If the evidence presented for a truth claim is good enough, I won’t be able to stop myself from believing it.You might not make a good Catholic, but you might make a good Calvinist?
You seem to favor COMPULSION.
Your epistemological reality requires an objective reality on one hand, and the eyes to see it on your part.
It doesn’t require eyes - but they can be helpful.
One of the elephants in the room is we Catholics. It does not take much to ignore this elephant.
Geez. ok
Yes you will. We can always talk ourselves out of or into anything regardless of the evidence.
I, currently, have no sensory liabilities. I can see, hear, touch, smell, and - for whatever good it’ll do - taste quite well. But I can’t use these faculties to sense an objective reality that isn’t there to be sensed - not to mention that this specific reality has agency and appears to be going out of his way to prevent me from sensing him.
No, it doesn’t. If you think it does, will yourself to stop believing in God for 60 seconds.Yes you will. We can always talk ourselves out of or into anything regardless of the evidence.
Will trumps intellect.
Most people are not converted by a near death experience of an afterlife. That is rare.
Your point being? That it happens at all proves that God is both willing and able to prove his existence to those who aren’t actively seeking a relationship with him.
Does anyone have any examples of where God made Himself known when there wasn’t any great emotional turmoil? ‘I was washing the cat this morning when I saw this brilliant white light…’.
I’m not sure that a near death experience proves anything. To an atheist it probably only suggests a delusional state that has some natural explanation.
According to C.S. Lewis, when he was an atheist, was riding on a bus in London one day. While on the bus, he was an atheist.
So you agree with me that it is silly to suggest that such an entity cannot find me.An omniscient and omnipotent being would have no trouble finding you.
If you want them to love you should at least show yourself to them. Not expect them to make a leap of faith to believe in you.
How on earth does that follow from anything I said? If anything the christians here are suggesting that I am obligated to love someone whom I do not even know to exist.
No. But I would at least introduce myself. In person. Face to face. If I want them to love me, that is.
If that is a real question, yikes.
Imagine that other Person is searching for you, but won’t find you because you don’t want to be found and you keep using the darkness to elude Him.
You appear to contradict yourself. Unless you are saying that he chooses not to find me?
On the contrary. I don’t see how I could fail to do so unless he is deliberately hiding himself. I have spent a lot of my life looking at the universe - so far no sign of a sentient creator. Had I seen such a sign I would have accepted both religion and the resulting Nobel prize.
No one who is not a theist is suggesting that he does. Although I have seen theists make this claim.
We ‘compel’ the omnipotent creator of the universe? Gosh.
You have some understanding of what love is in the sense that one should not force oneself on another;. . . Should you introduce yourself to your ‘wife’ make sure that she knows that you exist and try to seduce her before having relations? Yes.
Yes, we compel Him to stay out of our lives by refusing to let Him in.
Christians can do that. They believe He exists and refuse to let Him in. It is literally impossible for an atheist to do such a thing, no more than it could be said that I refuse to let Vishnu in.
God: I have given you free will.
What are your choices regarding Vishnu? The same as mine I’d guess.
