That's not an argument until you delineate the evidence which leads to that conclusion and explain why you think it must be interpreted as having come through a man from a god. How about if I said that the life and words of Baha'u'llah were evidence for the theory of evolution or for the possibility of travel back in time. Now you ask me what parts of either suggest that conclusion to you, and I answer, "all of it." You would rightfully conclude that I have offered no evidence in support of such claims. That's where I am with your claim that what you call evidence for a god is.I said that the Messengers of God are the evidence for God. The person, life, and works of the Messengers are the evidence that they are Messengers.
That's faith. Saying that you have evidence but need faith anyway is saying that your evidence doesn't justify your belief. If the evidence isn't enough to get you to your conclusion about it, but you believe it anyway, you're believing by faith. That's what hard atheists do as well. They're people who claim that gods don't exist, but their evidence, while supportive of that opinion, doesn't justify their conclusion. The NEED faith to assert that gods don't exist, meaning that their claim is unsound even if they have some evidence that gods might not exist.I believe in God on faith and evidence
You've presented no evidence to me that the messenger was not an ordinary man. I've never seen a single sentence from him that I and millions of others couldn't have written, nor have you or anybody else named any act or series of acts that many ordinary people don't do every day. If you had any, you would post it when asked to, wouldn't you? You don't do that. When I ask you to, you decline. You offer nothing specific. Your vague answer is, "all of it is my evidence."I have presented examples but then you say "that's not evidence."
If I ever believe anything by faith (again), it will mean that I've stopped thinking critically (again). I intend never to do that again. I will conclude what the evidence justifies and nothing more.I never told you that you need to stop thinking and just believe, because that's what pleases God. I only ever told you that you need faith as well as evidence
Disagree. Don't forget that I have a lot of direct experience with religion. That's not how I came to my beliefs nor anybody else. There was no evidence that the god I believed in, the Christian god - existed before I became a Christian, while I was a Christian, or afterward, and I was already a skilled critical thinker. I entered the religion willing to wait for the evidence to manifest. I willingly suspended disbelief to see if the experience supported a god belief, or, as I worded it then, to try out this ideology and see if it would begin to make sense the way one might walk for a while in a new pair of shoes that don't feel quite right in the hope that they would fit and feel better with time. That never happened, and so I left the religion.One does not first accept that God exists, and then accept what others say God wants. First they look for evidence that indicates that God exists. Then if the evidence is sufficient they believe in God.
What you're describing is empiricism and critical thought, where one evaluates evidence dispassionately using the rules of reason and believes only as much as that evidence supports. You've correctly stated that no evidence for gods is enough to justify believe in gods by itself - that faith is necessary. I agree. But that is the alternative to empiricism and critical thought. One faith-based thought derails reason the way one faith-based rule in arithmetic derails the process of addition:
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
Big mistake, and why I say that faith is NOT a virtue. If he uses his faith-based way of adding even once - if he only needs to add two twos together once in a lengthy addition problem, and uses five as their sum - the answer is wrong. Likewise with all reasoning. One piece of non-reasoning (one fallacy, for example), and however good the rest of the thinking is, the answer is unjustified and belief that it is correct is faith-based. Not just a little bit of faith with a lot of valid reasoning. The chain of reasoning is invalid if any link is invalid.