Long Term Doubt vs Strong Belief - what is more honest?

BigV said:

As I see it, the same thing can be said about any imaginary deities. And so it's an unfalsifiable hypothesis.

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actually history shows it can't be said. Otherwise why are their now defunct and dead religions? do you see people actively worshiping roman or greek gods? Has the resurgence of egyptian gods somehow taken prominence in the world once again? No? then these gods The god of the bible are not immune unfalsifiable terms.

What most 'thinkers' fail to understand is all Gods define themselves and provide their own terms of falsifiability. IE each deity makes promises. You the people provide ABC and the God and or priests will provide 123. Here's the dealt People are not as stupid as your professors tell you they have to be. that you are not in a unique position to see where and when a god/religion is not performing or keeping up with their end of the bargain. In most cases Government, priests and or religion if believed on a mass scale can often times fill in the bits of what if promised by a set of deity till that given culture fails. then people don't give to the religion as much other starve and go hungry faith and beliefs drop off ect. till the religion can no longer sustain itself. But again the gods always provie a symbodic partnership with man. to test this relationship is to have a way to faisfy the given deity. Most religions again are either supported communially or by a lessor (then God) being. either man idology or even demon. but however you want to look at it falsifiablity is present in every religion with every God. Including Christianity as God promises to work with us one on one with no priest or gobetweens. Which is really a very far reaching promise that has been tested on an indivisual basis trillions of times over thousands of years. and more often than not God has made good on what he promised. which is one of the reason why Christianity extends beyond soceity for it's growth and support.

Strangely, this concept did not apply to Baal or any other so called false Gods

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actually kinda did.
Baal was the god of:
Baal sets the season,
And gives forth His voice from the clouds.
He flashes lightning to the earth.
As a house of cedars let Him complete it,
Or a house of bricks let Him erect it!
Let it be told to Aliyan Baal:
'The mountains will bring Thee much silver.
The hills, the choicest of gold;
The mines will bring Thee precious stones,
And build a house of silver and gold.
A house of lapis gems!'

These thing Baal provided though sacrifice and or ritual. at some point the rituals continued but the wealth his kingdom promised failed. or falter and his people were conquered. which would falsify the idea that God was a singular all powerful deity. Because the things listed above that defined his presence and reign all went away or was taken despite his best efforts.

Do you see how this works? The God of the bible made a set of similar promises 2000 years ago and despite where in the world these promises are tested people find what has been promised.

Doesn't it seem strange? Baal had to show up on demand to prove he is a real God, but Yahweh/Jehovah/Jesus doesn't have to? 1 Kings 18:22-24.

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keep reading my good man.
I find it funny your cherry picked story stops at 24 when the narrative finds itself complete in verse 40.. IF you wold have read the whole thing God does indeed show up. Just like he promises to show up Now in the way of the Holy Spirit. To each and every person who Ask's seeks and knocks as luke 11 outlines.

So, if I want honesty, why do I need to apply a special standard to a Christian God, and another standard to everything else?

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how about an honest one? how about one who does not load the dech when you pretend to quote bible verses? how about a standard that give God his full due and not a series of have measures and pretend seeking.

Also, when Jesus made the promise in John 14:12 and in Matthew 17, he made himself open to observation.

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John 14 12-14 sums up and says anything you ask in my name I will do for you. Which I can personally atest he has done for me. to the point I do not ask for anything outside of basics I need to keep everything he has entrusted me with to keep it going.

Also note to ask in his name is not to say in jesus name I pray. To ask in someone names is to ask for something they would ask for you to have. Do you understand:
Wrong: Dear God Jesus wants me to have a winning lottery ticket and a inappropriate content star girlfriend. in jesus name...

Right: Lord, Christ in the parable of the soil liken my heart to hard pan where the seeds of truth are quickly stolen away. please do whatever it takes to break my proud heart so I and see hear and understand your truth. This is what I pray that Christ would want for me to have....

We can make these specific discernment in the greek if you like.

In mat 17 I am assuming you are referring to the faith of a mustard seed bit where Jesus says if you have the faith of a mustard seed you can remove mountains of doubt.. This all points back to luke 11 and it tells you how to employ this tiniest amount of faith to get those results.

