Why so friggin' confident?

Touche, though you still didn't answer the question. Assuming the answer is 'no', how confident are you of that answer? (I will give you fair warning, even my answer to the question 'Was your mother a virgin on your day of birth?', would not have the level of confidence that I seem to detect when talking to certain Christians about the virginity of Mary or as a side note, the divinity of Jesus.) I didn't. I claimed to be born in 1783. Why? Right - but you are missing the overall point by only coming in the middle of a lengthy discussion. This can be quickly broken up into two points:

1. Assuming that miracles exist and can happen, how can you be confident that this miracle did happen and some other miracle did not.
2. Taking into account all facts, including the dishonesty of human witnesses with an agenda to push, why are you confident of the Mary virginity miracle? (rather than say, Jesus was just a revolutionary religious guy with a mundane birth that his followers embellished to make it look like he fulfilled prophecy and was a God-child etc)

By all means return to my original posts to get a sense of the fullness of this argument which I summarize here only to give a sense of it. Perhaps, you could call him what you like I guess - such a thing has never to my knowledge existed - you could try Catcow which has a certain ring to it. He'd have probably preferred 'Your majesty'. If you are unable to deduce my answer to that question based on what you know of me, or what I said in my previous post to you then why should I waste my time trying to discuss epistemology with you? Hopefully this post should settle it. If not...Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Percy writes:Percy, simply ask the man why he believes in God, see if all of his information he provides for that reason is subjective. Initially he has material and subjective reasons for believing in God, they are not, "I just like the idea of God", based beliefs. So do I and everyone else, initially and essentially. But like John, there are certain things that you and Brian believe that have no direct proof such as, that evolution actually happened at all or its specifics, its exact mehanism and its ultimate origins. You statement above is a perfect example of trying to present a distinction between yourselves and any other person, when no such distinction exists.Having said this it neither negates the theist's stance on belief and its tenets, nor does it demonstrate that the scientific method is somehow superior in its methods, it is not. The belief system is the same for all parties involved. No we do not disagree, he is simply providing another avenue of evidence in this connection. How in the world would the fact that he is pointing out other specifics, involve us in contradictory methods or imply that his or mine are not valid because we approach it form two different aspects?The historical and arcehological support and accuracy do no prove the validity of the scriptures, it simply lends credible support in its direction, in the same way evidence for evolution only provides you with a framework of belief.D Bertot

You say you have the kind of truth that can only be perceived by God's children, so it is safe to say you're not talking about objective real-world evidence. And Bertot says he has evidence of the same type and quality as evolution, which means objective real-world evidence.Are you and Bertot beginning to understand that you're not in agreement?--Percy

This is a cop-out. You have not reponded to my query.You are the one claiming that your mental experiences are evidence of a supernatural being. What is your evidence - evidence that can be shared by everyone - that that is the case? If you have no such evidence, your no-one need consider your experiences anything other than a personal quirk.Further, you should note that the Bible has no authority except among followers of certain religions. It is illegitimate to use bible quotations in public discourse.

Hi Mod, At 226 you would qualify for the the oldest living human.From what I can find the oldest living person is 113 year-old Tomoji Tanabe of Japan, born on 18 September 1895.I hope that answers your why. I read your post Message 151 the first day it was posted and did not care to play.I am one of those who do not require physical evidence I can touch with my hands.If you will read Message 61 you will see my take on the OP.It should tell you the kind of faith I have.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

