There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[ppp]

As I said before, I am not here to argue against your opinion.

What are you here for?

 

[Brian2]

I just did.

You claimed, "there is a principal of complexity of design needing a designer"...

Pulling hair out.
No I did not. You are putting words in my mouth. I did call an idea that you mentioned "the principle of complex design" or something, but I did not say "there is a principal of complexity of design needing a designer".
OTOH you have plainly said that simplicity shows good design.
This might be the case for human ideas of design but why should it be the case for God design.

No, faith doesn't have to "conform to the rules of logic" if the believer doesn't care if his/her beliefs are actually true. But if one does care about that, then they should care about adhering to the rules of logic.

Am I to conclude that you don't actually care if your beliefs are true?

No

I've told you umpteen times that I don't have a worldview that "there are no gods." That would be fallacious and that's why I don't hold such a view - because I actually care about adhering to the rules of logic so that the beliefs I hold are logical and rational.
Please try to be intellectually honest here. Thanks.

OK so your view that you don't believe gods exist sounds like an argument from incredulity.

You are describing chemical interactions, rather than the transmission of a coded language.

I am describing the transmission of information via chemistry. The information is coded into the chemistry.

As I just said, I'm addressing your words directly. If you don't think I am, please point out where, exactly.

You are not addressing the storing of information in chemistry and the transfer of information via chemistry.

That's exactly what you did and just did here, again. Without realizing apparently, that it offers as much explanatory value as pixies did it, or Thor did it, or ghosts did it. Last time I brought that up, you claimed I was trying to mock you, instead of what I'm actually doing, which is trying to make a point to you.


This question doesn't make sense to me. Could you re-word it?

I presume that if the genetic code does not reasonably suggest a intelligent designer to you then it must by more reasonable for you that the genetic code suggests chance as the origin. Is that true?

 

[Unfettered]

What are you here for?

I don't spend a lot of time pondering what I'm here to do. I do know, though, that I have zero interest in trying to convince others to believe what they're disinclined to believe, or to see things my way, generally speaking.

 

[ppp]

You have come to a debate forum with zero interest in debate?

 

[Unfettered]

You have come to a debate forum with zero interest in debate?

Oh, was that debate? Either way, if I'm not mistaken, this forum exists for things other than debate. Do you agree?

 

[ppp]

Either way, if I'm not mistaken, this forum exists for things other than debate. Do you agree?

It just amuses me that people come to a forum specifically labeled as a debate forum, then start making declarations without expecting to be treated as though they are debating. You can do whatever you want to do. Obviously.

 

[Unfettered]

It just amuses me that people come to a forum specifically labeled as a debate forum, then start making declarations without expecting to be treated as though they are debating. You can do whatever you want to do. Obviously.

I understand.

 

[joelr]

Well first, we have to define faith properly; as our choosing to act on (live by) concepts of existence that we HOPE to be true even when we can't know this to be so. Then, having acted in accord with those hopes, we will gain some kind of real life result. And we can evaluate those results to help us determine whether or not we will continue acting on that hope, or choose to place our hope In some other concept of existential truth.

That sounds extremely flawed. You just described letting random chance decide if faith is real. So if you have faith and a positive result happens then you believe you are correct. Except that result could have happened no matter what you believed. When you attach meaning to events that are not connected to that meaning in any way you are just throwing a stick in the water and seeing which way it floats.

No religious person has circumstances become different than any other person. Good staff happens and bad stuff happens. In 1700 a huge earthquake happened to happen on a religious day and everyone was in church.
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, - morning of Saturday, 1 November, Feast of All Saints, at around 09:40 local time. Estimates place the death toll in Lisbon around 12,000, making it one of the largest earthquakes in history.

No religion has followers that show better healing rates or survival rates of any disease.
So that would just be confirmation bias.

Faith is how we humans live with our lack of knowledge. How we choose to move forward and learn. And we all do it because we all lack knowledge.