In luke 11 Jesus promised through the parable of the persistent neighbor that if we ask seek and knock for the Holy Spirit God the father will send him.

Then what more proof of God does one need than God himself? If God was sat before or next to you would it not then remove a mountain of doubt? This very thing is what changed my life forever.

For all of those who believe in God but can not sustain it on faith along God offers himself/Holy Spirit to the church. This Holy Spirit is what keep the church alive and well and ever growing if not here in the west but in the east.

BigV said:

Well, Christianity is dying too. What helped Christians originally was becoming Rome's official religion. Other religions like Islam spread similarly quickly. The number of followers doesn't make a religion true or false.



God's promises are tested and proven false all the time. To a point where you have Christians, such as John MacArthur teaching that signs and miracles are over. What keeps Christianity going, in my view, is the belief in Hell. Once the Hell is gone, you can kiss Christianity goodbye, just like those Egyptian and Greek Deities.



Of course no Christian will ask Jesus to heal an amputee or to regrow an adult tooth. Just so happens that these things are somehow outside of God's scope of works. Always the same excuse.

Strange how God can only do things that happen naturally. He can help you get healed, as long as you go to a doctor and have the right health insurance, he can help you get a job. But never help you with the extraordinary tasks.

You know what? I figured out that I can do the same things Jesus does for you. Go ahead and test it. If you are honest, you will see that I'm right.

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Honestly, you sound like you formerly belonged to some kind of "miracles and evidences" church (Charistmatic?) and things went sour for you, or something. If so, I'm sorry to hear that. If not, then "What's up with all of the chutzpah?"

It shouldn't be too hard for anyone to know, if they've studied, that all of your contentions thus far are debatable on all fronts. You seem to have a narrow grasp of the issues, both historical and philosophical.

By the way, I do understand some of this personal disgruntlement because your reference to John 14:12 was one verse that use to stymie me every other day when I was younger and I was asking God to take my mother's schizophrenia away. Fortunately for me, I also prayed that God would help me to understand things better if my understanding was deficient, because at the time, the way things looked, as in initial Pascalian fashion...........it was all bleak.

BigV said:

Sorry to hear about your mom. I think religion makes some suffering even worse, because there is an expectation that a higher power actually wants to help you out.

Verses like James 4 don't help either:

Jame 4:2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

I think most religious people who remain taking the Bible seriously just adjust their expectations accordingly.

I became an Atheist, ultimately, when I figured out that I can sign up under all promises of Jesus and God to answer prayer and my promises will work the same as theirs... except I'm not God and never seriously claimed to be one, only during some debates to make the above point.

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I can understand your position, but in Pascalian and Kierkegaardian fashion, maybe even Stryperian fashion to coin another term , I'm going to push back------HARD-----against the notion that anyone like myself, Pascal or Kierkegaard, is somehow, in all honesty, dishonest, epistemologically speaking. And, while I'm sure you disagree, I say what I'm saying as one who has a degree in Philosophy and I tend to take others to task who so challenge my position ..............

Furthermore, thus far, I find your quotations from the New Testament, all of which seem to have something to do with our expectations of God as an outcome of our personal understanding of what is seemingly in the English Bible, to be deficient. Moreover, I'd make the counter assertion that what can be more accurately seen as false expectations coming out of various Christian circles by way of their application of 'bad hermeneutics,' are sad states of mind and are unfortunately cause for kick-starting disbelief (some of which I tasted when I was younger, as I indicated previously in my own familial experiences).

BigV said:

I will not disagree. I think you honestly believe whatever it is that you are believing.



As I said, I am not God, but if you pray to me, or even any inanimate object to do what Jesus promised to do, then you will receive the same result.

I'm sure a religious person will have their honest objections as mentioned in case of John MacArthur, who believes Bible to be infallible, inerrant, and yet thinks miracles have ceased. If you follow the context of John 14:12 you will clearly see that miracles were promised to 'whoever' believes.

In fact, there is one modern translation that translates the text this way:

New English Translation (NET)

John 14: 12 I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these, because I am going to the Father.

But I'm sure you have a good response to all of the above, so there is nothing to debate here, is there?

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Be honest here, BigV. Have you ever read a book on either Philosophical Hermeneutics or, separately but hopefully in tandem with, Biblical Hermeneutics? If not, why all of your pontificating and assurance on "telling me" what the texts in question MUST surely mean?

