Sudo Krenton

Ooo nice, Pascal. Going to your question....So of course other people's answers will be different than mine, but I find myself in your situation a lot. I often find myself in a lackadaisical/drone mode of belief, which I admit is my fault a good part of the time. Belief is a tricky issue with religion, as.... well.... it's belief. It's that leap of faith that you make into the unknown that makes it scary. Could it all be true? Is it all a lie? Most of us won't know entirely for sure. Because we don't know entirely for sure, I personally think that forcing belief of something(in this case God) is bad, whether that thing be true or not. Now, I'm not saying to give up on the idea of God or to stop trying to sincerely believe, I'm just saying you can't fit a square peg into a round hole. Forcing it into the hole, although it might work, takes a lot of effort and isn't smart. You want to sand the edges of the peg down so you have a more circular shape. It's still not going to be a perfect fit, but it'll fit a lot better and be a lot easier than trying a square peg. So, what am I saying? I'm saying to don't give up and keep trying to fit the peg into the hole, but let God do the sanding so it fits in better. Let God help you overcome your doubt, but the only way for that to happen is for you to be open and to ask for His help. Belief isn't the easiest, and sometimes we just need to use Pascal's Wager to re-gain our footing. Sometimes we just need to go back to the very basics and go from there. "In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you." - Mother Teresa I hope this helped some. Hope you have a good day!

Nice profile pic ^^. Whereabouts do you live oversees, if I do dare ask? Welcome to the thread!

Wouldn't personal evidence be enough to prove to yourself that you have faith in something probable though? As far as empirical evidence, there's the Bible, works of Saints, tradition, etc. In the Catholic Church(granted, only one of the many religious sects, different ones believe differently), the Bible is considered as being correct. Doctors of the church, and various scholars have gone in depth in proving the accuracy of the Bible. I guess in the end you could say, "What you get out of the Bible is personal evidence, but the Bible itself is empirical evidence" (or at least to a Catholic). I should make note that I wasn't sure how to better word passively gathered or observed information. Some people have encounters with God "first-hand" information. Others have traditions, stories(saints, etc), and the Bible from which they have gathered or observed "second-hand" information.

I guess a more general, secular definition would be: The belief that something is true. Usually something that has some promise in that it is actually true, based on actively observed or gathered information. A more religious definition: The belief that something is true, regardless of how true it is. Based on passively observed or gathered information; the more the information, the stronger the thing is assumed or actually is true (I suppose similar to wishful thinking? I had a better definition, but my browser reset and I can't remember it) Essentially, a big game of probability and statistics, where secular view doesn't take as big chances as the religious view does.

Further information about it regarding....? Did you mean further proof of it being mistranslated or something else? Now, there's a big difference between mistranslated, and different translations. Being one who has studied Latin, I would go on a limb to say this applies to other languages, such as Hebrew and Greek. You can have several of one sentence, each being equally as valid as the other, meaning the same thing, just worded differently. Now, If you're translating from Greek to Latin.... Latin to German.... and then German to English, well there's bound to be some form of mistranslation. A good example of mistranslation actually is your telephone. The data (your voice) is converted in to binary 1s and 0s, and then goes thousands of miles to someone else, decoded from the 1s and 0s and put back into the original. Now, without any modifications, if I was to use this method, anything you would send would sound really fuzzy. The reason being that there is a lot of static that the wires collect, which occasionally jumble up those 1s and 0s (Thank you Hamming and Shannon for devising equations for correct these errors). Now, if you know there are different ways of translating languages, each having the same meaning, and then you keep on translating, eventually getting to English, well you might as well end up with something dissimilar to what you started with. I would go on a limb to say that nowadays the translations of the Bible are probably verified by more than one person. I could be wrong, but it would make the most sense to me.

Wow.... this thread kinda blew up on that lgbt thing since I last was on... hmm. Well I guess that's said and done for the time being. It is a rather interesting subject, but susceptible to debate rather easily. On another note, if anyone would like a book to read, I strongly recommend "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis. I haven't finished, unfortunately, but I will this weekend. It's a short read and nicely laid out.

I hope you didn't misunderstand me with what I was saying. In of itself, homosexuality, or the attraction to the same sex more appropriately, is not wrong. The sexual acts that the some people decide to partake in that comes along with it.... well, that's debatable amongst Christians, as each have their own view on it (some believe that the old testament no longer applies, some do but the punishments that come along with them are void). I would also like to mention that, although it is not genetic, there are factors that make people "tend" to be more attracted to one sex over the other. So although there is not a specific gene that decides the orientation of someone, that doesn't mean that someone doesn't have an "inclination" to prefer one over the other. Mind you, some people outright make a choice, because of various factors. Nevertheless This is key. It's also what the Catholic church teaches regarding homosexuality pretty much. Anyhow.... don't want to really turn this into a debate at all, cause that will cause issues and all.... but that's my say on the matter, I suppose.