I was told to believe, and now I know what I have been told to be true. You were told everything you believe or reject, since if you weren't told about it beforehand you would not know it exists. Whatever beliefs you may have, be it a rejection of beliefs or some other beliefs, were given to you by someone else. You were either told to believe what you do, or you told to reject what you believe. Either way, you were still told about what you believe. I, like you, was given the choice as to whether or not I believe what I was told, and I chose to believe.
But you didn't say you were told to believe these things and later coincidentally ended up actually concurring; you said you believed _because_ you were told to believe.
"Whatever beliefs you may have, be it a rejection of beliefs or some other beliefs, were given to you by someone else."
False. It's actually almost heartbreaking how confidently you say that, almost as if it's a given. Have you seriously never had an original idea in your entire life? I have. If I hadn't, where would the people I got every single idea from have gotten the ideas? It starts somewhere. Independent thought is a thing.
I did choose to believe because I was told to believe, just as you chose not to believe when you were told to believe. Your original ideas are all based on other people's ideas, and the first people with ideas gained their ideas from nature. The first ideas came from things, and any new ideas come from evolutions of those first ideas.
I've never _chosen_ to believe anything. I don't have a choice. I was told to believe the Bible. I read it and I didn't. It's just unbelievable to me. I can't change that.
If I had a choice I'm not sure what I would do though. Believing I might go to Heaven would probably be quite appealing. Unfortunately for me, I just believe things or I don't based on the evidence I see. How I feel about any of it makes no difference. Just like how if I went blind that would be unfortunate but I certainly wouldn't have the option to believe I wasn't blind, because all the evidence would point toward it and I couldn't unsee (poor choice of words) that.
As for original ideas, sure; my original ideas were derived from my experiences in nature. All the same, they were based on my observations, never even suggested to me.
You read (probably just some of) the Bible, and you decided that it didn't seem true. That was your choice. You decided that it was not believable; whether that decision was active or passive does not change the fact that it was a decision that you made.
I don't base what I believe off of purely how my emotions react. I tend to look at things with very little emotion, actually. Emotion clouds your logic, preventing you from seeing how the right is right and the wrong is wrong. Think about it this way: believing that it is highly possibly that you are going to Hell for an eternity of torture due to separation from God is not the most appealing sounding belief.
Your analogy is flawed. A more correct analogy would be you waking up without vision and believing that you are blind. In reality, you might not actually be blind; your eyes might just be closed or covered. So, despite all the evidence that you can think of pointing towards you being blind, you might actually just need to open your eyes.
Your observations suggested them to you. Seeing a bolt of lightning hit a tree and start a fire could suggest to someone that perhaps they could start a fire, if they found something similar, like something that creates sparks for example. The observation suggested that it was possible, and so the suggestion of possibility was acted upon.
I'm a little hurt. It seems you don't remember that I've confided in some detail that I've read the entirety of the Bible multiple times and a few different versions of it, some as a child and some as an adult just for research purposes.
That was normal in the family I came from. They weren't those typical Christians who go to church once per week and largely forget it the rest of the time; they believed the Bible was a powerful book delivered by a god, and so naturally it was normal to read it all the time and try as hard as possible to understand it, the same way scientists might be obsessed if an extraterrestrial intelligence randomly transmitted a book's worth of advanced technologies currently beyond us.
While I'm not at all accusing you personally of thinking with emotions, mentioning Hell doesn't serve your purpose. When it comes to those who are religious for emotional reasons, it's just as common that fear of Hell drives them as desire for Heaven does.
I see where you're going with your analogy but you're missing my point and making it about something else. It's not about whether I'm right or not. I'm just saying that if my observations have led me to a certain conclusion, my emotions can't change it. So it's important in the analogy that I've actually been diagnosed by hundreds of doctors and I absolutely appear to be blind. The things you described would be considerable logical alternatives. That doesn't serve this analogy because that's something I definitely do. The point here is that when I don't see logical alternatives I won't doubt my perception just because my perception sucks. The point is that even if I badly wanted the Bible to be true, all my observations, to me personally anyway, show there's simply no way it is, not even possibly.
As for your last point, I've no real disagreement here. That's kind of what I've been saying. Obviously completely original ideas are almost always based on observations. My point was just that sometimes some of us observe the universe and form speculations or even conclusions rather than simply believing someone else who says they did that.
I had forgotten, since I don't remember much about most of the users on this website. Just a question: which versions of the Bible have you read? Catholics don't put a particularly large emphasis on the Bible itself, since it is just a book inspired by God that outlines the reasons we believe what we do.
