Atheism is not a belief, so why would anyone lie that it is?

[Windwalker]

Disagree. They are incompatible. As soon as you add a drop of faith to any amount of valid reasoning, it ceased to be valid, just like as soon as you add any amount of bacteria to a sterile solution, it is no longer sterile.

Again, your idea of faith is basically synonymous with belief. That is not a religious faith, which is about the heart, not the cognitive mind. What you say above makes no sense if you speak of faith as any other non-rational things, like "love". For instance, "As soon as you add a drop of "love" to any amount of valid reasoning, it ceases to be valid". Does it? No it doesn't. It enhances the flavor of it, not dissolves it.

Here's a statement of faith:

“If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

That's not a statement of faith. That's just irrationality. That violates reason. Faith does not violate reason. Faith never asks you to commit intellectual suicide, such as denying modern science in order to preserve your attachment to your beliefs, such as above, or in your statements that there are no experts on the subject of faith because faith is the same thing as irrationality. You have to deny reason, to support that notion that's it the same as irrationality or blind belief. That's in reality, "bad faith", or insincerity.

You referred to a discussion I had with another poster on another thread in which he claimed that there were experts in faith. I disagreed. This is too simple a concept to develop expertise in.

I did not refer to another poster, I referred to those such as scholars and philosophers who deeply consider the nature of what faith is in how it functions in human experience. It is not a simple concept, as you try to make it to be. You are the one creating strawman arguments. You deny any actual depth on the subject, irrationally.

Now, as much as I doubt you will actually attempt to follow this, let me share what I am talking about. I would hope you don't just swipe it aside with a brush of the hand. But if you do, that says all we need to know. This is from the Integral philosopher Ken Wilber, as just one example of how faith in religious experience can be understood. And you will instantly see how it differs from belief. You are calling faith the same thing as belief, which according to Wilber belief is the "lowest form of religious involvement". That's where you stop, and ignore all the evidences which researchers who have study faith development, such as James Fowler's research in Stages of Faith.

From Wilber's, A Sociable God, Chapter 6:

Belief

Belief is the lowest form of religious involvement, and, in fact, it often seems to operate with no authentic religious connection whatsoever. The "true believer" - one who has no literal faith, let alone actual experience - embraces a more-or-less codified belief system that appears to act most basically as a fund of immortality symbols. This can be the mythic-exoteric religion (e.g., fundamentalist Protestantism, lay Shintoism, pop Hinduism, etc.), rational-scientism, Maoism, civil religion, and so on. What they all have in common, when thus made a matter of "true belief," is that an ideological nexus is wedded to one's qualifications for immortality.

I believe this generates a peculiar, secondary psychodynamic: since one's immortality prospects hang on the veracity of the ideological nexus, the nexus as a whole can be critically examined only with the greatest of difficulty. Thus, when the normal and unavoidable moments of uncertainty or disbelief occur (magic: is this dance really causing rain? mythic: was the world really created in six days? scientistic: what happened before the big bang? etc.), the questioning impulses are not long allowed to remain in the self-system (they are threats to one's immortality qualifications). As a result, the disbelieving impulse tends to be projected onto others and then attacked "out there" with an obsessive endurance.

....

On the more benign side, belief can serve as the appropriate conceptual expression and codification of a religious involvement of any higher degree (faith, experience, adaptation). Here, a belief system acts as a rational clarification of transrational truths, as well as the introductory, exoteric, preparatory "reading material" for initiates. When belief systems are thus linked to actual higher (authentic) religiousness, they can be called, not because of themselves but because of association, authentic belief systems.


Faith

Faith goes beyond belief but not as far as actual religious experience. The true believer can usually give you all the reasons he is "right", and if you genuinely question his reasons he tends to take it very personally (because you have, in fact, just questioned his qualifications for immortality). His belief system is a politics of durability. The person of faith, on the other hand, will usually have a series of beliefs, but the religious involvement of this person does not seem to be generated solely, or even predominantly by the beliefs. Frequently, in fact, the person cannot say why he is "right" (faith), and should you criticize what reasons he does give, he generally takes it all rather philosophically. In my opinion, this is because belief, in these cases, is not the actual source of the religious involvement; rather the person somehow intuits very God as being immanent in (as well as transcendent to) this world and this life. Beliefs become somewhat secondary, since the same intuition can be put in any number of apparent equivalent ways ("They call Him many who is really One"). The person of faith tends to shun literalism, dogmatism, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, which define almost solely the true believer.

