I used to believe. That's what makes me laugh about these conversations, the assumption that the non-believer knows nothing about faith. I know about faith. I've experienced it. But, over time, I realized that just because you believe in something doesn't make it real.

I don't have faith in many things: Jesus Christ, pink elephants that fly, the spaghetti monster, cthulhu, hari krishnas, religious leaders who fleece their congregations, holy books of any stripe, and sheep.

I do have faith in: The redeeming power of love. The tendency of people to live up or down to our expectations of them. The healing power of laughter and humor. The capacity of humans to aspire to amazing heights of goodness and appalling depths of evil. The possibility of heroism in the most unlikely places. Courage. The sacredness of breaking bread with people.

I don't need God to be happy.

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Terrorist-Supporting Atheist Moderator.

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

Believing in God, or however you want to define faith as it's not limited to mono-theism, isn't really about happiness on this Earth. For example many give a vow of poverty in order to better serve God. It is belief in something greater than ourselves. If you want to compare the complexity of the Universe and the miracle of life, with "pink elephants" be my guest. My existence is proof enough for me that God exists.

As I say, the alternative to having no faith is basically saying to oneself "this is it, this is all there is". Unless you can explain how the atheist can define existence any other way, I'd be anxious to hear it. The "tenents" of atheism are essentially......"This is it, there's no other form of conciousness or existence".

Ah, but which god? I contend that you subscribe to the judeo-Christian concept of God because that is the paradigm in which you were raised. If you had been born in Iran, you'd believe Islam was the best choice. If you were born in India, you'd be hindu and find THAT choice perfectly logical. If you'd been born in ancient greek, you'd be praying to Zeus. If you'd been born in ancient Rome, you might have been part of the cult of Mithras since you are, after all, a soldier at heart.

I'm not an atheist, so I don't really feel a need to be held accountable for atheist thought processes. I just think that, of the choices, Christianity is far too illogical for me to subscribe to it. Ditto Mormonism. Ditto Islam. Ditto Hinduism. Ditto the cult of Mithras. They are all equally illogical.

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Terrorist-Supporting Atheist Moderator.

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

Most of life is absurd.

We may think we are rational beings, but we are not.

Rational beings do not wage wars, rational beings do not abort their own offspring...the list is endless as to the folly of mankind.

We are at our cores, primal.

Faith transcends this primal core, this is what distinguishes us from the animal world.

We are endowed by God with this, and thusly we are held accountable for our decisions.

That is what I believe, and as I've said along, we are all free to choose our own path in life.
I've never said otherwise.

Way to totally avoid the discussion at hand, which is that Christianity is no better or logical choice than the other alternatives.

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Terrorist-Supporting Atheist Moderator.

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

The discussion is Faith.

The title of the thread, which I started by the way is

The alternative to Faith.

I believe in a Christian God, however there are other forms of faith.

You seem to be focused on all this "logical choice"

My friend the logical choice to rejecting faith is as I've described earlier.

A pointless existence and pointless Universe.

That is using logic.

According to Scriptures:
For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die.

The Bible makes perfect sense to me.

Sorry you don't see it. It is the materialist World that I view as pure folly and pure nonsense.

As I say, this is my belief, you are entitled to your own.

Well, to that I would just say a book and a distaste for the consequence of logic is hardly what I would call a good reason to resort to faith. It's just choosing one possible reality over another strictly because you don't like the consequences of the other. There is no sense in that. Just a need for hope.

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True knowledge exists in knowing what you don't know.

Amen.

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True knowledge exists in knowing what you don't know.

You see herk I believe rational beings do abort their own feti, if it is a legal,the woman then make's a rational choice!

You have your faith, I respect that, I have none do you respect that? I hope so, so from one primate to another primate have a good summer solstice

True, God knows our hearts and why we turn to Him. My own personal journey was trying to live a life outside of God. I found I could not make sense of things, before turning to Scriptures.

Now it is clear.

I was blind, but now I see.

Scriptures says non-believers will test my faith that God is absurd.

It is similar to Military indoctrination. God breaks us down to our most common denominator, before building us up. In God's eyes, no one is better than another. Having more material possessions does not make one a better person than another. For if we define ourselves in Worldly terms, by our shells, we will only find emptiness in the end. Look at the booming industry of plastic surgery, and botox. Many are not accepting the natural progression of our physical selves. Many seek to prolong physical beauty. God does not care about this. He cares about our spiritual selves, our souls. So while we all must live in the physical World, to conclude that this is all there is will ultimately lead to disillusionment and emptiness. A cup that is never filled. Only the blood of Christ, who died for us can truly sustain us, can truly nuture us. The statistics bear this out, a rising rate of divorce and foreclosures, a rising rate of indebtedness to credit cards. Many try to live above their means, they don't want to fall behind the rest of the material World. Their self-worth is tied to careers and possessions. Many die shortly after retiring from careers. They no longer have purpose because their purpose was their work. Many fall into deep depressions when losing a spouse through death or through divorce. Their self-worth was found in relationships.

Yes, to me God makes perfect sense. I'll take my invisible "sky Daddy" any day over what is being offered up today as the "pursuit of Happiness".