If I would have

@josephw said

That's a tough one to answer. If "eternal life" is the opposite of "eternal damnation", and if life is given by the one that created life, but an individual refuses to acknowledge the one that gives life, then what remains after one rejects the life giver?

Simple logic don't you think?

"I don't think an omniscient God would have it so."

That's not necessarily a rat ...[text shortened]... being speaks, to raise an objection would be the epitome of folly.

That is, if such a one exists!

But that's the crux. Is it 'an individual refusing to acknowledge' or simply 'an individual not convinced by knowledge and lacking in religious experience/encounter?'

Imagine a king enters a room where two people are present. The first knows he is the king but rudely declines to acknowledge him, while the second pays him no mind because he doesn't believe there is a king. Is the king rejected by both in the same way?

@josephw said

as you are not omniscient.

We'll come back to that.

@indonesia-phil said
'Obviously one doesn't choose to believe without knowing something is true.'

If you know something is true, you don't need belief.

"If you know something is true, you don't need belief."

That doesn't seem logical.

Belief, or unbelief, requires an object, or the lack there of. In the case of your statement above, "something true" is the object. "Knowing" something is true, belief then follows, whether for or against, but the results is belief, or unbelief.

In the end, one chooses belief or unbelief based on the knowledge of whether or not a thing is true of false.

Otherwise it's not a choice, but blind obedience to ignorance.

@divegeester said
Are you then suggesting that Joseph when cast into the put by his brothers, David when hiding from the raging murderous Saul, Esther when she was abducted, Jesus when he was sacrificing himself and the friend in their pain …. as listed in their situations in the OP poem … where each merciless, blameful, impure, crooked and haughty.

Kellyjay…

Care to respond or are you going to continue to hide?

@fmf said
No, not when I had faith. And not now that I have lost it. There was no cognitive dissonance back then and there is none now. However, during the drawn out process of losing my faith, yes, there were times when I had inconsistent thoughts and beliefs with regard to what I was no longer convinced by and what I was still convinced by.

So you admit to being deceived by the illusion of faith in that which you now say never existed to begin with.

How do I know you even understand what it is you're talking about now? ☺️

@josephw said
In the end, one chooses belief or unbelief based on the knowledge of whether or not a thing is true of false.

This assertion is mistaken, psychologically speaking, when it comes to belief in supernatural beings and phenomena.

One doesn't choose. One realizes one is, or isn't, convinced.

And using the word "knowledge" when you are referring to "faith" is a rhetorical gimmick if you are using it disguise the fact that "faith" is inherently subjective.

Theists misuse the word "knowledge" to indicate that they are very, very convinced that their articles of "faith" are objective.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
We'll come back to that.

I'll respond to your post above this one as soon as I find time.
I gotta think about it for a while.

@josephw said
How do I know you even understand what it is you're talking about now?

This is a very weak "debating point".

@josephw said
So you admit to being deceived by the illusion of faith in that which you now say never existed to begin with.

I was never deceived and I have never suggested I was. And I have never claimed that my faith "never existed".

@fmf said
This assertion is mistaken, psychologically speaking, when it comes to belief in supernatural beings and phenomena.

One doesn't choose. One realizes one is, or isn't, convinced.

And using the word "knowledge" when you are referring to "faith" is a rhetorical gimmick if you are using it disguise the fact that "faith" is inherently subjective.

Theists misuse the word "kn ...[text shortened]... wledge" to indicate that they are very, very convinced that their articles of "faith" are objective.

Belief is the acceptance that something is true or exists.

It's a choice.

@josephw said
Belief is the acceptance that something is true or exists.

It's a choice.

Religious belief or faith is more akin to the aspiration that certain supernatural phenomena and beings exist, and this subjectivity remains the case regardless of how deeply seated the faith is.

One cannot simply decide to believe, just as one cannot simply decide to not believe if one's faith is deeply seated.

@fmf said
I was never deceived and I have never suggested I was. And I have never claimed that my faith "never existed".

I'm not trying to make an accusation.

If you had faith in, and believed in something you now believe doesn't exist, then you where deceived, whether it was in ignorance or not.

You chose to believe based on evidence in something you later chose to not believe based on new evidence.

I can't read your mind, but that's how it appears to me.

Before I believed I wasn't sure, then I chose to believe when, after learning the truth, I experienced the new birth.

@josephw said
If you had faith in, and believed in something you now believe doesn't exist, then you where deceived, whether it was in ignorance or not.

No. I was never deceived and I have never suggested I was. "Ignorance" had nothing to do with my beliefs back then, just as it has nothing to do with my lack of faith now.

@josephw said
You chose to believe based on evidence in something you later chose to not believe based on new evidence.

The process is one of realizing one is convinced or not convinced, not choosing to be one or the other.

@fmf said
Religious belief or faith is more akin to the aspiration that certain supernatural phenomena and beings exist, and this subjectivity remains the case regardless of how deeply seated the faith is.

One cannot simply decide to believe, just as one cannot simply decide to not believe if one's faith is deeply seated.

Aspiration? Deeply seated? What are you talking about?

One does decide to believe. Otherwise one is just an automaton.

Choosing and deciding are the acts of a free will.