faith is a useful tool

[methylatedghosts]

I have zero faith that the sun will rise tomorrow.

And yet so far, it has done so every new morning.

That's the point.

I'm not entirely sure what oyu're getting at, here.

But if you mean that we don't *Need* faith for everything, yah I see that. I'm just saying that having faith in things isn't a bad thing. But then, I suppose, neither is having no faith. It's when each of the two are carried to extremes where it gets a bit dodge.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Innocent believer: 'oh father, the existence of god doesn't really have any evidence and I see no reason to believe it.'

What a crock of regurgitated crap.

People who claim to not believe in faith use it all the time, and then they get upset when you point it out to them. I bet you have FAITH in your brake pedal. Why use it, if you didn't? I have never seen your brakes operate. Yet, SEEING a car free of dents clues me in (evidence) that your brakes work.

Just our mere existence is evidence enough for me that a higher power exists. There is evidence all around that supports the existence of God. That same evidence can be argued against the existence of God. Ergo, there is lots of evidence, but absolutely no proof that God exists or that he doesn't exist. Theist and atheist are in the same boat and it leaks like a stinking sieve. Either option entails that we keep bailing ourselves out of some conundrum , drawing our own conclusions but hey: that's life!

It takes the same amount of faith to believe in God as it does to rail against that same belief. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

 

[Scuba Pete]

I have zero faith that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Do tell. Possibly you might not care, or you haven't given it a second thought, but how would you react if it failed to rise? I don't think you would say something on the order of "Stupid sun didn't rise today. I didn't have any faith in it anyway!" No, you would be probably freaking out like the rest of us... checking the time to see if it was really noon and the sun had completely stopped. Of course, there would be other indicators of the earth not spinning, but you get the picture.

It's best when people do not mistake the basic usage of the word "belief" with the more esoteric term "faith" when referring to religious belief.

Faith is simply ACTING on your beliefs. If you have faith in the sun rising again in the morning, you would make plans for another day that would fully include your faith that it was going to make a show the next day. Yes, those actions can be so automatic that you never make a conscious decision to act on it... that's the deepest sort of faith. I remember joking with my daughter as a toddler. She was up on a set of monkey bars and I said "Go ahead and jump!" believing that she had the sense God gave a goose. Well, she jumped, and fortunately Dad caught her and her faith was not blown apart. It has eroded since then, I and doubt that Frosty would jump if I asked her to do that now.

 

[Copernicus]

Just our mere existence is evidence enough for me that a higher power exists...

I regard belief in the existence of God as pretty good evidence of human narcissism and imagination. Our existence? Well, we are evidence that evolution can produce some very unlikely creatures, given enough time and the right circumstances.

...Theist and atheist are in the same boat and it leaks like a stinking sieve. Either option entails that we keep bailing ourselves out of some conundrum , drawing our own conclusions but hey: that's life!

Theists are in a boat so crowded with bailers that they don't notice the atheist standing on the shore, watching it sink.

It takes the same amount of faith to believe in God as it does to rail against that same belief. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Does it take an equal amount of faith to disbelieve in all the gods that you do not believe in? Skepticism does not require proof to overcome a claim. All it needs to do is stand up to the evidence that is presented in favor of the claim, and that is exactly what we all do when we reject belief in false gods. The difference between you and an atheist is your acceptance of the existence of one god without requiring the same evidence you require for belief in any of the others.

 

[Scuba Pete]

I regard belief in the existence of God as pretty good evidence of human narcissism and imagination. Our existence? Well, we are evidence that evolution can produce some very unlikely creatures, given enough time and the right circumstances.

You've merely come to a different conclusion. You have proven nothing.

Theists are in a boat so crowded with bailers that they don't notice the atheist standing on the shore, watching it sink.

So, you're saying that you are standing on the "solid rock" of atheism? Sounds familiar, my friend. Actually, you're on the Titanic and have just as much misplaced faith as the original passengers. It's YOUR ego-centrism that somehow holds up your belief (atheism) as being somehow more nobler, more logical or more factual than any theistic religion. You are blinded by your own light!

Does it take an equal amount of faith to disbelieve in all the gods that you do not believe in? Skepticism does not require proof to overcome a claim.