It is still your decision as to whether or not you believe any of the alternatives to be possible or correct. You would just have to choose to reject some of the suggestions made by your own observations. That may seem to you to mean rejection of facts, whatever those may be, but, if God is real, the people suggesting the Bible to be false are falling into the predictions made by the Bible itself. People will doubt; people will say, "No, that's not true. I can prove that it's not true, and that this is what's true." After all, what your mind and the people around you suggest to be possible or impossible could be all false in the end.
But, you didn't choose to think, to evaluate, to examine evidence, to look for contra-indications, or to allow logic to direct your search for alternatives. May the grand cosmic consciousness of the universe help you. You need a sound mind far more than the rest of us.
I have thought hard about things of that matter, and every time, I've come out with the truth affirmed.
To call upon a being that you probably don't even believe in to help make a person who does believe in that being doubt their belief in that being is an insult to everyone involved, including yourself.
I'm not objecting to your beliefs. I'm objecting to the authority assertion you use to argue everything. Reasoning is a far richer consciousness. Correlation, causation, empirical phenomena are the building blocks of human knowledge.
We've been arguing about one topic, effectively: morals and religion. When it comes to morals and religion, I am correct, and everyone who does not a agree is wrong. That is how morals and religion work: only one thing can be correct in the end, and you only argue for a certain thing if you know it be the one thing that is true in the end. I speak with authority, because I know what I say to be true. You also know what you say to be true, as you have also been speaking with authority this entire time. You have authoritatively claimed myself to be a robot with no thought of my own. If you actually participate in the argument, you will find that I am a lot more reasonable than you believe what I have said above to imply.
No, I do not know; nor would I ever make such an ignorant statement. You need to study moral relativism. Here is a link. It will require thinking that may be difficult for you. But, you can persevere.
Do you agree with moral relativism? If the answer is yes, you still know what you say to be true. You simply don't claim differing morals to be false. Your morals are still the true morals, to you, and the others are true to others. The only difference between what you are saying and what I am saying is that you don't believe that other peoples' morals are inherently false while I do. You still know what you say to be true, otherwise you would not be saying it.
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I was told to believe, and now I know what I have been told to be true. You were told everything you believe or reject, since if you weren't told about it beforehand you would not know it exists. Whatever beliefs you may have, be it a rejection of beliefs or some other beliefs, were given to you by someone else. You were either told to believe what you do, or you told to reject what you believe. Either way, you were still told about what you believe. I, like you, was given the choice as to whether or not I believe what I was told, and I chose to believe.
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S0UNDS_WEIRD
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dude_Jones
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But you didn't say you were told to believe these things and later coincidentally ended up actually concurring; you said you believed _because_ you were told to believe.
"Whatever beliefs you may have, be it a rejection of beliefs or some other beliefs, were given to you by someone else."
False. It's actually almost heartbreaking how confidently you say that, almost as if it's a given. Have you seriously never had an original idea in your entire life? I have. If I hadn't, where would the people I got every single idea from have gotten the ideas? It starts somewhere. Independent thought is a thing.
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Clunk42
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I did choose to believe because I was told to believe, just as you chose not to believe when you were told to believe. Your original ideas are all based on other people's ideas, and the first people with ideas gained their ideas from nature. The first ideas came from things, and any new ideas come from evolutions of those first ideas.
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I've never _chosen_ to believe anything. I don't have a choice. I was told to believe the Bible. I read it and I didn't. It's just unbelievable to me. I can't change that.
If I had a choice I'm not sure what I would do though. Believing I might go to Heaven would probably be quite appealing. Unfortunately for me, I just believe things or I don't based on the evidence I see. How I feel about any of it makes no difference. Just like how if I went blind that would be unfortunate but I certainly wouldn't have the option to believe I wasn't blind, because all the evidence would point toward it and I couldn't unsee (poor choice of words) that.
As for original ideas, sure; my original ideas were derived from my experiences in nature. All the same, they were based on my observations, never even suggested to me.
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Clunk42
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You read (probably just some of) the Bible, and you decided that it didn't seem true. That was your choice. You decided that it was not believable; whether that decision was active or passive does not change the fact that it was a decision that you made.
I don't base what I believe off of purely how my emotions react. I tend to look at things with very little emotion, actually. Emotion clouds your logic, preventing you from seeing how the right is right and the wrong is wrong. Think about it this way: believing that it is highly possibly that you are going to Hell for an eternity of torture due to separation from God is not the most appealing sounding belief.
Your analogy is flawed. A more correct analogy would be you waking up without vision and believing that you are blind. In reality, you might not actually be blind; your eyes might just be closed or covered. So, despite all the evidence that you can think of pointing towards you being blind, you might actually just need to open your eyes.
