Why should I believe in a god?

[eddie_too]

in response to the OP’s original post, you should not believe in a god.

you should believe in the One God.

why should you believe in the One God?

the vast bulk of all available evidence points to your having an eternal and infinite Creator.

so, i would say, at a minimum, base all of your beliefs on what propositions have the most logical, reasonable and factual support.

what are the alternative beliefs to belief in the One God?

one of the alternatives is the belief that only this physical world exists. there is no support, logical, reasonable or factual, for that belief. so, it is easy to reject.

a second alternative is that there are many gods. what support exists for believing that proposition, i do not know of any that are logical, reasonable or factual, but it is not a subject that i have spent much time thinking about and so my explication of such a proposition is necessarily limited. i would say however that, based on my definition of the One God, that the definition precludes any other beings that could be considered infinite and eternal.

 

[Entwhistler]

I think you’re pretty much correct. For example, I have seen that praying really has a positive effect on my friends. It is meaningful to them and helps them in difficult times. However, as a non-believer, praying doesn’t have that same effect on me.

So yes, how meaningful action X or Y is depends on what we make of it, individually.

So, you would say that all acts are morally neutral, or meaningfully neutral, until someone gives them a meaning. But if that’s the case then acts such as cheating, stealing and such are neutral until someone gives meaning to them. What if a guy finds meaning in punching random people on the street? If the action is truly neutral and void of inherent meaning, how can one protest against it?

 

[ffg]

little g in this case, any god will do. Is there a reasonable answer this question?

Welcome to CAF! I hope you enjoy your time.

Reading through, it seems you’ve had some good back and forth.

My take…

Perhaps the answer, is the question?

Do you see the ability to choose anywhere in the rest of nature?

Outside of the human mind, it seems choice is hiding, if in our nature.

It seems nature veered (or had a target and stopped) in ‘creating’ those things that can choose, or…

This ability is a result of a chosen action.

Take care,

Mike

 

[HelenRose]

little g in this case, any god will do. Is there a reasonable answer this question?

Logic is a tool - it is not a god in and of itself. No matter how logical our minds may be we always have to have a beginning agreement.

For most of us that beginning agreement can either be: God exists or God does not exist.

I read this and other forums and I have yet to read anything that has been written that logically proves or disproves the existence of God. I think this is because there is not a beginning agreement for anyone to begin a logical discussion.

Although I believe in the very marrow of bones that God exists, that Christ came to Earth, gave His life for me and for you and that I will follow Him where ever He leads me, I can not logically prove this to someone who does not believe that.

It is even harder for a non-believer to prove His non-existence because it is nearly impossible to prove or disprove a negative.

It would not make any sense to you for me to tell you that the love of God surrounds me every moment of everyday. It would be far easier for me to try to explain the color blue to a person who was born blind. There is no logical way to even prove to a person who was born blind that the color of blue even exists.

 

[Starwarsfan2]

I’m not sure what it means to have an objective meaning to my life. I give purpose to my own life and I wouldn’t want it any other way. If God (or anyone else) told me what the purpose of my life was, then I would be extremely unhappy. I want to be the captain of my own ship, of my own body. Others might disagree with my choices, but I really don’t care if I live a meaningful life according to the standards of other people.

That doesn’t mean I’m deaf to their advice though.

My point was that Christians don’t follow Christ, according to your definition. Most Christians I know are not humble, poor, weak, dependent and meek.

My original point though was not a moral one. When I said that God isn’t in line with reality or necessary to explain reality, I meant that God as a scientific hypothesis fails.

Two points , hypocritical believers are following Christ , the problem is how close , and God has never been a scientific hypotheses, claiming that he is one is effectively stating that there can only be one lense to to look at reality with , and I disagree .

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

I am accountable to the people around me and I care what they think about me. How much I care does vary from person to person.

Contrary to what you think, my goals are not imaginary islands. Spending time with family, reading, sport, travelling, those are all things that give meaning to my life. My family is not a figment of my imagination. My visit to Austria last year did really happen. And I’m still undecided about where I’m sailing next this summer.

There is no inherent meaning to life. People give meaning to their lives. I think sport, travelling and reading are meaningful, but someone else might disagree with that. I don’t think the meaning I give to my life is an illusion, because the joy I feel from these things is real.

