\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Very few people believe in God,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he replied.<\/p>\n
I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see how he could deny the obvious.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Of course they do. Billions of people believe in God.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The old man leaned toward me, resting a blanketed elbow on the arm of his rocker.<\/p>\n
Four billion people say they believe in God, but few genuinely believe. If people believed in God, they would live every minute of their lives in support of that belief.<\/p>\n
……………………………………..<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A belief in God would demand one hundred percent obsessive devotion, influencing every waking moment of this brief life on earth. But your four billion so-called believers do not live their lives in that fashion, except for a few. The majority believe in the usefulness of their beliefs\u00e2\u20ac\u201dan earthly and practical utility\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut they do not believe in the underlying reality.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe what I was hearing.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you asked them, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say they believe.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They say that they believe because pretending to believe is necessary to get the benefits of religion. They tell other people that they believe and they do believer-like things, like praying and reading holy books. But they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do the things that a true believer would do, the things a true believer would have to do.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you believe a truck is coming toward you, you will jump out of the way. That is belief in the reality of the truck. If you tell people you fear the truck but do nothing to get out of the way, that is not belief in the truck. Likewise, it is not belief to say God exists and then continue sinning and hoarding your wealth while innocent people die of starvation. When belief does not control your most important decisions, it is not belief in the underlying reality, it is belief in the usefulness of believing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
…………………………………………..<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Skeptics,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153suffer from the skeptics\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 disease\u00e2\u20ac\u201d the problem of being right too often.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that bad?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you are proven to be right a hundred times in a row, no amount of evidence will convince you that you are mistaken in the hundred-and-first case. You will be seduced by your own apparent infallibility. Remember that all scientific experiments are performed by human beings and the results are subject to human interpretation. The human mind is a delusion generator, not a window to truth. Everyone, including skeptics, will generate delusions that match their views. That is how a normal and healthy brain works. Skeptics are not exempt from self-delusion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First things first…… superfledermaus turned me on to other modifications you can perform on your basic NES system that does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t