I don't think you move forward and learn. I think you move forward and learn apologetics to confirm your faith and bias one-sided informatio

Of course we are. What is "good evidence" to you is not the same as what is "good evidence" to someone else. It's a determination being made based on subjective criteria. For example, one person's criteria might be based on function, while another's is based of value. And then what function? And what value? Are there primary and secondary functions? And primary and secondary values? Eventually we will find that everyone's criteria for judging "good" or "bad" evidence, and what is and is not evidence is being determined by them: i. e. Is relative and subjective.

It is not subjective unless you are using a bias. No scientist has ever started out a lecture by saying "I know it's true, I saw it..."


You know what good evidence and bad evidence is. You just give a pass to support beliefs.
For example, Muhammad also had revelations, from an OT angel. Joe Smith also had revelations from an angel. Bahai, revelations.
Do you buy those? No, it's not enough evidence and it's not good evidence. Did you begin Christianity by saying "how did this all start" and someone said "a guy, Paul, he had visions of a Jesus who was already resurrected and the visions spoke to him".

From a neutral perspective you would not have bought into that.

Of course it is. It's your choosing to trust in your determined "good" evidence when you can't be sure it's revealing the truth.

Yet you don't buy the updates the angel Gabrielle gave Muhammad? Why not? Who exactly do you think you are fooling by saying evidence is faith? The biblical version of faith is plain. Things not seen. Everything else we do is based on real world data, evidence.
I didn't say good evidence is revealing the truth. I said it's our best approximation of the truth.

It's also an act of faith, as you can't know your eyes have not deceived you, this time. As sometimes happens.

Crossing the street involves good supporting evidence. It is not faith. There is evidence to trust your eyes. Why it's suddenly so important to change what faith means I do not know. It's not making your beliefs any more true. It's not giving them any good supporting evidence.
And outside of your religion you already reject thousands of other Gods because lack of evidence.
You also probably did not enter the religion based on evidence.

This is just a silly bias you hold onto because you like hating religion.

No, I like truth and methods to find out what is likely true. I dislike irrational thinking and a poor methodology to understand what is true. Then we get vax conspiracy, voter fraud conspiracy, flat earth, and so on...

Faith is not "deciding to believe" anything. Belief does not require faith because belief rejects the unknown, and pretends to 'know'. Faith and knowledge are antithetical. If we know that "X" is so, we don't need faith to act on this concept of truth. We can act on it via our knowledge. It's only when we can't know that "X" is true or not true that we need to engage in faith, and choose whichever we hope to be true, and to act accordingly. So that the results can become our "evidence".

You just described confirmation bias.

Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikh, all say living the religion is their evidence. Yet the doctrines cannot all be true. However all can be false and human psychology can trick the mind with cognitive bias that they are seeing "results" that constitute evidence.

Yet Christian scholars openly admit religion isn't a "praying machine", you cannot expect things to happen such as healing or favors in life.
Anything else "inner peace", "personal relationship" feelings are psychological and happen with Krishna as much as with Jesus. Showing it's just the human mind that creates these sensations.

 

[joelr]

Well first, we have to define faith properly; as our choosing to act on (live by) concepts of existence that we HOPE to be true even when we can't know this to be so. Then, having acted in accord with those hopes, we will gain some kind of real life result. And we can evaluate those results to help us determine whether or not we will continue acting on that hope, or choose to place our hope In some other concept of existential truth.

That sounds extremely flawed. You just described letting random chance decide if faith is real. So if you have faith and a positive result happens then you believe you are correct. Except that result could have happened no matter what you believed. When you attach meaning to events that are not connected to that meaning in any way you are just throwing a stick in the water and seeing which way it floats.

No religious person has circumstances become different than any other person. Good staff happens and bad stuff happens. In 1700 a huge earthquake happened to happen on a religious day and everyone was in church.
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, - morning of Saturday, 1 November, Feast of All Saints, at around 09:40 local time. Estimates place the death toll in Lisbon around 12,000, making it one of the largest earthquakes in history.

No religion has followers that show better healing rates or survival rates of any disease.
So that would just be confirmation bias.

