3 Questions For Believers (A work in progress.)

[Simon Moon]

1. Does it matter to you whether or not your beliefs are true?

Yes and no. I don't want to hold to things that are demonstrably false. However, if something can't be proven false and it makes my life better, then it's not important to me to prove it true in order to accept it.

How sad.

I have a friend that was addicted to drugs, living on the street, and doing petty crimes.

He walked into a Hindu temple in LA on day and claims he had a Hindu based religious experience.

He turned his life around that day. He now has a successful small business and a family. He's still a believing Hindu.

Are his beliefs as true as yours?

2. Do you agree that truth is determined by evidence and observation of facts, and not through any other means?

No. Logic, testimony of others, and (to a lesser extent) intuition are also useful.

Logic is only useful if fed with correct (evidence based) premises. Logic alone can not prove a thing.

Intuition without testing is useless.

Testimony of others, like my friend's conversion to Hinduism, right?

3. Do you understand that there is no evidence to support the claim that your beliefs are true?

No. I understand that there are certain things which I accept as evidence but which you reject.

You should rethink what you are willing to accept as evidence. Your threshold is too low, when it comes to your religious beliefs.

I'll bet you reject so many other claims (alien abductions, Bigfoot, crystal healing, etc, etc) that other people believe based on their intuition and testimony.