There are situations where you could jump out a window and fly away like Willy Wonka. I could come up with a few, if you wish. Conviction is not good because it restricts your ability to clearly see the truth, in those instances where your conviction is false. If you are convinced of something which seems to be a permanent fact in our universe, you will be blind if there is an anomaly.As for your comments on conviction, some convictions are good. For example, I am of the conviction that if I jump out of the window of a third story building I will not float away like a Willy Wonka visitor, awaiting a good burp to settle back down to earth. It is this conviction that keeps me grounded, pun intended.
As for jumping out windows, conviction would be far more justified than if you were to mention Zeus or Cthulu. Things for which we have evidence, we are justified in believing. But that still does not entail absolute belief. Justified belief(knowledge, if true), is not the same thing as absolute belief.
Do you still believe that? Either my smile represents my subservience to supreme rulership, or it's entirely selfish? If my empathy drives me to care for another person, is that selfishness? If it is love that drives me to smile at my son, is it submission to god, or is it a selfish smile?It would be unfair for me to dissect your reasons for smiling, but I can almost assure you those reasons would fall into one of the two heart styles.
Many misunderstandings are born from targeting different points in a chain of cause and effect. The most direct precursor to every smile is internal to a person, emotion. What provokes that emotion(the cause) could be god, a beautiful stranger, or your child(or an abstraction of any of the three). You're drawing your 'source of smiles' from two different links in the same chain of cause and effect.
I only press the point because I think some of your beliefs are fashioned just right to allow you to look down on the atheist type.
She is convinced of something that can't be justified knowledge. Thus the rampant use of the concept of faith. Belief in god is not 'knowledge', it's faith. I understand she's passionate, so is using the strongest language she can to express what she believes. But that very emotion and the unjustified conviction are precisely what I'm referring to. Such misunderstanding is how concepts such as a "theory" become diluted with misunderstanding. I think there are some concepts that should be clarified, when I see them used incorrectly.And with regard to Katelyn's statement on the "knowledge" of God, you must understand her use of this term in a passionate sense. When she says "know," she is not saying that she walked up to God, shook his hand, sat down and had a Ciabatta with him. She is saying that her spirit woman is convicted of this belief.