(July 22, 2020 at 8:30 am)Shazzalovesnovels Wrote: Thank you for taking the time to write that even though I am thoroughly confused now : )
And in regard to not fearing death, how I wish I had your confidence. It would be great for my mind to be at ease but I'm always wondering "what if?"
By the way, I've always wondered, Why don't atheists TRY to believe? The way I see it is, you've got nothing to lose. (Although false faith is not a good thing).
You can convince yourself of anything if you try hard enough, and there's no objective way to distinguish 'true faith' from 'false faith'. Either one is just what you believe based on what you believe you SHOULD believe. In what way is your faith in God distinguishable from a Hindu's faith in Krishna?
Not all atheists disbelieve because they have standards of evidence that they require to believe something, but it's a very common attitude among Western atheists. I want to believe as few false things as possible. I don't think trying to believe things is a good way to avoid believing things that aren't true. I don't think WANTING to believe something is true has any bearing on whether it is actually true or not. Skepticism serves me well in many areas of my life, from bolstering my otherwise weak sales resistance to keeping me from falling for conspiracy theories. If I make exceptions to my requirements for evidence, any resulting beliefs won't be warranted, and I care about that.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.