I suggest you try asking the man yourself and see if you can get a straight answer out of him. I've asked the same question for five consecutive posts and have yet to get an answer. Your turn. Nothing that I and Brian believe has "direct proof", and evidently you know that, since you agreed with my statement that Brian and the rest of us accept answers to the degree they have supporting objective real-world evidence. And you say the same is true of you. Obviously none of us, including you, believe we have "direct proof" of anything.Avoid all forms of the word "proof" in these discussions, it can only lead you astray. What we're really talking about is whether something is supported by evidence. Uh, no. I was replying to your assertion that made an accusation about Brian, remember? You said, "This man actually believes he has concrete answers for ALL the things he believes." Now you respond that you agree that we all accept answers to the degree they have supporting evidence, completely forgetting you'd just accused Brian of thinking he has concrete answers for all his beliefs. But you claimed your evidence is of the same type and quality as that for evolution, which was gathered scienfically. The scientific method is just a systematized description of the way people always gather and establish confidence in what they know. If you're using some method that is actually substantially different in character from the scientific method then please tell us what it is. John 10:10 says that the evidence supporting his faith stems from an "indwelling proof". You say that the evidence supporting your faith stems from evidence of the same type and quality as evolution. I guess now you're saying that you also accept John 10:10's evidence, but John 10:10 gives no indication of accepting yours. He has consistently said that belief in God is necessary before the evidence can be perceived.--Percy

So I'm proposing a physically unlikely situation. Something that would likely require a miracle to achieve - either massive longevity or I travelled forwards in time at some point.Since you believe miracles can happen - why have you little to no confidence in this one? Yes - the type Bertot was inclined to call 'misguided' earlier (not in their religion but in their understanding of what faith means). I still extend the hand out to you 'Why so friggin' confident?". The question is neutral on the issue of evidence, it is just that Bertot holds that evidence is the reason to be so friggin confident.You hold that 'It is simply something I believe.'. Which might simply be a discussion killer normally, but I'm happy to dig deeper at your leisure. I know that you believe it, I know the approximate sequence of events that preceded your belief (according to your testimony at least) the questions I have are entirely different though:Did you develop this belief and actively decide to not question it? Was it more of a passive decision? Or have you questioned it? On what basis did you question it, if not on grounds of evidence then was it reason? Ultimately - I know you are friggin' confident, but why are you. Did you engage in any reasoning process or something that can be explained to gain this confidence? If you didn't - what makes you confident that you have the right kind of belief and would you be a Muslim were it not for the quality of the circumstances surrounding the development of your belief? If you had a similar experience with Islam as you did with Christianity, which do you pick?This last one is particularly of interest since I have had many tremendously moving religious experiences from a wide variety of different religions. I believed completely that the religious tenets as I was aware of them were True, but I no longer maintain those beliefs. Why do you maintain yours and how would you pick between them if you had the dilemma I described?

Hi Mod, 60 years of experience.I will assume from your questions you did not read all of Message 61.I will add just a little for your information.My mom was an alcoholic.My dad was a good man but he was not saved until I was 22 years old.They never took me to church.I began reading the Bible when I was 7 years old. There wasn't much to do on the farm in 1946 except in the spring and summer. That was the only book in the house and I loved to read. By the time I was 9 I was on my second time through the Bible. I wonder what one of those would be like as I never had one.I heard a message preached on John 3:16, 17, and 18. Plus the preacher talked about the lake of fire from Revelation.As a 9 year and 11 month old boy I believed those words, upon believing them I put my spirit in God's hands to take care of. He gave me all the faith I needed then and has supplied all I have needed from then until now.The devil has tried my faith many times but he can not win.Those trials have made my faith like tempered iron.I am truly sorry for people who have never experienced God and His love, mercy, and kindness as I have.I see so many that are hurting because of some religious experience when being a child of God is simply by accepting God at His word and then beginning on a journey to become totally like Christ.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Hi John 10:10I just thought I’d rewrite your last few posts in light of the new revelation that sea gull Jesus is not receiving the proper word of the Lord. That still leave the question: How does one resolve faith and folly?

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Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.