You are loyal to your family and friends by a biological accident, wherein through the forces of evolution you are compelled to survive and seek happiness. While it might be meaningful to you personally in the end it is not meaningful in an objective sense, only in a subjective sense. If you were to loose these feelings you have and suddenly didn’t care, would family and friends, reading and experiencing the world be meaningful for you anymore? The answer obviously seems to be in the negative.

Now I’m not denying the reality of your family, only that the value you place in your family is no more greater than the value a serial killer who murders his own family had in his family. Or the value a rapist puts on his victim. There is no morality, there i no reason for why your life is better than these two. You can say the other two harm society but why does society have to be preserved? You have to presume a standard of good yet there is no standard in atheism. There is nothing, no order, no chaos, no good, no evil. Only pointless existence.

Atheism has to lead to nihilism once you move beyond the subjective to the objective. I would call the value you place in your family an illusion because to acknowledge the truth is to give into despair. Can you tell me that beyond yourself your relationship mean anything? They might mean something to the people involved by why does that matter? You and they will die and humanity will one die perish in the heat death of the universe where all existence will be forgotten.

This is why Theism is better than Atheism. It supplies meaning, morality and hope. Relationships are not biological accidents, they are real things intended by God for his creation.

 

[Cheiron]

So, you would say that all acts are morally neutral, or meaningfully neutral, until someone gives them a meaning. But if that’s the case then acts such as cheating, stealing and such are neutral until someone gives meaning to them. What if a guy finds meaning in punching random people on the street? If the action is truly neutral and void of inherent meaning, how can one protest against it?

Whether an action is moral or immoral is a different matter than whether an action is meaningful or not. There are a lot of hackers who try to hack government computers for the thrill of it. It gives their life meaning, but it certainly isn’t moral.

You are loyal to your family and friends by a biological accident, wherein through the forces of evolution you are compelled to survive and seek happiness. While it might be meaningful to you personally in the end it is not meaningful in an objective sense, only in a subjective sense. If you were to loose these feelings you have and suddenly didn’t care, would family and friends, reading and experiencing the world be meaningful for you anymore? The answer obviously seems to be in the negative.

I think that’s highly probable, yes. There have certainly been moments in my life when perhaps I should have cared more about my family than I did at that point.

Now I’m not denying the reality of your family, only that the value you place in your family is no more greater than the value a serial killer who murders his own family had in his family. Or the value a rapist puts on his victim.

That is absurd. It’s true that the value I place in my family is subjective and the value a criminal places in his victims is also subjective. But surely you see that I value my family much, much higher than your serial killer values his family?

There is no morality, there i no reason for why your life is better than these two. You can say the other two harm society but why does society have to be preserved? You have to presume a standard of good yet there is no standard in atheism. There is nothing, no order, no chaos, no good, no evil. Only pointless existence.

Society has to be preserved because it allows humankind to cooperate and to thrive. Cooperation leads to healthier and better societies than societies that allow murder. You’re right about one thing: there is no standard in atheism. Atheism is amoral. It’s not a position about morality.

Atheism has to lead to nihilism once you move beyond the subjective to the objective. I would call the value you place in your family an illusion because to acknowledge the truth is to give into despair. Can you tell me that beyond yourself your relationship mean anything? They might mean something to the people involved by why does that matter? You and they will die and humanity will one die perish in the heat death of the universe where all existence will be forgotten.

I think I have acknowledged repeatedly that there is no inherent value in anything and that meaning is subjective. I just don’t see how that is cause for despair. With regard to death and extinction I take comfort in the words of Epicurus: “When we exist, death is not and when death exists, we are not.” I won’t be able to care about the heat death of the universe.

This is why Theism is better than Atheism. It supplies meaning, morality and hope. Relationships are not biological accidents, they are real things intended by God for his creation.

Theism is perhaps more comfortable, but doesn’t mean it’s true. Truth doesn’t depend on what we like or dislike. As for relationships: it’s true that they are not biological accidents. I don’t randomly choose to love someone. I do have some standards.

 

[Cheiron]

Two points , hypocritical believers are following Christ , the problem is how close , and God has never been a scientific hypotheses, claiming that he is one is effectively stating that there can only be one lense to to look at reality with , and I disagree .