Paradoxically, the person of faith is often in great and agonizing religious doubt, which the true believer rarely experiences. The true believer has projected his doubts onto others and is too busy trying to convert them to pay attention to his own inner status. The person of faith, however, begins to transcend mere consoling beliefs and thus is open to intense doubt, which the person frequently takes to be a sign of a lack of faith, which worries him sorely. But this is not usually the case.

....

In fact, the greater the faith-intuition, the greater the doubt. Zen has a profound saying on this:

Great doubt, great enlightenment;
Small doubt, small enlightenment;
No doubt, no enlightenment.

How different that is from the literal and dogmatic certainty of the true believer.

There seems to be only two ways fundamentally to alleviate this doubt and yearning. One is to revert to mere belief and clothes the doubt in more rigid and external forms (i.e., immortality symbols). The other is to act on the yearning and advance to experience.​

You may also have noticed that although asked to provide an example of what an expert would say on faith that would add anything of value to an understanding of what it is, but I got crickets.

Frankly, because I expected something on par with what happens in debates with Creationists, simply hand waving away valid information because it challenges their beliefs about how they see things, such as your personal definitions of what faith means as irrationality. Please prove me wrong.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Again, your idea of faith is basically synonymous with belief.

Disagree. I thought that I was careful to say that what I mean by faith is unsupported belief, which I also called a logical error, if by logic we mean a system of rules that takes use from evidence to sound (justified) conclusions.

What you say above makes no sense if you speak of faith as any other non-rational things, like "love". For instance, "As soon as you add a drop of "love" to any amount of valid reasoning, it ceases to be valid". Does it? No it doesn't. It enhances the flavor of it, not dissolves it.

No, I do not include love as faith, nor any other emotion, feeling, urge, intuition, or even external sensation. Reason is only of interest in symbolic thought, as with language and mathematics. Reason is only of value when trying to decide what is true about the world, when trying to extract useful inductions from the regular patterns observed that allow one to predict future outcomes. In this area, if you break from reason, you get a false answer, as was the case with the addition problem I described.

You made a comment earlier that you thought that I was trying to reduce everything to mathematics. Were you thinking of Star Trek's Spock? If so, you've misunderstood my relationship with reason.

Reason is a tool to manage experience such that it is as full of desirable experiences as possible and as free of undesirable ones as possible. Doing this well is what I call wisdom, where intelligence is defined as the cognitive ability to get what you desire, and wisdom being knowing what will bring lasting satisfaction. Thus an intelligent person may succeed in achieving the wealth and fame they desired only to find out that it wasn't satisfying and actually degraded subsequent experience. Intelligent, but unwise.

Consider this: With severe depression and anhedonia, where the passions have been extinguished, and only reason remains, people often want to die. Reason isn't satisfying. It helped order experience to be satisfying according to one's understanding of what that is and how to make it happen. Reason is the artist, and feeling the palette. The portrait is the assortment of colors and contours. If all one has is an artist bit no paint, there will be no painting, and the painting is the goal.

That's not a statement of faith. That's just irrationality. That violates reason. Faith does not violate reason.

As I have defined faith, unjustified belief, it does violate reason. This is the only area where irrational thought is undesirable, cogitation. The rest of the conscious content is not the result of reasoning. We don't do a calculation and conclude that we are hungry, or that we like loving and being loved. We know that directly, without thinking. The thinking comes in when it comes to procuring and preserving love, for example.

Passions are irrational, and that is not a criticism of them. As I said, they make life worth living. Reason comes in when we learn about how the world works and discover the kinds of things that kill love so that we can avoid making those errors. In addition to love, you may have lust for the object of your love, which is a wonderful feeling that can make life better indulging. But now you need reason to help you channel that irrational instinct and earthly pleasure so that you don't lose love. Be reasonable managing your irrational passions. That's the goal. If you allow faith-based thought into your reasoning - maybe you believe that you can't get caught against reason and evidence - then you will make a mistake. That's where the irrational hurts us - in making decisions. That's where the leap of faith can be so destructive.

