So I've re-read my response to the OP, which is here for your reference:
And nowhere do I see evidence of blind faith.
So why are you writing of my "willful acceptance of contradictions and unanswered questions"? You know nothing of my mental processes.
Tell me how an all loving God torturing souls for eternity is not a contradiction with two diametrically opposing linguistic terms, then we'll talk.
We Christians have been commanded to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37).
It's self fulfilling. You are commanded to believe or threatened with torture, so you do what is commanded and attempt to believe. You attempt to believe fully because you are commanded to believe fully and anything contrary you discard because you must believe. Your belief is circular, self-validating, not of rational deduction.
You may be surprised to find that I personally take that "with all your mind" part very seriously. We are to seek information, not reject it, and make a decision to love God consistently. That takes mindful consideration.
I seek information, constantly. That is why I'm at university, that's why I do anything really. I, like you, ask big questions. ''Is there a God'', ''Is this what we're here for?'' Everyone asks these. And as I ask these I realize that as humans on this tiny planet in the middle of an entire universe, we are disconnected; we are impotent in the face of the scale of the cosmos, and so we look to the sky, see the rain, and ask ''what's the purpose?''
But when we really think about it, asking ”what is the existential purpose of raindrops?” is sort of like asking ”what emotion is a cloud''. Raindrops don't have any reason beyond simply the antecedent factors that led to their existence.
I mean, raindrops do lots of wonderful things — they bring water on dry land, give lifeblood to the plants and soak us when we least expect it, but it is not a valid question to ask ”Who meant for them to do so?”
It seems to me that questions like these take our desire to ascribe meaning just one step too far. We know the raindrops nourish, we know they provide water, we know they wet the landscape and bring rainbows that amuse us, but I don't believe that the raindrops are designed for our amusement just because I'd like to think myself so important. Our amusement is just a product of our perception of the rainbow; the antecedent physical factors that led to the raindrops falling are reason enough for their existence; that they water the plants and feed the rivers is actually purpose enough to satisfy me.
For you, it isn't, and so they must have been designed, fashioned and placed here just for you.
To be honest, I think the notion is a tad arrogant –a notion that exalts you up to the self appointed throne as the pinnacle of existence for which all things were made. For me, being part of it all is enough.
You're being a bit of a hypocrite. You say you believe evolution because it has evidence, you comprehend it, you recognize it, and you're enlightened to it, and that you believe the sky is blue, because you ''see'' it. This is the same reasoning that people have argued about God's voice, His work in the world, miracles, deliverance, Satan's influence and other matters of faith. But you will not concede those--conclusions backed up by the same reasoning: experience. Then you criticize religious people for having what you see as blind faith, but then don't take too kindly to the fact that we don't drop everything and believe you and yield to your "better" reasoning. Blind faith is bad unless we have blind faith in you. Talk about contradiction.
You and I both see the blue sky. Everyone does. Reason dictates that there
is a blue sky. You and I do not see God. Now, please enlighten me as to the last time God visited you in a burning bush, spoke with a booming voice from the heavens, parted seas for you to cross, where you did ''greater miracles than Christ'' and healed the sick with just your touch, turned water to wine, or the last time you created a snake from a staff and a staff from a snake, saw prophetic visions that came true, led the largest slave labour workforce in the history of mankind out of Egypt on a forty year trek across the Egyptian deserts and managed to leave absolutely no archaeological evidence behind whatsoever, survived a global flood after hearing God's instructions to build an ark of such size that it is physically and fundamentally unable to bear the force of torsion, or indeed got that new car you prayed for one week.
The fundamental problem at the base of your entire argument is that you seem to have a default of denial of any religious person's account of their experiences.
Only if there is no clear evidence so suggest it wasn't a delusion. Occam's razor; heard of it?
You want to talk about faith and understand it, but yet you discount what those who actually have faith have to say on the faulty basis that there is no reasoning in faith, since you do not understand the reasoning.
Faith, as I have seen, has no true reasoning. Why are climate deniers mostly religious? Conspiracy nuts, mostly religious? YEC's, mostly religious? Faith is enabled not by a special understanding that is beyond and above natural reasoning, but by the willful suppression of natural reasoning.
And since you do not understand it, nobody understands it, even those who gave it.
I understand the concept of faith perfectly well, as do you. That I don't indulge in the faith -- which is an acceptance of an unproven notion contrary to both evidence and my natural sense as a result of a variety of emotional and psychological factors -- is not evidence that I cannot make sense of what faith is.
