tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post1391241044398250657..comments2024-01-11T21:24:44.379-07:00Comments on A Blog of Tom: An Atheist of FaithTom Cantinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-55472890483633258212012-01-17T12:26:24.491-07:002012-01-17T12:26:24.491-07:00Thanks, Anonymous 3, that clears up a lot. Or at l...Thanks, Anonymous 3, that clears up a lot. Or at least, it will until Anonymous 4 chimes in to tell me that Anonymous 1 is wrong.Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-52641817178366462232012-01-17T11:59:47.655-07:002012-01-17T11:59:47.655-07:00Anonymous three here. Anonymous one is right.Anonymous three here. Anonymous one is right.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-32424223290717913002011-12-31T16:59:45.224-07:002011-12-31T16:59:45.224-07:00Well, that I CAN disagree with to some extent. My ...Well, that I CAN disagree with to some extent. My faith is every bit as much a strength to me as your belief is, and just as you have no interest in "faith in faith", I have no interest in belief, particularly beliefs that I find unbelievable. Your beliefs appear to me to be nothing more than delusions (albeit delusions with a pedigree which makes them more respectable than the paranoid fabrications of a single imagination). I understand how you came to believe, because I too believed once; I was raised Roman Catholic, and told these stories from when I was very young by people who seemed trustworthy to me. Well, they STILL seem like trustworthy and basically honest people, for the most part, but even honest people can be mistaken.<br /><br />I don't want to go into all the reasons I don't believe, because clearly your belief brings you a lot of happiness, and I have no desire to undermine that, which might happen if I were successful in making you understand my reasons in depth. I'm not trying to get you to doubt, if you're not prepared to do so. The only belief I'd like to disabuse you of is the belief that I am in need of what you offer. I may be confused, I may be full of uncertainty, but I am no more confused or uncertain than you are; I just happen to accept that as a natural part of being a fallible mortal, and I have learned to live with and even embrace it, rather than try to anchor myself to a firm (yet unavoidably fallible) belief in anything. By faith alone I am able to survive and thrive in this sea of uncertainty.<br /><br />I realize, of course, that part of your belief is that if I fail to believe, I will suffer eternal damnation, and this is why you continue to urge me to believe. I don't want you to think I am not appreciative of your efforts on my behalf; I really am grateful for your concern. However, realistically, it's very unlikely that you will be able to convince me to believe, for to do so would mean you'd need to understand and then overcome my objections, and as I mentioned above, I fear that were you to fully comprehend why I doubt, your belief might be weakened or even destroyed, and you may not be as comfortable with doubt as I am.<br /><br />That in itself may pose a crisis of faith for you. Here I am, with great faith in God's goodness (but not His existence), doing my very best to be a good person and to act in good faith, and yet God has created me with a mind that is constitutionally unable to believe what honestly appears to me to be absurd, and owing to various circumstances it just so happens that one of the things I cannot believe is the one thing you think I NEED to believe to be saved. How could God be so unjust as to create me this way, you may be wondering? Well, I say, have a little more faith in God, and less in your own belief about what He can and can't do. Perhaps He has given you a way to salvation through belief, but perhaps you are mistaken to believe that is the ONLY way anyone can possibly be saved. Yes, I realize that would involve revisiting your interpretation of John 14:6, but is your understanding so perfect? Is it not possible for you to accept that maybe I HAVE come to the Father through Jesus, but in a transcendant way that you don't understand? <br /><br />Belief is brittle. It has its uses, to be sure, but the Bible itself cautions against resting upon your own wisdom, and what is belief but the product of your own judgment? All of this life-change and happiness and answered prayer you speak of comes from your own judgment that X is true and Y is false. And by placing so much emphasis on belief, you let your faith atrophy. I say that with strong enough faith, you will not need belief at all. Not one little bit.Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-75451220712501295922011-12-31T14:39:32.452-07:002011-12-31T14:39:32.452-07:00I listed things as if they were reasons for my fai...I listed things as if they were reasons for my faith, but that is not the case. My life-change, answered prayer, sense of purpose, happiness are not reasons for believing. They are rsults of believing. If all these were to abandon me, it would not change my confidence in God. His ways are not my ways, and He can do with me whatever He chooses. He cannot actually abandon me, but that is because of His promise. I want to believe in the God who is, and not in the God of my wishes and desires. Faith in my faith does not interest me at all. There is a God , and He has revealed Himself in terms we can understand. He became man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth in order to reveal God to us. This is eternal life--to know God and Jesus Christ, whom God has sent. He said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,and I will give your rest." Believing the truth will change your life. Faith in faith will leave you just where you are, but more and more confused.