Here's the thing: you may extol the virtue of honesty, but honesty of some individualized, claimed sort isn't worth a whole lot all by itself. No, you need more than that. Otherwise, we can praise criminals for their honesty when they tell us that they will attempt to do some heinous deed and we then see them follow through. But in those cases, we'd ask, "so what," right? The same goes here, and unless we have integrity in various aspects of our thought lives, intentions, motivations and in our epistemology, all the supposed honesty itself that a person can muster doesn't really tell us much about their character or moral qualities ....................or their claim to knowledge.

So, I await your answer.

BigV said:

Have you read the "When Prophecy Fails"
When Prophecy Fails - Wikipedia

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No, but I've read Why Faith Fails: The Christian Delusion, edited by John W. Loftus, for starters. I suppose I can briefly read through your selected Wiki article if you like.

if not, check it out. It explains what goes on in the mind of a follower and how any contradictions are explained away in the similar fashion that you and other devout believers are doing.

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Ok, dude. I'm well aware of this kind of thing, and the various psychological and sociological nuances in the issues involved are never quite settled as much as committed atheists like to make them out to be. Again, I've had my own bouts with disbelief in the past and I know very well what various people go through with all of the Cognitive Dissonance that can ensure, especially if one is somewhat uneducated (like I was when I was young) and caught in the midst of life stressors and ............ a bible that seems to promise a "Victorious Life."

I've already admitted that I don't consider this dishonest. We can close that subject.

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No, what you don't understand is that you're identification of dishonesty and the when and where of how you are applying it verges on being an equivocation.

It doesn't matter if YOU think I'm being honest; what matters consistently in the matter of the context of this thread is that YOU have insinuated that Pascal's form of Christian belief is less than honest, and the irony is that you've done so, even admittedly, while having not actually engaged Pascal in full. See, what I'm getting at? Your lack of consistency is a matter of INTEGRITY, both moral and epistemological, and not just what you deem to be as worthy all on your own lonesome. Have you ever heard of Virtue Epistemology?

Okay. What do you want me to say to that in light of what I have already said?

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You can address all of the above, for starters?

BigV said:

Well, Christianity is dying too.

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that's not true. in fact by 2050 christianity is set to be the world's largest religion with a project 27 to 30% world wide growth over what it is today.
Christian population growth - Wikipedia

What helped Christians originally was becoming Rome's official religion.

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but unlike any other religion before Christianity did not fall upon the demise of the empire.

Other religions like Islam spread similarly quickly. The number of followers doesn't make a religion true or false.

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Who said islam doesn't have a spiritual presence driving it? The ottoman's who took islam to global. It's not about being true or false it is about what the God offers the people and whether the God can deliver this promise or not.

The God of the bible offers himself, redemption and eternal life which 2/3 of that can be verified in this life and even the doubters can get their head around that. Islam demands world domination and a self righteousness that puts the people of islam at a higher value than all other life/men. which for some this is enough to sustain what they want from a deity.

God's promises are tested and proven false all the time.

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name the promises.
even if you can't book chapter and verse it.. because that is a common narritive that I have yet to see play out.
So name one of those promises.

To a point where you have Christians, such as John MacArthur teaching that signs and miracles are over.

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so you are saying God promised signs and wonders? do you have any idea where in the bible this was promised?

What keeps Christianity going, in my view, is the belief in Hell.

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nope. Hell is not the motivator for any Bible based Christian. Hell is the death of the Soul. For Christians who read their bibles and open up a history book or two we can see where the ideas of greek mythology and romon mythology was mixed into the teaching of hell in the bible. If you took a strict bible look at hell, they only thing being burned for ever in it's eternal flames is lucifer and his inner circle. Now does this mean the unrepentant do not spend time in Hell? no. it just means you will not spend forever... just remember 1000 years is not forever.

Once the Hell is gone, you can kiss Christianity goodbye, just like those Egyptian and Greek Deities.

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the first thing God did for me as an atheist seeking the truth is get rid of the idea of Dante's inferno for me. 20 years before I had studied the bible I 'experienced Hell as the bible described.' which was nothing like what I thought.