There are certainly a variety of ways to look at reality. But the scientific method is the only one that actually discovers what is true and what is false. I haven’t yet seen a better tool, but I’m open to suggestions.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

I think that’s highly probable, yes. There have certainly been moments in my life when perhaps I should have cared more about my family than I did at that point.

That is absurd. It’s true that the value I place in my family is subjective and the value a criminal places in his victims is also subjective. But surely you see that I value my family much, much higher than your serial killer values his family?

Society has to be preserved because it allows humankind to cooperate and to thrive. Cooperation leads to healthier and better societies than societies that allow murder. You’re right about one thing: there is no standard in atheism. Atheism is amoral. It’s not a position about morality.

I think I have acknowledged repeatedly that there is no inherent value in anything and that meaning is subjective. I just don’t see how that is cause for despair. With regard to death and extinction I take comfort in the words of Epicurus: “When we exist, death is not and when death exists, we are not.” I won’t be able to care about the heat death of the universe.

Theism is perhaps more comfortable, but doesn’t mean it’s true. Truth doesn’t depend on what we like or dislike. As for relationships: it’s true that they are not biological accidents. I don’t randomly choose to love someone. I do have some standards.

I do not see why it is absurd under atheism to grant equal legitimacy to the serial killer. From my perspective it is absurd but why under your worldview is the way you treat your family in any sense better? You might put greater value on your family but that doesn’t make it ‘good’ or ‘better’ within an atheistic framework, it simply makes it what is. You cannot make the move from your preference to it being inherently better than anything else. So while you might love others that is not important, that is merely your personal desire which has no bearing on the relationship’s actual importance. In the grand scheme of things it is not important at all.

When you speak of theism being untrue how do you arrive at that conclusion on atheism? What is truth and falsehood in a world where we are accidents which cannot account for our own existence? How do we go on to trust our minds, which reason leads some to believe that God doesn’t exist when our minds are quite possibly untrustworthy as instruments for determining what is reasonable and unreasonable? If there is no meaning, is there then truth and falsehood? In atheism I can’t see how there is.

If I believe in truth and the existence of truth then I believe in God. You have to live in world without meaning, truth or falsehood and have to invent it as a result. Can your perceptions be considered trustworthy when it could be argued that we merely evolved to the way we are so that we could survive and flourish? In which case logic or reason is nothing more than by product intended to aid our survival. If this true though it is also contradictory because the reasoning process has lead us to dismiss our own reason. Why should you trust your own mind and subjective thoughts as being actually meaningful? They aren’t actually meaningful, they are personally meaningful and these are two different things.

As far as despair is concerned I agree it isn’t cause for despair (though I think that is natural). My point is that atheism isn’t cause for anything, happiness, anger, despair, love. All of those emotions are accidents of our random meaningless existence. Any value you attach to them is due to your preference to feel happy over feeling sad. This doesn’t make it right or wrong in Atheism since there is no right and there is no wrong.

 

[Reuben_J]

I can’t see how that solves the problem that God didn’t want Adam and Eve to know good and evil. Also, if God is entirely good, then it’s meaningless to say that God is good. If, by definition, everything God does is good, then He can commit a mass murder and you wouldn’t call it evil. This blind obedience without applying moral standards of your own is exactly my problem with the Genesis story.

I hope you see the problem here.

We are speaking from our own perspective thinking the other person assumes the same.

The chasm of our differences is so great, we will never meet. Our world will always be in parallel without any chances of meeting. Thus there is no conclusion to all this argument/discussion because we are talking in different languages.

When you say good, what exactly do you mean? If you see the tenure of a man’s life ends after death, then your idea of good would definitely differ from a person that see life goes all the way into eternity. See the dilemma there?

We get this question all the times - if God is good why does he allow suffering?

It is as if God allows suffering. This is a fallacy, of course, because if a non-believer say that, he already assumed that God exists, in order to allow suffering. But if God exists, and he is a good God, then is suffering bad? It has to be seen from God’s perspective, which to Him a moment can be a thousand years to man.

A God can just create mankind, like how we rear chicken, feed them until the day they die. In other word, God can create humans, put them in paradise in eternity. But then what does it make a man if not just a living robot?

