I can’t think of a worse thing

@fmf said
If you don't know how it started [>1], and are not interested [>2], then the only thing you are doing is assigning values [>3], making up all the whys [>4], and putting up definitions [>5] without a complete view of the whole [>6].

[1] Neither of us knows "how it started", or if it did.

[2] I have not said I am "not interested"; hey now, KellyJay, just because [2a] n ...[text shortened]... r whether you will just blow it off and make some generic assertions about your faith. We shall see.

You can build a case on the circumstantial evidence it is done all the time and come
away with a strong case as we narrow down what makes the most reasonable sense.
All the pieces, all of the reasons we come up with, must consider everything, and it
must all fit together in whatever worldview we hold as valid. If there are unexplainable
things that come into conflict with each as our explanations are pieced together, then
whatever we are trying to put in as an explanation isn't working properly, we don't
have a good picture of the whole. Burying our heads in the sand because we don't
have an eyewitness never flys when something is important and we need to know.

@kellyjay said
You can build a case on the circumstantial evidence it is done all the time and come
away with a strong case as we narrow down what makes the most reasonable sense.

It is your prerogative to believe in and champion whatever scenario that amounts to "strong" circumstantial evidence and the "most reasonable sense" you want.

@kellyjay said
All the pieces, all of the reasons we come up with, must consider everything, and it
must all fit together in whatever worldview we hold as valid.

I have no doubt that this is what you do in your efforts to establish, in your own mind, a worldview that you hold to be "valid".

@kellyjay said
If there are unexplainable
things that come into conflict with each as our explanations are pieced together, then
whatever we are trying to put in as an explanation isn't working properly, we don't
have a good picture of the whole.

I have no difficulty imagining your process of dealing with "unexplainable" things and I have no reason to doubt that you have arrived at a personal opinion about "a good picture of the whole" about which you now have firm convictions.

@kellyjay said
Burying our heads in the sand because we don't
have an eyewitness never flys when something is important and we need to know.

I suggest you take this point up with someone who is "burying [their] heads in the sand". It appears to me that, when you have encountered "something important that [you] need to know", you have settled on theological answers served up by one of the major religions.

@fmf said
It is your prerogative to believe in and champion whatever scenario that amounts to "strong" circumstantial evidence and the "most reasonable sense" you want.

You think?

@kellyjay said
You think?

Of course.

@fmf said
I suggest you take this point up with someone who is "burying [their] heads in the sand". It appears to me that, when you have encountered "something important that [you] need to know", you have settled on theological answers served up by one of the major religions.

If all you got is we have to think about it and we will never know🥳, well okay not going to ask you for a likely possible answer.

@kellyjay said
If all you got is we have to think about it and we will never know🥳, well okay not going to ask you for a likely possible answer.

I've told you what I think. I answered your questions point- blank - although you have basically blown the answers off. I am not going to try to imagine something that competes with something you imagine to be true. We can but speculate about these things.

The fact that you have encountered a narrative and ideology that appeals to you does not have any bearing on me, nor does it create any onus on me to offer you a corresponding "certainty".

-Removed-

A simple answer I have given the ONLY thing you need concern yourself with is Jesus Christ. Not me or disagreeing with me on any topic!

-Removed-

The last thing talking to you produces in me is fear!! The only thing that could cause you to be cast into lake of fire 🔥 is the one who laid down His life for your sins. If He went that far to save you and you ended up in Hell anyway you deserved it.

If you deserved Hell and instead He saved you. you did not deserved it, none of us do!

@kellyjay said
The last thing talking to you produces in me is fear!!

Perhaps "incapacitating pride" is a better term than "fear"?

@fmf said
Perhaps "incapacitating pride" is a better term than "fear"?

Yeah yeah