How did you get to where you are

Originally posted by scottishinnz
But the real question is, without evidence, how can one tell the difference between a delusion and reality?

I would ask, why should knowing the difference between delusion and reality be contingent on evidence? I think we already have an innate ability to know the difference between what's real and what's not. I think the problem of knowing the difference arises when we seek evidence for reality, and then get confuses by conflicting ideas about what is evidence and what is not.

The evidence is real, but our interpretation of it can be delusional.

Originally posted by LemonJello
So if I understand you correctly, you claim there is some mechanism that produces justified theistic belief in the believer completely independently of any considerations that bear on the de facto question of god's existence? (Actually, you claim more stringently that it produces knowledge, but I would rather focus on justification.)

How would that ...[text shortened]... what I would expect in the case that you are full of it and there really is no such mechanism.

If in fact God does exist and we are created by Him, then it stands to reason that the mechanism for knowing there is a God is part of what we are. I am of the opinion that we "know" there is a God, but due to the fact of having a fallen nature we delude ourselves into thinking there is "no God" because to acknowledge the existence of God would make us accountable to Him. And that is unacceptable to our notion of autonomy.

I am "full of it" my friend. I'm full of the knowledge of God. And the knowledge of God produces freedom and liberty.

Originally posted by Nordlys
So God would condemn children to hell because their parents didn't give them a fair chance?

Why experiment to find out?

If you tell them "This New Testament some people believe. I have a hard time with it. You read it and make up your own mind."

At least you have left the door open to them should you turn out to be wrong in dismissing Jesus Christ as your Savior.

The man in Luke 16 who was lost was there concerned that his five living brothers would NOT come to the same place where he was.
He could talk to Abraham and ask him to see to his brothers who were still alive:


"And he said, Then I ask you, Father, to send him [Lazarus] to the house of my father - for I have five brothers - so that he may solemnly testify to them, lest they ALSO come to this place of torment." (Luke 16:27)

Listen, this man did not want his loved ones to come to that same place of torment in which he now found himself.


While you are deciding therefore, you should leave open the possibility that rejecting Christ was a MISTAKE. If you make fair provision now for your loved ones, and you turn out to be wrong to reject salvation, at least you may not be as this man was.

Luke 16 is a window into a realm about which none of us living have any experience. If you want to know about Mt Everest, you listen to Sir Edmond Hillary. He's been there. If you want to know about walking on the Moon, you listen to Niel Armstrong. He's been there.

And if you want to know about another place called death and Hades, you listen to Jesus Christ. He has been there and has come back. So it behooves us to listen to the one who has experience with that realm.

Of course the best thing is that you not be a fool and receive Jesus for salvation and testify to your children with prayers.

Why argue or experiement?

Originally posted by josephw
I would ask, why should knowing the difference between delusion and reality be contingent on evidence? I think we already have an innate ability to know the difference between what's real and what's not. I think the problem of knowing the difference arises when we seek evidence for reality, and then get confuses by conflicting ideas about what is evidence and what is not.

The evidence is real, but our interpretation of it can be delusional.

Evidence is important in knowing what is real and what is not real. Every day we make billions of decisions, like crossing the road for example, based upon the correct interpretation of evidence. We see a car coming, we then try to approximate its speed and whether it will reach us before we cross. If we get this wrong, it can be fatal. If we are delusional, if we cannot weave the evidence into the real pattern, a coherent pattern, it has profound implications for our lives.

I'm not sure, but I guess that the decision that you and I make in our lives are profoundly different. This is due to our environmental conditions, circumstances and our histories, but also down to our world views, and how we chose to interpret the world. The decisions that we all have to make about the future of the planet, about our political and moral systems, are contingent upon our beliefs, and upon the information / evidence we get from the world.

False positives can be just as dangerous as false negatives. Not seeing the oncoming car might kill you, but so can starving to death when you can't cross the road to get to the food because of all the (imaginary) cars.

Originally posted by jaywill
Why experiment to find out?

If you tell them "This New Testament some people believe. I have a hard time with it. You read it and make up your own mind."

At least you have left the door open to them should you turn out to be wrong in dismissing Jesus Christ as your Savior.

The man in Luke 16 who was lost was there concerned that his five living ...[text shortened]... us for salvation and testify to your children with prayers.

Why argue or experiement?

Do you think we should also provide the Qu'ran, and other holy works too? How about a book on Maori mythology, or the norse gods, how about a book on Scientology??

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Do you think we should also provide the Qu'ran, and other holy works too? How about a book on Maori mythology, or the norse gods, how about a book on Scientology??

Why not? Does including these other books imply endorsement?

Do you think though, that there are some materials that should be banned from publication?

Originally posted by jaywill
Luke 16 is a window into a realm about which none of us living have any experience. If you want to know about Mt Everest, you listen to Sir Edmond Hillary. He's been there. If you want to know about walking on the Moon, you listen to Niel Armstrong. He's been there.

And if you want to know about another place called death and Hades, you listen to Jesus [ ...[text shortened]... and has come back. So it behooves us to listen to the one who has experience with that realm.

But first we must make a judgment as to whether or not Sir Edmond Hillary, Niel Armstrong and Jesus have actually been where they claimed to have been, and whether the words in the newspaper were actually said by the person the newspaper claims they were said by.

Originally posted by josephw
Do you think though, that there are some materials that should be banned from publication?

Ideally, no.

