Below the bridge of faith is littered with the bones of those who thought they had it.
What is the difference between thinking you have faith and having it, for all you “never were a real Christian” people? There are no former believers—just atheists and agnostics who at one time thought they believed.
To investigate your faith means you’ve already lost it. To purposely eye the underpinnings is to admit you don’t actually trust it. Trust that!
Real faith is blind and those who actually think they see are most blinded by it. To profess your faith means you’ve already lost it and seek validation. Independence is a hard thing swallowed, but your faith was your own. It cannot be transmitted nor can it be hidden away in silence.
To dare into the infrastructure mean you have already outgrown it. The paradox lies in knowing, vs the insecurity of being quiet.
Real faith lies at the bottom, in the bones of those who dared to believe and actually tested the words. Had they only done some research before buying and had dared to use reason and respond to that with honesty.
“Suppression of beliefs is detrimental irrespective of their truth status. If the belief is true, suppressing it will hamper true descriptions of the world. If the belief is false, the assertion of false beliefs will lead to debate which in turn may lead to and deepen understanding of true beliefs. Finally, most of us can rarely see the whole truth, particularly when it comes to social, religious, and political discourse, so the only way of approaching it is through “reconciling and combining of opposites.” So whatever the epistemic status of a belief, suppressing it is harmful to the discovery of truth”—John Stuart Mill
TheCommonAtheist 
Ron Duh’Santis says he believes. And he wants to recreate the world in his idea of its likeness. The more he tries, the more atheists there will be. But a lot of blood might be shed if he is given the chance to try. He will hopefully be the last defender of a belief that cannot be sustained.
(Not quite on topic, but this is the direction you set my mind going.)
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I can imagine. The problem may be more secular than religious though. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but Is education better, or are people more civil to one another now, vs then? In a way I think most people need a belief or they become more ridiculous than the belief, as we can see.
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Reported “Hate” crimes were up in Canada by a huge percentage last year compared to pre-Covid numbers. If the USA keeps such stats I bet your percentage is higher than ours. Religion was the main factor in those Hate crimes. I don’t see us being more civil at all, though I could be wrong. Maybe it is just that I live in a redneck area in Canada.
But while Duh’Santis may be making more of a secular statement outwardly, reading between the lines he is still pushing a religious platform. White Christian Males should rule the world, according to him.
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Very eloquently expressed, Jim.
❤
David
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Thank you sir. I get that from you!
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haha! 😎 well played, Sir!
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Jim, I incessantly investigate my faith- that it’s founded on Jesus Christ alone. I can and do entertain doubts without ‘losing my faith.’
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Arnold, I would be interested in the doubts you have.
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You name it (I’m a skeptic by nature). Let’s say miracles- I doubt they happened as written or perceived (I may be wrong). The one person I don’t doubt is Jesus Christ- I believe his outrageous claims because I believe ‘In the beginning God.’ If I may, ‘all my eggs are in one basket.’ 😉
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This is interesting Arnold. You doubt miracles but believe strongly in the truth of Jesus while every effing thing about him is miraculous! Don’t you see any cognitive dissonance?
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This is just throwing up you hands when there’s nothing left to reason a long term hope.
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Cognitive dissonance? Doubts are part and parcel of the miracle of life.
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Doubts are a part of life. That’s not in contention. But to believe miracles didn’t happen and also believe Jesus story is true is to me a serious case of cognitive dissonance. How do you reconcile the two contrary beliefs
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I didn’t say miracles didn’t happen, rather, “I doubt they happen as written or perceived.” For example, 18 months ago I broke my ankle in 6 places, needing 14 screws. Today I’m fully healed and running at top speed- a slow motion miracle of God!
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Who performed that miracle of healing after all the screws were done? You did. How did you do that?
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What I did was a LOT of laying around. There were 4 healing stages- hematoma, soft callus, bony callus and remodeling.
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My apologies Arnold. I must have misunderstood your meaning.
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That’s what you think. But along you have gone by incessantly changing definitions. It is a good thing there is little evidence to support the Christian narrative. It’s exactly why it works so well, playing on the foibles of human character and evolution. Less evidence the better.
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Plus the fact NO ONE has the undisputed definition of who/what the author is of the narrative … OR the undisputed facts on how it should be demonstrated to the world.
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This is the crux of Christianity’s problem (clever choice of words, no). By elevating faith above works, they leave a better place for a worse. As you say, faith is hard to establish and seeds its own doubts, I suggest. Had they gone down the path of needing to do good works to be saved, a “believer” had a row to hoe. Doing good deed after good deed might just reinforce their beliefs and think of the reverse opportunity cost By doing nothing and just “believing” there are myriad good deeds that went undone. A tragedy and all to just grow the power of the nascent church. (If we make it easier for them, we will attract more people!)
