born in to a certain faith because of their parents being of that faith. For me, they deserved the least amount of creditability when judging the reasons for their chosen faith. They were the ones that seemed to do the least amount of questioning as to why they believe what they believe. For me, they lacked objectivity, and for the most part, they still do.
Of a second group, some tell me they “had a feeling” come over them when they received a certain message from a sermon or inter-action with a person of a certain faith. This “feeling” allows the world and afterlife to make sense for them. This type person, for me, has very little more creditability in explaining why they believe what they believe than the first group.
But you can listen to them and their recounts and you can at least weigh where their belief comes from and why they believe. You can deduce whether they are a logical objective thinking person or not.
You can determine if they are sheep to be led easily or if they are aware and question what someone tells them. When you run into the latter type you can have an enlightening exchange of ideas.
The third type I have met claim to have had some revelation or personal inter-action with God. These people have the strongest type of faith. I had not understood the reason for that strength till an event happened to me personally (more on that on the second part thread).
I found this last type to be most frustrating. They came across as, ditzy and would have believed in a “personal revelation from the weatherman on their evening news broadcast”, or, they seemed to be logical, sane, people who would not be easily duped. Yet their personal revelation did nothing to help me understand enough to make a decision.
The first group, of this last type, could be written off easier than any other group. The second group, of this last type, are the ones I found most interesting and frustrating at the same time. The personal inter-actions or revelation seemed, to me, to be real and without a clear source. Often times their conversion seemed to come out of the blue. These weren’t the ones that were searching and just “found the first port in a storm”, so to speak.
I found them frustrating because, for them what they had experienced had a profound effect on them, yet for me it did nothing.
Till sometime later in life I didn’t spend much time thinking about “why people believe what they believe”. I just sorted the different people into the different categories I have listed above.
There comes a time in, any sane questioning person’s, life that we review “what” we believe and “why” we believe it. The person I have the least amount time for is the sheep that are easily led by a glib tongue or a family history of a certain belief. If you are the type that doesn’t question, then what good are you to those seeking answers? What objectivity do you have?
Science offers a lot of answers. Science is often dismissed by people of faith because science doesn’t “prove” or "agree with" what believers believe. For me my faith is based on something other than what science seeks to prove or disprove.
When I started seeking the answer to God, I was left with what was more probable.
One of the foremost questions I had to answer, was, what about the people that claim to have experienced something of the “super natural”? Mostly I wrote them of as kooks and cranks, and mostly with good reason. The word “mostly” in that statement is important.
It brought me to this question, what is the proper reasoning for believing what we believe about such folks.
I decided to approach the question from the aspect of “the law of probabilities”.
Of those that made claims of the super natural, how many were just kooks? 50%?
Of that remaining 50% what amount were honest and objective? 50%?
Of that remaining 1/4th what part was simply mistaken? 80%?
No matter how many times I sifted the examples, I was left with at least a few examples that were honest folks that were not mistaken and were objective enough and what they said couldn’t be simply dismissed.
In other words, the probability or the “existence of the super natural” can’t be reasonably logically reduced to 0%.
This brings me to why I first started to believe.
There was something that happened to me later in life that left me with no doubt.
I will post about that in “Why do you believe? Part 2”
The question I want to leave you with is this.
WHY do you believe?Objective answers only please.
Thanks
Nimrod
The second question was, am I living in the part of the world I want to. There seemed to be a large number of folks around me that had never been much more than barely having crossed the state line. They said “Yep, Arkansas is God’s country”, I had to wonder, how do these people know? They have never been even three states away from it.
I have been sort of well traveled and I thought about the places I had been to and I decided that, yes I am happy in Arkansas. I am not sure I will remain here through out my retirement years, but it is likely I will.
The third question I pondered is why I vote as I do. When we are young we tend to be idealist, as we grow older we slant more toward the realist side of the equation.
I had voted mostly the republican ticket verses the democrat ticket. As I grew older I came to realize that both parties had feet of clay. Now days I tend to want to vote the 3rd party ticket, except I know that vote would mostly be meaningless. Now days I can say honestly that I am an independent voter. I am no longer a sheep.