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-53675606874037297262011-12-31T11:44:48.328-07:002011-12-31T11:44:48.328-07:00I can't really disagree with that.I can't really disagree with that.Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-26117871080351062152011-12-30T03:31:39.746-07:002011-12-30T03:31:39.746-07:00Faith comes first.Faith comes first.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-75895043219719691162011-12-29T10:26:53.707-07:002011-12-29T10:26:53.707-07:00Then here is a good illustration of the difference...Then here is a good illustration of the difference between belief and faith, and how you have been guilty of exactly what you've been accusing me of: demanding evidence before you invest faith in something. (I demand evidence for BELIEF, true, but not for faith.)<br /><br />You doubt that life has meaning unless you can see with your own eyes, so to speak, what it is. You feel that your life is empty unless you can grab hold of something like the Bible to fill it up. You need a sort of evidence, in other words, to give you a reason to carry on. And this is because you lack faith.<br /><br />But with faith, you do not need to know the meaning of life to be confident there is one. I have no idea what the meaning or purpose of my life is, but I have faith that my life is not meaningless, and that's plenty. <br /><br />You say you CHOOSE to believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, which raises an interesting point. This choosing is alien to me, at least in the sense of belief, but perhaps not as faith. I cannot CHOOSE to believe or disbelieve any ordinary proposition; rather, I feel compelled by the weight of evidence to go one way or the other. Belief is not, for me, a wilful act. But faith seems to be. I have no evidence one way or the other that God exists and is good, but I CHOOSE to act as if it were so. <br /><br />You apparently, then, place faith in the Bible, because you CHOOSE to accept it as true. It seems to me, though, that in so doing you spread your faith too thin. You need to have faith in far too many individual details and claims, most of which may be vulnerable to empirical evidence. And even if the evidence happens to support that in which you have "faith", you can become dependent on that evidence and slip into belief instead of faith. Is it not better to just take all that faith and place it in God directly, and cheerfully embrace the fact that you could be wrong about absolutely everything else?Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-4394521789918869262011-12-29T02:29:58.499-07:002011-12-29T02:29:58.499-07:00It is possible that I am mistaken about the Bible ...It is possible that I am mistaken about the Bible being the revealed will of God. If I am mistaken, then the change in my life when I came to Christ was of my own doing. The desire in my heart to know and love God is a game. The years of encouragement, protection, provision, and amazing interventions of God in my circumstances are all to be explained as coincidences. If I am mistaken about the Bible, then I have no hope for the future and no answer to the nagging thought that it may be true, after all. If I am mistaken, then I am much more intelligent than I think myself to be. And my life is empty. I choose to believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-47856491396495704462011-12-28T16:39:07.809-07:002011-12-28T16:39:07.809-07:00Yet somehow YOU are completely certain not only ab...Yet somehow YOU are completely certain not only about Whom you know, but all of the other details of how I can or can't get to him, and what will happen if I do or don't. You seem terribly confident not just that my doubt is a problem that needs to be fixed, but that you know how I should go about fixing the problem. You also seem utterly convinced that you cannot be wrong about the veracity of the Bible. You make far more claims to certain knowledge than you seem to realize, and rather few of them seem very credible to me. <br /><br />It's one thing to pay lip-service to your fallibility. It's quite another to swallow your pride and actually stand up and acknowledge that you could be wrong about a particular deeply held belief. Many people crave certainty, and shrink in horror from uncertainty and doubt. It takes a lot of faith to doubt, and maybe most people just don't have that much faith.<br /><br />Let me pick a big one, then, and let's see if you can face up to some doubt about it. You believe the Bible is the revealed will of God. Is that something you could possibly be mistaken about?Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-20147736906583191812011-12-28T13:55:12.511-07:002011-12-28T13:55:12.511-07:00A Christian's grasp of the facts is very incom...A Christian's grasp of the facts is very incomplete and quite obviously subject to great error. His confidence is in his relationship with the One who does know all things. God will bring him through and teach him along the way. Trusting God and obeying His revealed will keep the Christian safe and lead him to life eternal. But he is kept by the power of God unto salvation. He works out his own salvation, because it is God at work in him to will and to do of His good pleasure. He is never completely certain about what he knows--only about Who he knows. By grace are you saved, through faith, and this not of yourself; it is the gift of God. You keep trying to do it yourself, Tom. You can't do it yourself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-21781997498439215312011-12-28T12:10:02.184-07:002011-12-28T12:10:02.184-07:00Ah. So in short, the answer is no, you do not admi...Ah. So in short, the answer is no, you do not admit of any possibility that you could be mistaken.<br /><br />It's a nice analogy, and I can see how you might be so convinced. However, it's not your subjective experience I'm doubting, but your interpretation of it. It's one thing to see the color blue; that phenomenological experience just IS, with the same sort of certainty with which Descartes concluded that he had to exist. The subjective experience of thinking is undeniable; ergo he concluded that the subject experiencing that thought must exist. So I fully grant that you have had, and perhaps still have, a profound experience which you attribute to a relationship with God.<br /><br />But, also as Descarte realized, it's quite another thing to infer from the color blue that what you're seeing is the sky. He had no way of knowing that his thoughts, and his perceptions of a world around him, were in any way accurate depictions of reality. He postulated that they could simply be illusions produced by an Evil Genius, intended to deceive him. <br /><br />It is that interpretive fallibilty to which YOU remain blind, if I may continue with your metaphor, and like your color blue, it is something that once I have seen it, I cannot be argued out of it. I KNOW I am capable of error in my interpretation of sensory data or any other subjective experience. (How can I know this? Well, if I am mistaken in my belief that I am capable of error, then I am capable of error. QED.) <br /><br />So sure, I might well have the same experience you do, after reading the Gospel of John and metaphorically opening my eyes. But I would be left with doubts as to what that experience really MEANT. I might interpret it as a direct connection to God, but it'd still be fallible old ME interpreting it as such. And I'm already well aware of the neurological discoveries of a region in the brain which, if stimulated, creates feelings that some (but not all) subjects interpret as a kind of oneness with God.<br /><br />You see, you're not merely asserting the existence of the color blue. You're going much further, claiming that the blue you see is the sky, when it might well be a blue ceiling, a white ceiling in blue light, a robin's egg, or even just a random experience of blue triggered by someone poking around in your brain with an electrode. Blue is blue, not necessarily any one of these other things, and in the same way, your spiritual experience is your spiritual experience, not conclusive evidence of anything beyond that.<br /><br />I do not purport to disprove God here. Only to show that we err in presuming to know such things with certainty, and indeed commit a sin of pride in thinking our own beliefs infallibly correct. You wrote earlier that "If you only believe because you are convinced then you are not walking by faith, but by your own judgment." Perhaps you do not see it, but that is exactly what you are doing; you believe because you are convinced, but you do not seem have the faith to face uncertainty, to acknowledge that maybe you don't actually KNOW with certainty that God exists, but you believe He does, and that's the best you can do as a fallible mortal being.Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-43832677991323974972011-12-28T03:33:10.841-07:002011-12-28T03:33:10.841-07:00Once the blind man sees blue you can't argue h...Once the blind man sees blue you can't argue him out of it because the reality overwhelmes the argument. Whereas once he was blind, now he sees. He views the process of argument itself as remarkably weak. The Old Testament is like a room that is fully furnished, but dimly lit. If you jump to John and find Christ, what you are now reading will be a whole new ball game. Glad to hear you are reading.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-51850466660566166572011-12-27T14:00:31.104-07:002011-12-27T14:00:31.104-07:00Occam's Razor has nothing to do with whether o...Occam's Razor has nothing to do with whether or not something is observable. It has to do with trying to keep explanations simple, and frequently that involves postulating unseen factors; of two equally effective explanations of a phenomenon, the simpler one (which often has FEWER unseen factors) is to be preferred.<br /><br />I'm rather more familiar with the New Testament than most Christians I know, and while I've not read all of it, that's mainly because at the moment I'm still working my way through the Old Testament. I'm about halfway through Psalms. Rest assured, I'll get to the whole of John sooner or later, though I've read a couple of chapters of it at various times in the past. <br /><br />But you have not answered my question. Are you prepared to consider the possibility that YOU are mistaken? Is there the slightest possibility that you might be wrong about what you believe?Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-47057873093411282262011-12-27T03:53:39.929-07:002011-12-27T03:53:39.929-07:00Occam doesn't want us to consider anything tha...Occam doesn't want us to consider anything that is not observable. God is not observable by the means the scientist has committed himself to use.<br />True knowledge for man must come through a personal relationship with the One who knows all things, and an acceptance of what He has revealed in terms we can understand. You come across as one who has read and thought a great deal, but does not know very much about the contents of the New Testament. One doubts if you have read more than selected portions. If God has ordained to use the Scripture to reveal Himself to man, and you keep thinking about God without the Scripture, how can you know Him? It does not take very long to read the Gospel of John. JOHN 20;31 says, "But these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." Why not read the Gospel of John and ask God to reveal Christ to you? What can it hurt?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-61039683952450114052011-12-26T22:01:46.580-07:002011-12-26T22:01:46.580-07:00Do you think God does not know my innermost though...Do you think God does not know my innermost thoughts and wishes? Do you think God has not heard me ask most earnestly, "God, do you exist?" and countless related questions over the decades? Do you honestly think that it takes a particular prayer in just the right magic words to get God's attention? <br /><br />Here's the hard fact for you to confront: I have sought after God, by reason, and yes, by prayer, and yet I still find myself unable to believe He really exists. Did I not do it right? Was I not sincere enough? Or maybe God just decided that He's perfectly cool with my not believing He exists, because I have enough faith in His goodness anyway? Or maybe, and I realize this is something you probably don't want to contemplate, maybe you have deluded yourself into believing you have this special relationship, and it's all a function of your imagination and wishful thinking? From where I sit, the latter explanation most tidily satisfies Occam's Razor. Is it one you are prepared to consider, and if not, why not?Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-45835797562562477142011-12-26T17:47:31.399-07:002011-12-26T17:47:31.399-07:00Man by his own reasoning cannot find God. You are...Man by his own reasoning cannot find God. You are doing some very good reasoning, but the solution for you can't be found in the use of an intellect cut off from God. Tell Him that you don't know if He exists, but that you would like to know. Ask Him to help you. He can certainly show you what you need to know and direct you in the course He has for you. You can't talk a blind person into seeing. He must be given sight. Ask Him to help you, Tom.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-88353069211179130842011-12-26T15:37:27.594-07:002011-12-26T15:37:27.594-07:00I cannot trust the testimony of Scripture the way ...I cannot trust the testimony of Scripture the way you would have me do. I would need to understand it first, and I despair of ever making sense of it if I must adhere to literal interpretation, because it is full of explicit contradictions. Believe me, I have tried. There are truths in the Bible, to be sure, and valuable instructive allegories, and even bona fide historical accounts of things. But even those parts that are undoubtedly historical accounts show signs of having been written by fallible human beings with their own agendas and perspectives, often many years after the fact based on hearsay rather than direct observation, and distilling out of them anything like the truth is a laborious interpretive process, itself subject to my own fallibility.<br /><br />I'm not going to go into all the contradictions here (unless you're prepared to try to help me resolve them), because I'm not trying to convince you to give up your belief. You are trying to convince me, not vice versa, and if I offer arguments, it's only to help you understand my objections so you can help me to overcome them. But you seem unwilling to dignify my doubts as worthy of any consideration whatsoever, insisting that all will become clear if I just BELIEVE. <br /><br />And you attempt to belittle me for thinking myself broadminded (though I have not claimed to be more broadminded than anyone else). Look back over this whole conversation, and compare. Again and again, I have acknowledged my capacity for error, and implied that the world may be very different from the way I understand it to be. I just do not know, and doubt that I even CAN know, what the truth is. In contrast, where have you acknowledged any possibility that you could be mistaken? Where have you acknowledged that there is any distinction whatsoever between what God truly wants, and what you BELIEVE God truly wants? Where have you admitted your own fallibility, and the prospect that the universe could be different from how you believe it to be?<br /><br />You have not. You have continued to insist up on the doctrine you preach as if it is the one and only absolute truth. And you have the audacity to condemn me for falling short of broadmindedness?