Mythology and the Bible

believe ehat you want,but don’t expect me to support laws or pubic policy based on your beliefs.

 

My testimony that God lives isn't faith. It's knowledge.

I don't know what you are trying to say.

 

It is no more presumptive than stating there is no God, which is impossible to know. It's impossible to know because one would have to know everything to state factually there is no God in the mix. It is also not unreasonable to forget something and then have cause to remember it. So I will go on knowing what little I know. While others go on believing what they don't know.

 

Yes. Once you postulate a God with the power attributed as per Abrahamic faiths, one can ALWAYS say "God did it", no matter what the question is. Even if there is a perfectly logical scientific explanation, such argument can't challenge a God.

(There ARE problems with the "God hypothesis", but I'm not here to change anyone's beliefs on God's existence.)

And, I'm OK with your resolution in your last sentences.

But, what is not OK is using government to impose beliefs on those who do not share the beliefs.

In our European history, it even came down to a death sentence if you didn't hold to the government religion. Our founders responded to that idea that government can govern through religion, not constitution. To a degree, they had to. The colonies had significantly divergent popular religious beliefs.

We're still not there yet. But, we can at least remember why we have a constitution that separates government and religion.

 

God and religion are two different things. God is like the sun that gives light and life to all without dictating or judging. It's benevolence signifies our rights and equality. Religious liberty is how men choose to behave under the sun. But the behaviors of men under its light are all over the place. That's why our rights are anchored in God or the nature of the sun rather than in men because men are unstable. For instance, there are those so selfish that they think the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is their right to steal, plunder, rape and murder because that's what makes them happy. So there are limits to religious liberty in that they cannot intrude upon another's God given rights. Consequently, freedom and religious liberty isn't the absence of God, but the keeping of the presence of God in our hearts and minds.

 

The God of the Abrahamic faiths IS the judge.

And as we see in America, God is believed to be the ultimate definition of what we must do - a very serious dictation.

Our rights are anchored in our Constitution. Without the Constitution, there would be numerous competing sources of rights.

There is no confusion about the crimes you mention. God isn't needed for the purpose of recognizing that those acts are indeed criminal.

 

What is the correct term, then, for someone who looks for evidence and doesn't find any, and so suspends all belief?

 

To have suspended belief one must have believed.
I'd call them free.