Religious faith

I try to be a good person because I want other people to reciprocate this for the mutual benefit of society. If I go around doing immoral things, it will not give people a reason to be respectful to me. But if everyone agrees to respect each other, then we will all benefit.

 

It's not just the books. We have many movies and spinoff series which further add to the abundance of evidence suggesting that Hogwarts is real. JK Rowling didn't write all of that. There were directors, screenplay writers, producers. And it's all recent and verifiable. Every single book and movie unanimously agrees that Hogwarts is a real place. And this is over a timespan from 2001 to 2018. Pretty consistent if you ask me.

 

They are independent sources. But I don't know why you're focused specifically on the four gospels. They clearly were written about the same period in time, likely fairly close to each other. There are 62 other books in the Bible to be considered.

Of course not. Those blog are just random people's opinions.

Again, that's a terrible equivalency. You keep trying to reduce my position to "well a bunch of people have said this is true, so that's why I believe it." That's not at all what I have said, or why I believe what I believe.

If you want to learn why people believe what they believe, maybe you should actually listen to their answers instead of completely misrepresenting them.

Yes, I do, because of the evidence. There is a lot of it. Clearly you have not looking into it, and I say that because you didn't even seem to know that the Bible wasn't written all at once by one person. so obviously you know nothing about it. I find that rather foolish to be debating about something being stupid to believe in, when you don't even know what it is.

Are you incapable of not twisting my words? This is absolutely ridiculous. This just shows how little of an argument you actually have, if you need to resort to mocking and making it look like I said something I obviously didn't say.

Well great, that just shows it right there. You were never interested in having an intellectual conversation. You were "hoping" someone who believes in Christianity for essentially no good reason would respond. And of course you were hoping that, because that's easy to refute. But when you are confronted with someone who tells you there is actual evidence and good, logical reasons to believe, you have to mock and dismiss them, so you don't have to feel guilty for not wanting to look into it and being lazy.

My bad for thinking you actually wanted to have a respectful conversation. Your initial post was rather misleading. If you're only interest is to mock and twist my words, and your hope was to talk to someone who has no foundation for their faith aside from "my parents said so," then that just shows your incredible obvious confirmation bias.

What a freaking waste of time.

 

I'm sorry if you feel that way. It's never my intention to misinterpret someone or to be dishonest. I don't see how I've done either of those things, but if I've misinterpreted you, I apologize.

You said that the life of George Washington isn't based off of one piece of writing, implying that the Bible is one piece of writing, which it is not. If I misunderstood what you meant, I'm sorry, but that's the implication that logically follows.

Well we will have to agree to disagree on that one.

See, that's the issue I have. I am not "hiding behind fake evidence."

Well actually that's not at all what faith is about. Faith in God is not about blindly choosing to believe in him without any logical reasoning or evidence. Faith in God is similar to the faith you have in a person you love and trust, who you know deeply. I have faith in God because I know him, not because I just "chose" to have faith in him. In my opinion, that would be unreasonable. You don't just choose to have faith in some random stranger. You have faith and trust in people you know and who have proven themselves to be faithful and trustworthy.

I will say that I'm sorry if I misjudged your reason for saying you're glad he chimed in. I understand I was wrong in that now, but that's how it appeared to me. It seemed to me like you asked people to share why they believe what they believe, and for some reason when I shared my reasoning, you had nothing but negativity in response, but when he shared his reasoning, which in my opinion seems not as solid, you were nothing but positive. That struck me as odd, and I just don't understand why you think there is some kind of problem with me believing in God because of evidence and reason. Most atheists I've known seem to think Christians are too naive and don't care about logic and reason, so I would have thought that would be seen as a good thing. Not seen as me "hiding behind fake evidence." I'm not hiding behind anything.

Well first of all, order, purpose, and justice mean everything to me. So... not sure where you get off saying they mean nothing to me.

