Reply to Is the Charleston church shooting making anyone doubt their Faith?

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Is the Charleston church shooting making anyone doubt their Faith?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm more of an agnostic.  I would like to believe in a higher being, but just can't.  None of the most intelligent people I know are "Believers".  If a real scholar with a solid knowledge of history and languages explains his/her faith, that would probably sway me.  But all of the "Believers" I know are poor writers who are incapable of truly supporting an assertion; they are less intelligent than the top academics I know who are atheists, and the "Believers" are less educated as well.  Their writing is poorly structured and emotionally charged: THAT is childish.

If Jesus wants to save me, he'll have to send a Fisher of Man who is clever and informed, not emotional and cognitively challenged.

Did you hear that?  I WANT to be convinced that there is a God.  This is YOUR chance to save me and bring another soul to the Lord.  If someone here can explain their faith logically, in strong, well-supported, emotion-free writing, I'm ready.

Priests have given up on me before, so I doubt any of you can do it.  But I'm still a little open.  Bring it, Believers.  [/quote]

To answer your first point, I'm 12:22, and I'm a NMSSF. My mom is a mensa member - and she has advanced degrees in (liberal) theology. I know plenty of brilliant believers who have probably twice the capacity for reasoning and expression as that poor poster at 10:28. It's true that we often have to hide our faith at work, because the 10:28s just can't stop themselves and it's not worth engaging. But there are plenty of us smart believers out there.

Yet I don't think I'd want to try to "persuade" you. (And my mom is in her 80s and is struggling now.)

The problem is, belief is just that. Belief means, by definition, means that you can't point to a thunderbolt or a listen to a stentorian voice booming out of the clouds. I think you're looking for incontrovertible proof, correct me if I'm wrong. Yet if it were as easy as saying, "just listen and you'll hear God" then we'd all be believers. Every last one of us would see the incontrovertible proof I think you're looking for, and then we'd all believe, and we'd all do what we were told by this God who sent down the proof.

And then there would be no choice, no free will, and we'd all basically be robots. That might sound pat to you, and I can see that. But to me it's actually better, and beautiful, that we humans continue to face challenges and to have choices. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics