Critical thinking and education is linked to loss of faith
- Thread starter Romanov2488
- Start date
-
Welcome to Christian Forums, a Christian Forum that recognizes that all Christians are a work in progress.
You will need to register to be able to join in fellowship with Christians all over the world.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
“A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.” - Theodore Roosevelt
Often. However, the thought you expressed here is preserved in writing and, for some period of time, in the minds of those who are privy to it.
What would you say it is about thought which makes it magical?
Welcome to the forum.
The evidence they accept is provided only by their own relative grasp of human knowledge and understanding. Of their limited abilities to even understand the world around them; and they do a sad job of that..
They are too obsessed with playing their own god of all creation, using their caveman primitive sticks and stones at their only tools at their disposal. Nothing has changed since Eden.
Appearance isn’t ‘often’. Appearance is now-only. The thought ‘often’ appears now-only, but implies linear time which is not an actuality and is never actually experienced. The thought (often) is experinced now-only, but what the thought implies does not actually exist.
Essentially, as it is believed ‘I am a separate self in time’, naturally it is assumed there are other separate selves in time. Likewise, ‘I have a mind’, and ‘there are others which have minds’. Just like with the thought ‘often’ having no actuality let’s say ‘in perception’, it is the same for the thought ‘my mind’. That is assumed, not actually experineced.
Thought is apparent; what’s appearing as thought is what’s being said to be magical.
Put another way, what is truly magical - a mirage of water in a desert, or the reality of light?
As it’s noticed so called thought is appearing as if in or of a so called mind, and yet there is no actual experience of thoughts or a mind - the true magic of reality, or, that experiential reality is truly magical begins to be unfettered.
Much appreciated, thanks!
Ronald David Bruno
Well-Known Member
I forgot about this thread, since you did not respond to post #246 about the purpose and meaning in life perspective.
Did not have an answer to that one? Thought you were educated. Didn't teach you about death in school?
Anyways, about your above response; we are given a moral code by God. Let me explain. That first intuitive insight you get, an idea, that you ought to do this or go that way; but then your mind starts to analyze it, your logic kicks in; but for some reason, you choose another direction, going against your first thought. What happens? You make the wrong choice. Don't we always say, " I should gone with my first thought, gut feeling". But we reasoned ourselves away from the right path, what was the right thing to do or say. This was God's voice telling you, "You ought to go this way, you ought to do this, help this person, share, love or don't go this way, stay away from this person ..."
We receive guidance from God all the time whether you are aware of not or not. All our thoughts are not self generated. You might say of course we get thoughts from others, news, people, communications, etc. I am not talking about outside information or about something you learned that your memory brought back to you. But it may be something you learned and God instantly pulled it out of your memory and gave it to you without having to think about it - a crucial lesson you learned ... He brings it back to your attention: " Remember what happened last time you did this, don't do it again".
God's voice specifically pertains to the moment, a moral decision, a fork in the road that may very well go against your rational logic or learned knowledge. You actually argue against it sometimes. It's funny when we argue with ourselves, can't decide ... it may be that we are arguing with God.
You must logically reason that if there is a God and He communicates with man other than through His Word, this must be another way He communicates with us. He also sends us people to help us or give us a message when we need it. He will even send animals to assist you.
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
I found this interesting.
I don't know if believers actually don't start out without questions.
My family wasn't religious in the least. I didn't grow up in a spirit faith based community.
I went to Sunday school when I was a kid but I couldn't tell you what they taught.
I don't think I thought about God until I was late in my teens. I knew about him, but I didn't know him.
Somewhere in my 20's I started investigating the bible. I would always get to the begats and say forget it, this is boring.
I've had arguments in my own mind if God was true or just something people made up to keep man in line with whatever society man created to keep them in fear. If you do this or that your going to hell. I thought about hell and I don't know if I ever really believed in it.
It didn't give me any fear thinking about it, so why think about it?
Then somewhere in my 30's I started leaning on the idea that there was more to life than what I was living. There had to be a purpose a reason for why we are here.
Curious minds want to know.