As God makes him, human is more than that, he has free will, which in turns, come with consequences.

Thus indeed we can say that God is good even if he commit mass murder if that could result in them or others to have life eternal in heaven.

 

[Entwhistler]

Whether an action is moral or immoral is a different matter than whether an action is meaningful or not. There are a lot of hackers who try to hack government computers for the thrill of it. It gives their life meaning, but it certainly isn’t moral.

Wouldn’t you say that morality gives an action meaning? A theist would says that meaning and morality are inherently linked.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Sure it’s crazy we’re here but it also took a lot of tries for evolution to get it right. I think Christianity is great but it also could be there were a lot of delusional people scared by lightning and burning bushes playing the telephone game (remember psychology didn’t exist till the 1850s and much of what was said was poorly documented ). So I too am looking for a logical reason why.

I’d like to offer some reasons for believing, but I want to begin with this:

Debunking the Telephone Game Analogy

What do you suppose happened to the stories [about Jesus] over the years, as they were told and retold, not as disinterested news stories reported by eyewitnesses but as propaganda meant to convert people to faith, told by people who had themselves heard them fifth- or sixth- or nineteenth-hand? Did you or your kids ever play the telephone game at a birthday party? (Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted, pp. 146-147)

Many non-Christians object to the reliability of the New Testament, and they often reference the children’s party activity known as the “Telephone Game” as an example of how oral transmission of a message can become distorted. But is this really the principle at work in the writing of the gospels? Let’s examine the rules of the game to see how closely the game may compare with the composing of the scriptures.

Rules of the Telephone Game:

1. To play Telephone, you’ll need a group of players. More is better.
2. Choose a phrase for the team to use or let them select one themselves. Phrases should be complicated, with plenty of detail and unfamiliar words – for instance, try using a phrase such as “Mahogany tables don’t look good painted fuchsia.” The phrase should never be a familiar expression; these are too easy to remember.
3. Only one player should know what the phrase is.
4. The player who created or received the phrase starts the game by whispering it into the ear of another player.
5. She cannot repeat the phrase, so the second player needs to listen carefully. The second player then whispers the phrase to the third player, who whispers it to the fourth, and so on until the last player.
6. Once all players have spoken, the last player repeats the phrase. Unless everyone on the team is a very clear speaker and a very attentive listener, the phrase will have changed.
7. What began as “Mahogany tables don’t look good painted fuchsia” might end up as “Behold, any stables look good waiting on blue sand.” If you have time, go back through the players, asking each one what the original phrase was and p(name removed by moderator)ointing where the various changes occurred.

Why the Telephone Game Analogy Fails:

1. The rules of the game recommend that a group of players is needed. The reason for this is that in order for the game to be entertaining, deviation from the original phrase is desirable. In contrast, the gospel writers were not playing a game nor were they the last in a long chain of children; they were either eyewitnesses or they relied on the testimony of eyewitnesses who were still alive.
2. The rules of the game suggest that the phrases should be complicated and contain unfamiliar words. In contrast, the gospel writers conveyed Jesus’ words in plain, simple language using names, places, prophetic writings and history that were familiar to their readers.
3. The rules suggest that only one player should know the original phrase. In contrast, the gospel writers had access to many eyewitnesses who could corroborate the written accounts.
4. The game begins with a single whisper. In contrast, the proclamation of the gospel began with Peter preaching openly to thousands on the day of Pentecost.
5. The game limits each player to hearing and repeating the phrase once and from one source only. In contrast, the gospel of Luke states that “many have undertaken to draw up an account” of the events he also recorded in his gospel. Additionally, many eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus were still alive and both Luke and Paul make reference to this fact in their writings. Thus, the gospel writers were recording history that both they and their audiences knew well.
6. The rules assume that not all players will speak clearly or listen attentively. In contrast, the gospel writers took great pains to reproduce what they had seen and heard faithfully and with great clarity.
7. The rules of the game suggest that it would be fun to go back to see exactly where all the changes took place. In contrast, if the gospel writers had changed or added to the accounts of Jesus’ life or to His parables that were known by oral tradition, the living witnesses would have objected strenuously to such novelties as mere fabrications.

In conclusion, the gospel writers were not children being entertained by a party game. They saw themselves as passing on the very words of God just as they had received them, and the presence of many living witnesses would ensure that each author was held accountable for reproducing the facts accurately.