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Belief is also virtuous in itself. Belief is the pinnacle of the religious experience and the liturgy means nothing but interpretation. It must be meaningful, right, so we make a meaning.
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BINGO!
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I really appreciate the inclusion of the JS Mill quote. I love his perspective that two opposing sides on an issue could only have part of the truth on a particular issue. I’ve always tried to take that advice to heart. As opposed to the usual, “My side is completely right, has all the smart people, and is literally Reason incarnate, while your side is completely wrong, ignorant, evil, and delusional” that proliferate on political, religious, and social issues, especially on the Internet.
I always like to see how people deal with incongruous information, perspectives, data, and facts. The responses you see people give sometimes are always fascinating and unfortunately sometimes disheartening.
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I find more and more the inability of some to even comprehend a point of view. We don’t have to agree on everything, but understanding is absent. Many comments illustrate that.
I for one am evolving. When I first became an atheist it was pure atheism. Now I see some value in beliefs even though they are unnecessary to me. I also see truths in the Bible I never saw as a believer—that are not even monotheistic in nature. I feel like not much of the narrative is true, but inside that mythology is a knowledge that was to be reminder of an advanced knowledge—like corn row braids in African culture. In many African tribes, braided hairstyles were a unique way to identify each tribe. Braid patterns and hairstyles were an indication of a person’s tribe, age, marital status, wealth, power, and religion. This is the Bible.
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Beliefs are essential —but not all that we believe is religious in nature. One can believe the air we breathe is composed of nitrogen and oxygen and other gases (or one can decide not to believe this) but unless each person can test personally the gaseous components in the air we breathe, we must simply believe what we have been taught. We can believe many non-religious things — in fact we must « take on faith » most common knowledge. Because we cannot personally prove each thing ourselves. There is nothing wrong with believing, without belief in « reality » we would all go mad. But I choose not to believe in any religion or god because I do not think god is necessary to explain the world or even the universe. But I believe in what I’ve learned of biology, chemistry and other sciences. And I have to hope this belief is not misplaced.
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Why do we have to operate on beliefs? Maybe because it’s not real? You mention biology, but what is that but a grouping of cells that are made of no substance. Break it all down and there’s nothing in a pile to examine. We are apparitions too. It only seems real because it’s all we know.
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Im distinguishing between things we can personally know and test or proof for ourselves and those aspects of life and consensual reality that we cannot test ourselves. Yes in the end we and indeed all matter is more space than substance but I’m not arguing about reality on the subatomic or quantum level… only about what the human animal is able to ascertain with its individual brain.
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Loss of faith occurs because atheist has no higher level of intelligence to sense that everything is under the control of superior power. For example: If Jim has broken his arm. He goes to the doctor to fix his bones. The doctor gives treatment surgically and medically but healing of wounds is done automatically by body and not by doctor. Doctor just gives our body a suitable environment to make the body heal faster.
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Since you do all that healing yourself and you don’t know how you do it, what does that make you?
Because nothing is actually explainable, postulating god as the answer is just another explanation. Meaningless acquiescence.
Define god for me and which one is it?
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Jim, I didn’t use the word God or invisible super man here. I’m just trying to tell you that you are not in control of your body functions. Further, healing of injury is not in your hands and in doctor’s hands. There is some higher power or unknown energy which makes the body to heal itself. Although scientists has found out blood clotting and healing factors still they cannot find out what is the root cause which drives the process of healing so precisely.
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You are in control of your bodily function i hope. If what you say is true you would shut yourself. The question is, what degree are you willing to accept responsibility for your actions as an organism? You are doing it, you just don’t know how—this is god
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Oh! Jim I think you are going off tangent. I’m speaking about internal body functions which is not in our control. For example The functioning of heart, liver and kidney is not in our control. Right?
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So you want to separate and piecemeal what suits you. I can control my heart rate and breathing, when I go to the bathroom. Even my blood pressure and digestion can be organized in such a way. I can delay healing and speed it up with certain knowledge. So at what point are you willing to delineate your ability? How do you slide the scale when in the future you may have complete control of your organs?
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No. you are ignorant of human anatomy Jim. There are two types of control one is somatic and other is autonomous nervous system. Through somatic nervous system you can have some control over your heart beat but when you are asleep you don’t have any control over your heart and other external or internal organ function. This autonomous nervous system is not under our control still it does a fantastic job.