You have displayed MORE than skepticism. What about all this rot about you being on the solid rock? You have an inherent belief in your atheism that is evident to any UNBIASED bystander. You act on your blind faith as surely as any theist.

All it needs to do is stand up to the evidence that is presented in favor of the claim, and that is exactly what we all do when we reject belief in false gods.

Is it? Wait a minute and let me get my waders on. The crap your shoveling is getting a bit high. But, I have to admit that I have heard this a zillion times. The last was McCain telling us that we didn't have an economic crisis. That took a lot of faith to disbelieve in that.

The difference between you and an atheist is your acceptance of the existence of one god without requiring the same evidence you require for belief in any of the others.

Actually, the only difference between you and me at the moment, is that I am not living in denial. We take the very same evidence and have drawn different conclusions. Go ahead and prove me wrong.

 

[gnomon]

I'm not entirely sure what oyu're getting at, here.

But if you mean that we don't *Need* faith for everything, yah I see that. I'm just saying that having faith in things isn't a bad thing. But then, I suppose, neither is having no faith. It's when each of the two are carried to extremes where it gets a bit dodge.

My response to Copernicus sums it up for the most part. I hold a qualitative difference between belief and faith.

I usually mean the opposite of how it comes across but I find reducing the meaning of religious faith to that of the belief we hold in such things as the sun rising or bridges holding reduces the meaning of that faith. I'll expound further in my response to Petey.

 

[gnomon]

Do tell. Possibly you might not care, or you haven't given it a second thought, but how would you react if it failed to rise? I don't think you would say something on the order of "Stupid sun didn't rise today. I didn't have any faith in it anyway!" No, you would be probably freaking out like the rest of us... checking the time to see if it was really noon and the sun had completely stopped. Of course, there would be other indicators of the earth not spinning, but you get the picture.

Faith is simply ACTING on your beliefs. If you have faith in the sun rising again in the morning, you would make plans for another day that would fully include your faith that it was going to make a show the next day. Yes, those actions can be so automatic that you never make a conscious decision to act on it... that's the deepest sort of faith. I remember joking with my daughter as a toddler. She was up on a set of monkey bars and I said "Go ahead and jump!" believing that she had the sense God gave a goose. Well, she jumped, and fortunately Dad caught her and her faith was not blown apart. It has eroded since then, I and doubt that Frosty would jump if I asked her to do that now.

If the sun did not rise I would first become incredibly anxious and try to understand why as well as checking my own sanity. If that failed I might run through the streets naked and start my own religion.

I do agree that faith implies an active belief. We act on several beliefs. I just find reducing the meaning of religious faith that lie wholly outside the realm of natural methodologies (salvation, etc.) to that of the mundane beliefs we hold in natural repeated phenomena (boiling water, toasting bread, crossing bridges) reduces the meaning of the term faith.

It is a bit more problematic in trying to separate out the term faith when it comes to such things as faith in the value of the dollar, other people, etc. I'm not so picky when I hear people talk about faith in their wife, husband, father, mother....that kind of thing.

But certainly you would agree that religious faith implies more than believing that the light will come on when I open the refrigerator door.

 

[Smoke]

generalizing is never a good thing.

sometimes it is. I think you've over-generalized. :d

Best post of the day.

 

[Scuba Pete]

But certainly you would agree that religious faith implies more than believing that the light will come on when I open the refrigerator door.

According to you and to others, there is simply no tenable basis for "Religious Faith", which somehow makes it suspect and far less valuable then the Faith of the most holy fridge light. The reality of this is quite the opposite. Like the little boy trying to close the door just enough to see if the light really goes out in the fridge, many theists are constantly testing their faith to see if it is valid.

Faith is faith. No matter the source, no matter the reason it's still acting on principles we feel are valid. The only difference between religious and secular faith is the object of that faith. Without it, our lives would grind slowly to a halt.

 

[Quagmire]

Faith is a useful tool for avoiding answering difficult questions:

Innocent believer: 'oh father, the existence of god doesn't really have any evidence and I see no reason to believe it.'

Father 'you must have faith'

IB 'oh father, why is evolution wrong according to our religion'

Father, 'god created all, you must have faith in that'

The nature of faith means that religion cannot be argued against.