Faith is how we humans live with our lack of knowledge. How we choose to move forward and learn. And we all do it because we all lack knowledge.

I don't think you move forward and learn. I think you move forward and learn apologetics to confirm your faith and bias one-sided informatio

Of course we are. What is "good evidence" to you is not the same as what is "good evidence" to someone else. It's a determination being made based on subjective criteria. For example, one person's criteria might be based on function, while another's is based of value. And then what function? And what value? Are there primary and secondary functions? And primary and secondary values? Eventually we will find that everyone's criteria for judging "good" or "bad" evidence, and what is and is not evidence is being determined by them: i. e. Is relative and subjective.

It is not subjective unless you are using a bias. No scientist has ever started out a lecture by saying "I know it's true, I saw it..."


You know what good evidence and bad evidence is. You just give a pass to support beliefs.
For example, Muhammad also had revelations, from an OT angel. Joe Smith also had revelations from an angel. Bahai, revelations.
Do you buy those? No, it's not enough evidence and it's not good evidence. Did you begin Christianity by saying "how did this all start" and someone said "a guy, Paul, he had visions of a Jesus who was already resurrected and the visions spoke to him".

From a neutral perspective you would not have bought into that.

Of course it is. It's your choosing to trust in your determined "good" evidence when you can't be sure it's revealing the truth.

Yet you don't buy the updates the angel Gabrielle gave Muhammad? Why not? Who exactly do you think you are fooling by saying evidence is faith? The biblical version of faith is plain. Things not seen. Everything else we do is based on real world data, evidence.
I didn't say good evidence is revealing the truth. I said it's our best approximation of the truth.

It's also an act of faith, as you can't know your eyes have not deceived you, this time. As sometimes happens.

Crossing the street involves good supporting evidence. It is not faith. There is evidence to trust your eyes. Why it's suddenly so important to change what faith means I do not know. It's not making your beliefs any more true. It's not giving them any good supporting evidence.
And outside of your religion you already reject thousands of other Gods because lack of evidence.
You also probably did not enter the religion based on evidence.

This is just a silly bias you hold onto because you like hating religion.

No, I like truth and methods to find out what is likely true. I dislike irrational thinking and a poor methodology to understand what is true. Then we get vax conspiracy, voter fraud conspiracy, flat earth, and so on...

Faith is not "deciding to believe" anything. Belief does not require faith because belief rejects the unknown, and pretends to 'know'. Faith and knowledge are antithetical. If we know that "X" is so, we don't need faith to act on this concept of truth. We can act on it via our knowledge. It's only when we can't know that "X" is true or not true that we need to engage in faith, and choose whichever we hope to be true, and to act accordingly. So that the results can become our "evidence".

You just described confirmation bias.

Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikh, all say living the religion is their evidence. Yet the doctrines cannot all be true. However all can be false and human psychology can trick the mind with cognitive bias that they are seeing "results" that constitute evidence.

Yet Christian scholars openly admit religion isn't a "praying machine", you cannot expect things to happen such as healing or favors in life.
Anything else "inner peace", "personal relationship" feelings are psychological and happen with Krishna as much as with Jesus. Showing it's just the human mind that creates these sensations.

 

[Brian2]

Nor does it tell us that pixies aren't required. It simply isn't support for pixies. Or God

Well it does not tell us that god/s are not required and does not tell us that pixies are not required.
It is not evidence against either.

 

[ppp]

Well it does not tell us that god/s are not required and does not tell us that pixies are not required.
It is not evidence against either.

So what? Why does it need to be?

 

[joelr]

Our exchanges have grown in length and are starting to feel unmanageable. The challenge I see here is that practically everything I say is branded as confirmation bias, or stemming from it, regardless of whether or not I'm making a claim or merely describing a process.

