Pretty interesting…
There are those who derive their conclusions from logical and rational endeavors, not emotional. The truth makes us free. Letting emotions run you is a cage. And emotions, btw, are only the response of realizations (thinking.)
I strongly disagree. It’s those who have discipline in the mind keeping emotions under control who can help others. The mind that can force the rest of the person to seek and adhere to truth, no matter how much the emotions recoil, this man an help others. Jorden Peterson comes to mind.
Everything he told them he had learned from the Father but he didn’t tell them everything he had heard. He actually said there was more to be said but they couldn’t take it at that point.
Deriving conclusions
I suspect whether we are aware of it or not, our logic is emotional and programmed.
As children we learn simple relationships which always conclude with a positive emotion.
Our certainty of our conclusions is because of how we feel at the end.
I like to describe this as a linear walk through a logical argument and when we arrive at the end we feel happy we are right. Our only security in knowing we are right is repeating the process and remembering were we got to before and our confirmation of it now. This whole process is why we can be deceived and what some call brain washed. As a group we often go with the feeling of the group about a subject, whether we have worked it through or not.
Critical thinking was an attempt to adjust and help people to work things through and possible change their conclusions. The fact for humans we need to invent the idea of critical thinking shows our process is neither critical or often thinking.
We learn that the Lord knows everything, past, present and future but chooses to work with us. Not just work with us but participate in our emotional lives and trauma. Empathy, getting alongside people, helping them to see the light, to be free, to make their paths straight suggests emotional life is part of who God is, part of His nature and our nature. If God was purely analytical he would have given up on Israel, but time and again he forgave them but also judged them with illnesses and commanded executions. Moses and Aaron had to stand in the gap and assuage the Lords anger.
For many Atheists the reality of Gods heart and nature is something they cannot cope with and say it is just a human projection. For them to bow the knee and worship, to honour that which must be honoured, is why they stand in spiritual rebellion against the King. So the argument has never been "factual" or "proof" but about ultimates of relationship and meaning. I have heard many nihilists argue with people, which is absurd, because they claim to not believe in the value of anything, as it is meaningless, while demonstrating they are lying to themselves by arguing strongly they are right, even though in their own view that is meaningless.
What they are really arguing is the whims of their heart cannot be denied no matter the harm it does, because who is anyone else justified in judging this whim. What they are often ignorant of is biology often dictates what is or is not acceptable behaviour through emotional positions, to avoid violence and harm. And it is biology that keeps the peace in human societies not beliefs, though we want to suggest without a defined belief structure everything will fall apart.
How many people claim faith in Jesus yet want to be persuaded they are right rather than actually persuading non-believers? And I have met many believers who hate my faith and call me evil for sharing transforming love is Gods heart. This is why I would suggest Dawkins is a distraction rather than a threat, it is actually finding reality in Jesus that matters.
God bless you
