Choosing a faith

Are you sure?Here is one of the first results from your article:

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Among religious and secular charities that provide health or human services, secular charities and other FBOs are more likely than congregations to serve only the general public rather than their own members and to target their services to low-income groups. However, secular charities are more likely than congregations or other FBOs to receive government contracts and to have completed a recent evaluation of program outcomes or impacts.

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Which seems to align with what my article was saying: That secular institutions will provide help to everyone equally, and religious groups are much more likely to discriminate and only help those who are a part of their particular religion. If you'd like to agree that being religious does not change one's actions and ideas any more than being atheist does - then I certainly agree.
The only reason I started down this route was because you seemed to indicate that being religious provided a certain outlook on life that wasn't obtainable otherwise. This is clearly bogus.

Perhaps.
Perhaps not.I suppose we'll never know, will we? And what is so "wise" about not being a psychologist that you think is unobtainable if one is a psychologist?
To me - I see no reason why someone can't be a psychologist and also pursue a spiritual path - and also ignore things that don't exist, like God.

Fantastic.
I always thought you were a good person. Of course - your personal experience doesn't change the fact that atheists also have life-changing structures to their thoughts and outlook on life that also make them just as generous and loving and charitable, perhaps even more so.It's almost like people are all individuals, each with their own personal subjective ways to achieve the same subjective levels of spiritual enlightenment. All without any external intelligence or God acting on any of them at all.Really, what's the difference between a God that doesn't exist and a God that acts - absolutely always, in every and all situations - as if He doesn't exist?

I don't know.But - if you're going to tell me it's God, without being able to link God to reality in any way, I'm going to know you're wrong. Because that's how being wrong works.

How so?I've never noticed a marked difference in those who claim to "Be Saved" vs. those who do not claim such a thing.
What part of reality links God into it?

Because we've looked for any changes on people that would indicate that God is influencing their thoughts.
And we've never found anything that links such a claim to reality. Just normal natural people doing normal natural things. Because I've looked, and found nothing to suggest such a thing.I'm willing to be shown to be wrong - feel free to suggest how God is influencing me or my thoughts.
All I ask is that you link it to reality.

Not only that - I personally revel in my beliefs; when I know they're warranted. Being irrational is incredibly fun.
And we try to suppress our beliefs as much as possible when we know they're counter-productive (like when we have a priority of finding the truth - under serious investigation.)Example:When I play video games, I play them for fun and entertainment not for identifying truth.
I fully believe that I'm the best COD player ever to pick up a controller. And everyone else who kills me happens to get lucky or is hacking.
I don't care about the truth - because I understand that it's not my priority here - I'm HAVING FUN.Of course, switch over to seriously attempting to identify the truth - and I can show how I'm middle-aged and my reflexes are slowing. I can show how I only play for fun... a few hours a week and many others play for fun for hours a day, every day. Others still play as their freaking job while streaming and are professionals. We all face the same amount of "luck" and actual, real hackers - yet my K/D is lower... simply because I'm not as good as they are.But, of course - they're hacking and I'm amazing. And we can switch back to believing in having fun while I scream at the TV that "I'm better!!" while watching myself die in my own kill-cam because of course I'm the best.It's all fine - as long as we identify our priorities and align ourselves with reality accordingly.

There are similar stages to increasing your thetan levels and becoming a good Scientologist.Yet - Scientologists and those that "hear God's voice" are no different from anyone else, are they?They get in the same number of vehicle accidents.
They are just as likely to be a victim of natural disasters.
Human made vaccines work equally well on them to protect them from harm.
They aren't happier than anyone else.
They aren't safer than anyone else.
They aren't more prosperous than anyone else.We do see some differences though:
-although they don't seem to be as generous when giving "to anyone or everyone in need;" they do tend to be more generous if someone within their own religious group is in need.
-the higher the level of fundamentalism/dogmatism - the more likely such people are unable to identify fake newsWhich seems like exactly the results we would expect of any and every group that thinks they "have the answers" within their fold when, really, they do not.

Seems to me that we believed more than you.
We had so much Faith, that we believed no question could ever do any harm to God. How could it?So, we asked the questions.Not being willing to question your God means you have less Faith in His ability to provide good answers. It's a sign of insecurity.

Yes - when we discover what makes things work the way they do without finding any supernatural aspect to it.We didn't have to discover gravity - we could have discovered tiny angels pushing everything down. Turns out it's not supernatural - it's natural.
We didn't have to discover weather patterns - we could have discovered saints that controlled the weather. Turns out it's not supernatural - it's natural.
We didn't have to discover plate tectonics - we could have discovered demons responsible for earthquakes. Turns out it's not supernatural - it's natural.
We didn't have to discover evolution - we could have discovered God creating animals/humans/everything from scratch. Turns out it's not supernatural - it's natural.
We didn't have to discover the evolution of society - we could have discovered that societies came from the Tower of Babel, assigned by God. Turns out it's not supernatural - it's natural.
We didn't have to discover the evolution of morality - we could have discovered that empathy only existed in humans, placed there by God. Turns out it's not supernatural - it's natural.When we discover what makes things work the way they do without finding any supernatural aspect to it - it shows that it's from being natural and normal people. Yes - and evolution did that too. But they died out. Turns out if you look out for others, your society is better able to adapt to your environment than the ones that only look out for number one. So, the "only number one's" died out. Our ancestors killed them. And the more social species continued. Evolution! How so?All I try to do is compare my thoughts against the facts we find in reality.
When they match - I assume my thoughts are valid.
When they don't match - I assume my thoughts are wrong.You're the one who uses your "common sense" to try and define reality, even when reality says you're wrong - remember the millions of papers of evidence showing that you're wrong? The only thing I insist on is that our ideas of "what is true" match the results we find in reality.
If you can show how I'm not following that rule - then you can show me and I can learn something.
If all you have is your own personal "common sense" or refusal to accept the facts we're able to identify... without being able to connect it to reality in any way - well, we already know that such ideas are terrible at identifying what's real.