 

[Matthew_Light]

There are certainly a variety of ways to look at reality. But the scientific method is the only one that actually discovers what is true and what is false. I haven’t yet seen a better tool, but I’m open to suggestions.

Do you love your family? That is not a question open to scientific investigation, and yet it is profoundly important.

See the problem?

 

[Contarini]

little g in this case, any god will do. Is there a reasonable answer this question?

No. Nobody at all is interested in telling you to believe in “a god.”

You would need to define a “god” first.

Christians and other monotheists believe in God–the one, perfectly good Creator.

Apart from God, the term “god” seems to refer to some kind of supernatural being.

Certainly most of us think there are good reasons to believe that there are various kinds of supernatural beings knocking around the universe. But belief in such beings does not have huge spiritual consequences–indeed, it could be harmful rather than helpful if not subordinated to faith in God.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

So if we are looking at the value of individual existence and experience wouldn’t the unproven idea that we are in some way immortal cheapen the life we have? Make people more likely to bear the weight of injustice and oppression?

It might indeed help people who have no other choice bear that weight, which is a good thing.

But the idea that people are immortal or have a chance of receiving eternal life implies that their individual lives have great value. This has frequently motivated people to strive for a more just society.

The most significant atheistic movement for justice and human betterment, historically, is Marxism, which has tended to be quite ruthless in its treatment of individual lives in the pursuit of a supposed better society for humanity as a whole.

I don’t want to claim that this is necessarily true of all atheists, and I’m quite aware that there have been some horrific counter-examples among Christians and other theists. But it does seem to me, talking to atheists about ethics, that generally they wind up with either subjectivism (good is what I feel it is) or a utilitarian ethic. And this last really does have some pretty horrific implications for human life and dignity.

So no–I think that the view that people have souls and are of infinite dignity is the view best adapted to help us fight for justice, although I honor the many atheists who do strive for justice and human dignity and I recognize that Christianity has often been used to oppress people.

 

[Contarini]

Do you not consider it a good thing that people have to think about morality themselves?

Sure. But there needs to be something to think about beyond either one’s own feelings or a utilitarian calculus–otherwise we aren’t thinking about morality at all.

And we need guidance, clearly.

This is one of the reasons I could never accept Christianity: the Genesis story clearly states that God wanted Adam and Eve to obey him, without thinking for themselves wether they did the moral thing. Having been brought up in post World War II, I know that befehl ist befehl or ‘the Nuremburg defense’ is a reprehensible thing. It was rightly thrown out by the judges. Yet this is what God demanded of Adam and Eve.

Nonsense. The command not to eat from a particular tree was not an immoral command, so Nuremberg is irrelevant.

Secondly, a lot of atheists and agnostics have considered that there are beings that are greater than themselves. But they saw no evidence for that claim. God shows Himself very randomly. Why does He not give everyone a Damascus road experience? Why does God play favorites? Matt Dillahunty, one of the hosts of The Atheist Experience, became an atheist while studying to become a minister!

The minds of atheists and agnostics are not as closed as you might think.

True. Some become believers

But precisely because many atheists and agnostics, perhaps most of them in the U.S. (given how religious the U.S. is), are ex-Christians, they generally have formed pretty strong opinions. Sometimes it looks to us Christians as if they have formed these opinions without actually having experienced the best aspects of Christianity. But that’s how life works.

Bear in mind that I, at least, don’t think atheists are necessarily going to hell. For some atheists, being an atheist may be their path to knowledge of the true God, but for personal and/or cultural reasons that knowledge may never become explicit in this life.

Edwin

 

[Squidyman]

I’d like to offer some reasons for believing, but I want to begin with this:

Debunking the Telephone Game Analogy

Many non-Christians object to the reliability of the New Testament, and they often reference the children’s party activity known as the “Telephone Game” as an example of how oral transmission of a message can become distorted. But is this really the principle at work in the writing of the gospels? Let’s examine the rules of the game to see how closely the game may compare with the composing of the scriptures.

That is interesting you mention that. I didn’t know the telephone game actually was a theory that people used.