I'll share a bit of history. Early in my Christian walk, which began at about age 20, I met a girl, another Christian, and was attracted to her. I was sitting outdoors with her one evening when a frisson overtook me as I was looking at the crepuscular rays of the evening piercing the clouds, and understood that as the Holy Spirit giving me a sign to marry this woman, an irrational thought. It didn't come from reason. So we married, and I discovered that we were incompatible, and I had made a mistake. This led to divorce in just a few years, and eventually, a return to atheism, secular humanism, and reason. I remarried 31 years ago choosing a mate using more than irrational thought, and things worked out much better. I learned something about making choices rationally, and why faith is just guessing, often a wrong guess. There are better ways to think, to decide.

I actually identify with Kirk and his fiery passions more than Spock and passionless existence. That guy's life looked empty.

Faith never asks you to commit intellectual suicide, such as denying modern science in order to preserve your attachment to your beliefs, such as above

Faith doesn't ask you do to anything. And people do reject science based on faith. Everybody who tells you that they thing the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus is rejecting science on faith.

Faith

Faith goes beyond belief but not as far as actual religious experience. The true believer can usually give you all the reasons he is "right", and if you genuinely question his reasons he tends to take it very personally (because you have, in fact, just questioned his qualifications for immortality). His belief system is a politics of durability. The person of faith, on the other hand, will usually have a series of beliefs, but the religious involvement of this person does not seem to be generated solely, or even predominantly by the beliefs. Frequently, in fact, the person cannot say why he is "right" (faith), and should you criticize what reasons he does give, he generally takes it all rather philosophically. In my opinion, this is because belief, in these cases, is not the actual source of the religious involvement; rather the person somehow intuits very God as being immanent in (as well as transcendent to) this world and this life. Beliefs become somewhat secondary, since the same intuition can be put in any number of apparent equivalent ways ("They call Him many who is really One"). The person of faith tends to shun literalism, dogmatism, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, which define almost solely the true believer.

Paradoxically, the person of faith is often in great and agonizing religious doubt, which the true believer rarely experiences. The true believer has projected his doubts onto others and is too busy trying to convert them to pay attention to his own inner status. The person of faith, however, begins to transcend mere consoling beliefs and thus is open to intense doubt, which the person frequently takes to be a sign of a lack of faith, which worries him sorely. But this is not usually the case.

Is this person being offered as an example of an expert on faith? I don't see anything substantive here that adds to or modifies my basic definition of unjustified belief. I can't use a single idea here, which is why I say that there is no such thing as expertise in this area, and that there is nothing more to say about faith than that it is guessing, and if you're lucky, your guess won't harm you like it did me and those refusing vaccines by faith and dying. Religion praises faith, because there is no other way to participate in it (I'm referring to religions with supernatural worldviews; I don't call atheistic worldviews religion like some others, but rather, naturalistic worldviews like my own).

your statements that there are no experts on the subject of faith because faith is the same thing as irrationality

Disagree. It is a rational statement even if incorrect, as I have never read one of these experts in faith. Yeah, there are people who go on and on about it, but they don't say anything useful, like the guy you cited. He's extoling faith, but I don't see a reason there to do so. Faith is just guessing. It is the mere will to believe. That's not a virtue. It's not a good idea, even.

You didn't do anything to disabuse me of my opinion. I think that seeing more in faith than that it is just guessing and leads to admitting unjustified belief is irrational. How about the "experts" on homeopathy or on claiming election hoax. Sorry, but you just can't be an expert in a field that can be dispatched in five minutes. You can be a chess expert, but not a tic-tac-toe expert. The latter is too simple. You can be an expert in law or medicine, but not faith. Too simple.

philosophers who deeply consider the nature of what faith is in how it functions in human experience. It is not a simple concept, as you try to make it to be. You are the one creating strawman arguments. You deny any actual depth on the subject, irrationally.