So you read the Bible extensively as a child, and when you were 9 you simply put your trust in the book you'd been reading and your preacher.But that still doesn't tell us why.Why did you trust the Bible and the preacher? Was it because the Bible was the only book you were able to read? At 9 in the 40s and on a farm with no real additional exposure to books, it's not like you could test the claims of the Bible against real-world evidence. Did the stories you read simply "make sense" to you? Did you just accept them unquestioningly because you were a child and adults you trusted verified that the stories were supposed to be true?You mention being challenged by the devil, but you didn't really answer the question of whether you had questioned your beliefs or not. Did you ever question them? meaning, did you ever ask yourself why you believe what you believe and whether your beliefs match to reality? Have you ever reasoned out a way to falsify your beliefs so that you could test them?Why are you confident that your beliefs are true, and the beliefs of a Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist are not? Why are you confident that your beliefs are more than fairy tales and mythology?You mention "experiencing God's love and mercy," but what do you mean by that? Clearly it's not an objective experience or everyone could see it. So what is it about this subjective experience that makes you do sure? How do you know you aren't delusional?Let me qualify that last question. "Delusional" carries a significant amount of contextual baggage, and typically carries implications of mental illness. That's not what I'm talking about. When you're alone in the dark and hear a noise and become absolutely convinced that someone is with you when nobody is there, that could be described as delusional. Human beings can believe things very strongly based on incomplete or incorrect information, or even based on confirmation bias or false pattern recognition. Are you confident that your beliefs are accurate, and not based on human error or inaccurate cultural traditions? If so, why?

That doesn't really seem to be an answer to the question. Unless you are trying to tell me you endorse the Concorde Fallacy? I'm fairly sure I did. Is there some answer there to the questions I posed that I missed? Great. But why are you so friggin' confident? Are you trying to tell me that because you got into it when you were highly suggestible, and because you have believed that suggestion for sixty years - you have to be confident otherwise the decades of believing will seem very foolish to you? Or something else? It is a shame. I can assure you, they are all very powerful and have their own unique flavour but with very much common themes. If you had a rival religious experience - on par with the one that resulted ultimately in your sixty year stint of belief, how would you decide which one to believe was true? Right so you started believing something and part of that beilef was that you had put your spirit in God's hands and that he gave you faith and given you all you need etc Why are so confident that this is in fact what happened? So occasionally you have doubted but you have managed to suppress those doubts? Why are so confident that it was the devil and not the way I describe it? I am truly sorry for you - who has never experienced Kensho or satori who has never seen the perfection of Allah and his revelation, who has not come to experience the fullness of reality as a divine being, and who has never traversed the beauty of the astral plane to discourse with the Elders or any other of the strange/wonderful/surreal but ultimately powerful and beautiful religious experiences that I have, some of which were not strictly 'religious'. Only having had the Christian variety seems so impoverishing and one level it seems self-evident that you would continue to believe it completely.
Why not spend a year or two seeking a powerful religious experience from another religion - you might be surprised at what you might find.

Hi ICANT, Would you trust a 9 year to properly evaluate a situation, weigh both sides of an argument and render a decision based off of his/her 9 year old reasoning?I have a 9 year old daughter. I can assure you that her reasoning abilities and her ability to interpret and evaluate evidence, within the context of this topic, are in no way adequate enough. How could anyone base a lifetime of belief on something that was determined to be true when you were a 9 year old kid? Do you still believe in Santa? Easter bunny? Unicorns and faries? That He-Man is a real dude? That a cow actually jumped over the moon? I would think that you don't, and why would you, those were things that were believed as a child.You say you only had 1 book to read. Doesn't seem like you had any other option other than to believe what it says, especially when the book is said to be the word of God. How could a child at such a young influential age have the courage to question a book said to be the word of God, AND with the ever lingering fear of eternal hell?What you are describing is textbook indoctrination. You had a limited exposure to the facts about reality and accepted the first thing that you read. How do you not see the flaw in this?

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

You could start by telling them that this....I believe God formed the first man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul. God then took a rib from the man and performed the first cloning process and made a woman. They then produced offspring. is a folk tale that is full of contradictions and logical errors.You know what is probably the saddest thing, you actually miss out on appreciating the Bible.You, and others of course, are not in the slightest bit interested in how the Bible came into being, you have it on this pedastal of revelation from a supernatural being that there is not a single shred of evidence for and think that it holds all the answers to all of mankinds' questions.Christians cannot appreciate the authors invention of historical events in the Bible because they need everything in it to be true.A great example of your self-delusion is your wild claim that God is a loving entity, how anyone can view the God of the Bible as anything other than pure evil is psychologically unsound.I believed all sorts of things were real when I was nealry ten years old, but you do eventually need to grow up and realise that there is no Santa Claus, there are no fairies at the bottom of the garden, and there is no God.