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You’ve accepted that restriction based on science that you are critical of. You’re separating the two where no separation exists.
I am actually quite expert at A&P as my specialty in medicine.
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That’s well and good. Then you will have no problems in answering my questions. You have not countered my arguments effectively and you are just making blanket statements. So, my point is when we are asleep we have no control over our internal and external organs. This clearly postulate that higher power or superior energy is controlling our internal organs. It’s a gross fact that we can understand and experience personally.
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Hypothalamus.
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Congrats Jim, for proving my point. I also know that hypothalamus is a sheet of grey matter, extending from the optic backward up to the upper part of the mid brain. But being a medical man you failed to diagnose my comments.I said all the internal organs this includes brain and endocrine glands. Hypothalamus is just an instrument but it is not the ultimate source of all organs because even hypothalamus depends on energy and signal instruction to function.
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I did address it. You’re treating them as separate organs in a body. They are not. This is your error in believing something can be apart from the whole.
In evolutionary terms, what came first, the brain or the stomach? It is just as easily argued that the brain is a function of a stomach, but the reality is they arise mutually.
You have proven what neuroscience has failed to prove. Congratulations. Write a paper.
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That’s what I’m saying . each and every organ is mutually dependent on one another. So you cannot point out only hypothalamus. Right?. Moreover, all the internal organs needs a initial energy to function. Have you ever thought of this?. Just like somebody has to push the ignition button to start the engines.
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Of course we’ve thought of this and the only evidence to support it is the failed theological arguments that don’t answer any questions. If you want to believe that go for it. But you’re assuming too many things like, there was a beginning and someone turned it on. I say there is no evidence for that. The universe and life has always existed as a self governing organism. Tomm be postulate a god only adds confusion not answers. It is its own problem that will never be solved because it isn’t real. At the very least it isn’t a thing.
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And who might you suggest is the one who pushed that button? Oh wait! I know! That mechanic-in-the-sky … the head grease monkey!
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“there was a beginning and someone turned it on”, is not assumption It’s basic common sense that you cannot deny in your medical practice. Further I am speaking about energies which is not a theology. The evidence is common sense. If you realize various enzyme activities you can able to sense that biology is not working randomly. Just like you eat food stuffs but the liver does 7 of the major functions like storing glucose, detoxification , metabolise and synthesis proteins and fats Etc.
The impetus for functioning of each and every organ and cell gets from energy and such energy or force is not random it is directional. For Example, static energy is in our body. There are various calcium channels, sodium and potassium channels which polarize and depolarize a cell with its specific voltage gate. It is based on such activity the heart conduction system functions.
Being a medical man you want to believe that everything in our body came by itself randomly and functioning by chance, shows your lack of intelligence in understanding the essence of biology. Your intelligence is limited and it did not touch the common sense aspect of biology. Your simply addressing the superficial function of a cell or organ but you failed to think where such cell or organs gets its instructions and energy to produce a specific enzyme or hormones?.
For example. Our human body produces two types of insulin short and long acting but our body knows how to adjust the insulin levels in its right potency. This happens without your knowledge and control. .
So, the homeostasis of your entire body depends on regulated directional energy which you have no control over it.
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“The evidence is common sense. Actually common sense is geographical and varies from region to region.
All organisms control their own homeostasis. To deny that you are doing it and dependent on an outside source is ridiculous. You just admitted your body is a self governing organism but not knowing how you do it is no mystery. You can parse it all out in segments to try and grasp some of it, but no one, not even god knows how this is done.
You think that when you die, that Jesus is going to set you on his knee and explain to you how this all happens? If there is a god, it doesn’t know how any of it is done. In fact, it doesn’t even know it is god
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Making a statement like this: you want to believe is making an assumption about the other person and in case you’re unaware, there’s a popular saying about making assumptions …
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It’s a real pleasure doing the round a round listening to hypothesis to explain hypothesis. Sorry matey, only one miracle per. In other words I’ll grant you one miracle. You say god did it. Explain how it did it or your point is…pointless.
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Nope, you are trying to change the subject matter. You didn’t actually answer to the facts. The polerisation and depolarization of a cell with its specific voltage gate way channels is not controlled by your will. Suppose if you are unconscious still your heart beats and respiration is going on.
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I’m not changing anything. Here’s the problem —you first have this belief and now you are making errant connections where there are none in an attempt to prove them.
My sodium and potassium pumps work on their polarization, not god or any other hocus pocus. To see plainly as day how this works, try mixing oil and water. They automatically separate with no intervention. The attraction and repellent forces of differently charged ions and particles.
