Where I'm at...

[_barrelomonkeys]

I have thought much about this topic, and I have come to the conclusion that there's no doubt it's a choice, but it just doesn't feel like one because it's made unconsciously and with the motivation to support whatever is unconsciously most comfortable.

Whoa! You lost me somewhere between the first comma and the period. Dangit I need to read my conscious book by Dennett! So, in your opinion, we make choices unconsciously that are most comfortable for us? So if it is comfortable for us to believe in God we just unconsciously choose to believe in God? Opposite that would be someone that has doubts about comfort found within belief and would therefore unconsciously reject the choice to believe?

You may consciously think you'd be better off if you could just believe, but I think there's something going on in your world that makes the choice to not believe more appealing.

Well if that's so then how do you go ahead and choose? If you can just choose wouldn't you be able to choose despite what issues are lurking about? This to me seems to mean that you really can't choose! It seems to me that you may try to choose and yet can't because there are doubts or insecurities about belief. So, I choose unbelief because my inner whateversmelterintherewhatever has decided NOT to believe? Even though my outer whatever tries to believe? That seems like a big *ACK!*

[_barrelomonkeys]

I choose to believe...





... and it takes what might be an unhealthy amount of effort.

Oh! Really? How do you do that?

[_Runtu]

Oh! Really? How do you do that?

I woke up one morning and decided not to believe. Just for fun.

[_barrelomonkeys]

Oh! Really? How do you do that?

I woke up one morning and decided not to believe. Just for fun.

I'll try to wake up tomorrow morning and decide to believe. Just for fun.


I'll report back with details in the morning.

[_Doctor Steuss]

I choose to believe...





... and it takes what might be an unhealthy amount of effort.

Oh! Really? How do you do that?

Choose to believe? Or put for an unhealthy amount of effort?

I guess a better way to word it would be "I choose to try to believe." Somedays I fail, somedays I succeed. Somedays I look at the days where I believed and I say to myself: "Idiot." And somedays I look at the days where I didn't believe and think to myself: "Maybe I was wrong."

My natural instinct (besides the little bean in my heart that tugs on me [due to some experiences], telling me there is someone out there) is to not believe. Basically, my heart tends to believe, but my mind doesn't (maybe that makes more sense).

I'm a bloody paradox to myself.

Edited to add:
CK,
I like CKS still think your a-ok... sort of. It still stings that I've never been able to come up with anything for your old eternal marriage/Enochic literature thread.
-Stu

[_barrelomonkeys]

I choose to believe...





... and it takes what might be an unhealthy amount of effort.

Oh! Really? How do you do that?

Choose to believe? Or put for an unhealthy amount of effort?

I guess a better way to word it would be "I choose to try to believe." Somedays I fail, somedays I succeed. Somedays I look at the days where I believed and I say to myself: "Idiot." And somedays I look at the days where I didn't believe and think to myself: "Maybe I was wrong."

My natural instinct (besides the little bean in my heart that tugs on me [due to some experiences], telling me there is someone out there) is to not believe. Basically, my heart tends to believe, but my mind doesn't (maybe that makes more sense).

I'm a bloody paradox to myself.

Oh! That makes complete sense! I understand. Although my voice that says, "Idiot" shuts off those days where I might believe.

[_mentalgymnast]

...So I guess that, at a purely logical level, I am an agnostic.

As I think many of us, including me, are. On a purely logical level. Logic is subject to being flawed though...so I don't rely wholeheartedly on it.

Having said that, what I feel does not accord with what I think. I feel that there is some God or cosmic plan out there guiding all of this. I feel a need to have a community. I feel a need to make a difference. I feel a need to abide by at least some of the moral strictures that are so a part of who I am. And I feel that a life lived according to purely abstract intellectual reflections is too boring to really be worth it.

Everywhere you put "feel" I would put "can see". Why? It brings in a bit more of the intellect...which I think has a place in the mix.

So what I've decided is to adopt a sort of compromise. I suspend my disbelief with respect to the existence of God and divinity of Jesus and live my life according to my feelings... a sort of functional theism. I think I will be happier doing so than living a functional atheism. But at the same time, I reject evangelicalism, and I find grounds for my ethics in utilitarianism as well as in theism. And finally, I argue for a liberal theology that I think is more coherent than the prevalent fundamentalist model. This last bit makes me slightly uncomfortable, since an agnostic doing theology seems really, well, bizarre, but the level to which I have suspended my disbelief I think leaves me room to do so.

I think that we are all agnostic on one level or another and to some degree or another. Otherwise, what is faith all about?

Regards,
MG

[_CaliforniaKid]

I guess a better way to word it would be "I choose to try to believe." Somedays I fail, somedays I succeed. Somedays I look at the days where I believed and I say to myself: "Idiot." And somedays I look at the days where I didn't believe and think to myself: "Maybe I was wrong."

My natural instinct (besides the little bean in my heart that tugs on me [due to some experiences], telling me there is someone out there) is to not believe. Basically, my heart tends to believe, but my mind doesn't (maybe that makes more sense).

I'm a bloody paradox to myself.

This is exactly how I feel, but you said it much better than I did.

Edited to add:
CK,
I like CKS still think your a-ok... sort of. It still stings that I've never been able to come up with anything for your old eternal marriage/Enochic literature thread.
-Stu

lol!

Here's an interesting tidbit for you. The Aramaic Peshitta says,

Luke 20:34-35
33 In the resurrection, therefore, of which of them will she be the wife, for the seven took her?
34 Jesus said to them: The children of this world take wives, and wives are given to husbands.
35 But they who are worthy of that world, and of the resurrection from the dead, do not take wives, nor are wives given to husbands.

Notice the gendered emphasis: men will not take wives, nor will wives be given to husbands. Now, a feminist reading of this might say that it isn't a statement against eternal marriage, but rather a statement against the idea that the woman has no say in the matter. There's still room for some kind of decision on the wife's part as to whose husband she will be.

Now if we can just prove the "Peshitta priority" hypothesis and do away with the Enoch connection, eternal marriage can live on.

Of course, it might be easier to just chalk the passage up to an interpolation by the gospel writers. But that's a lot less fun than coming up with feminist readings of obscure Aramaic New Testament manuscripts...

-Chris

[_bcspace]

A good God would have to be one that doesn't mind all that much which church you attend

Such a God is a liar and a respector of persons by implication. For example....

If God tells one group of people a certain thing about sin, the requirements for salvation, or His nature and then proceeds to tell another group of people something different about those items, then God is a liar and respector of persons.

That is the implication of believing in a God as you describe.

[_Runtu]

Such a God is a liar and a respector of persons by implication. For example....

If God tells one group of people a certain thing about sin, the requirements for salvation, or His nature and then proceeds to tell another group of people something different about those items, then God is a liar and respector of persons.

That is the implication of believing in a God as you describe.

Look at it this way, bc. I have 6 children, all of whom are very different in personality and talents. I would be a lousy father if I used the same parenting approach for all of them. I have a pretty good idea what challenges each child faces, so I adapt my parenting to help each of them overcome them.

Why wouldn't God do the same for his children? It might make him "inconsistent" to those who refuse to accept any flexibility in God, but it doesn't make him a liar or a respecter of persons.