<br /><br />So let's turn this around. Rather than dealing with my objections, let's hear your objections to my interpretation of Scripture. Rather than asking me to accept "on faith" that you're right, show me with logic how I'm wrong. In a nutshell, my interpretation of Scripture is that the Bible is a collection of the works of many human authors, editors and translators working over a long period of time, recording their interpretations of events that in some cases they may have been present at, but in many other cases took place far removed in space and time from their writing. The various texts were selected out of a larger collection of related writings, and compiled together into a canonical work we today call "The Bible", this selection being carried out by a council of religious leaders who employed their own criteria and agendas in excluding some works, and including others. In the end, what we have is a historically interesting (sometimes; I'll admit that Numbers was a snorefest, and not all the Psalms are solid gold hits) text that tells us far more about the humans who wrote it than it does about anything else.<br /><br />Now. Tell me what's flawed about that interpretation, and why I'm wrong not to accept it instead as the divinely inspired literal word of God.Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-3762715588995485462011-12-26T14:02:38.238-07:002011-12-26T14:02:38.238-07:00It is trusting the testimony of Scripture and aski...It is trusting the testimony of Scripture and asking the God of the Bible to open your eyes. You want God to come to you on your terms, and He insists that you come to Him on His. If you ever come to God you will realize how proud and arrogant you have been to expect Him to comply to your terms. You remain like a blind man who insists on being shown blue by feel or by smell or by hearing or by taste. You will accept proof by any means except the means whereby it can come to you. And you think yourself broadminded!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-56135035079821473732011-12-26T09:22:06.674-07:002011-12-26T09:22:06.674-07:00But which of us is blind? How can you be so sure i...But which of us is blind? How can you be so sure it isn't you? As hard as it is for me to believe what you believe, it seems equally impossible for you to understand what I understand. You do not address the reasons for my doubts, except vaguely to suggest they will all evaporate if I just believe. You give no hint of actually understanding these doubts, which leads me to suspect that maybe if you DID understand them, you too might cease to believe, as I did.<br /><br />You simply urge me again and again to believe. I know you phrase it as asking God to open my eyes, but you insist that I must believe unconditionally that God exists before He will answer my request. (Of course, if I believe unconditionally that God exists, He won't need to show me anything at all, as I'll already have bought into the whole story, and embrace all the rationalizations to support it and defend it against doubts. In other words, the end result of my believing in God's existence would be exactly the same, regardless of whether or not He actually exists.<br /><br />Do you not see that?Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-72410911091909721542011-12-25T18:27:21.458-07:002011-12-25T18:27:21.458-07:00If a blind man insisted that you prove blue you wo...If a blind man insisted that you prove blue you would be utterly unable to do so. There would be no hope except if his eyes could be enabled to see. God is willing to show you the truth. Will you ask Him to do so? He knows what you need in order to be convinced. Ask Him to give you what you need. He does not turn away the one who honestly seeks Him. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-10872664766160293162011-12-25T17:59:33.926-07:002011-12-25T17:59:33.926-07:00And if you only believe because you have been told...And if you only believe because you have been told, then you are not walking by faith but by your own credulity. It is a fine thing to take what someone else tells you in good faith, that is, on the assumption that they are being honest with you to the best of their ability. It is a matter of faith in you, for example, that I assume you are not simply lying to me and making up stuff; I take it as given that you are being sincere with me, and if there are errors or falsehoods it's because you've been misinformed or made an honest mistake. But my faith in you does not extend to assuming that you are incapable of being misinformed or mistaken. At the outset, I have no evidence one way or the other of your actual honesty, and no real belief one way or the other. So my faith in you is, as a genuine faith, not based in being convinced. You might well be trying to deceive me, but I won't assume that, because on a practical level it would end any possibility of meaningful dialogue. Similarly, assuming God could be anything other than perfectly just would make impossible the already difficult project of making moral choices. So I act on the assumption, without evidence, that God is perfectly just. <br /><br />I ask why you insist I must believe, and you respond only with the things you say I need to believe. If I believed you that I'd suffer the belief of demons, I'd already be convinced. If I believed you that the Bible is a reliable authority, I'd already be convinced. If I believed you that your personal relationship with God is real and not an elaborate delusion, I'd already be convinced. None of these are in the least bit useful as arguments or evidence for someone who does not already accept them as true.