Choosing to believe

Sounds like you inferred it was hot because it was giving off heat. Doesn't sounds like you had much of a choice either. Could you have chosen to believe it was cold?

what if I had never actually felt heat from the fire but had seen pictures of fire and heard stories that it was hot?

Do the stories and pictures cause you to believe?

It depends on who is telling me the stories. I tend to trust stories from people whom I trust.

Could you choose to believe fire was hot (or cold) on the word of a known pathological liar?I don't mean 'could you choose to trust such a person' but would you actually hold the belief 'fire is cold' by choice?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

nope. I would need evidence. Everyone knows that fire is supposed to be hot.

Just sayin'...

In essence, yes and no. You may decide that fire is hot based on tangible experience (touching the flame, feeling it's heat) or you may believe that it is hot from observing its effects. In the second case, you have not personally touched the flame or felt its heat, but you have observed its effects, and so believe the fact that "it is hot" to be true.Regards!- Raph

There are Dallas Cowboy and Houston Astro and Cub fans.

I choose to believe and I believe I can choose.Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

How would you know when you had evidence?

I suppose when I threw something in the fire and it burned up. I chose to believe initially because the fire consumed me. Not propaganda, though Tangle will argue I NEVER would have become a Christian in another culture, though many of those Catholics never got the fire to begin with. They went through the rituals, bells, smells, kneeling, etc. They may have had good Priests with the fire, though in the Catholic tradition being "on fire" is rare.If they caught it (The Spirit/Fire) at all, it would have come from either another Catholic with the Spirit or a Protestant friend. Rarer still, God Himself could have chosen them God does NOT personally intervene with every human on the planet. He prefers that we help spread the fire in our own unique ways. Having said that, I believe that God chooses everyone yet we have to choose Him back. The whole planet is not simply automatically saved. (Though perhaps some day He could step in and do that too!)I have found that people who are lukewarm either eventually warm up to God(Jesus) or they get colder and become antitheists. Which of course is a form of the antichrist spirit. Just sayin....

True.There are also many paths up the mountain but there is One top. Not many.Imagine a Guru living in a hut at the top. When He looks down the mountain He sees many many paths up to the top. Meeting Him is the goal of climbing the mountain by whatever path you have.Surely you wont argue that there are three or more Gurus at the top wearing their teams colors!

Moronic, self-delusion.

Phat,Modulous asked you: "...would you actually hold the belief 'fire is cold' by choice?"You replied - "nope. I would need evidence."I assumed you were saying that you would need evidence in order to choose to believe that fire is cold. I asked you how you would know when you had the evidence?You replied - "I suppose when I threw something in the fire and it burned up."How would that be evidence that fire is cold?