(emphasis mine)


Doesn't that also mean it can't be argued for?

Maybe we weren't meant to argue about it.

 

[darkendless]

This so called faith is a weak excuse when ones religion becomes challenged. In many RF debates over strict religious dogma the "faith card" is thrown around as justification for seemingly unjustifyable arguements. Is faith required? Is faith your moral compass, even if what your faith tells you to believe is harmful?

 

[emiliano]

What is faith?
To Christian faith=hope and hope=happiness
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The human mind can with the assistance of faith ascent to the understanding of spiritual truth, things not seen, incorporeal things, through faith a man can contemplated the creation and it goodness and know that they are God‘s creation, man can see goodness. Order and purpose in the things created, we learns about God , man knows that there is God.

Innocent believer: 'oh father, the existence of god doesn't really have any evidence and I see no reason to believe it.'

Father: Look around and about you, contemplate your environment and you will have all the evidence you’ll ever need.

IB 'oh father, why is evolution wrong according to our religion'

In your contemplation of your environment. What did you see? And really evolution does not affect the fact that you saw the evidence you needed in the things made.

Father, 'god created all, you must have faith in that'

King David a man of faith saw lit this way Psa 8:3 When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have established;
Psa 8:4 what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man, that You visit him?

The nature of faith means that religion cannot be argued against.,

What it means is that to ascent to spiritual truth (God is a spirit) you need faith, and faith is a gift of God, that if you want know spiritual things you must ask God for the gift of faith, as faith is the tool by which you discern spiritual truth.

 

[methylatedghosts]

I don't really understand why faith necessarily must be of a religious nature...

 

[emiliano]

I don't really understand why faith necessarily must be of a religious nature...

Well, it is clear that the OP is referring to a particular faith, religious faith.

 

[Copernicus]

You've merely come to a different conclusion. You have proven nothing.

You presented a complete non sequitur argument: We exist. Therefore, God exists. That is no proof of anything. So it is hypocritical to criticize me for stating my different conclusion: We exist. Therefore, evolution creates beings such as us. I was not attempting to do anything worse than you have done. The fact is, though, that there is a considerable body of scientific evidence that proves we are the result of evolution. There is no reasonable evidence that a god created us.

So, you're saying that you are standing on the "solid rock" of atheism? Sounds familiar, my friend. Actually, you're on the Titanic and have just as much misplaced faith as the original passengers. It's YOUR ego-centrism that somehow holds up your belief (atheism) as being somehow more nobler, more logical or more factual than any theistic religion. You are blinded by your own light!

I think that we have both learned by now that we can come to different conclusions. I stand on the same "solid rock" as you when it comes to rejection of all those gods that you don't believe in. So don't get the idea that I am abandoning your completely. It's you out in the boat bailing water, when it comes to your particular god, as far as I'm concerned, along with all the other believers in false gods.

Does it take an equal amount of faith to disbelieve in all the gods that you do not believe in? Skepticism does not require proof to overcome a claim.

You have displayed MORE than skepticism. What about all this rot about you being on the solid rock? You have an inherent belief in your atheism that is evident to any UNBIASED bystander. You act on your blind faith as surely as any theist.

You ignored my question, which came as no shock or surprise to me. Surely you acknowledge that there are gods you don't believe in, right? Doesn't the Ten Commandments make reference to them somewhere? Why would God make up a commandment to prohibit worship of false gods, if nobody was worshiping them in the first place? So, you and I share an "atheism" with respect to those gods. We are brothers in skepticism. So my "faith" in atheism is surely akin to yours when it comes to other gods, isn't it, brother? My only question--and I think it a reasonable one--is why have you abandoned faith in order to embrace the particular god that you do believe in? It all seems a bit inconsistent to me, and it seems to put you out in that boat, bailing away next to all those other believers in gods that you reject. All you need to do here is explain why you have abandoned faith in atheism, brother nonbeliever.

All it needs to do is stand up to the evidence that is presented in favor of the claim, and that is exactly what we all do when we reject belief in false gods.

Is it? Wait a minute and let me get my waders on. The crap your shoveling is getting a bit high. But, I have to admit that I have heard this a zillion times. The last was McCain telling us that we didn't have an economic crisis. That took a lot of faith to disbelieve in that.

