If you know anything about psychology, you might realise why that is so.
A person who turns away from G-d, as in ignores what Scriptures teach,
will not "think" in the same way that a person who considers it to be true.
That isn't explaining something you understand that other minds cannot. I understand (and had) having a belief in Christianity, Alien crash at Roswell, law of attraction, and other wu-wu things that are extremely unlikely to be true.
You just buy into a story and accept it's true and once you emotionalize it and it becomes part of your identity you have a very hard time seeing facts. Deconversion is very hard because of how our minds are wired.
But a Mormon doesn't understand evidence that you cannot comprehend, they just believe Joseph Smith really had a revelation and that his story is all true. While you probably believe he is running a con.We all understand how people buy into stories and religions.
The claim of evidence that only some people can understand sounds like a different thing and I want to see if an example can be given. It cannot because there is no response.
We are not compelled to believe, but the path we take affects our very being/soul.
What soul, provide evidence for a soul. Christianity picked it up from Hellenism. Was a myth then and still is.
We CAN change our mind about what we believe, but the further we get from spiritual truth,
the harder it is to see this truth.
Obviously someone can hear that Joseph Smith had revelations from an angel and choose to buy into the story.
The further people get from dogmatic religions the more their mind allows to look at the claims with some rational , skeptical and logical thoughts which may lead them to realize they hold a belief that is not supported by evidence.
But first of all the word "spiritual" is ill-defined, "spiritual truth" is a meaningless word used by apologists to mean "my religion".
Theism is an absolute fail in terms of evidence, likelyness of the claims being true, and it's debunbked by so many lines of thinking.
Finally you cannot change your mind about what you believe if you care about believing true things. I can choose to accept the Roswell UFO crash folklore if I really want to believe there is alien life out there and they are visiting us, and the government is covering it all up. Exciting things to believe. But if you care about truth it all falls apart.
Religion is no different, it can be exciting to feel like you are special and created by a god and will live on after death. But if you really care about truth it doesn't hold up.
So you really cannot believe what you want.
..much like getting out of a pit .. the deeper we go in disbelief, the harder it becomes
to change.
..it is not impossible, but it usually takes some sort of 'shock'. or change in our lives..
That is exactly the point. People encounter a trauma or difficult time and turn to a religion. Generally they are not skeptical, rational, critical thinkers but willing to accept the story. Difficult times often reverse and being in an organized group with a place to go, talk with people, praying (even to an imaginary deity) is helpful, it's a bit like meditation, and these things can help improve peoples lives, sometimes.
Then, as humans do, we make connections when they are often not there and say "God changed my life".
How do we know it didn't happen.
1) you hear the success stories, many don't have significant change
2)go to a pediatric cancer ward, all of the relatives, parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins, siblings, all are praying. Some survive some don't.
It follows probabilistic mortality rates that don't change unless better treatments are discovered.
3) 10,000 children under 10 die every day from starvation. Do you imagine their extended family are not begging a deity for the children to survive.
Spo most stories of people having their life changed are the times it worked. Random probability would say sometimes joining a religion will help a situation.
4) but it can be Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Sikh, Hinduism, Scientology, New Age cults, Witchcraft, all groups have stories of people changing their lives.
It's clearly due to psychological reasons and has zero to do with an outside deity.
People being shocked into scientology doesn't mean the theology is real. It means being around people and having something to focus on can help difficult times.
Non-religious don't have "disbelief", they believe in all sorts of things. They just don't buy stories from ancient folk tales that became popular without sufficient evidence. That is a good thing.
G-d's guidance is for those that work righteousness .. our minds can be our own worst enemy.
It is not purely a matter of 'matter', as it were, but also a matter of conscience.
That doesn't make sense. So on the basic level you are just making stuff up about a deity who doesn't seem to exist.
But the answer you were responding to was why doesn't God speak to all humans at once? Your answer makes no sense.
Only people who work righteousness? What? The people gone astray would be in the most need. A reasonable and good God would give evidence to all humans and then let them decide how to proceed.
The idea that Judaism and Christianity is real is almost impossible looking at the historical information (and why Dr Miller, Ehrman, Dr Kipp Davis, Dr Bowden and s many other historians became secular), but saying it is for a second.......you claim it was corrupted and Jesus was really a prophet.
Yet there is not one shred of information about that, we have 36 other gospels, Gnostic text, all sorts of literature not in the Bible and NEVER is that idea floated. But ok, somehow it's all wrong, and Christianity has a huge following now in 7 AD, the Church in Rome is huge, has millions of followers, a Pope, Bishops, Priests, all dedicate their lives to study. But it's all wrong so what does YAhweh do? Tells the Pope and Bishops of course? Nope.
Tells all Christians through revelation? Nope. Tells any Christian? Nope. Tells an Arab merchant? Yes.
ensuring hatred, bloodshed, wars and tearing people apart still to this day. And god knows all. He knew it would create one of the largest loss of life ever, up to 2 million people killed in the
Partition of India , millions displaced, so much suffering. Yahweh could have given revelations to Hindu leaders. But that NEVER happens. Anyone outside of India never gets Hindu revelations, anyone outside of Islam or Christianity never get revelations, only from the thing they already believe. So, people made this stuff up. Hinduism is a deep and vast theology, they are not goinbg to convert without true revelations or a visit from a deity.
But don't speak to me of righteousness, if this god was real I would NEVER worship it.
But the facts show its' fiction.
No. A book is not true because it claims that it is. We will only accept it as truth if we can 'see' that it is.
A matter of conscience.
Why are you responding to a post sent to someone else (ok, fine) but then MISINTERPRETING IT and taking it way out of context?
I'm responding to:
"It does not have to be demonstrated, it is clearly defined in scriptures."
That statement is "its' true because the books says so"
And you cannot "see" any religious book is true you were told it was true and you bought into the story.
It's an angry book and we have evidence it was being worked on for centuries. It's just another mythology.
Conscience comes first, and the evaluation of evidence follows it.
I don't know what "Conscience comes first,", I think confirmation bias comes first. Why else are there so many deconverted Muslims who are saying it's totally made up. Armin Navari is one and he debunks any claim about Islam on the Athiest Experience.
Evidence?
Apologetics that say "the science must come from god!" When every single thing was from Greek science books from BCE. That would be called a lie. Angels giving revelations? Moon splitting in half?
Matters of the soul .. the psyche .. the part of mind which involves conscience.
psyche and conscience are part of the brain and psychology deals with them. When the brain is damaged, both will change.
When the brain is gone so are they. Where were they before you were born? In surgery you close you eyes and then open them and hours have past.
The soul, provide evidence. Judaism didn't really use that concept. This is the god you believe in.
No soul, no heaven, for over 1000 years. Then, Greek Hellenism happens around 300 BC. The Greeks occupy Israel and what do you know? Christianity, started in the Hellenism hub, Antioch, suddenly has all these things, souls, souls returning to heaven and so on.
Wow Yahweh forgot to tell people for one thousand years about the afterlife? Then when the Greeks invent it, then it becomes part of a new Jewish offshoot?
No. These are man-made myths and theologies, syncretism happens in ALL religions and this is an example in Judaism.
You will pick on the scholars but you seem to be unaware it has nothing to do with scholars. Do you admonish WW2 historians for demonstrating evidence about something uncomfortable from WW2? No. It's the information itself. It's just not taught to the world because you have to actually study these fields of religious history or read books they write.