My point wasn't to say that atheist faith vs. theist faith is better or worse.
My point is to say that comparing something subjective - like faith - is a bad argument to make, for anyone.
Where is the "faith measuring tape" to compare one's faith to another's?You either take others at their word, or you accuse them of lying about themselves without any ground to support such an accusation.It's up to you to decide which path a Christian would follow.

It is getting old. But I keep saying it because I haven't yet understood a response that makes it invalid. You keep making attempts like this: ...but that's not applicable.
We don't have the situation where we have a robotic assembly line and we can see programmers working on it, developing it and creating it.
With a robotic assembly line - if we study it after creation, we can see minimal complexity - that is, things are only as complex as they need to be. And novel solutions are "copied" over to other areas where they're useful... robotic assembly lines do not fall into an inefficient nested hierarchy - they fall into a very efficient intelligently designed process.But if we look at life... we see no hint of any intelligence working on it, developing it or creating it.
In fact... if there was anyone developing it, we can see many, many places where they did things horribly, terribly stupid and wrong.
Life is not minimally complex but maximally complex - that is, it's complex to the point of not even being able to use some of it's own functionality because it gets too complex. And it does fall into a nested hierarchy - which screams "no intelligence here!" when identifying if an intelligent design process was used.We specifically look for a designer - and not only do we not find one, but we find overwhelming indications that no designer was within light years of these processes.I keep using the same old response.. because you as-of-yet are unable to answer it. It absolutely does.
It just provides an answer that you don't want to accept and refuse to acknowledge. But that doesn't make the answer go away.Just like no one ever have this sort of debate over whether or not God is "behind water coming out the faucet when we turn on the tap" or the external influence of "turning the key and the car's engine starts up." We all understand how and why these things work - and the answer is "because of the process that exist in this universe."That's the same answer here. It's just that the understanding of evolution/morality/social-species isn't as popular yet. And so you cling to the popular ignorance and think it's adding weight to your justification. But - it doesn't.We accept that knowledge is tentative for running water and cars starting. You just don't seem to want to accept that knowledge is tentative for the evolution of humanity.It's the same concept.

I really don't care what kind of evidence you show to support your ideas.
All I'm looking for is anything at all that separates your ideas from pure imagination.I don't think external intelligence is included because we've looked - found that no external intelligence is necessary for the natural processes explained by natural phenomenon - and on top of that we don't even see any possible link for "an external intelligence" to reality in any way.The difference is that my "why" and my explanation are connected to reality by evidence.
Your possibility for "why" and your explanation are only in your imagination and not linked to reality by anything at all.You seem to want to re-frame this into a my opinion vs your opinion thing.
My opinion actually agrees with you - I think an external intelligence for life would be a very good answer. It has the potential to explain a lot of things.
The thing is - reality doesn't care about opinions or imagination - not mine, and not yours.
Reality is whatever it is.
And reality is telling us that no external intelligence exists.You can deny the results all you'd like - it makes no difference.
It's like you're in the passenger seat while we're driving - I look and say "there's no oncoming traffic, I'm going to turn." You then say "that's only what you think! You're not proving that oncoming traffic cannot exist! I think it does exist and you just can't see it!" I then look at you funny and make the turn anyway. You close you eyes so you don't see us turn. Then you open your eyes while we're travelling straight again and say "That was so lucky! You don't think oncoming traffic exists, and reject my conclusion that it does exist!" I just smile and nod. And we repeat at every intersection.One of us is dealing with reality and making progress down the road - the other is not and just along for the ride.
If you think that's an equal level of judging opinions - that's on you. I don't assume that - this is what reality tells us. No faith required at all. All you have to do is stop closing your eyes to reality. All you have to do is link this imaginary idea of an external intelligence to reality in any way at all - and everyone will start taking you seriously.
Without being able to do that - you can continue to close your eyes as we advance along each and every turn on the road to the truth of reality.

Historical result of Science of the Gaps - Science develops better technology to study the concept, learns more about the natural process, advances human knowledge, no external intelligence is ever found.Historical result of God of the Gaps - No one ever looks any further, nothing is ever learned, human knowledge stagnates, no external intelligence is ever found.Science of the Gaps is actually a strength of science - not a weakness.
It identifies areas of further study, and we end up learning more.God of the Gaps is, well, exactly what you think it is.The only reason you could possibly think that "not knowing something" is a weakness - is if you have a historical record of being unable to learn new things due to a personal issue of clinging to tradition regardless of it's veracity.In science - "not knowing something" is an exciting opportunity. It means we're about to learn something. And we always do. We just never find an external intelligence, is all.

You are true. No one thinks chance created or explains the origin of the universe.
That's just as bad as saying God did it - it has no link to reality.It is, however, used in a derogatory way by those who are afraid to learn of the actual ideas people think may have created the universe.