Your observations suggested them to you. Seeing a bolt of lightning hit a tree and start a fire could suggest to someone that perhaps they could start a fire, if they found something similar, like something that creates sparks for example. The observation suggested that it was possible, and so the suggestion of possibility was acted upon.
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I'm a little hurt. It seems you don't remember that I've confided in some detail that I've read the entirety of the Bible multiple times and a few different versions of it, some as a child and some as an adult just for research purposes.
That was normal in the family I came from. They weren't those typical Christians who go to church once per week and largely forget it the rest of the time; they believed the Bible was a powerful book delivered by a god, and so naturally it was normal to read it all the time and try as hard as possible to understand it, the same way scientists might be obsessed if an extraterrestrial intelligence randomly transmitted a book's worth of advanced technologies currently beyond us.
While I'm not at all accusing you personally of thinking with emotions, mentioning Hell doesn't serve your purpose. When it comes to those who are religious for emotional reasons, it's just as common that fear of Hell drives them as desire for Heaven does.
I see where you're going with your analogy but you're missing my point and making it about something else. It's not about whether I'm right or not. I'm just saying that if my observations have led me to a certain conclusion, my emotions can't change it. So it's important in the analogy that I've actually been diagnosed by hundreds of doctors and I absolutely appear to be blind. The things you described would be considerable logical alternatives. That doesn't serve this analogy because that's something I definitely do. The point here is that when I don't see logical alternatives I won't doubt my perception just because my perception sucks. The point is that even if I badly wanted the Bible to be true, all my observations, to me personally anyway, show there's simply no way it is, not even possibly.
As for your last point, I've no real disagreement here. That's kind of what I've been saying. Obviously completely original ideas are almost always based on observations. My point was just that sometimes some of us observe the universe and form speculations or even conclusions rather than simply believing someone else who says they did that.
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I had forgotten, since I don't remember much about most of the users on this website. Just a question: which versions of the Bible have you read? Catholics don't put a particularly large emphasis on the Bible itself, since it is just a book inspired by God that outlines the reasons we believe what we do.
It is still your decision as to whether or not you believe any of the alternatives to be possible or correct. You would just have to choose to reject some of the suggestions made by your own observations. That may seem to you to mean rejection of facts, whatever those may be, but, if God is real, the people suggesting the Bible to be false are falling into the predictions made by the Bible itself. People will doubt; people will say, "No, that's not true. I can prove that it's not true, and that this is what's true." After all, what your mind and the people around you suggest to be possible or impossible could be all false in the end.
But, you didn't choose to think, to evaluate, to examine evidence, to look for contra-indications, or to allow logic to direct your search for alternatives. May the grand cosmic consciousness of the universe help you. You need a sound mind far more than the rest of us.
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Clunk42
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I have thought hard about things of that matter, and every time, I've come out with the truth affirmed.
To call upon a being that you probably don't even believe in to help make a person who does believe in that being doubt their belief in that being is an insult to everyone involved, including yourself.
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dude_Jones
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I suspect be didn't mean YHWH.
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Clunk42
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I suspect he isn't a follower of any theistic religion.
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S0UNDS_WEIRD
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I suspect you are correct.
I'm not objecting to your beliefs. I'm objecting to the authority assertion you use to argue everything. Reasoning is a far richer consciousness. Correlation, causation, empirical phenomena are the building blocks of human knowledge.
You're impossible; sorry.
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Clunk42
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We've been arguing about one topic, effectively: morals and religion. When it comes to morals and religion, I am correct, and everyone who does not a agree is wrong. That is how morals and religion work: only one thing can be correct in the end, and you only argue for a certain thing if you know it be the one thing that is true in the end. I speak with authority, because I know what I say to be true. You also know what you say to be true, as you have also been speaking with authority this entire time. You have authoritatively claimed myself to be a robot with no thought of my own. If you actually participate in the argument, you will find that I am a lot more reasonable than you believe what I have said above to imply.
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dude_Jones
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"You also know what you say to be true."
No, I do not know; nor would I ever make such an ignorant statement. You need to study moral relativism. Here is a link. It will require thinking that may be difficult for you. But, you can persevere.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
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Clunk42
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Do you agree with moral relativism? If the answer is yes, you still know what you say to be true. You simply don't claim differing morals to be false. Your morals are still the true morals, to you, and the others are true to others. The only difference between what you are saying and what I am saying is that you don't believe that other peoples' morals are inherently false while I do. You still know what you say to be true, otherwise you would not be saying it.