WTF is the point to being a Christian??

"A professional"?

So you're admitting that you follow your religion without even understanding it?

I won't claim my understanding is flawless, no.

Perfection is the enemy of the possible.

So how can you base your entirely life around something you don't fully understand? I find that an extraordinary concept.

That's a mis-quote.

The quote is "Perfect is the enemy of good."

I traded mine for a Dr. Pepper, Snicker's Bar, and a Penthouse with the centerfold missing.

A distinction without a difference.

I have faith.

People utilized electricity and various other technologies and sciences for generations without "fully understanding" them.

Ensouled poops and forks aren't self-serving for your ego.
Being on the magic flying escape raft to the sky kingdom is.

Oh, there is a very big difference if you have a grasp of the English language, which you'd think a "professional educator" would. "Good" is not the same as "the possible". I think you don't grasp the meaning of Voltaire's original proverb.

Looks like that 51% rule isn't as 100% as he thought.

Um, no. Good means doing what is morally right, if someone strives to be perfect they may not always be able to do the thing that is good. But in order to do something that is possible, does not require one to do it perfectly.

But we have evidence that electricity exists. We can use it, measure it and sometimes see it. I cannot measure faith, I cannot therefore detect a soul (by your explanation). So how do I know I have a soul?

But that has not always been true of electricity has it? At any rate, you can't measure love but you don't deny that it exists.

I answered that above. Love is an emotion and you CAN detect emotions in the body by virtue of chemical and physical changes that go along with them. In fact, more than one of us gave you that answer above. Do you even bother to read what is said to you?

As for your comment about electricity, are you now making the case that in the course of the next few years we will be able to scientifically detect and measure souls?

Electricity has always been measurable, there has always been an explanation for it. At the time it was discovered, it was not known that electricity was the flow of electrons in a conductive material. But it could seen, it could be felt, it could be observed. As @El Chup already explained, love can measured by the release of chemicals in the brain. Faith on the other hand cannot be measured, it is a belief, trust, or confidence in something or someone. I can have faith that tomorrow I will win the lottery, but that doesn't increase or decrease my possibility of winning it. I can however analyze, observe, and predict my chances of winning by looking at previous numbers which have come up to determine if there is a number frequency that is more likely to occur.

Ahem, we've had that since the 80's.

So what does that make Dayton then? Gozer's toilet attendant?

Why do you choose to insult people who have tried to engage you in honest debate and answer your questions truthfully?

A person who insults others in is not position to complain about being insulted. Besides, a Ghostbusters joke is hardly offensive.

Anyhow, you haven't answered my questions at all. You keep skipping the ones you don't like. Once again, are you claiming that in a few years we will be able to scientifically detect souls?

I've said nothing in this thread to insult you. Even knowing your hostility to religion in general I've come in and tried to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

No, I do not think souls will ever be detectable.

Are you saying you will not believe anything that is not detectable and measurable? I know you claim that "love" can be detected but that is actually false. Changes in brain chemistry is not "love" any more than giving someone a specific injection of a chemical to induce those same chemical changes would constitute "love" by any reasonable measure.

The Emperor's clothes in "The Emperor's new clothes", aren't detectable or measurable.
Should I have faith in them?

No, love is an emotion. It is detectable and measurable that when a human being experiences an emotional reaction there are changes in the body. That CAN be measured contrary to your claims. What you are saying is like saying that the emotions in a state of upset aren't detectable even if you sit there crying, or fear doesn't exist despite the increase in adrenaline.

If emotions didn't cause physical changes in the body, you wouldn't even FEEL them!
They'd pass through you like fucking neutrinos!

Is there proof the changes in the body occur BEFORE the actual onset of a particular emotion?

Um, I don't know where you're going with this, but how can anything occur before it occurs? I suspect you're trying to be clever but the question is dumb. The physical changes happen at the same time as an emotion. Your question is the same as asking whether or not a person can be at the bus stop before they have arrived at it.

For me, it was about building a closer relationship with God. I wanted to know more about Him, and I wanted to share the knowledge I gained from that relationship with everyone else. It was more than that, though. I truly loved God, I loved that close tie with the creator of the universe. It wasn't about being better than anyone, it wasn't about pushing others away, it was about feeling this powerful, intimate connection with the very fundamentals of the universe, in all of time and space, and knowing that I was special, that every person was special.

I believed in the tenets of the faith, that Jesus had come to save us from our sinful selves, and that even though we had done so many terrible things throughout our collective history, we were not beyond redemption, that the creator of all things still loved us. So I shared that with as many people as I could, eventually becoming a minister of the Gospel. That was the point of Christianity for me: to connect to God, and then grow, learn, love, and share those traits with everyone who didn't know those things.

Everything we believe is ultimately an exercise in faith. Souls, emotions, electricity, 1 + 1 = 2, etc. all depend on faith.

Your description jibes with what I see from the vast majority of Christians I know.

It seems that Dayton's brand of Christianity is the polar opposite of that.

Yes. Our consciousness is actually kind of backwards. For example, we smile at someone we know before we recognize them.

Yes, all emotions are accompanied by chemical changes before and after they are felt. And there is also proof that there precursors to changes in the body before the onset of a particular emotion. There physical, chemical, and physiological changes that occur. Certain chemicals in the body need to be manufactured, those require the body to produce certain compounds that are combined. There have even been studies done where people are directed to move certain muscles in their faces to give their face the expressions that accompany different emotions. When their faces (without being able to see themselves in a mirror) were expressing a particular emotion, the patient then felt that emotion. So that proves and shows that there are changes before an emotion is felt.