We have to make three assumptions to make any sense of our world today...
- We exist.
- Observations and predictions are the best way of discovering knowledge of our reality.
- If our discoveries are beneficial and advance us, they are likely true.
These paraphrased three basic philosophical ASSUMPTIONS are the basis of science. Some may want to spend their life disputing them as they are only assumptions. The reality is... anyone claiming to know more than anyone else, is being untruthful. Anyone claiming more than an assumption in these areas is simply lying as there is no means yet of providing evidence beyond assumption.
Christians tend to say they KNOW the foundations of their existence as they have learned them from the ancient jewish scrolls, collated together by the catholics to form the modern bible. They pretend that there is zero dispute in their argument, but of course, they are not offering evidence in simply claiming they have the answers to our relaity, they are simply requesting that we have faith as they do.
I can't speak for others, but faith led me far from truth for 25 years. It took a lot of hard work and time to align my self, my mind and my learning abilities to seeking truth having used faith for so long. For me I can only accept evidence as truth now, known truth. Any claims beyond what we have evidence for are nothing more than that to me now, claims. Such claims are then to be scrutinised for bias and origin so I can prioritise them from interesting to insignificant.
It is funny how much I have changed since leaving WT. I was raised being told how to think as a hive mind, someone else at the helm. I was told how to perceive science and evidence, how to question and how to reason. But all these methods were biased towards Watchtower's perception of truth. It was so far from reality that it became ridiculous fiction.... science was exchanged for talking donkeys and superman strength born from long hair, 900yr old humans and heavenly wars with dragons and unatural beasts. God'd that commanded slavery, infanticide and murder. Laws that put faith over family. Fear mongering that has 7 million people seeing a very different world to the rest of us. Faith was very dangerous in my experience.
Now I use evidence and critical appraisal to decide what is true for myself and it is the most freeing aspect of being a JW no more. There is not a human out there who can reason truth with more ability than you can yourself and you know your motives and biases and integrity, you can only assume another human beings.
Look at the evidence and decide truth for yourself. There is not ONE good reason to not do this !!!!!
Faith in religions led by people dictating truth is an unecessary relenquishing of power. These religious leaders are human too, whatever data they have you have, whatever skills they have to intepret the data, you likewise do too. So use it!
Faith is for the lazy gamblers...