A Problem With General Christian Beliefs (page 4)

thomas15

AllTimeJeff, If I may say this, and you are free to disagree with me. Everyone, regardless of what they say or how they act, everyone has a religion, a faith in something.

leavingwt

AllTimeJeff, If I may say this, and you are free to disagree with me. Everyone, regardless of what they say or how they act, everyone has a religion, a faith in something.

I hear this often. I don't get it.

Not collecting stamps is not hobby.

Some believers and non-believers miss the point completely and turn it into
proof God is or isn't, like there's nothing else to the subject. They have more
in common than they're different. They claim to have the handle on proof then
watch for the sun to come up by staring into the west. Faith is more like
whether you love a song or not, which is subjective, and some people want to
turn it into a purely objective matter, what you can show is or isn't objective-
ly, and make the music go away. It's a faith issue.

For instance, since Genesis has been brought up, I don't think advances in
science would make faith go away since Genesis has been understood by many as
allegorical, as basically believing in seeing God as providing or presiding over
it all, since long before modern science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis

So sometimes when I read posts by some non-believers, it's ironically similar
to the JWs leaders, like they're the JWs leaders of of non-believers, like the
whole issue is turned into not only just what you can prove is or isn't, but
that this proof shows their stance is the right one. Like some believers, they
try to wrangle more out of what you can make of rationalism than is fair to
claim (like JWs leaders claim for their stance on the identity of Jesus). It's
a faith. You can know it as such if you have it, and be as aware of the ad-
vances of science, etc., and aware of what you don't know, whether you have it
or not.

Another plus of this perspective is that you know that therefore no one should
be hurt or killed over such a thing. The aggressors of belief or non-belief, or
of matters of race, etc. (not a lot of nice believers or non-believers or people
of a race), were too 'centric in the same ways: "we're the ones who know and are
good, and the others aren't--something should be done to make them go away."
The most harm hasn't been due to believing in God or not or being of a race,
etc., but due to people being too 'centric about those or other things instead
of relaxed about the differences.

If people get along better in the future, it won't be due to the ones who are
too 'centric on any front, or everyone being of the same belief or non-belief
stance or race, but by people being less 'centric (for belief/non-belief,
separation of church and state) about the differences.