question for religious people

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First of all, you don't seem stupid, so I am quite puzzled by your consternation over why people should or should not "convert". What does it mean - to convert? Does it mean throwing reason totally out the window and just going by a gut feeling that the world does not make sense without some superbeing supervising all major events? Since we live on a teensy weensy bit of rocky junk in a monstrously huge universe I cannot see that humanity is of much consequence. Especially since we seem to even not properly care for this irrelevant bit that we inhabit. I can't understand why humanity claims to be so important. As if a bit of green stuff on a slice of Roquefort cheese in my fridge suddenly declared itself the master of the universe. Doesn't that strike you as a bit humorous?

I would have figured you'd understood what I meant by convert. "To cause (someone) to change in opinion or belief" is the definition I'm going for. I am against conversion of any kind and have always gone by the philosophy that not everyone is born to Follow. If you do not you most likely won't. If you believe believe wholeheartedly. He is not going to change just because you did, and if you cannot see Him you never will unless you are willing to look at things differently (through different eyes).

I very strongly hold to the belief that one should discuss such talks with another person of faith ("...Take delight in speak of Me with others of like mind."). That way it prevents me from speaking vainly as nothing in the end would be accomplished with a disbeliever. In that event, I would just advice you to read books and listen to opinions of bona fide instructors. It might help you better understand why people feel or think a certain way. i

I can't really enter into a discussion on how or why this earth is important. It is a world I live in, as far as I know there is nothing else like it (with life). I do not understand the outside world. My mind won't be able to understand much of it. The same with the Lord.

Since my life is totally oriented around logic and reason I am afraid we have encountered an unsurmountable obstacle. And from your side I can get a hint that logic and reason are totally inadequate tools of utility. We are, intellectually at least, alien species.

What is the most basic article of faith?

THAT WE ARE MORE THAN THIS

It's even more basic than the belief in a God. What can I tell the person whom this most basic article of faith eludes? It's not really question of smart vs. stupid, right vs. wrong. Faith is faith is faith.

We tell ourselves funny little stories about how death is some unsubstantial ignorance. We cannot imagine ourselves not existing and of course, the universe, like some strange flexible stuff conjured out of dreams and fairytales permits one to see faces and monsters and Gods in clouds and swirling mists. But, of course, before we were born, was a time of neither pain nor pleasure but merely a time of being not. And this short peek in time we call our life will surely subside back into that ever encompassing unknowingness again since the tiny spin of forces that twirls our bits into delightful dynamism will, like the momentary tumble of leaves in a breeze, settle our dust back into the landscape until another gust fabricates something more or less interesting to bump and whirl in the sunlight. So much for eternity.

Whatever branch you may ascribe me to must certainly not affix a deity like a maraschino cherry on top of the whipped cream. If that is not atheism, what else can it be? To see myself as a temporary pattern in a cloud of atoms neither requires nor posits a pre nor post existence.

If you are just a temporary pattern in a cloud of atoms, why should we care? What is there to care about?

I am delighted to be alive in this moment and with what small comprehension I have managed in my comparatively short lifetime. I have children who carry on some of my patterns and hopefully they will find them useful. There is nothing particularly cosmic about my existence but it is an interesting and somewhat unique design that is part of the continuously evolving patterns of the forces of the universe. I enjoy my existence tremendously and cannot see why I should demand more than this. I am neither wealthy nor desire wealth but reasonably healthy for my age and the fund of fascinations I find in waking up in the morning to observe each day is very adequate for my needs which require only a minimum of food and a safe and comfortable place to live. I have a great time cooking and baking inexpensive and innovative food and creating all sorts of art works and have a small bird as a companion to carry on conversations with and I have you to argue and discuss with which is a great deal more than millions, perhaps billions of people now alive now enjoy. What more could I require?

That's not for me to decide.

Ah, but I do have something which may be entirely new. Throughout the many ages humans have posited all sorts of human-like beings in imitation of their various rulers to demand, as their rulers did, obeisance and tokens of subservience. Since they could not conceive of a universe with an inherent structural order which resulted in the fantastic and wonderful complexities that produced the galaxies, the various different stars, the strange planets and, at least locally and most probably throughout the universe, the odd creatures such as myself, the dinosaurs, the intricate wonders of even the simplest living cell and so forth. But from recent centuries humans have observed that it does not require a sacred spirit to make the planets revolve around themselves and the Sun nor make a dried leaf gaily spin as it drops to the ground. There are unsupervised forces that do this and, of course, much more. What has not been realized is that thought, which arranges all these intricate phenomena, does not require either a mysterious spirit supervisor nor even consciousness. Thought is essentially a filtering process which permits some things to occur and prevents others from happening and this thought is accomplished merely by the non-conscious interaction of the few basic forces active in this our universe. The universe does its own "thinking" and not only does it quite well, it does not permit deviation from its rigid laws. It does not require worshiping or tokens of faith and it is absolutely pitiless insofar as its regulations be obeyed. It has no more concern for mankind than it has for a stone rambling through the gravity fields of a galaxy but it is impossible to disobey. No God is necessary.

Try writing a book instead.