You haven't demonstrated depth. That was nothing but theo-babble. Where's the good or useful idea in the paragraphs you cited? What take-home lesson are we to take from this "expert"? Have faith? It isn't hard to snow people with words like those. He sounds deep and wise, even though I can find no depth or wisdom there.

Of course, that's what I think of all theology. Speculating about angels dancing on pinheads. They have so-called experts there as well. Here's one:

Dionysius described nine levels of spiritual beings which he grouped into three orders:

• Highest orders Seraphim Cherubim Thrones.
• Middle orders Dominions Virtues Powers.
• Lowest orders Principalities Archangels Angels.

Sorry, but not an expert on anything except some sterile theology. There's not a useful idea there.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Perhaps the problem with many theists is jealousy. One does not have to do anything to be an atheist. The requirements are extremely low to be one. Where on does at least have to have an active belief to be a theist.

I think a lot of it comes down to chauvinism on the part of theists, especially monotheists. There are a lot of people who simply can't handle the idea that their god is just one god out of a vast spectrum of humanity's gods, and that their religion is just another religion. They need to feel special.

This is why they have no issue with the idea that an atheist might treat some god from a different culture on the other side of the planet as an idea that doesn't require serious consideration, but they turn into sea lions when we don't treat their god with the respect they think he's due.

They can't handle atheists treating their god with the level of disregard that they show to all the gods they don't believe in.

 

[Bird123]

I wouldn't presume...



"My understanding is that the parameters of the test can sometimes negate the result, but that the effect has been demonstrated to be true. The link I gave explains why there are sometimes variable results."

I wonder if you will ever address this? That's not true, I don't wonder at all really.

The parameters of any test can change the results. Why do you think I swapped trays? This eliminates outside parameters.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[Bird123]

Given that there's no such thing as a god, we agree that it was manmade. However, that's not the point. What matters is that devout Muslims believe the Qur'an is a verbatim sermon from Allah. They act based on what their imaginary master wants, and none of that is any good for us.



I'll take Italian dressing with that word salad please.

Perhaps clear to you, but not clear per se.
What does atheism believe in? Over a thousand posts explaining that atheists don't necessarily believe in anything, and you still insist we believe in something.

Discover God and you will have a belief in God, won't you?

If you really Discover enough and gain a certain amount of understanding, you might just get a Visit from God.

You are right. Until you get that visit, you will only have Beliefs. On the other hand, the view of God and what this world is about will change as you put the pieces of reality together.

If one's knowledge and understanding isn't at a certain point, a visit from God would just be confusing. God is working on multiple levels with multiple views. Even with knowledge and understanding, it's going to be a stretch. We are mere ants. Further, God will never intimidate or coerce your choices. If the visit would, it will never happen.

As with all knowledge, first one must have the hunger and the need to Know. Without that, the drive on that journey will never be there.

It is a free choice for anyone to choose. For most, I think it's easier to accept and argue over beliefs, assuming God can not be found. Few want the work it takes to really Discover the Truth.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[Sheldon]

If you really Discover enough and gain a certain amount of understanding, you might just get a Visit from God.

That is a not true Scotsman fallacy. you don't get to just imagine a sub group of all humans that don't share your beliefs, and then assert without any evidence their disbelief is a flaw in them, as that is an irrational fallacy.

No true Scotsman fallacies are easy to create. All theists are delusional, see. Though we do have objective evidence that humans can be delusional, your claim violates Hitchens's razor, and Occam's razor.

 

[Sheldon]

As with all knowledge, first one must have the hunger and the need to Know. Without that, the drive on that journey will never be there.

That's a vapid deepity , knowledge can be explained, tested, and shared, it also must be falsifiable or it's meaningless, you're just making a bare unevidenced claim, while trying to pretend it is profound knowledge derived from some esoteric source.

 

[Sheldon]

For most, I think it's easier to accept and argue over beliefs, assuming God can not be found.

Well you would wouldn't you. Just like the Emperor thought he had a fine suit of clothes on, and couldn't for the life of him understand why one child was pointing and laughing, while everyone else was looking at his fine suit of clothes with admiring glances. Sometimes one must abandon ego, and have the courage to shout bs. It's never easy, but it can be worthwhile.

