(May 5, 2015 at 4:17 pm)alpha male Wrote:(May 5, 2015 at 3:12 pm)emjay Wrote: Good point, as always. I think that's roughly what CS Lewis said in the book Miracles.
But it doesn't change the fact that I'm just wired to doubt anything I don't see with my own eyes. I really can't help that.
Of course you doubt. Jesus said a person with faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, but I don't see any mountains moving. Apparently, even the most devout Christians doubt. Those who claim unshakable faith annoy me, and they're frequently in store for a comeuppance.
As far as I can tell, you're not unique, or even unusual. It would be interesting to find that a certain type of person was hard-wired so that they can't believe, but I've never seen it. If perhaps a certain Myers-Briggs or Predictive Index personality type couldn't believe, you'd have a point. But among any such classification, there are both believers and unbelievers.
At the first atheist site I posted at, a long-time atheist converted. He put it more in terms of commitment to belief, than intellectual assent.
Was the guy who converted new to Christianity or an ex-believer? Cos that would be my first hurdle in becoming a Christian - I've already been there. I was a Christian up until I was eighteen - my intro thread explains it all. It was my homosexuality that made me question my faith in the first place. Now as time has passed I've built up a lot of skeptical knowledge that I can't just unlearn and which serves to make it even harder for me to believe again and I am certain that the Bible cannot be taken literally - that belief will not change, ever.
By 'commitment to belief' I presume you mean something along the lines of if you tell yourself something long enough you'll come to believe it? I don't know about that - not in my own personal experience. That's the basis of self-hypnosis but I could never do that either. Just can't let go, at all, of my doubt.
