Why run away from Science and trail and error?

[Jose Fly]

Because it's all about knowing Him, and knowing requires humility, trust. Our pride keeps us from Him. Its not about believing ideas, or dogma.

Again, have you tried that approach with other religions?

 

[PureX]

Some things in life have to tried to see if they are good. Some things need to be experienced for yourself to determine it's merrits. I can talk all day on TOL or anywhere else that the Lord is Good, but until you experience Him it sounds like gibberish. Scientists come to the point that the only way to find out the truth of an hypothesis is trail without fear of failing. You can't believe me or others, ok. But you must admit to yourself you will never know if He is good unless you try Him on for size. You may say but I don't want to know. Or I don't care to know, or just no thanks. In that case you won't know, nor will you exercise the only way you can find out. Let science be your guide.

And there's more to it.

The trial needs to be reasonable and honest. Otherwise we can set any proposition up to fail, and it will fail, because the trial was a 'set-up'.

For example, if I ask God to give me the winning lotto ticket, I am setting myself up for a near guaranteed failure. One, because I am assuming God performs supernatural feats for people, and two, because I assume God's purpose is to do my bidding. Both of which I already know are extremely unlikely. Just as I know that it is extremely unlikely that I will buy the winning lotto ticket.

So that when we test a belief in God, for example, it's important that we define God in a way that is reasonable, and choose a test that allows for what is possible.

 

[PureX]

Funny you should say that, because that's the sort of approach I applied. It wasn't very long before I concluded that my prayers were just me talking to myself and if things were going to happen, I had to do them myself, no gods required.

And you didn't see that as a positive response to your prayers? :chuckle:

I once became obsessed with the I-Ching. I was going through a very difficult time in my life and when I would throw the I-Ching, it would give me "answers" that really seemed to make sense to me. Unfortunately, I wouldn't just accept the answers I was being given, and so kept throwing it and throwing it many times a day.

Finally, the I-Ching itself told me that I was behaving like an obstinate child and that it would not answer me again for TEN YEARS! And from then on, it seemed to me that each time I threw it, all I got was an 'picture' of exactly where I was at, at that moment. It had refused to 'speak to me' further, and that ended my obsession with it.

Exactly ten years later I threw it once again, and basically all it said was, "congratulations, we're done here".

Now, I know that throwing the I-Ching involves my having to 'interpret' the meaning of the vague cryptic responses I was getting, and so this story is really about me 'talking to myself' through this ancient oracle/ritual. And that in effect, I had cured myself by the way I interpreted the oracle's responses. And yet at the same time, the oracle worked exactly as millions of Chinese people have believed and claimed it does for centuries.

Maybe "God" doesn't work through feats of supernatural 'magic', but through our own better inclinations.