 

[Bird123]

Agreed, just as it's hard to imagine how one can have a belief if they do not have supporting evidence. The proper correlation is, sufficient evidence leads to belief, insufficient evidence leads to the withholding of belief. The other two logical possibilities don't work - not believing in the face of sufficient evidence, and believing without it.



Correct. The atheist is identified by one particular lack of belief, If you want to know if somebody is an atheist, ask him if he believes a god or gods exists. When he says "No," there's the lack of belief that is the sine qua non of atheism.



I feel your pain.



No, I'm not trying to teach critical thinking. I try to use it and only it when deciding what is true about the world, but it is learned not in Internet discussions, but through years of high level academic pursuit. You learn it in your first evolution class, when your professor lays out the evidence Darwin had and gives his conclusions and the reasoning leading to them. That's how it's learned.

And I rely solely on beliefs, as does everybody else. Some of those beliefs are held so strongly that I call them facts. To my knowledge, none are based in faith.



I disagree with the first sentence. What kind of problems come out with religion, and how does religion help solve them? I just listed some problems caused by it:

"In the case of Christianity, it's pretty clear that they neither understand nor respect human beings, and create a ton of problems because of it. They tell people to not be gay. Not helpful. Generates self-loathing and homophobia. They tell priests to be celibate. That was a disaster. They recommend abstinence only. What'll we name the baby? They try to criminalize abortion, and where successful, unwanted baby's are born to those that don't hemorrhage to death in an alley or filthy clinic first. They describe humanity as weak and dependent on a god. They do violence to reason by praising faith as a higher virtue. Not helpful. It's practice for later in life when they believe other things by faith, such as that climate change is a hoax, or the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus, or that an American presidential election was stolen. That kind of thinking is the legacy of Sunday school."

What benefit can you show to offset all of that, and I mean a benefit that we need religion for? Universities, hospitals and food kitchens don't require religions. What does religion give us that we get nowhere else that is of sufficient value to offset all of that harm I described? Nowhere, which is why its disappearance is a net positive.

That's my argument. Here's a pile of harm from Christianity, the dominant religion in the West, and insufficient good to offset it. You can rebut it by showing me the good religion and only religion can provide, and explain why the negatives I described above aren't really negatives or are more than worth absorbing if you believe that. You can talk a critical thinker out of his antitheism if you can demonstrate that it is unjustified.

Why does this universe exist? It exists because it's time-based causal nature is perfect for learning.

For true learning, one must have total free choice. Without free choices, one would choose that which was restricted just as soon as one acquired freedom.

A well rounded education must include all choices. The stage is set. One chooses then learns through the results of that choice. When that choice returns, one Discovers what that choice really is. When one understands all sides, intelligence will pick the best choices.

Restricting hate literature might stop someone from choosing hate, but will they Understand? If they Live the Lesson of being convinced that hate is the right path, and it returns, intelligence will Discover hate is not a viable choice. It doesn't matter how many hate books show up to try and convince them.

Don't you see? The more one understands; the more those viable choices are going to be the best.

Couple all the things one needs to understand to make the best choices with a multilevel classroom and the dynamics just in the number of variables is off the chart.

Is any of this clear at all to you? The intelligence behind this universe and world is beyond genius. This is God at work.

It's a little like give a guy a fish to eat or teach the guy how to fish. If you could control everything in this world, you could eliminate so many problems, however the kiddies would never know how to fish.

If you teach the kiddies through Living those Lessons, kiddies will learn the very best choices to make and have the ability to create a Heavenly state for themselves and those around them. Isn't that the better path even if it means going down a bumpy road to get there? If they do not learn, they will never acquire the true got it made that everyone seeks.

There is so much knowledge to Discover it could never be done in one mere lifetime. Widen that view!!

God's intellect is off the scale. You will never understand merely looking at the surface ,wishing for minor changes that really do not solve the problem. Understanding solves the problems!!

Want to choose to be an atheist? Great. It has never mattered. The knowledge exists around us all. Look well beyond the surface. You will see God regardless any beliefs or non beliefs.

