Oh, the daggers and stings! — baker

I'm not seeing any evidence that there was an interesting direction you wanted the conversation to go in. I naively thought, from

The implication being that ...? — baker

and

I want to see how they actually hold up against life's hardships, regardless of whether they are theists, atheists, or whatever. I want to take them to Rhodes, to see how they jump there. — baker

that there was some thinking on the horizon but, no, despite it being pointed out to you twice, you're still blocked by a need to be hostile, while complaining that the thread is blocked by the hostility of others.

Baffled, but I guess you never promised to make sense.

Who said that? — praxis

I can't post their real names. But I'm thinking of several religious people who have advised me on religious choice in just this way, and it's also a theme I've found in some religious books. The idea that one should "look within, honestly, without bias, and then one will see religious/spiritual truth" is hardly revolutionary.

I want to see how they actually hold up against life's hardships, regardless of whether they are theists, atheists, or whatever. I want to take them to Rhodes, to see how they jump there.
— baker

that there was some thinking on the horizon — Kenosha Kid

Unfortunately for theorists, this topic requires some real examples, to wit:

When I got home a friend asked if I'm religious now. I replied sincerely: fuck off.
— Christoffer

Not that I wished this upon you, but it would be more relevant for the OP topic to see your reaction and your attitude toward life if the accident would leave you permanently and severely disabled. If you could still be so cheerfully saying that life is meanigless. — baker

but, no, despite it being pointed out to you twice, you're still blocked by a need to be hostile, while complaining that the thread is blocked by the hostility of others.

Baffled, but I guess you never promised to make sense.

When in Rome!

When in Rome! — baker

Yes?

I'm interested in the phenomenon of resilience. While there is quite a bit of recent research in psychology about resilience, I find it to be too general and too abstract to be useful, and I'm more interested in its metaphysical underpinnings, if there are any. — baker

Resilience is a curious notion. My own intuition is it is likely to be found in people's personality and upbringing which has prepared them (for want of a better word) in some way to process and manage crisis and trauma. However I think the cumulative effect of several traumatic events is the hardest to overcome.

Who said that?
— praxis

I can't post their real names. — baker

Because they'd be excommunicated for speaking such blasphemy?

I've found in some religious books. — baker

What books? If you're going to make claims like this you should be able to back them up.

Wayfarer is a rare religious/spiritual person with whom it is actually possible to communicate. While you're painting him as the standard Southern redneck fundie. — baker

:up:

Because they'd be excommunicated for speaking such blasphemy? — praxis

No, because I don't want trouble.

What books? If you're going to make claims like this you should be able to back them up.

Here's something from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

CHAPTER ONE

MAN'S CAPACITY FOR GOD

I. The Desire for God

27 The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:

The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.1

/.../

29 But this "intimate and vital bond of man to God" (GS 19 # 1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man.3 Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call.4

30 "Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice."5 Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, "an upright heart", as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God.
https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P9.HTM

Note: It says "man's capacity for God". You can infer from the above claims, as proselytizers do in their conversations with people, that "you have the capacity to know the truth, God" and that you need to rise above your biases (which are fueled by your revolt against evil in the world, the occasional indifference of the religious, etc.)

II. Ways of Coming to Know God

31 Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These "ways" of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.

32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.7

And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: "See, we are beautiful." Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?8

33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. the soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material",9 can have its origin only in God.

34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality "that everyone calls God".10

35 Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man, and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith.(so) the proofs of God's existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__PA.HTM

*sigh*