However, the pragmatist in me says that sometimes things, like child pornography for example, have to be tackled by any means necessary. To make my position clear, in an ideal world, child pornography wouldn't happen, and wouldn't therefore be published, but wouldn't be illegal to publish per se. It is the act which is disgusting and needs to be eradicated, but we must keep in perspective that dots on a page are just that - dots on a page. Your question is really, "is censorship okay?" Most of us would agree "no". But when faced with an example like child pornography, most people would quickly say "yes".

Originally posted by twhitehead
But first we must make a judgment as to whether or not Sir Edmond Hillary, Niel Armstrong and Jesus have actually been where they claimed to have been, and whether the words in the newspaper were actually said by the person the newspaper claims they were said by.

No. That is not first. First you decide if you really want to know.

Maybe in all three instances a person really doesn't want to know.

Originally posted by jaywill
No. That is not first. First you decide if you really want to know.

Maybe in all three instances a person really doesn't want to know.

Your post said quite clearly "If you want to know".

But you are of course correct. I don't particularly want to know about 'another place called death and Hades' and before I wanted to know about it I would have to believe it existed (which I don't).

Originally posted by twhitehead
Your post said quite clearly "If you want to know".

But you are of course correct. I don't particularly want to know about 'another place called death and Hades' and before I wanted to know about it I would have to believe it existed (which I don't).

Keyword being "If" there.

Originally posted by jaywill
Why experiment to find out?

The probability that this god of yours who is supposed to be a god of love, but who also condemns children to eternal suffering for the faults of their parents, actually exists, is so low that I think it can be neglected (also, if there really is such a god, then I am not sure I would have a good conscience if I'd be the cause of my children having to spend eternity with such a monster). But relax - I don't have children, and if I would, I would certainly educate them about different religions, with a main focus on Christianity as it is an important part of European culture. And of course they'd learn about it in school, too. I would also allow them to explore religion in ways that I may not be comfortable with, as I firmly believe that children have a right to form their own opinions and make their own experiences.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Evidence is important in knowing what is real and what is not real. Every day we make billions of decisions, like crossing the road for example, based upon the correct interpretation of evidence. We see a car coming, we then try to approximate its speed and whether it will reach us before we cross. If we get this wrong, it can be fatal. If we are de ...[text shortened]... to death when you can't cross the road to get to the food because of all the (imaginary) cars.

I see nothing delusional about what you have said here. It makes prefect sense.

But then there's this scenario. If there is no God, then I am delusional for thinking that what exists is evidence for God's existence. On the other hand, if there is a God, then you are deceived.

Man that sounds bad! Either way. Nothing personal. 😉

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Ideally, no.

However, the pragmatist in me says that sometimes things, like child pornography for example, have to be tackled by any means necessary. To make my position clear, in an ideal world, child pornography wouldn't happen, and wouldn't therefore be published, but wouldn't be illegal to publish per se. It is the act which is disgusting and n ...[text shortened]... when faced with an example like child pornography, most people would quickly say "yes".

This makes sense, and I agree, but "by any means necessary"to me means that those convicted of having anything to do with it should be dealt with in the most harshest possible way. But that's another topic altogether.

Why religious instruction is banned from public education is wrong in that it is censorship itself, and it is part and parcel of an agenda of a radical left which seeks to impose their world view on the rest of us.

Back to the original question:

I grew up in a family in which religion didn't play much of a role. Maybe one could say that my parents are culturally Christian (when it comes to their faith, I am not entirely sure what they believe, but my best guess is that they are both agnostic). We went to church at Christmas or when one or several of us were playing or singing there. I also went to a children's church choir (incidentally at the church in which Niemöller had held his sermons against the Nazis). I remember I had a children's bible that I got from my godmother (who was married to a priest). But on the whole, religion played a very little part in our family life.

When I had to decide whether I wanted to get confirmed and if so where, I decided not to go to the church we belonged to because I knew that they didn't actually learn much about the bible in the confirmation classes there. I wanted to make a real decision, and in order to do so I felt I needed to learn a lot about the bible and Christianity. So I went to another church that had two years of confirmation classes (most churches only had one year or less), including weekly services for the confirmees, and we did learn a lot. We also had confirmation camps that were a lot of fun (and a lot of indoctrination - as my father told the priest, their techniques were not much different from those of the Nazis). I immersed totally in Christianity. I worshipped every day at home in private, praying and reading the bible. I knew my parents weren't all that happy with my passionate faith, but they didn't confront me directly about it (they have told me many years later that they were a bit worried, but thought I'd probably get over it by myself because they knew I wouldn't be able to stop thinking forever; and they were correct). I took my confirmation very seriously, but it wasn't very long after that that my beliefs started to crumble. I realised how many questions I had suppressed because I didn't want to lose my faith. Once the process had started, the house of cards fell apart pretty quickly. As I think it often happens, I turned all the other way and became quite anti-Christian for a while, but that passed. I continued to be interested in religion and especially Christianity and had many discussions about it, especially in a Christian (meaning based in a common interest in Christianity, not necessarily that the members were Christian) youth group I joined a few years later. I also went back to religion class in school during the last few years at grammar school (religion class was voluntary, but as most churches required that you went to religion class in school if you wanted to get confirmed, most children attended until they were confirmed and then dropped it). It was one of my most interesting classes. We were only three to four students who were all really interested, and we discussed both religion and philosophy. Among other things we read Camus' "Myth of Sisyphus", which made perfect sense to me and turned me into a Camusian absurdist.

My religious views haven't changed much since then. They are probably not very far from my parents' views either, even though those views weren't passed down to me by them directly. Religion doesn't play a major part in my life, although I still find it interesting to discuss or read about (one thing I'd like to look more into is buddhism).