Originally posted by AKIron
Somehow it seems that you are saying your reasoning ability prevents you from believing in that with which you have no experience. Is that a correct assumption on my part?
I am not sure what you mean by term "experience" in that particular question.
If it refers to specific knowlege of religion - it's tenets, texts, rituals and close association with religious people, including multiple presence during rituals - then I do have it and quite a lot with at least three religions (greek-ortodox, catholicism and judaism) and fairly familiar with several more.
So your question would not be valid and you would have to rephrase it.
If you mean that I have not
experienced religious belief - that would be mostly correct. I say "mostly" because in my younger years I did have certain superstitions which in my view qualify as a religious experience.
Let me state my position as clear as I can. I do believe that being religious would potentially make person's (my) life happier - especially if I encounter some devastating experience or my level of anxiety goes up significantly for some reason. I do see some survival disadvantages in being a religious person but they probably do not outweight the advantages imparted by faith.
So if offered a way to acquire faith, I would seriously consider it and at some times during my life I would probably have accepted it readily.
I certainly gave people (and authors) many opportunities to convince me in the validity of their beliefs and so far they have failed. I believe more reasonable natural explanations exist
or may exist for the phenomena they claim to explain by divine intervention.
It is not possible for a person to acquire faith in something he/she did not believe in before just by the act of volition, no matter how much he/she appreciates the utility of such acquisition.
Incidentally, I (curently) do not have a slightest issue with comprehension of my mortality. I am pretty happy right now and my life has been so full that I am getting bored with things and even a bit tired.
Some times I catch myself thinking "oh, well, it's only about thirty more years of that stuff and responcibilities and then the welcome oblivion...". Not in any kind of negative meaning but very similar to a thought "I've had a great day but now I am looking forward to going to sleep". Not yet but I keep that in mind.
Oblivion does not scare me. Why should it? It's like a dreamless sleep or unconciousness, only without end.
BTW, somehow most people who are afraid of death (most of them belong to religions with quite pleasant afterlife, which is very illogical of them) are wasting most of this life with time-killing (in)activities and spend the other part worrying about it being too short.
You may be surprised how much people differ that claim to belong to the same religion. Most of those I met just claim to be religious, participate in some rituals and hope for good afterlife but their actions - and mostly inactions - completely contradict their beliefs. Not used to employ reason, they do not even try to reconcile that and get upset when I bring up inconcistencies in their behavior.
I found a huge difference between precious few people who believe in a word of Christ and those who believe in a word of their preacher. Both kinds claim to be christians but they could not be more different.
miko
