A Little Practice in Faith

Interesting. I think god is taking your bad luck with computers and transferring it to me.The other day I was using Windows, and I needed to make a shortcut to a file to put on the desktop for a friend of mine to access easily (she's not good with computers). I right-clicked and brought up the menu and moused down to "Make shortcut." Of course, Microsoft in their wisdom puts that right over "Delete" in the menu, and of course, a blip in the mouse mechanism caused the pointer to move right as I let go of the button, deleting the file.So, does god hate me? Does windows suck? (Can't both be true? )Anyway, this sounds like selective memory. People remember when it goes their way, or appears to proves something they already believe to be true. They're much, much less likely to remember when things contradict their beliefs.

It was actually a dial-up settings file, which don't go to the recycle bin. They just get erased.

Well, I wasn't trying to disprove you with my post - I was actually griping about that stupid menu thing because I'm still mad about it. But your post does suggest to me that the "God hypothesis" is the kind of thing that informs one's entire worldview. That's a little scary, to me. Like a weird kind of cognitive dissonance. I mean, how can any of that god stuff actually make sense to you? That's more of a rhetorical question, by the way. I suspect the answer has something to do with the ineffability of god, perhaps?

That's kind of it. Like, what is it that causes you to see divine intervention in the things that, in my view, happen to everybody regardless of creed or sin or anything? If god is intervening, but the result is the same as if he'd done nothing, then what has god really done?I don't think you're a dumb guy or anything; it's just that it's these kind of questions that for me, led to atheism. They were just too burning for me to dismiss with something like "it's the mystery of god." And, if a person can so easily dismiss this kind of illogic, what else can they wave away? I'm not scared of your beliefs, because you've made it clear that you're a responsible, moral person who respects the rights and dignity of others. But not everybody is like you.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 06-24-2003]