That "I don't see it, so it's not there" mentality. Frankly, that is a foolish and arrogant way of thinking.
Nobody sees it. When was the last time you healed the sick with a touch of your hand? When was the last time you saw the face of God or heard his voice?
You believe, as an atheist, that you know more about theism than theists, and consequently, that you know more about not just what theists believe but how they believe it. You presume to know more about believing in God than people who believe in God.
I know about reason, I understand the common psychological factors inherent in the mass religious. I know that ultimately we ascribe a meaning to our lives because honestly, in the face of a universe that has never paid any attention to us, it is a human need for all of us to create from it some sense of human purpose, otherwise life seems dark and meaningless. The difference between you and I is that I am learning to accept that that I am just a temporary occurrence. I will die, and it will be after a rare existence full of rain and sunshine, within which I make my own purpose (as do you, actually. Yours is religion).
You and I, MM, are small on a cosmic scale, but learning that the universe needs nothing from us, that it pays us no attention, just makes it all the more beautiful to think that we, you and I, the people on this planet, are each others' entire universe.
That's a great thought I think.
How arrogant to speak on the mental and spiritual processes of another. What you are doing, is speaking for a group of people with the purpose of speaking against that same group of people. How simple it must be to argue against an opponent you've created yourself that conveniently has weak spots in all the areas in which you are strong. You don't get a cookie for that.
You're speaking about my mental processes right now, methinks.
Honestly, I think you want faith to be blind and sans reason. Because if you concede that faith and reason can not only coexist, but thrive together, then you'd have to concede that faithful people are not the blithering idiots you think they are.
Faith in reasonable ideas is a reasonable form of faith. I believe such a faith could thrive with reason, yes.
You'd have to concede that people come to a decision of faith, the basis of their lives, on more than a whim.
I wouldn't call psychological child indoctrination a decision, nor cultural indoctrination. I wouldn't call emotionally bullying people into accepting a millennia old exploitation of natural human fear of death much of a decision either.
You reject everyone's reasoning not because you don't understand it, but because you don't want to understand it because you want to believe that people have faith without reason,
Having a reason for faith, and having
reason, are different things.
and that you, being the sole reasonable one, must be above faith. You don't want to dig any deeper because you're afraid of finding that the reasoning of faithful people is (gasp!) reasonable, because that would shatter your blind belief in the blindness of belief.
What is reasonable about it? Tell me, because here's what I see:
Blind faith is to be so convinced in something without tangible evidence that a person accepts it as fact. This belief can get to a point where a person can consider themselves to be in a metamorphosed state of understanding beyond natural human reason, and this type of conviction is extremely dangerous because facts are no longer able to contend with fiction.
Now, lack of faith in a particular idea is not because the faithless (that's me) don’t understand what ”faith is”. On the contrary, I understand the notion of faith perfectly well. Nor is any person’s natural reason - the reason that allows them to think freely - born out of deliberate, willful opposition to some eternal, cosmically objective religion; our sense of natural reason exists before many of us even encounter religion.
It seems to me like people with unshakeable faith in something would say that the faithless (that's me again) are simply too ”worldly” and ”scientific” to be able to cultivate faith. The faithful (that's you) will deny anything that goes against their own faith and attempt to impress their faith upon others, often by force. But actually, it is not from some inability to think big that I don’t have faith, nor is it from some deliberate rebellion against God. The reason I don't faith is because the idea of faith lies firmly within, and subject to, my natural reason. The acceptance of the ”faith” contrary to reason does not make natural sense.
I think the faithful (that's you again) seem to think that their faith is enabled by having some special perspective that is beyond and above natural reason, whereas I tend to think that it is enabled from the willful suppression of natural reason. Ultimately, if anyone is willing to believe something that requires them to suppress their natural reason, and they consider their belief both beyond and superior to natural reason itself, then that belief is blind. Not only blind, but dangerous.
You're obviously quite capable of reasoning. I just genuinely hope that you use your reasoning ability to reason that others too can reason.
Fear factors - hell, punishment, judgement, fire, pain, social exclusion, wrath of a being sopowerful as to have been said to have created the entire universe.
Reward factors - heaven, peace, revenge (sickeningly), elitism, superiority, acceptance, love, warmth, kindness, fulfillment, joy.
Control variables - prophesy, futurism, ''all will be revealed in the end''.
I understand perfectly well the attraction of religion.