Of course no Christian will ask Jesus to heal an amputee or to regrow an adult tooth.

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because JEsus went back to heaven so God could send the holy Spirit. The next time we see Jesus it will not be a good thing.

Besides that why would he need to heal a broken tooth or missing limb?

Oh, because God =medical magic only.. What if God was not meant to be view or worshiped as a medical magician? What if God does not want to be seen or worshiped as the penn and teller of medicine why would he ethen do 'trick' that already reproduce what modern medicine can do?

Just so happens that these things are somehow outside of God's scope of works. Always the same excuse.

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Not out side of his scope out side of his intrest. agan if God does not want to be an entertainer why oh why would he then do magic for this generation? It needed to be done 2000 years ago (God healing an amputee) because back then no one alive could reproduce the effect. But now God is working one on one with people in such a way in such circumstance that the individual knows they where so beyond the help of people, that only God could have known how to save them. How much more profound is that than seeing someone getting healed but being healed yourself of some inner problem or turmoil that you know was the scourge that would have destroyed your life? Then have Gd throw a switch and it is gone..

Strange how God can only do things that happen naturally.

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He's be pretty stupid if he created a realm in which he could only do things supernaturally.. After all if you where the master designer would your creation not be designed to naturally augment the things you wanted to happen?

Besides that what makes you think that God can only mover supernaturally? IF god is the author of everything then "Science' is man's understanding of how God works.. No where in the bible is how God does something restricted to him alone.

this idea of science and God as being two seperate things is foolishness. God is the god of Science, as well as the alpha and Omega.

He can help you get healed, as long as you go to a doctor and have the right health insurance,

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he can also heal people who have never been to the doctor had 10 kids and lived to be 102. (grandmother, 98 Grandfather) Also kinda saved me from a burst appendix (it is still ruptured and is still in my body) And a cancer diagnosis where my urologist came in and said you have a 98% chance you have lukemia or bladder or prostate cancer. (which is how the found the burst appendix 5 or so years after it burst) was told this year I am cancer free. tested 100 different times never treated.

he can help you get a job.

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He can also take a man with a 4th grade reading level, teach him to read via the bible and comic books, then turn him into a 2x patent holding engineer (without any other formal training) with a factory that build his inventions and up fits trucks and a commercial truck dealership that sells his up fitted trucks with about 12 to 15 employees on a loan a then twenty something year old kid got from a stranger (first time meeting the guy) for 25K.

But never help you with the extraordinary tasks.

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Brother that 4th grader reader is me. God gave me the idea the skills and the money to get started, and all of this would come apart on a moment notice with out his daily interventions. I see and work with him daily. My whole life is based on a series of interventions and His direct Help.

I am not the only one.

You know what? I figured out that I can do the same things Jesus does for you. Go ahead and test it. If you are honest, you will see that I'm right.

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Sure I could most certainly used another patentable idea. The first one got me into a 20,000 square foot warehouse which was air conditioned in the middle of the nicest part of town across from a harley davidson dealership. (come check it out if and when ever you are in orlando/sanford) There is where I now work daily and produce my product.

So how is it you plan to deliver? what do you require that I do to receive?

If you are planning to do it like God did then know there is nothing for me to actually do because nothing I can do is worthy of it. therefore I was reduced to simply ask, seek and knocking for it.

So should I just asked you directly daily? should I seek out your home address and or should I knock on your physical door? if so when where and what time?

Or are you just so unfamiliar with how God works you thought this was just an empty excercise in my mind?

Didn't count on God coming through with anyone huh? well sport there had r be a few of us otherwise the religion would indeed fail.

BigV said:

I'm sure a religious person will have their honest objections as mentioned in case of John MacArthur, who believes Bible to be infallible, inerrant, and yet thinks miracles have ceased. If you follow the context of John 14:12 you will clearly see that miracles were promised to 'whoever' believes.

In fact, there is one modern translation that translates the text this way:

New English Translation (NET)

John 14: 12 I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these, because I am going to the Father.

But I'm sure you have a good response to all of the above, so there is nothing to debate here, is there?

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If we really want to play the context game for this, then it could be pointed out that John 14 is part of Jesus' discourse with his disciples shortly before His crucifixion, meaning that this is a private discussion with His closest followers and not a general teaching to the masses. That context opens up different avenues of discussion and understanding that you don't seem to have considered.