Because you are describing confirmation bias. You may not see it and feel you have some method that if explained at length it somehow surpasses a bias, but you are just putting together a word salad that means the same thing.
The only way you can demonstrate it's not confirmation bias to to explain an interaction that is clearly not confirmation bias.
You would need proof, but at least it would not be bias.
For example, Yahweh speaks to you, everyday he gives you the plus or minus for tomorrows bitcoin, and it's always accurate. -
+ 39.00, every day.
Now you would have to prove it was actually Yahweh and not another method but it would at least be verifiable information, non subjective.

There is no life situation, finding a job, mate, goals, that could not be used to support ANY God. When things are not progressing well you wait, when things are going well you say "God wanted this all along".
Nothing in your process is outside of this methodology.
You said there are "no coincidences". SUPER SKETCHY. So you just assume, every connection that had meaning, rather than being a coincidence was from a deity? Because you asked? Of course any negative outcomes are ignored or held off until they turn positive.
That is life for everyone.

Except the people who are in trouble with lack of food. A consistent 10,000 children do not make it every day.
People with Stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer that has spread regionally has a five-year relative survival rate of 37 percent. About 63 of those people will die in 5 years, no matter what God they pray to. In the US since Christianity is the largest religion, most will be Christian.

You are applying it to smaller malleable things that will change with time allowing you to make claims a deity was working with you.

That is confirmation bias.

Get a deity to give you a 14 digit number and a word. That would be evidence.

If that is what you are going to conclude, regardless of what I post, there is no point in posting.

I will conclude what is the truth. If I am wrong I am open to an argument as to why.

Take all of your arguments and pretend someone else was saying them to you but using Allah or Krishna, would it be bias?

I do not detect objectivity on your part. I don't. I do see that your posts are littered with bias of their own. But you do not acknowledge it. Or perhaps you don't see it? Or perhaps you don't care? For example:

Yes, I am bias to things that are true.

That is a perspective that is founded on nothing more than your opinion. That is bias.

That is about revelations. They are 100% of the time a bunch of BS. Lets see:
1 )they give no new information, just theology trending at the time
2) no new morals or ethics, whatever is trending in the region
3 )no new theology, just a syncretic blend of whatever is trending
4) never provide science, math, medical knowledge beyond what is already known at the time
5) never provide any specific future information that happens in the future
6) have never offered any type of verifiable proof, maybe Jesus could have said everything is made of atoms, which have a nucleus and an electron orbit
7) they happen in a way that mythology happens
8) one time (Krishna) gave some decent philosophy, but usually no


do we need more for them to be bs? Do you find it credible that an actual infinite God of all reality shows up, needs a messenger anyways, and gives the most generic, non-informative, and wants to sound like he is part of a man made mythology?

AND, tell me this, at any point in your travels, if you see a person giving revelations from Jesus, or Gabrielle the arcangel, about new updates on Christianity, and they are of the same quality as usual, are you going to take notes? I doubt it.

Bias.

Bias.

Bias.

Now you are just saying "bias" over and over?

Messages from a deity is a bunch of BS. Here you go - until you demonstrate otherwise.

14 digits, one word.

As I said before, I am not here to argue against your opinion.

My position is to know what is true and have good evidence to support it.

You are free to believe God is a myth,

God is a myth. Until proven otherwise.

that people believe according to your assertions,

When you try hard to take a belief that isn't likely true and pass it off as something true this is what happens.

No one is stopping you from making a case. This is the SECOND response you have preambled a whole lot of nothing. Do you have evidence of your position?

that revelation is BS. Etc.

Revelations;

"This earth has a temporal existence of 7,000 years; "

"War is foretold between the Northern States and the Southern States;" written in 1832, war was obvious, but revelations seem to enjoyy the obvious.

"And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards heaven; and behold, they saw a Man descending out of heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant, for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them."
Jesus visits the Americas.


If it's not BS please show me revelations that have been demonstrated to be from an actual God.

I appreciate your time. Unless you really want to continue and will directly address the bias issue, I believe I have exhausted my interest in this style of discussion and will bow out.