There is Method to the madness.

It is within each of our hands.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[Bird123]

That is a not true Scotsman fallacy. you don't get to just imagine a sub group of all humans that don't share your beliefs, and then assert without any evidence their disbelief is a flaw in them, as that is an irrational fallacy.

No true Scotsman fallacies are easy to create. All theists are delusional, see. Though we do have objective evidence that humans can be delusional, your claim violates Hitchens's razor, and Occam's razor.

You just don't get it. I am merely POINTING!!!!!

Your journey and choice is yours. If we are in a desert and I tell you go east there is water. Be Free!!! I am merely placing truth in the world. I make no demands at all.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[Bird123]

That's a vapid deepity , knowledge can be explained, tested, and shared, it also must be falsifiable or it's meaningless, you're just making a bare unevidenced claim, while trying to pretend it is profound knowledge derived from some esoteric source.

How much does WILL count?

Well you would wouldn't you. Just like the Emperor thought he had a fine suit of clothes on, and couldn't for the life of him understand why one child was pointing and laughing, while everyone else was looking at his fine suit of clothes with admiring glances. Sometimes one must abandon ego, and have the courage to shout bs. It's never easy, but it can be worthwhile.

Look for the Method to the madness and not the tap dancing or flash that you hope to see. This isn't serve you up time. Religion will help you with that.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[lukethethird]

I don't believe that that particular duality, reflects all of reality. I believe there is a way to see them both as mirror reflections of each other, and that there is a way to see reality beyond those two points of view, a way that can see both as equally valid. Think roughly in terms of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

They're not mirror images of each other because one is based on reason and the other on faith, and we know which is which.

 

[rational experiences]

For any human as a thinker theorising first you are human. No denying the status.

O the planet you state is one entity is the human in an experience.

The status its heavens is known by a human in the experience.

Self number one position human. Human importance with their explanation. One God. Owner presence entity one by all cosmic laws.

No theory beyond self holiness as the one self. Any human thinking.

To sustain that any type of pre caused state owned life support as living care nurturing.

The human contemplates their equal unity in the nature says I am cared loved nurtured by this higher being than just one self the human status.

Is the only truth talker. Human. No argument allowed.

As said by holy human father and holy human mother our human teachers.

Correct and one only human teaching.

We live a holy life....we die a holy death. As the human.

Hence any unnatural observed change identifies a meaning and purpose of a human teaching.

Therefore we do not abide liars theists for machines reacting the one entity that we survive by.

Relative why a theist of science is not welcome to self express his destructive human mentality.

Was the basic human spiritual parental advice human.

 

[Valjean]

Sorry, it was not very clearly said. I meant, by what I see, an atheist is in practice a person who says "any god does not exist".

No! Again, that would only characterize a strong atheist. Other atheists don't know, but are waiting for evidence before they believe.

 

[Windwalker]

They're not mirror images of each other because one is based on reason and the other on faith, and we know which is which.

Atheism and theism are both cognitive in nature. One affirming. One denying. Heads vs. Tails on the coin of beliefs.

Both are however based upon Faith, as faith is what the heart sees, not what the head sees. Faith is sensed, intuited. Not reasoned. Faith is different from beliefs, good or bad. They are not the same thing. See details of the differences between faith and beliefs explained here: Post 1141

If you ignore this what I explain in detail in that post, you're only having a conversation with yourself, debating a strawman. You're not having a discussion with me.

 

[Windwalker]

Disagree. I thought that I was careful to say that what I mean by faith is unsupported belief, which I also called a logical error, if by logic we mean a system of rules that takes use from evidence to sound (justified) conclusions.

I said, you are equating faith with belief. You just said, "I mean by faith is unsupported belief". Thank you. Yes, you agree with me. You see faith as belief. It doesn't matter if it is supported or unsupported. You still see it as belief.

No, I do not include love as faith, nor any other emotion, feeling, urge, intuition, or even external sensation. Reason is only of interest in symbolic thought, as with language and mathematics.

