“How about just using your mind instead of relying on an all-knowing being to tell you how to figure things out.”
It’s interesting that you assume I haven’t tried that! Was raised to be an atheist, not a militant one, just a matter-of-fact one.
I have found that my mind is very good at such things as rationalizing my evil while condemning the evil of others.
While I would generalize stealing as bad, I justified all sorts of stealing. While I thought murder was wrong, I hated some people almost to death and was gleeful over the death of some. While I believed that other people should be genuinely respected, I discovered that I constantly, in large and small ways, disrespected them, etc. While I believed in total sexual license, I saw the same destroying myself and others - particularly minors.
Scripture answers these continual contradictions of mine. And the gospel handles them, perfectly.
The Bible is infinitely superior to my mind. The more I learn of it, the more there is to it. I know when I’ve been beaten! Beaten in a positive way, if you catch my drift.
I respect your views. And I wasn’t assuming anything about what you’ve tried.
But don’t you sometimes just feel you are surrendering to an alternative, albeit much more positive and constructive, form of emotionalism over reason?