If it were not so, would you still believe?

KnowSelf

KnowSelf

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A test of faith, if all evidence were contrary to your belief would hold fast to your ideas of God and faith or would you take the path of least resistance?

I cannot speculate the future. It is enough for me to dwell in presence tense ✝️than to live otherwise.

The law of reality states as each person learns and moves forward in life so do the intensity of the challenges a person faces. This cannot be any other way. For this is how we learn and move forward in life , May the circle be unbroken.
 
Are you asking if we all floated and rivers flowed uphill would we believe in gravity?

Or if we learned the speed of sound and light switched would we stick to the old formulas?

Or if when the poles switch again, will we orient our compasses the same?

Of course not, if there were repeatable,.demonstrable evidence to the contrary!

Hence I am a nontheistic agnostic christian panenetheist unitic.

(I don't believe in a literal OT G!d, am open to discovery, think Jesus teachings worthwhile, some sort of worthiness in everything and that higher self in everyone, and enjoy circumambulating the underlying metaphysics of scripture.)
 
KnowSelf said:
A test of faith, if all evidence were contrary to your belief would hold fast to your ideas of God and faith or would you take the path of least resistance?
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As a seeker who found the unexpected, I fall into the "least resistance" camp. But you make it sound a bit negative. My experience was one of great relief rather than grudging conforming with the inevitable.


Beautiful said:
beliefs are for children. children believe in ghost and monsters...but its out of lack of knowledge, that is all
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To stop believing some of what others are telling me is easier than to stop believing in some of my own thoughts.
 
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Truthseeker9 said:
You have to go with the evidence.
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the evidence meaning what is revealed and understood. Humans often misinterpret evidence based on fear, social manipulation and mass frenzy; Witch trials, so-called sorcery for medicinal purposes.
 
KnowSelf said:
the evidence meaning what is revealed and understood. Humans often misinterpret evidence based on fear, social manipulation and mass frenzy; Witch trials, so-called sorcery for medicinal purposes.
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The evidence that the Universe is around 13.8 billion years old, for instance? As against 6000 years? There are people out there saying that the fossil record was all laid down by Noah's flood. Because they must take the Bible literally. Against all the evidence.
 
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RJM Corbet said:
The evidence that the Universe is around 13.8 billion years old, for instance? As against 6000 years?
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We all know where the "13.8 billion" figure comes from..
..and I assume the 6000 year figure comes from the "Genesis literalists"

This sort of evidence is not helpful in finding "the complete truth" .. time belongs to G-d.
 
muhammad_isa said:
We all know where the "13.8 billion" figure comes from..
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Where do we all know it comes from?

muhammad_isa said:
..and I assume the 6000 year figure comes from the "Genesis literalists"
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Yes. Young Earth creationists, who insist their scripture must be literally true, every word.

muhammad_isa said:
This sort of evidence is not helpful in finding "the complete truth" .. time belongs to G-d.
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Ok, so how do you go with the age of the earth? Science says something over 4 billion years. Do you reject that?
 
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RJM Corbet said:
Ok, so how do you go with the age of the earth? Science says something over 4 billion years. Do you reject that?
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I do not reject the science. I don't find "billions of years" meaningful.
What is a year? One orbit of the earth around the sun?
..or is it measured by "radioactive clock" .. or pendulum .. or ask a dinosaur? ;)
 
And why does the age of the earth matter?
 
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muhammad_isa said:
What is a year? One orbit of the earth around the sun?
..or is it measured by "radioactive clock"
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It is a unit of time decided by consensus and then used as an international standard measure. Like a kilometre, or a volt, or a degree centigrade. There are caesium clocks now that can measure the difference in time passing between the roof and the floor.
KnowSelf said:
And why does the age of the earth matter?
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It shouldn't, I suppose. But if I need to insist that my scripture is right and the geology is wrong I will just be turning 21st Century people away from my 'God' by insisting they believe the scripture over the obvious evidence?

"You must believe every word of my scripture as literally true children; don't question because that means you don't believe God -- and that means you will burn in hell."

Even as a young child I remember thinking: I like God and Jesus, but I'm not buying all that other sort of stuff sir, thanks very much!

It's a bit like looking at a river or mountain or something, and waving a map insisting: "It's not pictured here on my map, therefore it doesn't exist, even though I'm staring straight at it with my own eyes."
 
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RJM Corbet said:
It is a unit of time decided by consensus and then used as an international standard measure.
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Yes .. and how do we know what this "unit of time" means?
Of course, we can observe something moving through space. We then have velocity and acceleration and so on.
However, do we assume that time is linear over these billions of years .. why should it be?
 
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KnowSelf said:
And why does the age of the earth matter?
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Exactly, it doesn't .. it means little .. it is an argument used by atheists to show that the Bible is "wrong".
The Bible iis not there to educate us scientifically .. there are plenty of other books that have that intention :)

Atheists, of course, are more likely to see time as an absolute phenomenon.
They would consider Bible verses such as "a year as you measure is as 1000 years for G-d" as poppycock

Time & space is our "reality" on this mortal journey, but have no doubt, that it is only a perception.
Einstein recognised that. The passing of time is something that we experience.
We can observe our universe, and make theories etc. etc. but we cannot escape this "reality" until death.
"If I could put time in a bottle" .. time belongs to G-d .. it is HIS bottle :)
 
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muhammad_isa said:
Yes .. and how do we know what this "unit of time" means?
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How do you know when to catch your bus?

What I'm saying is that some people -- not you -- are happy to take the science that serves them, the cell phones and power supply, etc -- but reject the science they don't like because it doesn't comply with literal scripture.

It's a discussion that is always going on across all sorts of faith websites.
 
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Rude insulting aethists vs smug literal creationists who keep shifting the goalposts. Never an end to it.

At least on some forums. Not here. IO is different, imo.

As with many other things it's the extremists on both sides who make life hard in this world for ordinary folks, imo.
 
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