And secondly, I don't really think I need to apologize for saying I think it's unwise to not have a more solid foundation for why you believe what you believe. I mean absolutely no offense to Desmond, and I'm glad he has found a relationship with the true God. But the fact that he says if he had been raised Muslim, he would probably believe that instead, should be deeply concerning to anyone who cares about objective truth. That's just not a wise way to decide on your beliefs. I'm not going to apologize for saying that, because it isn't an insult and it shouldn't be taken that way. I'm sorry if I maybe phrased it more harshly than I should have, but I'm not sorry for saying that his reasoning is unwise and not very solid. That might sound mean, but I don't mean it to be taken that way, and I hope he understands that.

 

From the perspective of someone who isn’t religious, I can see how it could seem like you would have to make huge sacrifices. You ask how I accepted religion without compromising my identity, here’s my answer: I was raised in a Christian household. My identity basically formed around it. I never really knew a point in time where God wasn’t something I accepted as truth.

Obviously as I grew older, I started to question things a little bit more. Things always come up. Why does God allow evil? Why did God allow this to happen to me, or why didn’t God answer that prayer? So I used that great knowledge bank available to me called the Internet, and I did some research.

I’m a very skeptical person, and I still struggle with faith sometimes. But God has a way of drawing you back in. To me, it’s a win-win situation. I believe in God and that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and in exchange I get eternal life. The way I see it, there’s no point in rejecting religion because ultimately, as long as you believe and repent, you’re set for eternity. Plain and simple.

And even if it turns out that it was all just made up, you’ll have lived a life knowing that you tried and that you made an effort to be a good person. What more can you really ask for? People like to ask me if I fear the idea of a death where there turns out to be no God or heaven, and I always ask them to tell me about how things were before they were born.

 

As much as I would like to say that I would have found the Christian God even in those circumstances, logic would dictate otherwise. It’s a well known fact that typically religion is passed down. It’s actually rather rare for someone to convert to a religion separate from that of their parents.

To me it almost seems like you’re suggesting that there’s a “right” way and a “wrong” way to approach religion, which is inherently false. It makes absolutely no difference by what means I choose to believe in God, the only thing that makes a difference is whether I do or do not.

It seems you’re misunderstanding what I’m getting at here, and are almost certainly jumping to conclusions. I do indeed have more reasons behind my faith than because my parents told me so, although yes, as a child I accepted things my parents told me, but so does everyone. As I got older, I did my own research and decided that I truly did want to follow God. My point with saying I would be Muslim if that’s how I was raised is because quite frankly, that’s just the truth for most people. Once you’ve already been brought up in a certain faith, it’s difficult to just pick something else. It would require some truly drastic circumstances to cause someone to change their faith.

 

I'm not saying there is a right and wrong way. I'm saying that in general, it is unwise to believe in something purely because someone told you to. That's just true of anything, not just religion.

Like I said, it's great that you have come to know the true God, but it's almost like you got lucky to be raised by a family who taught you something true instead of something false.

I'm really not trying to be rude here. I don't want to go back and forth on this, because it will turn into more of a big deal than I think it even is or needs to be.

I will say, as someone who was raised a Christian myself, a few years ago I probably would have said the same thing. I actually would even say now that I'm very glad I was raised in a Christian home, because when I was younger I just wasn't curious enough to really question anything, and if I had been raised in a Muslim home, I might have just believed that as well. I'd like to think that when I grew up and started looking into things more deeply, I would realize it isn't true and that the Bible is far more reliable. But I don't know if I would, because it's hard for people to get past what they were raised to believe sometimes.

So I totally get what you're saying, and I'm not trying to attack you for saying that. I'm just saying that it's not wise to let that be your only reason for believing something. I'm not saying it IS your only reason. I'm sure you have others as well, I would just be curious to hear what they are.

Personally, when I realized that if i had been raised Muslim I might have just believed that instead, that was a statement that deeply concerned me, because I would have been blindly believing a lie. So I wanted to make sure I wasn't blindly believing a lie about Christianity. So I dug deeper and asked more questions and studied more, to ensure that my faith was founded on more than just my parent's word. (Now that I've read ahead in your comments, it sounds like that's exactly what you did as well.)

That's just how I personally did things, and I do think it's wiser to have more to faith than just your parents word. Which like I said, I'm sure you probably do, and I'm not trying to attack you personally.