I am exhausted, 2 posts and nothing has happened?
If you are not ready to face the fact that whatever method you use, it's going to be confirmation bias then bow out.
No method exists to show a being you cannot see, hear, feel, communicate with in any way, isn't just your own mind, which happens to be very complex and good at fooling you. Or just prove me wrong? How hard is it?

If you had evidence you would have already given it, not a method. Do you actually think any Hindu has a method of communication with Krishna that demonstrates there is real communication? OR, is it as theologians in academia who have accepted this issue say? It's only by faith?

 

[joelr]

There goes the atheistic mentality to dismiss everything supernatural (quantum) that escapes the five senses.

Quantum mechanics and similar is not supernatural.

 

[joelr]

We were talking about a counter example to your claim that Jesus doesn't answer prayers for healing based on a single case that you had knowledge of.

You didn't know what you were talking about when we started this exchange, so nothing has changed, really.

The human body is not fully understood. Patients of all religions or secular sometimes have miraculous recoveries that isn't understood. It's not believed to be supernatural but a process not yet known that the body can do.

The Catholic Church on healing:

"It accepts "that there may be means of natural healing that have not yet been understood or recognized by science",[44]: n6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_healing#cite_note-48 but it rejects superstitious practices which are neither compatible with Christian teaching nor compatible with scientific evidence.[44]: nn11–12 
"

I have visited Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal, healing shrines of the Christian Virgin Mary. I have also visited Epidaurus in Greece and Pergamum in Turkey, healing shrines of the pagan god Asklepios. The miraculous healings recorded in both places were remarkably the same. There are, for example, many crutches hanging in the grotto of Lourdes, mute witness to those who arrived lame and left whole. There are, however, no prosthetic limbs among them, no witnesses to paraplegics whose lost limbs were restored.

— John Dominic Crossan[99]


These people may have still had the ability to heal. The 25,000 dying every day from hunger do not and they pray.

Losing 25,000 to Hunger Every Day | United Nations

During the past two decades, population growth, improvement in incomes and diversification of diets have steadily increased the demand for food. Prior to 2000, food prices were in decline, largely through record harvests. At the same time, however, public and private investment in agriculture...

www.un.org

 

[joelr]

I presume that if the genetic code does not reasonably suggest a intelligent designer to you then it must by more reasonable for you that the genetic code suggests chance as the origin. Is that true?

Not chance, probability, this universe is governed by quantum mechanics which works with probabilities.
Given enough time and space anything probable will happen.

Amino acids and organic materials are natural in space and on planets.
We see evidence for self-assembling chemicals, nanotube, and so on.
Basic RNA formed first and evolved into DNA.

There are billions of galaxies, trillions of planets, trillions of spots on early earth for self-replicating chemicals to evolve, billions of years. It isn't chance.
Why the universe can support life, is unknown. Maybe there are infinite universes, maybe the universe recycles infinitely? These mysteries do not involve any God. You need a viable hypothesis based on evidence, examples to go by, none of that exists for a being making the universe as it is.
We do see unconscious natural forces of change. This may be the way it is everywhere.
Basing a worldview on stories is the worst way to know what is true. In the case of the universe we don't know. However, natural forces are real. Unconscious and not God. The only reasonable thing is we don't know or natural forces. There is no evidence of any God.

a God being the fundamental thing in reality is more absurd than infinite regress. There is a being, just alone, existing, as the beginning, already conscious, forever (also an infinite regress), doesn't solve anything. This is just deism, not theism.

 

[Brian2]

So what? Why does it need to be?

It does not need to be.
Finding out how something works is just not support for or against pixies or God,,,,,,,,,,,,,, even if people in the past have attributed it to Gods or pixies.

 

[Brian2]

Not chance, probability, this universe is governed by quantum mechanics which works with probabilities.
Given enough time and space anything probable will happen.

Chance, probabilities, same thing.
I guess that given enough time you are going to be right about something, if that is possible. At this stage I would say the probability is low however.
How do you know that anything probably will happen? (and I presume you meant "anything possible")

Amino acids and organic materials are natural in space and on planets.
We see evidence for self-assembling chemicals, nanotube, and so on.
Basic RNA formed first and evolved into DNA.

