I agree. However, you are the one with the active belief, not I. I am trying not to form an active belief on matters that are not supported by any evidence (your words, not mine). You seem to think that I have faith in the absence of a deity. That is not quite correct. It would be more accurate to say that I have an absence of faith in a deity. There is a difference. Your conviction seems to stem from all manner of tenuous inferences and the rather tenuous connecting of distant and disparate dots. I can understand the desire, but I fail to see justified conviction. Therefore, I just live my life without such conviction. I am not necessarily the worse for wear. There are those theists who are so preoccupied with eternity and eternal life that they may not necessarily place full value on the only life we know for certain that we do have -- the present one. I'm not suggesting that you are one of those people, I'm just saying there are pluses and minuses irrespective of whatever the facts may be. u can understand no?
so if you have absence of faith in a diety..what would you say put all these beautiful things in this universe??? certainly you wouldnt put your faith on chance would ya?
I don't pretend to know, and I am disinclined to use a plug variable that can be used as filler for everything that I don't understand. However, attributing it to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (or some such) seems to be a bit of a stretch to me and a tad presumptuous. (P.S. It's deity, not diety.)
im sorry im dislexic...an itellectual mind like yours must wonder on how we got here....how do you suppose that is??
I don't pretend to know the answer, much less have conviction on matters beyond my comprehension. And please be assured that I am not an intellectual. People who know me well would laugh at the notion.
again i have to apologize...the way you post; makes you come across as a person who knows it all.....all im asking is that in all your years on this planet have you ever thought about how we all got here..i can assure you that you would not be the only one to think about this..
Perhaps when I was much younger, however, I don't even remember the last time that I might have done so. Thinking about it introspectively does not answer the question. Any conclusion that you may draw in the absence of sufficient knowledge or information will simply be a product of your imagination. In such an environment of imperfect information, my choice is to pay more heed to general, mainstream scientific agreement than to the musings of mystics. Perhaps both groups are wrong. However, a priori, I think I am taking the safer position. That is my answer to your question. As for enriching our lives, both internal and external, and giving it meaning, we need not necessarily resort to the comfort of a deity. It is but one choice.
so you think nothing about it...yet you start a thread asking why others who do think about these things give thanks to a deity...got ya...the other thread you started
Reverend Jerry Falwell, one of the biggest Zionist agitators on the face of the planet, a man who has done more to poison popular discourse about the Middle-East (and propably a lot of other issues too when it comes right down to it), has gone to hell. Over the years I have had a lot of conservative friends who would say "Oh, well, Falwell might be bad on the Zionist issue, but he's so good on so many other issues...", but I think that when you have an issue that cuts right to the core American freedom, that cuts right to the core of American survival, that cuts right to the core of the hearts and minds and souls of millions and millions of good Americans that were caroled by Jerry Falwell who got free reign in the Zionist controlled media in America, free publicity, widespread promotion, whereas other good anti-Zionist Christian leaders such as Reverend Ted Pike, Dale Crowley Jr, Stan Rittenhouse, etc, were all ignored by the mass media but Jerry Falwell's Zionist handlers promoted him eagerly, and we know why they did... So Jerry Falwell was more than just a nuisance. He was a poison in the political system; Not just the American political system but the world's political system. While Christian Palestinians and Christian Arabs where being stumped under the Israeli heel, Jerry Falwell was preaching love for Israel and the Jewish people in their modern day state. Which, of course ,serious Christians Scholars, biblical authorities and Archeologists, really say should not be in the hands of the Zionist movement. But Falwell was siding with those people who were murdering, maiming and destroying the lifes, the wellbeing, of his fellow Christians. I am sorry, but I can not find anything good to say about Jerry Falwell. He has died and gone to hell, he is burning in hell. Good riddance to Jerry Falwell!
I don't think you do. In that other thread, I was pointing out an apparent internal inconsistency that people who thanked God for their good fortune were evidently not aware of. Your internal reality can be whatever you please, however, it ought to at least be internally consistent. Not necessarily to me, but at least to you. I was just offering some food for thought and a bit of a litmus test for those that may have missed it. Interpret it as you please.