(March 22, 2014 at 12:59 pm)Hezekiah Wrote: If by skeptic you mean someone who recognizes that I don't know and I'm still searching, I consider myself one, yes. But if you mean someone who purely chooses to suspend belief in anything altogether, no not at all.
A skeptic, in philosophical terms, is someone that requires that their beliefs be supported by demonstrable evidence, and reasoned argument.
Most theists that I've run across are skeptics when is come to claims such as: big foot, UFO abductions, Loch Ness monster, etc. But they wall off a portion of their mind where they put their Christian beliefs, and do not examine them with the same level of skepticism as those other claims.
Welcome aboard!
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
