The stupidity of sin

[emjay]

Belief is not a choice. You believe something if you are convinced by the arguments/evidence in favour of it and you don't believe it if you are not, it's that simple.

That's why statement from Emjay is so idiotic, being convinced by EVIDENCE, is called KNOWLEDGE it is no longer a BELIEF.

A leap of faith is referring to a jump with no evidence of where you'll land.

Knowledge is something you KNOW to be true, and yes only an idiot can accept and then reject truth on a whim.

Belief is trusting that something is true with no evidence.

OK fair enough; maybe I got my terms mixed up. But that's how I think of belief; as what you believe to be true at any given time... a state of certainty/knowledge that requires 'evidence' whether rational or irrational to achieve. Like 'make-believe' as an ability we tend to have in childhood but grow out of achieves that state of belief about an imaginary world. So for that reason I don't see belief/certainty/knowledge as being an accurate measure of truth and I don't take it for granted as such. Like a good thought experiment for what I mean is given all the stuff you take for granted at face value as being 'true' such as everything you can see and experience in everyday life... say that there's a computer in front of me... what would it take to create that same sense of belief/certainty/knowledge in your imagination that an object was present in your environment? I think the answer is one or both of two things, both of which can be done in imagination or make-believe therefore indicating that it's more about activating ideas by any means than actual objective truth; either create a backstory/history for how the object came to be there and/or convince yourself that the object is in isolation is actually present by exploring its features. Either way, building up a context around the object just as you would do in real life in something mysteriously appeared before you... say you notice a strange object in a room... the first sensation is confusion but then by exploring either how it came to be there or whether it really is there, you come to some sort of understanding about it.

What you're talking about - a leap of faith - is something I don't have much experience of. I would trust another to the extent that I have reason to through expectations based on my previous experience with them or through appeal to authority if I first confirmed to myself that they were what I thought they were (as per the second step of the above). But a blind leap of faith, with no supporting reason for it is just something I can't do. I have a mechanistic need to understand things before I put my faith in them and that applies to all areas of life for me, not just the question of God. It is a problem sometimes that hinders my ability to learn like for instance when I was learning to drive I got hung up on the details of how to use the clutch and how it worked when what I should have done was put faith in the bigger picture that it would all come together through practice and exposure... which it did... so I learned despite that impediment. But that knowledge... those expectations that that experience has created... stands me in good stead for a similar situation in the future... but would still not be blind faith because it's based on those newly formed expectations... so it would become like the appeal to authority described above. That's just me... I don't... can't... do blind faith. I remember a time when I was at an evangelical meeting as a Christian at the time and even then I couldn't do this. People were dropping like flies doing 'carpet time' as Randy Carson put it... the preacher touching heads and people falling down into the arms of people behind them before giggling hysterically on the floor. But when it came to me and my turn there was no blind faith, either in the people behind me to catch me, or in the sense of letting go and letting what would be be. Just consciousness of my own body state and the psychological pressures at work... and mindfulness of my own mental gymnastics that were trying to create/see a feeling that wasn't there... such as a light feeling in my legs. So basically, mass hypnosis like that doesn't work on me because I'm too self-conscious... too aware of my own mental state and needing to understand it before I can trust. It's the same thing with self-hypnosis... I wish I could do it... more than anything really because it would be very helpful in life... but I can't for these reasons. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever about the objective existence of hypnosis but I lack the letting-go faith required to actually make it work... too aware of the clock ticking as it were.