Faith is not cognitive in nature. Reason and belief are cognitive. Love is not cognitive. Neither is faith. Think of faith like love, because both are non-rational, non-cognitive, non-reason based. They come before reason, and go beyond reason. But they make use of reason, as supports. But that is not what they are based upon. I explained all of this in my post you are responding to here. It went into great detail and clarity on this.

I'll share a bit of history. Early in my Christian walk, which began at about age 20, I met a girl, another Christian, and was attracted to her. I was sitting outdoors with her one evening when a frisson overtook me as I was looking at the crepuscular rays of the evening piercing the clouds, and understood that as the Holy Spirit giving me a sign to marry this woman, an irrational thought. It didn't come from reason. So we married, and I discovered that we were incompatible, and I had made a mistake. This led to divorce in just a few years, and eventually, a return to atheism, secular humanism, and reason. I remarried 31 years ago choosing a mate using more than irrational thought, and things worked out much better. I learned something about making choices rationally, and why faith is just guessing, often a wrong guess. There are better ways to think, to decide.

Sounds like you were led by your emotions, mistook those as faith from God, used bad reasoning, and ended up making a mistake. Now you call faith bad beliefs, and blame your bad judgments on faith. The problem wasn't faith. The problem was a immaturity of faith, looking for signs and wonders and easy answers to great mysteries. I've been there too, of course. Most young people have.

Faith on the other hand, is a lot deeper than just surface wishful thinking and lobotomizing our brains, using the word "faith" as an excuse for unchecked impulses. If you read my post, you will see the depth and details of the differences, and what a genuine, authentic faith looks like. You would also benefit from reading Stages of Faith, by James Fowler, whom I already linked to above.

Faith doesn't ask you do to anything. And people do reject science based on faith.

Those that reject sound reason are not acting in good faith. Faith does not hide from doubt. Faith grows from doubt. Doubt is the servant of faith. As my post went into. As in the Zen saying,

"Great doubt, great enlightenment;
Small doubt, small enlightenment;
No doubt, no enlightenment"

The first line is faith. The last line is "believerism" which rejects doubt. True Believers (what you mistakenly call faith) rejects doubt, and therefore rejects faith. The True Believer says faith is belief you should never doubt. The opposite of actual faith.

Everybody who tells you that they thing the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus is rejecting science on faith.

No they are not! They are rejecting it based upon fear and ignorance. Both of which are a sign of a complete lack of faith. Faith faces fear. Faith embraces uncertainty. Faith embraces the unknown.

Is this person being offered as an example of an expert on faith? I don't see anything substantive here that adds to or modifies my basic definition of unjustified belief.

Huh? It completely lays waste to it. And yes, he is an expert. As is James Fowler, as are others scholars and philosophers and psychologists, and developmentalists, and researchers I could cite for you.

You haven't demonstrated depth. That was nothing but theo-babble.

Sadly, as I predicted.

You complain of unsupported beliefs, yet you are doing just that. It sounds to me as if you are scapegoating faith, calling it something it is not, what amounts to bad judgments and projections. What you are attacking faith is, is just poor reasoning, and has nothing to do with actual faith at all.

 

[lukethethird]

Atheism and theism are both cognitive in nature. One affirming. One denying. Heads vs. Tails on the coin of beliefs.

Both are however based upon Faith, as faith is what the heart sees, not what the head sees. Faith is sensed, intuited. Not reasoned. Faith is different from beliefs, good or bad. They are not the same thing. See details of the differences between faith and beliefs explained here: Post 1141

If you ignore this what I explain in detail in that post, you're only having a conversation with yourself, debating a strawman. You're not having a discussion with me.

Skepticism is not based on faith and skeptics know better than to believe such silly notions.

 

[Valjean]

Atheism and theism are both cognitive in nature. One affirming. One denying. Heads vs. Tails on the coin of beliefs.

Only strong atheism involves any thought, belief, decision or even awarenes.

Both are however based upon Faith, as faith is what the heart sees, not what the head sees. Faith is sensed, intuited. Not reasoned. Faith is different from beliefs, good or bad. They are not the same thing. See details of the differences between faith and beliefs explained here: Post 1141

Faith is unjustified belief; belief without evidence. Weak atheists have no belief without evidence.