This is good, and I'm glad to hear that. Your story sounds somewhat similar to my own, and again, I'm not trying to attack you. I just felt like your initial comment made it sound like the only reason you believe in God is because it's what you were taught, and if you had been taught something different you would believe that and that would be fine. That was the implication I got, but I could be completely wrong. I just wanted to clarify that if that's true, that's not very wise. But it sounds like it's not the case, so that's good.

Yes, I did misunderstand and I apologize for that. In your initial comment it sounded like you didn't have any other reasons, because you didn't mention any at all. But you've mentioned some now, so that's good.

I totally understand that now, and I agree with you actually. In fact I've said that same thing many times myself. I guess I just wanted clarification that that would be a really bad thing. Because gods aren't interchangeable, and it matters whether you are believing in a God who is real or one who was made up by some dude. I just wasn't sure from what you said if you recognized that, but I should have asked, and I apologize for jumping to conclusions. Sometimes I think I know more than I do.

It's tough on the internet, because if we were talking in person I would have just immediately asked for clarification before saying anything more. But with the waiting around for an answer, I get impatient sometimes and want to just skip to responding. That's not wise or good of me, and it's something I definitely need to work on.

So in that, let me ask for clarification, because in reading back your original comment I'm still not sure. Do you think religion is interchangeable, and it wouldn't matter if you believed Islam or Christianity or anything else? Or do you believe that Christianity is true, the God of the Bible is real, and believing in any other god would be a lie?

Because from your first comment, it sounds to me like you are choosing to believe in God because it wouldn't hurt, and it makes you a better person, but I'm not sure that it would matter then if you believed in some other religion, or if it was true or false. So I guess what concerns me and what I would want to know from you is how much do you care about believing truth? Would you be comfortable believing in a god that isn't real, if the religion had some good ways of life to follow (Buddhism for example)? Do you actually believe the God of the Bible is the one true God, and do you have a relationship with him, or do you just like the moral values of Christianity? This is a rather important clarification, as I'm not sure the latter would result in your salvation.

These aren't assumptions, by the way, these are genuine questions. I would like to have clarification on your answers to these, in case what I'm getting from what you're saying is off base. The only way to not make assumptions is to ask for clarification, so I hope you know I'm asking these questions genuinely.

 

No, I don't think that religion is interchangeable and I absolutely do believe that the Christian God is the true God. To me it makes the most sense. I'm a very skeptical person, and I don't just blindly accept anything. I struggle with faith enough as it is. I haven't looked that much into other religions, but if there are truly as many flaws with them as you seem to suggest, I would very likely find them, and I would not accept such a religion as truth.

From the perspective of someone who isn't particularly religious, often religion conjures ideas of closed-mindedness and it being used as an excuse to do evil. And not only that, people often fear that if they believe in God, and it turns out not to be true in the end, that they will have made a fool of themselves. I guess what I was trying to get at is that even if it turned out not to be true, what's the harm in it? The Bible teaches you to do good, and to respect people, and even beyond that it gives you advice on life, and gives you something to live by. If you know how to interpret it, it's the closest thing to a guide to life as you would ever find, and it's still absolutely relevant even today. So with that being said, it wasn't that I was saying that I didn't care what religion I believed in, because I do care, and I absolutely care if it's true or not.

I wouldn't be comfortable at all believing in a false god, and I do actually believe that the God of the Bible is the true God. I do like the moral values of Christianity, but that isn't the only reason why I'm invested in Christianity. I place my faith in Christianity because it's backed by historical things that have actually been recorded, and there is absolutely no doubt that Jesus was a man who existed. That's a historically accepted fact, even outside of a religious context. I can't speak for all religions, but I'm fairly certain that such firm grounding in historical fact isn't something a lot of religions can claim.

 

Well good sounds like we are on the same page, then. Thanks for answering!

I gotcha. That makes sense, and I agree.

Again, thanks for answering my questions, and I do sincerely apologize for misunderstanding before. Sounds like we actually have incredibly similar stories for how we have come to know God, and what we believe. I definitely agree with everything you've said here, and I'm happy for the clarification.