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

[lukethethird]

I did not claim Einstein said that. I already explained it. I put the word "faith" in quotes, and then said that the same as Einstein was meaning in what he said. I explained this already. The sentence was just awkwardly worded. That's all. I explained what I meant. And you call me a liar? I have no need to lie. What he said is the same as what I mean by the word faith. It's self-explanatory.

Note: You see a gap in the quotes between what I said, and Einstein said? If I would have claimed that as a quote for Einstein, there would be no break, yet. "is the" is outside the quotes. Get it now?? If for some reason I wanted to lie about that quote from him, it would have read, "Faith is the experience of the Mysterious". I did not write it that way.

Why not deal with the actual substance of what I said and meant, rather than misrepresenting me here? Is that all you've got? To distort what I meant and attack that distortion? Should I take that as you have nothing to actually say to the actual points I made, and clarified already then?

Don't bother explaining, you've already lost credibility, now you're just digging a larger hole for yourself.

 

[Windwalker]

Don't bother explaining, you've already lost credibility, now you're just digging a larger hole for yourself.

Explain why there was a gap in my quotation marks then? It is you that lacks credibility. Plus the fact you are resorting to this sort of garbage, means you have exhausted your arguments. Stuff like this, is what the loser in a debate resorts to. You've lost.

 

[Windwalker]

Not at first. You edited your post after I quoted it.

My edit was just to make it clearer. But even in the pre-edited post you quoted, it's saying the same thing. Just less clear. What I meant is what you said. I instantly recognized you agreed with my point. Thanks for that.

 

[Windwalker]

Faith need not have a religious context. One can have faith that her candidate will win.

Yes, in this discussion we are talking specifically about religious faith. I have stated that multiple times. That's the context. Not having faith your car will start sort of 'faith'. That's not the context of the word I have been meaning in every single post.

Belief as support? How is belief support? Belief is just belief. It can be well supported, as knowledge, or poorly supported, like faith.

I explained all of this in post 1141. The answer to this is contained in that post.


To focus that:

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.

.....


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.

....

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
....

The person of faith, however, begins to transcend mere consoling beliefs and thus is open to intense doubt
​

By saying that beliefs are supports, that means that faith, which is abstract and intangible, needs some system of symbols upon which to process thoughts about what is felt or intuited. As above, these are secondary, they act a scaffolding, but not primary. They can be changed if they don't work. Unlike the "true believer" where beliefs are primary, their belief must not be doubted or discarded. They lack actual faith. True Believerism, is a substitution for authentic religious faith. It poses as faith, calls itself faith, but lacks faith in that it cannot be allowed to doubt.

That's post has a lot of depth of insights into it, and if you spend time with it, you'll see it makes a whole lot more sense than mistakenly conflating "faith" as bad beliefs. That's not faith. That's just irrationality. Not faith at all.

 

[Sheldon]

Sheldon said: ↑
Clearly, my name is right there above my post.

Tell me what you think that entire quote of Einstein is saying. I suspect it's you who is fooling yourself.

What? I think you have missed the point there, again.

 

[Sheldon]

Not having faith your car will start sort of 'faith'.

Dear oh dear, do you really not see the irony?

 

[Sheldon]

That's post has a lot of depth of insights into it,

No, it really doesn't sorry.

 

[Windwalker]

Dear oh dear, do you really not see the irony?

You don't see the context? You don't understand that religious faith means something different than the colloquial use of the term? Have you not been paying attention in this thread? Probably not, since you're just repeating yourself and ignoring what has been presented.

I've missed debating with Christian fundis, but this has scratched that itch a little for me. Anyway, this has been a hoot, but I think it's time for me to find something less ridiculous to entertain myself with. I'll join the rest who gave up a while back now.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You don't see the context? You don't understand that religious faith means something different than the colloquial use of the term? Have you not been paying attention in this thread? Probably not, since you're just repeating yourself and ignoring what has been presented.

I've missed debating with Christian fundis, but this has scratched that itch a little for me. Anyway, this has been a hoot, but I think it's time for me to find something less ridiculous to entertain myself with. I'll join the rest who gave up a while back now.

The claim is that religious faith is different, but I have never seen any support for that claim. Religious faith looks to be as weak as any other faith.

 

[Sheldon]

You don't see the context?

Straw man.

You don't understand that religious faith means something different than the colloquial use of the term?

Straw man.

Have you not been paying attention in this thread?

Ad hominem.

Probably not, since you're just repeating yourself and ignoring what has been presented.

Projection.

Anyway, this has been a hoot, but I think it's time for me to find something less ridiculous to entertain myself with.

Less ridiculous than trying to claim the lack of a belief, is in fact a belief, you are funny fair play.

I'll join the rest who gave up a while back now.

Ah theists love to imagine what is not there, enjoy.

1. 25 vote(s)
   80.6%
2. 
   No, I lie that atheism is a belief.
   6 vote(s)
   19.4%

 

[Sheldon]

The claim is that religious faith is different, but I have never seen any support for that claim. Religious faith looks to be as weak as any other faith.