Nothing delusional mate, I know the world isn't 6000 years old, I know people never lived for 969 years, I know that Jesus was no Messiah. These are all facts. Of course I have, why else would I believe what I do. I am not some sort of sad, moronic, desperate theist who goes around grasping at any straw that they think will keep their fantasy going. Don't lump me in with your deranged Christian colleagues whose best argument for the existence of God is "well, prove that He doesn't exist." Yeah it is truly sad that I don't believe in a being that is too thick and evil to be real.

Hi Rahvin,Thanks for the exchange I thought you weren't talking to me. Well actually no. If you had read Message 61 you would know better.The preacher read 3 verses of scripture John 3:16, 17, and 18.After going home and going to sleep I woke up and these 3 verses kept going through my head.I realized God loved me.I realized Jesus died for me.I didn't have to be condemned to hell like that preacher said.And verse 18 which said I was condemned already.It also said, "He that believeth is not condemned".I claimed God's promise by putting my spirit in His hands and trusting Him to take care of everything.At that moment God sent the Holy Spirit to seal my eternal spirit until the day of redemption.I had no clue as to what faith was.I only believed God could do what He said He would. But I did not trust the Bible or the preacher.I was alone in my bed. Nobody in the room but me and the words going through my mind.I heard those three verses for the first time as they went through my mind. I simply believed God. You of all people should know better than to ask me did I or do I accept anything without asking questions.And no the Bible is not the only book I read. I had a 1 hr and 45 minute bus ride to school every day. It was usually the same back home but sometimes we didn't have to take 1 kid home and that made it 10 minutes less. So I read a book a day. Coming home and going back the next morning. I have never questioned God's love for me.I have never questioned Jesus buying me back out of salavery.I have never questioned my decision as a 9 year and 11 month old boy to put my spirit in God's hands. My eternal destiny.I have never questioned the fact the Holy Spirit came into my life and sealed my spirit until the day of redemption.I have never feared death from that time until now even when looking up a gun barrel.I have never questioned my Genesis explanation that I first presented at a prayer meeting on a Wednesday night when I was 10 years old. Even though nobody else believes it. Other than those above everything has been questioned.The reason I believe what I do is because the Holy Spirit leads me in all truth. I do get impatient and run ahead of Him sometimes and when I do I mess up. But if I need an answer concerning God's Word and ask for the knowledge of it He will supply that knowledge in His own time. Not when I demand it.I do not see any problems between my beliefs and reality. You experience God's love when He puts the full free pardon in your possession at the moment you put your spirit in His keeping.You experience His mercy every day as you are continually sheltered in His mercy. Well since my life has been something out of a fairy tail because it could not have been better. If I am delusional please don't wake me up. The things I mentioned above that I do not question are accurate.Cultural traditions. Lets see I was raised on a farm. When I was four it became my job to wash all the dishes for my Grandmother who had me from the time I was 2. At 5 I acquired the job of feeding the chickens plus the dishes. When I was 6 and going to school I acquired another job of shelling 3 bushels of corn every Saturday
morning. When I was 7 I was retired from all those jobs and began to work in the field with my grandfather, dad, and my 2 uncles. Farming 180 acres with mules and horses is a full time job. We did go to church once every 3 months as that was the only time the preacher was there. All I remember about those days was all the food on the table. Especially the sweets. By the time I was 9 I was contracting cropping tobacco 6 weeks each year. Normal pay was $3 per day but I could make $6 or $9 on contract for the amount of work done in a day.
So I guess those inaccurate cultural traditions could have fouled me up a bit, but I doubt it.Why do I believe? Because I have a peace that passes all understanding.That peace is given to me by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."