Ok, my response to the "I only believe what I can see with my own two eyes" there is no God argument. Before I start kudos to Mistled, I agree with everything you've said thus far.
Francis Crick once used this example while attempting to explain consciousness. Imagine Mary, a colorblind neuroscientist, who is extremely interested in color vision. She studies it at length, and eventually is able to pinpoint the exact areas of the brain responsible for color vision, even which areas respond to which color. Now, even though Mary has become more knowledgable about color vision than any person on the planet, she still will never truly understand color. She will never experience color.
Why does Mary believe in color? She has never seen it, she has data which supports the fact that color exists, but really she just has data that happens to fit the facts. Nevertheless, she has faith that color does indeed exist.
Let's say you're a huge astronomy/astrophysics buff. Carl Sagan is your idol. You've read every publication that has to do with neutron stars, know every fact published about them and sleep with the "Idiots Guide to Neutron Stars" under your pillow every night. Of course you believe in the stars or you wouldn't study them. Have you ever seen a neutron star with your naked eye? Has anyone else? True you have data about the neutron star, mainly from doppler effect readings, but really the data can't be proven or dis-proven in this instance, it just seems to fit the facts. There may be new laws of physics that govern the existance of neutron stars. But still, you believe everything you have read to be true. You have faith in science, faith that neutron stars do indeed exist.
Now, pray tell, what is the difference between not believing in something until you have proof and believing in something until you have proof it doesn't exist? Two sides of the same coin. We all believe in things that we can't prove exist, every single day. We all do it. We may not all believe in a "God," but we all operate with faith in some context every day.
There will always be some things that are unexplainable by science. Some of the most decorated neuroscientists in the world that are studying consciousness have given in to the fact that there are just some things about the cause of consciousness that can't be explained. Some attempt to explain these, but there are always counter-arguments.
So to sum up (sorry for the book), we all have faith, we all operate under faith every single day. It's just a matter of what we have faith in. Neutron Stars, colorvision, God. They all fit the facts, most people have faith in one or another. Can you prove any of them wrong?
den
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JK, but I was jsut pointing out a useless fact. That's what I do...
) The point of my rant is this: faith in all things comes from the same place, things really aren't all that different...and anything's possible...except Nav ever being Pimptastic.....that's just absurd....
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