I am not saying, "it's foolish not to believe". I am saying it's foolish to reject the positive possibilities that come with choosing to believe (if they could help you), based on nothing.
Not based on nothing. How about the fact that many people have been fleeced/robbed by the very people making the claims that these "positive possibilities" are real and to be anticipated. Without evidence of these "positive possibilities," I feel the chance of getting ripped off or wasting time is just too high to warrant my getting involved. It's much like
GAMBLING. You're betting your time or money or both on an outcome
YOU CANNOT KNOW TO BE FORTHCOMING. Exactly like gambling. Which is usually considered a vice... especially by many with religious convictions. Hahaha...
Rejecting what you don't know, based on what you don't know, is clearly a fool's errand, don't you think?
No! Not at all! The man who offers to sell you a bridge, sight unseen? You don't know if he really owns the bridge in order to sell it to you. You think it foolish to reject his offer? Or ask him for evidence? Seriously? Listen to yourself. Your mode of thinking is simply not good. This is just an extremely obvious example. There are all sorts of scenarios in which it makes complete sense to reject what you don't know, based on what you don't know. Someone says "Hey, you want to see something cool? Just climb in the back of this van!" You "don't know" what the guy has to show you, you don't know whether he is trustworthy or not, or whether he has bad intentions. And yet you would probably reject him, right? You have absolutely no evidence that he has done anything wrong, or intends you any ill-will. In that moment, you know next to nothing. And yet you would likely reject his offer. Why? Don't you claim it is foolish to do so?
And if you want to try and point to knowledge of other cases where people are abducted - be careful! Because that is the EXACT rationale I gave you for rejecting your claims in the paragraph where I likened your belief to a form of gambling. EXACTLY the same. I have knowledge of cases wherein people who were entirely credulous are the ones who believed the claims you are espousing, and they were taken advantage of in specific ways tied directly to those beliefs.
Especially when so many other people are able to make good use of this thing that you're rejecting on the blind.
I don't see it. There may be some who this applies to, I suppose, but if anything I see my own coping mechanisms and life skills to be multiple magnitudes more superior than those of probably every theist I have ever met. For many of them, their worldview seem to come with a built-in, "blame-game" component when they recognize that either God pulling the strings implies that their misfortunes are, in fact, intended, or they push it off onto the opposing team by claiming some form of "spiritual attack." So many theists I have encountered are all about things like gossip and talking behind people's backs, and relish drama (speaking in tongues, strange movements to music, breaking out in tears, lying about "healings," pushing people over, falling on the floor). I abhor all of that, and find it a detrimental and damaging exercise - also apparently infectious and damns following generations of peoples to the same forms of credulity. For theists who truly seem to believe and accept their ideas as "the truth", all I ever see in that is a bunch of people unhappy with reality as it has presented itself to them, and so they augment it with stories and pretend. And this is a part of the group of people you would instead say have benefited from their make-believe, and are otherwise well-adjusted, wonderful examples of mental health? YEAH RIGHT. Holy crap what a joke.
My beliefs, like those of most theists, are based on the logical possibility that a benevolent God exists, on the hope of that possibility being true, and on the results gained from hoping in that possibility through action.
A good number of them ignoring anything and everything that contradicts the specifics of what they want to believe. So logical.
I (we) have positive results. While no one has any "evidence". Not even you. Evidence is irrelevant except that the lack of it allows for the possibility that what we choose to hope in, is true.
Boy, I do so hope that unicorns actually exist. The "positive possibility" of riding one is simply too great for me to resist. I think I'll just act as if they do exist. Now I am special... like you.