Well he's pretending not to be a theist, so lets not expect too much.

 

[1213]

Agnosticism is the claim that God is unknowable. ..

It would be nice to know how they know it is unknowable.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, in this discussion we are talking specifically about religious faith. I have stated that multiple times. That's the context. Not having faith your car will start sort of 'faith'. That's not the context of the word I have been meaning in every single post.

But that's what it originally meant in a religious context: "faith" referred to things like "trust that God will keep his promises for the future" or "loyalty (faithfulness) to God."

It was only relatively recently, as the traditional claims for God have been found to be unsupported at best or refuted at worst, that the meaning of "faith" has been retconned to refer to belief without evidence or justification.

 

[Sheldon]

It would be nice to know how they know it is unknowable.

Something is unfalisfiable if there is no conceivable way to falsify it, even if it were in fact false. Unfalsifiable ideas are rejected as unscientific, as falsifiability is an essential basic requirement of the method, unfalsifiable ideas are considered meaningless to science, and often referred to as "not even wrong".

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It would be nice to know how they know it is unknowable.

It's certainly a pretty strong claim against theism, since it implies that everything that would be justification for gods if true - religious scriptures, miracle claims, etc. - is necessarily false or invalid.

 

[Yazata]

Straw man.
Straw man.
Ad hominem.
Projection.

Posting a string of little one-word dismissals isn't the way to win arguments, Sheldon. One needs to engage intelligently with the issues.

Less ridiculous than trying to claim the lack of a belief, is in fact a belief

If you believe that atheists lack a particular belief, then that's obviously a belief about atheists' belief.

Ah theists love to imagine what is not there, enjoy.

So how do you know that what they supposedly imagine isn't there? You claim to have no beliefs on that question, remember? You appear to once again be contradicting yourself.

 

[Yazata]

Well he's pretending not to be a theist, so lets not expect too much.

Ad hominem

See? I can do it too.

If one line dismissals suffice to win arguments, you are defeated, Sheldon.

 

[Sheldon]

Ad hominem

See? I can do it too.

If one line dismissals suffice to win arguments, you are defeated, Sheldon.

It's not ad hominem, since it was directed at his posts, and what he's written in his profile, that last one is a straw man fallacy.

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

It's not ad hominem, since it was directed at his posts, and what he's written in his profile, that last one is a straw man fallacy.

Hello Sheldon , isn't your religion and belief science ?

 

[Windwalker]

But that's what it originally meant in a religious context: "faith" referred to things like "trust that God will keep his promises for the future" or "loyalty (faithfulness) to God."

That's very debatable. I think some who lack the deeper understanding of that might think of it in simplistic terms like that. That would be true in anytime in history. I've debated some Christians on this site who equate faith with trust, as though they were the same thing. Same as those in this thread who equate faith with belief, as though they were the same thing. Both trust and beliefs may be part of faith, but faith is the engine and trust and beliefs are different train cars in tow behind it.

But that trust, in the way you worded it, "trust that God will keep his promises for the future", is really more tied to beliefs or ideas about God. Faith, in the deeper sense of an intuition, is not tied to specifics. It's not tied to ideas about God. Faith is more an inner knowing, and 'trusting' in that, or a better word would be 'resting' in that feeling or sense or intuition, that God IS, despite all beliefs being thrown into question, and losing one's beliefs. That certainly happened to me.

Faith 'rests' or 'trusts' in the unknown - not in beliefs. It is a mistake to understand faith as "trust in beliefs", which is how many dumb down faith to be, no understanding its deeper knowledge and impulses. That's why I cite that philosopher I did, because he articulates that deeper understanding so well. There are of course many other scholars and philosophers who recognize and understand these differences.

One key thing for me that helped, was that I refused to the let the most ardent "True Believers(tm)", define what these terms mean, when in reality their understandings are far from insightful. Theirs is the 'dumbed down' version of faith and God and religion, and they proclaim themselves as authoritative, when they are not. I refused to let them define these things, when there are far greater minds out there.

It was only relatively recently, as the traditional claims for God have been found to be unsupported at best or refuted at worst, that the meaning of "faith" has been retconned to refer to belief without evidence or justification.

Not really. It's only recently that this misconstrued understanding of faith has become distorted as a response to modernity, and popularized by the loudest mouths in the swimming pool (see my signature line below). That is not what true religious faith is about. This is a modern phenomena born out of protestants trying to make religion a competitor with science and reason. That is all error. Faith is not a competitor. It's complementary with reason. Faith is of the heart. Reason is of the mind. And both inform and interprentrate each other, in everything we do, in every aspect of our lives.

The heart illuminates the mind. And the mind helps direct the heart. It's not one over the other, but like the wind in the sail of a sailboat, along with the rudder in the water, guides the boat across the lake. That's complementary in action, faith and reason work together. Take the wind out of the sail, you're dead in the water. Take the rudder out of the water, you spin in circles and go nowhere.