When you speak of God not doing anything I do not recognize the world you live in. That has not been my experience. I have seen Angels, I have been healed completely 2hrs before surgery, I have been attacked in the exorcist sense and had it driven away by the appearance of God, I have felt the Holy Spirit move, I have witnessed Him change and restore people, I have seen sermons put on hold because the Spirit moved, and I have heard the many miracles of others. Just last Wednesday in Church we prayed for someone and my wife felt electricity and heat moving through her. Then on Sunday he reported being healed, and said that while he was being healed the night before he opened his eyes and there was so much light that he could only see peoples feet. It was too bright to see anything else.

There is a prophecy of 2 mountains in the OT (psalm 68:15-18), Bashan and Sinai, and in that prophecy God comes against Bashan, takes it for his own, and captures those who dwell there. This was where the transfiguration took place, and where Jesus proclaims he will build his church outside Caesarea Philippi. It is the same verse that Ephesians 4:8 quotes from of Christ. The captives that are taken away here were the "gods" of bashan that people worshiped which you claim are falsified. But atheists were not the first one to recognize their absence. The Greeks were the first to notice because they suddenly became absent. The Greeks accused the Christians, which we have recorded, of causing the gods to cease - [PORPHYRY] 'And now they wonder that for so many years the plague has attacked the city, Asclepius and the other gods being no longer resident among us. For since Jesus began to be honoured, no one ever heard of any public assistance from the gods." It was also this sudden absence that caused Plutarch to write "on the failure(cessation)of oracles", in which he also mentions the death of pan, whose very shrine sat juxtaposed with Christ on Mt Hermon in Caesarea Philippi when Christ declared that the gates of hell shall not withstand the Church. The Greeks falsified them first in considering them to have died because my Lord is taking them captive, but my Lord lives, he changes lives, he restores lives, he frees. The hidden God you speak of I know not, I only know a living God who will move in your life when you surrender to Him.

Silmarien said:

Though I don't necessarily see anything dishonest about intentionally avoiding anything that you think might cause you to stumble, as long as you're honest in admitting that this is what you're doing. There's that famous Dostoevsky quote: "If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not the truth." As long as you're really upfront about it, I think it's extremely honest rather than extremely dishonest.

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I would say it is dishonest, because the decision to avoid information to protect your existing religious beliefs is a tacit admission that the information might be more true than your religious beliefs - otherwise you wouldn't need to avoid that information.

On the other hand, if a person doesn't investigate information or doesn't believe information because it conflicts with existing religious beliefs that seem unassailable then that is an honest dismissal of the information.

Let me throw-in this analogy, because I had jury duty today and seems apt. Imagine a grand jury takes a cursory look at some evidence and decides that there might be enough to indict, but then they decide that the accused person is too important to put at risk of conviction. Maybe the accused is a powerful and well-liked politician such as FDR.

BigV said:

Have you read the "When Prophecy Fails"
When Prophecy Fails - Wikipedia

if not, check it out. It explains what goes on in the mind of a follower and how any contradictions are explained away in the similar fashion that you and other devout believers are doing.

I've already admitted that I don't consider this dishonest. We can close that subject.

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Ok. I've read your choice of article above and we can consider this subject closed, but .................

BigV said:

As I said, I am not God, but if you pray to me, or even any inanimate object to do what Jesus promised to do, then you will receive the same result.

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Unfortunately, BigV, this statement of yours has very little to do with anything really. Of course it kind of goes without saying that if I pray to you I expect nothing. I can't say that in some small ways, however, God has done nothing for me in my life.

I'm sure a religious person will have their honest objections as mentioned in case of John MacArthur, who believes Bible to be infallible, inerrant, and yet thinks miracles have ceased. If you follow the context of John 14:12 you will clearly see that miracles were promised to 'whoever' believes.

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What's the deal with referring to John MacArthur? Although I can honestly say that I think I've heard him say some useful things over the years by which I have gained something, I can't say that I'm a firm adherent of his Bible Church denomination or of his specific set of theological precepts. I also don't believe the Bible is inerrant, nor does it need to be, and if miracles seem to have been greatly reduced, it might be for various reasons.