The fourth question was, what do I believe about God or do I even believe in God. I tried to take the same logical approach to that question as I do to almost everything else in my life.
The first conclusion I came to is that for the non-believer there is no way to “prove” God one way or the other. That left me with judging the “probability” of God.
When I tried to come up with a criteria for judging the correct answer to this question I first turned to science. Science does not seek to prove or disprove God so it was of small help. The one aspect of the question that did seem helpful was that, many atheists seemed to try and use scientific findings to suggest that God doesn’t exist.
These folks seemed to be the most objective people of all, so I gave a lot of weight to what ever they had to say. Most of them seemed to be well read, objective people.
(I hope to continue this aspect of my thoughts on a later thread).
There was a time when that question 4 came to my mind often, in regards to people of faith.
The first group of them seemed to be born in to a certain faith because of their parents being of that faith. For me, they deserved the least amount of creditability when judging the reasons for their chosen faith. They were the ones that seemed to do the least amount of questioning as to why they believe what they believe. For me, they lacked objectivity, and for the most part, they still do.
Of a second group, some tell me they “had a feeling” come over them when they received a certain message from a sermon or inter-action with a person of a certain faith. This “feeling” allows the world and afterlife to make sense for them. This type person, for me, has very little more creditability in explaining why they believe what they believe than the first group.
But you can listen to them and their recounts and you can at least weigh where their belief comes from and why they believe. You can deduce whether they are a logical objective thinking person or not.
You can determine if they are sheep to be led easily or if they are aware and question what someone tells them. When you run into the latter type you can have an enlightening exchange of ideas.
The third type I have met claim to have had some revelation or personal inter-action with God. These people have the strongest type of faith. I had not understood the reason for that strength till an event happened to me personally (more on that on the second part thread).
I found this last type to be most frustrating. They came across as, ditzy and would have believed in a “personal revelation from the weatherman on their evening news broadcast”, or, they seemed to be logical, sane, people who would not be easily duped. Yet their personal revelation did nothing to help me understand enough to make a decision.
The first group, of this last type, could be written off easier than any other group. The second group, of this last type, are the ones I found most interesting and frustrating at the same time. The personal inter-actions or revelation seemed, to me, to be real and without a clear source. Often times their conversion seemed to come out of the blue. These weren’t the ones that were searching and just “found the first port in a storm”, so to speak.
I found them frustrating because, for them what they had experienced had a profound effect on them, yet for me it did nothing.
Till sometime later in life I didn’t spend much time thinking about “why people believe what they believe”. I just sorted the different people into the different categories I have listed above.
There comes a time in, any sane questioning person’s, life that we review “what” we believe and “why” we believe it. The person I have the least amount time for is the sheep that are easily led by a glib tongue or a family history of a certain belief. If you are the type that doesn’t question, then what good are you to those seeking answers? What objectivity do you have?
Science offers a lot of answers. Science is often dismissed by people of faith because science doesn’t “prove” or "agree with" what believers believe. For me my faith is based on something other than what science seeks to prove or disprove.
When I started seeking the answer to God, I was left with what was more probable.
One of the foremost questions I had to answer, was, what about the people that claim to have experienced something of the “super natural”? Mostly I wrote them of as kooks and cranks, and mostly with good reason. The word “mostly” in that statement is important.
It brought me to this question, what is the proper reasoning for believing what we believe about such folks.
I decided to approach the question from the aspect of “the law of probabilities”.
Of those that made claims of the super natural, how many were just kooks? 50%?
Of that remaining 50% what amount were honest and objective? 50%?
Of that remaining 1/4th what part was simply mistaken? 80%?
No matter how many times I sifted the examples, I was left with at least a few examples that were honest folks that were not mistaken and were objective enough and what they said couldn’t be simply dismissed.
In other words, the probability or the “existence of the super natural” can’t be reasonably logically reduced to 0%.
This brings me to why I first started to believe.
There was something that happened to me later in life that left me with no doubt.
I will post about that in “Why do you believe? Part 2”
The question I want to leave you with is this.
WHY do you believe?Objective answers only please.
Thanks
Nimrod
)