If you want to make a connection to this, god is inert gasses that mix with nothing. That’s why the Argonne in your windows keeps out the cold—not because of an insulation property but a non mixture with the atmosphere creates a barrier. How do you explain the fact that everything is already alive except a few noble gasses. It’s an east answer unless you firstly have a faith based inquiry of all things. That never produces any discovery.
Can you name one scientific discovery that has been supplanted by a religious one? There is actually one, but it’s not Christianity.
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Thanks for proving my point Jim. You didn’t even realize that you indirectly admitted the existence of God in your previous comments.
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I know exactly what I said. Your point is proven in the mind of a Christian in the process known as reaching —grasping at straws. You argument only works because you believe first, then inquire to support it.
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See. This is the deviating tactics used by most of the atheist, who want to escape from answering to scientific questions, and you are not an exception to this. The whole context of our argument revolves whether you are in control of your body or not and you have answered in my favor. The action potential face of polarisation, depolarization and repolarization is not within your control and you had admitted that “polarization is God” which is the unknown energies which maintains homeostasis of your body. Certainly you didn’t create action potential yourself and you have no control over your body when your asleep. So, my point in this context is proved by you.
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You’ve interpreted my comments to suit your belief. It means nothing of the kind.
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That is a lousy response without reason and logic.
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You fail to comprehend anything that doesn’t support you bias. I cannot conclude a god based on anything other that your desire to prove one.
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Jim, This has nothing to do with Christian belief. This is a common sense question even a child can answer. But you have such an obstinate ego around your head to defend your atheistic ideology. You escaped from answering my question by using religious belief as a reason to defend your failures.
Does your heart and all the internal organs function even when you are unconscious? Just answer Yes or No.
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Yes but that only proves that they function without my attention. Other parts of the brain regulate such things, not fairy ponies or god.
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Here, this is what i expected from you. If it is done without your attention or control just before some few comments you disagreed. Then it proves that your brain is not functioning under your control. Right?.
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We don’t seem to be aware of any functions unless something is wrong with it.
If what you are saying is true, you are not in control of what you are writing and then, neither am I. So why all the hostility? You believe something that is contrary to all your effort. Btw, breathing, blood circulation, heart beats—that is something I do, and it does me. They go together.
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Are you treating your brain as a personality or a complex molecular machine?.
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My brain is a receiver that also regulates bodily function. But some people have no brain and do just fine, like this guy.
https://www.upsocl.com/positive/a-brain-scan-revealed-that-this-university-student-didnt-have-a-brain-his-head-was-filled-with-water/
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Brain is a matter or molecular machine. it’s not a person. Only a person receives information and regulates functions not a machine.
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Gotcha!
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Seeing the brain is not quite as necessary as we’ve believed is pretty telling the the whole body functions as a unit, which is also part of the whole cosmos. Nothing is separate and if there is a god, there is nothing that is not god. This means you too, part of the kookiness of the whole self governing organism.
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“the whole body functions as a unit, which is also part of the whole
Cosmos”. Great, So, the whole body is functioning under the control of cosmos not by Jim. Such cosmos is a higher power or unknown energy which regulates and maintains all our biological systems not randomly but with intelligence.
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What makes you say that? I would say there is no control at all over anything except equilibrium and it’s ebbs and flows.
We are just eyes and ears of a universe that peoples, the same way a tree bears fruit. No one or thing knows how this is done. Like you growing your fingernails —you know you are doing it but have no idea how or why. You don’t think you’re god—well it doesn’t know it is either.
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Their is no such thing as “higher power”. We are all swimming in the mix of all that there is. How could you be separated from it? Occasionally we get glimpses outside our normal range of perception. While this may “wow us” for a moment, it is just another side of us.
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Enzyme activities makes to say that. If you ingest alcohol such alcohol is processed in to acetate and in to carbon di oxide and water by an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), alcohol dehydrogenase. Which is the process of eliminating toxic substance from our body. Which is a intelligent process of converting one toxic substance to save the entire biological system of our body. Right?
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I actually hadn’t read that other one yet so my apology on that one. Believe it or not I lead a busy life and can’t always reply right away. I’ll look at it in the morning.
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Poor Jim, so much afraid to post my enzyme comments. HOO, HOO.
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No I didn’t post it because you’re rude. You may have noticed other missing comments too. Poor spartan.
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If that is the fact you could have exposed my previous enzyme activity comments and could have declared it as rude.
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Let me get caught up. Hang on. It’s a side gig.
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