Hearing is not listening or responding, so I don't really care how many times you've heard it. Nor can I fathom why you would actually bring up John McCain in this discussion, but I'm guessing you did so because you didn't like what he had to say about the economic crisis, and you wanted to associate it with me, however irrelevant that might be. That technique is a classic "poisoning the well" fallacy, although I've seen it done more smoothly. So I'll reiterate the point, which you have heard a zillion times but never really bothered to respond to. You and I both believe that makers of a claim have to provide reasonable evidence in support of the claim. Skeptics have a right to demand evidence as the price of credulity. It is just your particular god that seems to get a free ride for lack of evidence, and you quite obviously see no reason to treat him as fairly as you treat the other gods.

The difference between you and an atheist is your acceptance of the existence of one god without requiring the same evidence you require for belief in any of the others.

Actually, the only difference between you and me at the moment, is that I am not living in denial. We take the very same evidence and have drawn different conclusions. Go ahead and prove me wrong.

I will be happy to do that as soon as you give me the slightest hint as to why I ought to think you right. Until now, you've only provided us with the non sequitur: "We exist. Therefore, God exists." You have said nothing else to defend your belief in the existence of your god, so I include him in the same category as all the gods that you and I both harmoniously disbelieve in.

 

[Renji]

Faith is a useful tool for avoiding answering difficult questions:

Innocent believer: 'oh father, the existence of god doesn't really have any evidence and I see no reason to believe it.'

Father 'you must have faith'

IB 'oh father, why is evolution wrong according to our religion'

Father, 'god created all, you must have faith in that'

The nature of faith means that religion cannot be argued against.

Faith is good to us not only in spiritual aspects but also in health. Many sick people are healed because of their faith in God and faith that they will be healed from their illness ( faith affects our phsychological well being, which is sometimes the cause of one's illness). In other words, faith can be associated with hope..... And sometimes, dogmas of the church has nothing to do with faith. Faith is not always about God or religion, it's just sometimes simply believing in something or someone

 

[Scuba Pete]

I will be happy to do that as soon as you give me the slightest hint as to why I ought to think you right. Until now, you've only provided us with the non sequitur: "We exist. Therefore, God exists." You have said nothing else to defend your belief in the existence of your god, so I include him in the same category as all the gods that you and I both harmoniously disbelieve in.

You should look up "non sequitur".

How does our existence preclude the existence of God? That would be the non sequitur. You presenting it as such is merely a dicto simpliciter or over simplification of the relationship.

But then the process of theism and atheism has nothing to do with logic. It has to do with both of us pulling our belief system out of our butts for whatever reason. You want to pit creationism against evolution, and I believe in both. Go ahead and prove to me how life started with evolution. What? It doesn't cover the GENESIS of life? How quaint. This disproves the existence of God HOW? You see, just as with logic, the process of theism or atheism has nothing to do with science either.

Our respective belief or disbelief in God is dependent on any number of esoteric conclusions that we may fallaciously deem as "logic", but it's simply like water running through our hands. In the end, our belief systems is simply our own and based on how we IMAGINE that final piece of the puzzle to fit. It's what makes us comfortable and that can be also defined as "superior", "relevant", ad nauseum.

It can be seen in the both of us going to a store. You have chosen Coke, while I prefer Diet Pepsi. We can holler at each other about which one tastes better or has less caloric content, but in the end it boils down to us pulling our preference for which is best out of our butts. But if it helps your psyche to believe that belief in atheism is somehow superior to theism, then who am I to challenge that. Ain't that right brother?

 

[gnomon]

I do agree that faith implies an active belief. We act on several beliefs. I just find reducing the meaning of religious faith that lie wholly outside the realm of natural methodologies (salvation, etc.) to that of the mundane beliefs we hold in natural repeated phenomena (boiling water, toasting bread, crossing bridges) reduces the meaning of the term faith.

So in other words you mean that you grant religious faith greater meaning than simple beliefs.

 

[gnomon]

So in other words you mean that you grant religious faith greater meaning than simple beliefs.

Why yes, that's exactly what I'm saying, ol' chap.

 

[gnomon]

Why yes, that's exactly what I'm saying, ol' chap.

Splendid, my good sir!