The word you're searching for is faith. If you don't have it, you can't comprehend it. You can even call it blind faith if you want to. I'll try to put it into a new perspective. There are two people going skydiving on a perfectly clear and calm day. One of the skydivers has 1,000 jumps under his belt, while the other one is afraid of heights and has never jumped before and is only there because he lost a bet with friends. The first skydiver has complete faith in his ability and his gear and he is absolutely certain that every time he jumps, he'll land safely. Now, take the second skydiver who is scared senseless while standing at the plane door at 10,000 feet. He has been trained that if he simply watches his altimeter and pulls his ripcord at the right time, that he'll land safely and soundly in the clearing just below. However, since the second skydiver has never experienced, felt or watched the skydiving equipment and process work successfully before - he'll never believe that it is truly safe, until he takes that leap of faith for the first time. After the first jump, he's never felt more alive and can't get enough so he goes back for more and more. Over time, the more jumps that second skydiver takes - the more comfortable he'll get because he'll come to trust his instincts, his training and his gear. That is faith in a higher power and religion a nutshell.
I actually meant Americans and amended my statement in a later reply. With that said, one would think that the world wouldn't be all that different considering our nation is made up of a cross-section of the rest of the world. http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/americans-continue-believe-god.aspx
Could you please clarify the statements I put in bold? I'm not trying to set you up. I'm just not sure I understand what you mean - please give specific examples.
The analogy itself is terrible. I'm paying a company in a capitalist market to sky dive. They provide the equipment and training. I know my equipment will work based on the notion that they are still in business by not killing all their costumers. I know there is a risk behind it just as there is driving a car, stepping in a plane or doing any day to day task. However as a human I determine if the benefit outweighs the risk. Besides, even if your analogy made any sense at all, you still don't explain why that skydiver that is afraid to jump is deserving of eternal hell fire. In fact, your analogy shed seven more light on what is deserving of eternal damnation according to the Biblical God. Another note.... blind belief is closer to being gullible than actual faith. To me faith is something more akin to trusting a close friend on his word because he has pulled through for you before and has never broken his word. Faith still requires evidence for me.
Its my fault that I question the validity of an entire religion that was founded by the mind of schizophrenic or worse an oligarchy of men driven by power using religion as an indoctrination tool? Some religions identify a prophet that has "spoken" with whatever God they believe in or had visions, hallucinations, etc. Imams, popes, pastors. Some legitimately believe in what they preach and practice, there are also many who abuse their power and manipulate people for personal gain. You could create entire wars with the power religious figures used to have. And even now, you can see what a radical like bin laden can do in a position of religious authority. I'll admit religion does a lot of good regarding societal unity and charitable givings; or at least it did. Until religious conservatives started hating poor people for whatever reason. Conservative policies are detrimental towards the poor, impoverished, and the homeless. Direct contrast to what, for example, Jesus preached.
LOL! So you want me to apply why a skydiver deserves to go to hell? Going to hell isn't part of the analogy, the analogy was about faith. I even bolded it for you. I could provide you further clarification but it is obvious you truly have no interest in knowing why we believe what we believe, you simply want to know how we can be so stupid to believe what we believe. You're not looking at it with an open mind, so there is no point. You've clearly made your mind up, which is your right... but don't act like you truly want to understand, when you clearly don't care to understand.
I have an open mind. I'm asking you why is someone deserving of eternal damnation for requiring evidence. If you can't answer, just admit to it.
Which is what every thread about religion ultimately boils down to. BigTexxx got what he wanted. We've all been trolled. Ultimately it'd be great if everyone just got to believe what they wanted with no conflicts between religions and beliefs (and non beliefs). Too bad that line gets crossed every time and some group gets marginalized in that fight.
Actually that 90% number has been around for quite some time though depending on various surveys has in fact dropped to between 84 and 86 percent over the last few decades. That said there is no shortage of global surveys when it comes to the study of the religious landscape/demographics of the planet. Your are also quite right that a significant portion of the planet does not believe in a higher power though when you look at the totality of the numbers that section of population still falls into a significant minority. As is the three biggest groups are Christians with about 32% of the planets population identifying as such. Next are Muslims at about 24% and then you have those who I guess you would call unaffiliated ie: atheists, agnostics, ect., that make up about 16% of the worlds population. After that are Hindus and Buddhists and all the other various forms of religious beliefs out there today.
Which exemplifies my point that "faith" being the determining factor for eternal damnation is absurd.
That is a bunch of crap. People of faith continually give more on average than people not of faith, even when their charitable giving is not religious institutions. Most religious people are more involved with the communities which provides them with social ties, and more reasons to give. http://ideas.time.com/2013/11/26/religious-people-are-more-charitable/
Conservative policies. POLICY. Government. Charitable giving is not government policy. Although, if all you're here to do is attempt to justify that the religious are better than the non-religious. Then I'm done here.
Thanks for the clarification about the global numbers. So, for America it is 9 out 10. For the entire world, it is 8.4 out of 10 - about what I expected.
My church is responsible and accounts for every dollar they spend, and they make every single one of them count. They post every single dollar brought in every week in the bulletin, and they account for it in monthly reports that are freely available to all members online or at the church office. Meanwhile the government pilfers it away by the trillions. There isn't one aspect of our government that is run efficiently. I want my tax dollars to count, sorry.
Here is some anecdotal evidence for you. My parents are Muslim. They raised both my brother and I as Muslim. Statistically all members of our houshold are considered Muslim yet both my brother and I acknowledged that we both lack faith in Islam and just to satisfy our parents we pretend to still be "Muslim" as in occasionally attend Mosque services and occasionally "pray". I wouldn't be surprised if this happens in many households. That is why statistics and polls in this case are ridiculous.
According to the World Religion Database, as of 2010 there is only 813,600,000 atheist / agnostic / religious but not affiliated people out of a world population of 6,895,900,000. Which is approx 11-12% of the population being so called non-believers, leaving 88-89% believing in God, a god, many gods or a higher power...so Svpernaut was pretty spot on with his ASSumption, wherever he pulled that number from. :grin: By saying a significant portion of this planet is atheist or do not believe in God, a god or a higher power makes it look like you only open your mouth to change feet. Oh, also on the statistics about the percentile of believers going down...:grin: Look it up. You are wrong there too.
Gallup conducted the poll I posted of 9 out of 10 Americans. http://www.gallup.com/poll/101872/how-does-gallup-polling-work.aspx They're just the longest running and most trusted polling in the world.
Well considering that religion is hammered in and forced at an extremely early age then I wouldn't be surprised that number isn't drastically going down. I didn't have a choice and I suspect a great deal of children don't either.
Do you actually need someone to explain to you why you labeling others as sinners and fantasizing about their fiery afterlives is ludicrous and should not be encouraged? You made a terrible analogy and now you're just falling back to the same old "It's faaaaaaith, I ain't gotta explain **** hahaha" attitude. Was your goal to enlighten people about faith or did you just want to sound as unreasonable as possible? Because you've done a fine job of the latter so far.
So no one can answer why requiring more evidence is considered "evil" enough to be damned to Hell for eternity? Someone rapes a child, then finds Jesus and doesn't require scientific evidence to believe, thus is granted eternal bliss in heaven. I never rape a child. I require more evidence about the story of Jesus. I am damned to eternal hell fire. k.