In fact, there is one modern translation that translates the text this way:

New English Translation (NET)

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I really don't care. I'm going with the NASB and the NKJV, so pick what you will.

John 14: 12 I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these, because I am going to the Father.

But I'm sure you have a good response to all of the above, so there is nothing to debate here, is there?

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I also can't say I've got a good response for you, but I can assure you that, at this moment, I'm not feeling very confident that you have a good understanding of what's involved with Biblical interpretation.

So actually, there is something to debate. And I have a question: In your attempt to "interpret" John 14:12, have you done your best to consider the various layers of context that impose themselves in upon this verse?

cloudyday2 said:

I would say it is dishonest, because the decision to avoid information to protect your existing religious beliefs is a tacit admission that the information might be more true than your religious beliefs - otherwise you wouldn't need to avoid that information.

On the other hand, if a person doesn't investigate information or doesn't believe information because it conflicts with existing religious beliefs that seem unassailable then that is an honest dismissal of the information.

Let me throw-in this analogy, because I had jury duty today and seems apt. Imagine a grand jury takes a cursory look at some evidence and decides that there might be enough to indict, but then they decide that the accused person is too important to put at risk of conviction. Maybe the accused is a powerful and well-liked politician such as FDR.

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I don't see what would be dishonest about a grand jury doing such a thing, if they admitted outright that this was what they were doing. I don't remember my criminal procedure course well enough to know for sure what would happen next--probably a mistrial, possibly contempt of court, but the jury there is being quite honest with their motives. It's the people who subconsciously decide that someone is simply too important to indict and are fabricating excuses that are being dishonest.

I think we need to distinguish between honesty and the genuine pursuit of truth. They really are different things, and someone can be very honest about the fact that they might not care about the truth at all. Whether it is moral to not care about the truth is a separate issue, but I don't think we should conflate it with honesty itself.

Silmarien said:

I don't see what would be dishonest about a grand jury doing such a thing, if they admitted outright that this was what they were doing. I don't remember my criminal procedure course well enough to know for sure what would happen next--probably a mistrial, possibly contempt of court, but the jury there is being quite honest with their motives. It's the people who subconsciously decide that someone is simply too important to indict and are fabricating excuses that are being dishonest.

I think we need to distinguish between honesty and the genuine pursuit of truth. They really are different things, and someone can be very honest about the fact that they might not care about the truth at all. Whether it is moral to not care about the truth is a separate issue, but I don't think we should conflate it with honesty itself.

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I guess my analogy had a confusing flaw. The person whose honesty is in question is not a MEMBER of the grand jury - the grand jury is a PHASE in that person's process for dealing with new information. Each person first must decide whether new information is interesting and credible enough to deserve a more thorough evaluation. If the grand jury inside our psyche decides the information is interesting then it goes to the trial phase. The person begins to dig further and attempt to reach a verdict.

For example if somebody begins talking to me about the latest "Ancient Aliens" episode then my eyes glaze over and I begin thinking about things to buy at the grocery store while I politely nod my head. The grand jury inside my brain decides that "Ancient Aliens" is too silly to deserve my attention.

(1) Some Christians might react to evolution in the same way I react to "Ancient Aliens" - they think it is too silly to deserve their attention.
(2) Some Christians might learn about evolution but their faith in a literal understanding of Genesis is too strong to be overturned by evolution. These Christians might find a fringe scientist who disagrees with evolution and then dismiss evolution.
(3) FINALLY there are Christians who don't think evolution sounds silly. In fact these Christians think evolution sounds plausible, but they are afraid to accept what their internal grand jury has decided. Those Christians are dishonest. They won't let the case go to trial, because they fear that evolution might win. ... If they fear that evolution might win, then they are already partial believers in evolution. These Christians cannot honestly say that they disbelieve evolution.

(Sorry if the above is not clear. It seems a bit rambling, but I am getting too tired to clean it up.)

EDIT: In a nutshell: if you think it is necessary to actively avoid information then you are showing fear rather than showing a lack of interest. If you fear something then you think it is a potential risk. You can't say that you totally disbelieve that information if you are actively avoiding it. You might not totally believe it, but you obviously don't totally disbelieve it if you are afraid to learn more.