It is good that the chemicals for life exist and work the way they do but it is just a hypothesis that basic RNA formed first and evolved into DNA, but it sounds like you believe it anyway.

There are billions of galaxies, trillions of planets, trillions of spots on early earth for self-replicating chemicals to evolve, billions of years. It isn't chance.
Why the universe can support life, is unknown. Maybe there are infinite universes, maybe the universe recycles infinitely? These mysteries do not involve any God. You need a viable hypothesis based on evidence, examples to go by, none of that exists for a being making the universe as it is.
We do see unconscious natural forces of change. This may be the way it is everywhere.
Basing a worldview on stories is the worst way to know what is true. In the case of the universe we don't know. However, natural forces are real. Unconscious and not God. The only reasonable thing is we don't know or natural forces. There is no evidence of any God.

So billions and trillions and maybes mean that, for sure chemicals evolved into life.
If I wanted to show by science that God exists I would need a viable hypothesis based on evidence, etc but I don't want to do that.
True, we don't know, but your faith says natural forces has to be to way and my faith says God made life forms and gave life.

a God being the fundamental thing in reality is more absurd than infinite regress. There is a being, just alone, existing, as the beginning, already conscious, forever (also an infinite regress), doesn't solve anything. This is just deism, not theism.

The trinity is and is not alone.
If God was in timelessness then forever means nothing.
The deist God is living and personal because, it's creations, are. It is a theistic God.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

There goes the atheistic mentality to dismiss everything supernatural (quantum) that escapes the five senses.

Skepticism for received "wisdom" and the proper application of reason (critical thinking) to evidence (empiricism) has reshaped the world and improved the human condition. Rejecting insufficiently justified claims and arguments ("dismiss[ing] everything ... that escapes the five senses") is the best defense against indoctrination and the accumulation of false and unfalsifiable beliefs.

Either you are not expressing your question clearly or you simply don't like the answer.

Or you are evading her question or are having reading comprehension problems.

The point remains that the doctors had no explanation for either the removal of the tubes or of the healing of the patient. According to the patient Jesus healed him.

Why does that matter? Are you suggesting that the patient should be believed (he shouldn't) or that a miracle is the best explanation for an inexplicable recovery (it's not)?

"Good evidence" is just your subjective assessment, based on your own preferred criteria

She uses the method of deciding what is true about reality as the academic community including law and science. The results have been outstanding. No other method can elicit truth about reality if that word is to mean more than one's fervent desires and intuitions.

you reject it as not being evidence by defining evidence as having to convince you according to your own biased criteria

What she says is that the evidence doesn't support the claims about it according to the confirmed rules for interpreting evidence that generate justified belief.

You live by your faith every single day. Trusting in your assessed probabilities is living by your faith in those assessed probabilities.

That's a different word with a different definition and doesn't involve insufficiently justified belief.

you define faith as it pleases you to define it. And it pleases you to define it in such a way as to be most insulting and degrading to religious theists.

Your emotional responses are your responsibility. What's offensive about defining faith as insufficiently justified belief? If you care that all your beliefs are justified such that it offends you to hear people tell you some are insufficiently justified, learn the method and employ it exclusively to matters of fact. If you don't value that approach and you're content holding insufficiently justified beliefs, own it proudly. But holding such beliefs and being offended that others call them insufficiently justified sounds like a formula for being offended.

They become faith based when you choose to believe in their factual accuracy and reasoned probability, and to act on them.

Nope. That's justified belief. When I turn the key in my car, I expect it to start like it has the last several hundred times it was tested aware that occasionally, cars don't start. That is not unjustified belief. That's empirical knowledge and it accurately predicts outcomes.

Well first, we have to define faith properly; as our choosing to act on (live by) concepts of existence that we HOPE to be true even when we can't know this to be so. Then, having acted in accord with those hopes, we will gain some kind of real life result. And we can evaluate those results to help us determine whether or not we will continue acting on that hope, or choose to place our hope In some other concept of existential truth.