There's a big difference between book knowledge and street knowledge. I never been much of a reader but I liked to write.
I would write poems and stories that my mom used to say were deep with contemplation and where did I get these ideas from?
One day I read the book of revelations and I could not for the life of me understand how in a holy book there was such things as dragons and locusts with long hair and a lake of fire.. what was this talking about? What did it mean?
That was the hook the Lord caught me with. He reeled me in with prophecy. I was watching the world change around me and I didn't have the answers, so I went to the bible looking for answers.
That was almost 30 years ago. Since then I have seen God work in my life. He has changed who I was, short tempered, selfish, whiney little brat, into something more gentler, more kind and understanding. I seen miracles in my life where I should be dead 3 times over now.
2 in what would of been Dead on arrival traffic accidents, and one that had to do with drugs. There was an intervention which I can't explain except for that God stepped in and changed the circumstances.
But that's just the outside of things. On the inside God has taught me a lot about life and how we should walk in it and treat each other.
How to be the best that we can be. And I know if left to myself to figure these things out, I would probably just give up, why bother?
But something inside me pushes me and keeps me looking for new things, new truths, new insights.
And you can't always get these from a book, you have to walk the walk not just talk the talk.
And experince comes with age.
And after all these years learning these new experiences, I can claim without a doubt that God is real.
So when you say we start off by saying God is real instead of having humility to say we don't know if he is real or not,
you don't know if maybe we have already been down that path of unknowing and now we know.
Science is based on the preponderance of evidence, in which you say you can't find in the belief in God.
But what we say is that God is the preponderance of evidence in which science is seeking for but cannot find.
To science God is a blackhole in which the instruments man uses can not search the depths of. And not because they can't. It's because they are afraid they will be swallowed up in the unknowing and finally learn the truth. Which would according to the world, make them look foolish. But we don't mind looking foolish for the truth's sake. Because we know the truth and that's really all that matters in the end.
Hugs
The god they look for, has leavers that he just pulls to fix things out of the blue !
Such idiots who serve such gods, think that this god they idolise could just wave a wand to fix anything at all, even if we were to Nuke the world !
Their god would just wave that old wand and make it better ! Idiots !
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
When Jesus was preaching he went to the lost sheep of Israel. They believed in God overall but they weren't following his directions.
Jesus sent Paul to the gentiles around Jerusalem to bring the good news even to regions that held their own beliefs about who and what God is.Even the Goddess Diana who fell as a rock from heaven.
But they held some belief that a god, any god had power over their daily lives.
How do you appraoch someone that has no belief in any gods, or any means of supernatural intervention?
It's not a matter of preaching the gospel to those who have ears to hear.
It's a matter of preaching the gospel to those who have no ears to hear.
They refuse to listen.
What does the bible say about these?
I hear, shake the dust off of your feet and move along.
Only God alone can open ears that are unwilling to hear. Not that they don't hear correctly, but are adamant against any knowledge of God at all.
Pray for them. Pray God softens their heart so they can recieve the word.
I see two type of people today, the unsure but willing, and the absolute no way.
Doesn't mean we don't stop doing that which is good because they don't believe.
I think we do it all the more to convince them, that good is better than evil, and to believe is better than ignorance.
If they hear they do, and if they don't, they don't.
But with God all things are possible.
Hugs
I thought this Catholic writer made an interesting observation on education.
”In 1965 50% of Catholic children attended Catholic school and 71% of all Catholics went to Mass on Sunday.
Today less than 10% of Catholic children go to Catholic school and only 17% go to Mass on Sunday.
It all comes back to education.”
x.com
”In 1965 50% of Catholic children attended Catholic school and 71% of all Catholics went to Mass on Sunday.
Today less than 10% of Catholic children go to Catholic school and only 17% go to Mass on Sunday.