I would also point out that other religions are guilty of the telephone game and you would agree, no? How would only one religion be correct while say Mormonism isn’t correct. I do think Catholicism has a lot of great thinkers and the logic that holds it together is arguably better than many governments laws but I’m currently thinking religion is guilty of existential fallacy. We are alive thus there must be a God. While yes we are alive, the conclusion cannot be proven. Or “All vampires are humans thus some humans are vampires”. Yes a vampire can be a human, but that doesn’t mean there vampires because vampires don’t exist. We could go on and say “all vampires wear purple at night”. That is a true statement even if we can’t prove vampires.
We can create all sorts of rules about something without that something even actually existing, sort of like pokemon or any other popular game. Spend a few thousand years perfecting the logic to that game and if the game was real it would make sense. But the game couldn’t be real since pokemon can’t actually be proven. When someone makes a statement it is best to look at the initial observation and then the conclusion. The initial reason is God and the conclusion is to obey God. Obeying God and all the rules associated with God makes sense but as soon as you try to find God things start not making sense.

 

[fred_conty]

Originally Posted by J3nna View Post
little g in this case, any god will do. Is there a reasonable answer this question?

The following may break some ice.

ATHEISM: The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs. Makes perfect sense.
St. Catherine of Siena

Here is another idea:

Mark 10 coins from 1 to 10.
Put them in some container and shake them up.
Try drawing them out in the same order as marked from 1 thru 10.
The chances of drawing them 1 thru 10 in succession is one in one billion.

The human eye is so much more demanding that those 10 coins.

But the idea that someone tap someone on the shoulder and present an iron-clad logic so forceful that noone could deny, would be better off searching for a round triangle. Even a miracle would not suffice as has been demonstrated on this website. Reason also includes reasonable.

 

[KiwiBliss]

little g in this case, any god will do. Is there a reasonable answer this question?

The film, “God’s Not Dead,” gives a good explanation about the existence of God.

And to answer your question:
Because God is unconditional love, lasting peace, joy, gentleness, patience, goodness, & graciously forgiving. God made us in His image & likeness (Genesis 1:25-27), so why wouldn’t we desire Him to be part of our lives?. He knows & loves us more than we truly know and love ourselves. The pressures of society to not believe in God and to instead replace Him with material possessions, addictions, etc. aren’t from God. I eventually learned that fear, doubt, anger, anything negative in our lives aren’t from God, but instead are from the devil that tries to weigh us down and make us suffer the consequences of life. Although life has ups & downs, life WITH God is like the air we breathe… we need God to help us handle those good and bad times of our lives smoothly and let Him take care of our needs, in His timing. Without God, I wouldn’t be here today & in fact, none of us would be here today. He gave us the gift of life meant to love & serve Him thru the love & service in caring for those around us. He has spared my life in many ways that have influenced me to seek Him deeper & embrace His presence presently with us always. However to fully answer your question, you need to experience or recognize God in your life or see Him (metaphorically) in the lives of others to learn the understanding of what I mean with my explanation and the explanations of others. Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Brassring]

The only explanation that I’ve ever seen from atheists or agnostics for why they don’t believe in God is that there is no scientific evidence of His existence. That’s not a compelling reason not to believe. There are a lot of things that existed prior to human ability to perceive them; deep space stars, black holes, radioactivity, the theory of relativity, and every species of plant and animal prior to its discovery are just a few.

These things didn’t come into existence because they were discovered or scientifically defined. They existed the whole time. Then, there are things that exist even though I am incapable of experiencing them. I don’t have dyslexia, but I know it exists because those who’ve experienced it have told me, and I can observe the effect it has upon them. The same goes for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, Attention Deficit Disorder, etc.

We don’t know one-tenth of one percent of anything. The realm of what we don’t know, or can’t perceive, is orders of magnitude larger than what we do know or have evidence of. With that level of unknown in our universe, saying that ANYTHING doesn’t or can’t exist is impossible. That’s why it’s said that you can’t prove a negative.

I can’t tell you why you should believe in God. But I can tell you that science or a lack of evidence isn’t a reason not to.

I can tell you why I believe in God: because I have experienced Him. I can perceive Him through the practice of my faith. Faith is a gift, and like any gift it can be accepted or rejected. Faith is also the sense by which we can perceive God. I can tell you all about it, but I can’t make you understand.