Do you have faith in the floating gasbag creatures of Rigel 7? Do you lack belief in them? Is your a-gasbagism a belief? Is it faith?

 

[Sheldon]

Atheism and theism are both cognitive in nature. One affirming. One denying.

It has been explained exhaustively that this is a narrow minded, and therefore errant assert.

One demonstrably would lack a belief if they never ever knew about it. One can also lack a belief without denying it, as has been explained multiple times, many atheists in this thread have shown they lack belief in any deity, but do not hold a positive belief no deity exists. It makes sense that atheism should encompass all atheists, it makes little sense that it should exclude any.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I said, you are equating faith with belief. You just said, "I mean by faith is unsupported belief". Thank you. Yes, you agree with me. You see faith as belief. It doesn't matter if it is supported or unsupported. You still see it as belief.

You had said, "your idea of faith is basically synonymous with belief." I said it is not. It is a type of belief, the unsupported type. A subset of a category is not synonymous with the category. Cougar is not synonymous with feline.

Think of faith like love, because both are non-rational, non-cognitive, non-reason based.

I think I explained that I make a distinction between irrational thinking and other kinds of irrational (non-rational) conscious content such as sensations, urges, desires, instincts and intuitions. These things are largely desirable. It is not derived from reason. I noted that when they flicker out, suicide often follows. Love is in this category of conscious content - a very desirable but non-rational experience.

It is only in the area of symbolic thought that the irrational has no place. This is where faith goes. It is a type of symbolic thought that avoids reason and evidence. Symbolic thought is how we manage the desirable non-rational experiences in order to maximize the desirable ones like love and minimize the undesirable ones like fear. If we do this irrationally, as with faith, we lose, as I did with my first marriage.

Sounds like you were led by your emotions, mistook those as faith from God, used bad reasoning, and ended up making a mistake.

Yes. The mistake was making a decision using irrational thought (faith).

Faith on the other hand, is a lot deeper than just surface wishful thinking and lobotomizing our brains, using the word "faith" as an excuse for unchecked impulses.

So you say. To me, faith is the willingness to believe insufficiently supported ideas, and is no deeper than that. Neither you nor anybody else including so-called experts on the subject have given me a reason to think otherwise.

No they are not! They are rejecting it based upon fear and ignorance. Both of which are a sign of a complete lack of faith.

I wrote, "Everybody who tells you that they thing the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus is rejecting science on faith," which you know I consider a synonym for unjustified belief (all faith is unjustified belief, and all unjustified belief is faith). That is exactly what these people are doing. I'm wondering if you know what faith is at all if you see that not as an act of faith but rather a lack of it.

Have you seen how faith is defined in the New Testament: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." How wrong can one get? There is no substance in hope, and hope is not faith. Unjustified optimism is, as is all unjustified belief, but not hope, because hope is not a belief at all, just another non-rational denizen of conscious content, and a desirable one. The writer doesn't seem to know what evidence is, either. The word tells you that it is things that are evident, that is, seen. Faith is not evidence of anything. It is a poor substitute for evidence. Yet how many millions see this passage as wise, and its author an expert on faith?

This is what I am rejecting. If it were coming from a therapist, we'd call it psychobabble - words empty of content able to snow many into believing that there's something there even if they can't quite tell you what that is, or why it is considered valuable knowledge.

What you are attacking faith is, is just poor reasoning, and has nothing to do with actual faith at all.

You still don't understand me. I'm telling you that faith is poor thinking. Now you tell me that poor reasoning has nothing to do with faith. Are we even talking abut the same thing?

If you want to convince convince me of anything, you'll first need to demonstrate that we are talking about the same thing and that you understand my position even if you reject it. Comments like that one suggest that we cannot have a productive discussion (dialectic) about this topic. It hasn't been productive for either of us yet, at least not regarding an exchange of ideas about faith.

You've somehow become enamored of something you call faith, but I don't really know what it is you are advocating for, nor have any reason to value it. I think that you've assimilated the idea that faith is a virtue, but cannot explain why others should see it that way, and just don't to analyze what it really is - unjustified belief, nothing more, nothing less - and there is no virtue in believing something without cause.