It all comes back to education.”
x.com
x.com
Bingo. I address this very point in one of my blog entries:
What I Learned From the Atheists
Lessons from a decade of dialoguing with internet atheists.
www.christianityboard.com
Which brings me to my last point: Not only do the internet atheists insist there is insufficient evidence for the existence of a deity, but they define "evidence" in such a narrow way that there could never be any such evidence. It's called scientism – the worship of science. The only meaningful answers are those provided by science. And not just science in the broad, dictionary sense of the term but science very narrowly defined as falsifiable laboratory science – a definition that would exclude huge disciplines of actual science at the highest level, such as cosmology and physics.
Science investigates and attempts to explain the natural order – the universe and all it contains. For good reason, scientists operate on the basis of what it is called methodological materialism. This is the assumption that all answers will eventually be found within the natural order; hence, scientists keep seeking those answers and don't jump to non-natural explanations like God. Where science goes awry and becomes scientism is when it operates on the basis of philosophical materialism. Philosophical materialism is the position that there can't be any answers outside the natural order – such as a deity. This is the objection of the scientists in the Intelligent Design movement: They can't even get a fair hearing because a designer outside the natural order is simply not allowed by philosophical materialism, even if this is where the best scientific evidence points.
Metaphysical questions such as the existence of a deity or the truth of Christianity aren't scientific questions. Science can never prove or disprove the existence of a deity, let alone the God of Christianity. As I described in my own testimony, many branches of science are highly relevant to metaphysical questions. The scientific work of the Intelligent Design movement, encompassing numerous scientific disciplines, is a perfect example.
In interacting with internet atheists, you find that vast realms of philosophy, theology, science, human experience, anecdotal and testimonial evidence, and reasonable, plausible inferences are simply disallowed. They aren't "science" and thus aren't "evidence" in the narrow, self-serving way the atheists want to define these terms. It makes real dialogue impossible.
Scientism is an intellectual straitjacket. You can certainly choose to confine yourself in this straitjacket if you wish, as I always told the atheists, but the rest of us have no obligation to do so. We are free to bring to our quest for God everything we consider relevant in reaching other important convictions and making other important decisions in our everyday lives. No atheist lives within this straitjacket in choosing a college, career or spouse or making any of the other important decisions we all have to make. The straitjacket is brought out of the closet only when the question is the existence of God. It conveniently ensures the answer will be, "There is no evidence for the existence of God. Those who believe, even if they are Nobel laureates in one of the hard sciences, are delusional magical thinkers insofar as their religious beliefs are concerned." Yep, Nobel laureates in biology and chemistry can no longer think rationally or critically when the question is the existence of God.
Critical thinking and education properly leads to faith in God and Messiah.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
Critical thinking and education is linked to loss of faith
Any information of integrity can handle critical thinking and education with ease. Truth is not afraid of challenge.It is those who cling to error which feel threatened and desire to shut down or malign challengers.
Poorly informed people also feel easily threatened.
I went through the public education system until grade 10. Then I went to a private Christian school. Going from one to the other was a very jarring experience.
As well it should be. We moved our daughter from public school to a private Christian school after she finished the 7th grade. The Fulton County (Georgia) Public School System was absolutely atrocious.
We attended a meeting the year she completed the 7th grade where teachers in the public school system were focused on keeping students safe - they weren’t safe at all, but the teachers assured parents that they would do the best they could to ensure child safety. We attended a meeting where teachers in the Christian school spoke about how better than 95% of students who graduated received academic scholarships from colleges and universities around the country.
My daughter received academic scholarship offers from many public and private institutions of higher learning her senior year. (She graduated as the class Salutatorian.) She accepted an offer from and attended the University of Georgia. She breezed through college and graduated Magna Cum Laude. The Christian school she attended was more rigorous than UGA.
The thought occurred to me "if Critical thinking doesn't need to lead people to God, maybe critical thinking needs to critique itself"
Yea, I doubt that. It's possible to be both religious and well educated, and many are. Conversely, it's also possible to be an educated fool. How you're being educated also matters. Garbage in, garbage out.
Science and universities were born out of the Christian west. Many early scientists were Christians, including Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, and Johannes Kepler, to name a few. Most of the universities started out as Christian universities but have since been secularized.
Honestly, there's nothing more sad than someone who has lost their faith.
Similar threads
