> They will acknowledge that their belief conflicts with
> logic and that they choose faith because they are powerless not to. In
> other words, they were brainwashed since childhood and admit it. Others,
> who can't bear the weight, I avoid discussion with. (Sodom)
>
> Sodom,
>
> Would you entertain the idea that "faith" is more like inductive reasoning
> than "powerles[sness]" or "brainwashing". It seems that faith is like a
> "feeling" one gets when one reads a lot of general statements about
> something...they don't really add up to a conclusion but they add up to a
> certainty of sorts. Or, would you accept that faith is a "social
> metaphysic" of sorts--like a mob mentality; perhaps faith is the
> *conclusion* that a group of people reach but this conclusion is not
> available for one person to state in so many words?
>
> As to faith being inductive: It seems that when you ask for details,
> christians can't supply them...but they quote lots of obscure texts (as if
> this explained something...and maybe it does, TO THEM; so, maybe with
> enough of the general principals you get an impression of something bigger
> that [maybe] is too complicated to put into logical statements).
>
> As to being a social phenomenon: If you ask them to explain something to
> you they will say "Go ask my preacher" or "Come to Church"...so maybe this
> "thing" that they are talking about is in a different symbolic language, of
> sorts, which takes many people with various symbolic understandings to
> interpret--AS A GROUP; but just maybe this type of logic takes
> mathematicians, and musicians, and mechanics, and scholars, etc. all working
> togeather to interpret.
>
> Brett
>
> P.S.
>
> You seem too pre-judged toward science and against religion to ACTUALLY be a
> level 5...I would think that you are dichotomous (so would be a multiple of
> level 2's, minus the original conception of self-as-god...minus the ONE). I
> also see you as having substance without form--that is you mirror a level
> one without having the quality of oneness. You are most likely a level 3
> formed of pairs...and therefore a level 6--though perhaps minus the first
> pair due to their resemblence to a unified understanding; and so, you would
> resemble (or mimic) a level 5 while attempting to destroy their confidence
> in themself...their level one quality.
>
> BR
>
> Returning,
> rBERTS%n
> Rabble Sonnet Retort
> Levity is the soul of wit.
>
> Melville D. Landon. (Eli Perkins)
>
>
>
>
Brett, it is difficult to sit down with anyone and explain a
religious belief or a scientific belief for that matter in a short
time. There are LOTS of reasons that go into making up the
beliefs and you fault people because they can't present it to you
like a book report. CHARDIN