<br /><br />Ultimately, you are convinced that what you believe is true because you believe it to be true. So is the Muslim, with every bit as much confidence and certainty, and approximately equal chance of being wrong despite that confidence. I believe you that I'll believe it if I believe it, but that's not what you need to convince me of. You need to convince me that I OUGHT to believe it, and the best and only way to do that is to demonstrate in some way that it happens to be TRUE. To convince me, you need to be able to see things the way I see them, and point out how they are mistaken. It's not enough simply to repeat again and again how YOU see things, and insist that you see things more clearly than I do, without actually showing me how your view is objectively superior to mine.Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-75066419537678057582011-12-25T13:52:50.415-07:002011-12-25T13:52:50.415-07:00If you only believe because you are convinced then...If you only believe because you are convinced then you are not walking by faith, but by your own judgment. The power of the Christian life is a walk of faith. The Bible claims to be God's word. Jesus claimed to be God's Son. Millions have accepted the Scripture as data that can be trusted and have come into a living relationship with the true God. God sets the terms. Those who accept Him on faith come to know Him personally, and those who do not do not. If you do not, then you have decided not to, and if you do not want God, you certainly shall not have Him. You will face Him in such a way that all doubt is forever removed, but it will be the kind of belief that the demons have, and tremble. Now is the day of salvtion. God calls you to Himself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-13382054838908482722011-12-25T10:22:36.164-07:002011-12-25T10:22:36.164-07:00I'm swimming in a sea of doubt, perhaps. You, ...I'm swimming in a sea of doubt, perhaps. You, standing on what you think is solid ground, think I need to be there with you. Yet here in the water, I have a perspective on the island that you do not have: I can take a breath, and dive down to look underneath it. And I see that it is not in fact solid ground, but a raft, and a structurally unsound one at that. You are convinced that it's solid, and accuse me of just not wanting to see how solid it is, which I'd surely see if I'd just climb on board.<br /><br />I don't think you understand the nature of my objections.Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-71638020490590370912011-12-25T03:54:31.998-07:002011-12-25T03:54:31.998-07:00The Oracle challenged us with the words, "Kno...The Oracle challenged us with the words, "Know Thyself", and after all these years, we still struggle. A complication that even Socrates did not see was that the Devil has blinded our minds,and our own sin has made us dis-inclined to accept the things of God. We are all in a kind of bondage from which we must be freed. Luther wrote of the bondage of the will. Paul could say in Romans 7, "I do not understand myself". Not wanting to believe is no special problem you have, Tom. It is the human condition and one of the things from which we all must be freed. In John 7:16 ff. Jesus says, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own." You need to choose to do God's will, Tom. You are dog-paddling, and you need to put your feet on solid ground.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1883551996126668365.post-45585366382697955572011-12-24T21:09:36.922-07:002011-12-24T21:09:36.922-07:00Your statement that I simply don't WANT to bel...Your statement that I simply don't WANT to believe is a dangerous rhetorical gambit. The payoff could be great, if it turned out you hit a nerve and I really am just avoiding belief because I don't want to. But on the other hand, if you're wrong, then you're claiming knowledge of something about which I am the closest thing to an authority on: my own wishes. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you might look to me, confidently proclaiming that I want or don't want something, when I know with the greatest certainty that you're wrong? Didn't St. Augustine warn against betraying ignorance in this way while proselytizing? <br /><br />But even that is quite irrelevant. What I WANT to believe doesn't enter into it. I believe a great many things I would rather not believe, inconvenient and painful and embarrassing truths abound, much as I would like to pretend they do not. And in fact, I don't particularly WANT to doubt your story; rather I feel compelled to doubt, because (and I here I repeat myself) it APPEARS FALSE TO ME. I cannot by mere will make it APPEAR to be true, nor would my conscience let me if I could.<br /><br />Really, all anyone has to do to convince me to adopt a belief is to show that it is more probably true than false. The Copernican model satisfies that requirement, because explains observable phenomena better than the Ptolemaic model. True, it violates a gut intuitive sense that something so huge as the Earth cannot possibly be moving under our feet. But I grant that gut intuitive sense no more privileged authority than any other of my impressions or prejudices; it's just another thing I can be wrong about, and evidently it isn't correct: eppur si muove.Tom Cantinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06234109728445439457noreply@blogger.com