That's empiricism, not faith. You've just described starting the car. We HOPE it will start even though we know it might not, but we act on that hope and turn the key, hoping to gain a real life result - the car starts. And we evaluate our history and judge that it is prudent to continue that behavior until such time as the car won't start at all, and then we intervene with a jump start and possibly a new battery. That's also knowledge gained empirically and acted upon profitably.

You're conflating that kind of thinking (justified belief) with religious faith, which is a different word spelled and pronounced the same but with a different definition (insufficiently justified belief). Suppose you also happen to believe that you are protected by a guardian angel and drive recklessly after starting that car in the belief that you will be protected. You've used both justified belief to start the car and unjustified belief while driving it. Those are very different things both called faith, and the latter is foolish.

There are other things besides justified and unjustified belief called faith as well. Good faith means good intention. A religion can be called a faith such as the Jewish faith. And people can be called Faith. It would be a mistake to use those interchangeably.

 

[PureX]

Skepticism for received "wisdom" and the proper application of reason (critical thinking) to evidence (empiricism) has reshaped the world and improved the human condition. Rejecting insufficiently justified claims and arguments ("dismiss[ing] everything ... that escapes the five senses") is the best defense against indoctrination and the accumulation of false and unfalsifiable beliefs.

Or you are evading her question or are having reading comprehension problems.

Why does that matter? Are you suggesting that the patient should be believed (he shouldn't) or that a miracle is the best explanation for an inexplicable recovery (it's not)?

She uses the method of deciding what is true about reality as the academic community including law and science. The results have been outstanding.

Only in terms of understanding physical function. It's been useless, otherwise. So if you choose physical function as your criteria for all truth and value, then I'm sure you're quite pleased with this. But although understanding physical functionality is useful to us all, it's not the defining factor for truth or value. Nor does it provide us with a meaningful understanding of existence. So your shouted praises just don't ring true for the vast majority of human beings. Including me.

No other method can elicit truth about reality if that word is to mean more than one's fervent desires and intuitions.

What she says is that the evidence doesn't support the claims about it according to the confirmed rules for interpreting evidence that generate justified belief.

That's a different word with a different definition and doesn't involve insufficiently justified belief.

Your emotional responses are your responsibility. What's offensive about defining faith as insufficiently justified belief? If you care that all your beliefs are justified such that it offends you to hear people tell you some are insufficiently justified, learn the method and employ it exclusively to matters of fact. If you don't value that approach and you're content holding insufficiently justified beliefs, own it proudly. But holding such beliefs and being offended that others call them insufficiently justified sounds like a formula for being offended.

Nope. That's justified belief. When I turn the key in my car, I expect it to start like it has the last several hundred times it was tested aware that occasionally, cars don't start. That is not unjustified belief. That's empirical knowledge and it accurately predicts outcomes.

That's empiricism, not faith. You've just described starting the car. We HOPE it will start even though we know it might not, but we act on that hope and turn the key, hoping to gain a real life result - the car starts. And we evaluate our history and judge that it is prudent to continue that behavior until such time as the car won't start at all, and then we intervene with a jump start and possibly a new battery. That's also knowledge gained empirically and acted upon profitably.

You're conflating that kind of thinking (justified belief) with religious faith, which is a different word spelled and pronounced the same but with a different definition (insufficiently justified belief). Suppose you also happen to believe that you are protected by a guardian angel and drive recklessly after starting that car in the belief that you will be protected. You've used both justified belief to start the car and unjustified belief while driving it. Those are very different things both called faith, and the latter is foolish.

There are other things besides justified and unjustified belief called faith as well. Good faith means good intention. A religion can be called a faith such as the Jewish faith. And people can be called Faith. It would be a mistake to use those interchangeably.

 

[Kenny]

Or you are evading her question or are having reading comprehension problems.

LOL... I think it is my point of view... or maybe the point was so ridiculous that it didn't need answering.